“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity

and passing over transgression

for the remnant of his inheritance?

He does not retain his anger forever,

because he delights in steadfast love.

He will again have compassion on us;

he will tread our iniquities underfoot.

You will cast all our sins

into the depths of the sea.

You will show faithfulness to Jacob

and steadfast love to Abraham,

as you have sworn to our fathers

from the days of old.” (Micah 7:18-20)

Today, we remember the Passover and the rescuing of God’s people, when the Spirit of God hovered over the houses of his children and bore the wrath of God, sparing those he covered from death.  And we remember Christ, the passover lamb whose blood covered the post, God again bearing God’s own wrath at the breaking of his creation; our own sin, bourn by the one we sinned against.

A friend once, pondering the atonement, asked why Christ had to die, and we spoke at length of the heart of our God which caused Christ to die in our place.  In the end, though, the question assumes a lie we would do well to teach against.  Christ did not have to die; he chose to die so that we might live.  There is another way the story could have gone, another possible world: it would have been just, and simple, and efficient (and everything else we value), for God to destroy all of humanity in order to solve this problem of evil, which we created by our sin.

But he didn’t destroy us; praise God, he bore the wrath, himself, which is to say he forgives us.  (Forgiveness is always a person, sinned against, choosing to bear the suffering of the sin himself rather than bring suffering back to the sinner in justice.  Forgiveness is always at great cost to the forgiver.)  We talk a lot about why forgiveness was necessary, and we should, but Micah answers another important question: why God chooses to forgive when he could have chosen otherwise: “because he delights.”

It’s delight which brought him to Jerusalem for that Passover feast, delight in the steadfast love of God for humanity.  Delight caused him to choose forgiveness over justice.  Delight in the love of God, and delight in his children, as the last verse shows us.

We consider the sacrifice of Christ, how his body is broken and blood shed in this last supper, and we should; but consider, too, his delight to be sharing this meal with his friends.  It’s both suffering and delight, together.  Yes, he came to suffer and save us, but he also came to us because he delights in being with us.  It delighted him that he was able to save us from our sin, that he was able to give us life.  God was delighted to die, if it meant we might live, (Isaiah 53:10), because his children are a delight to him.

Consider this: God is a necessary being, and there’s no possibility of a world without him; but none of us are necessary.  A world without me is still a world on track, a world which God is redeeming and restoring back to rights.  The purposes and work of God will go on without me, just as he did many mighty works of redemption before me, including the ones we celebrate this week.  Of all the possible worlds he could have made, why did he make this one in which I live and rejoice and mourn?  I can think of no other reason than that the Lord delights in me, and if you are in this world, he delights in you.  We are like art hung in a home—we hold nothing up and keep nothing out, we are not there by necessity, but because the owner of the house delights in us.

So when you pray today, on Passover, and remember the sacrifice of Christ, remember, too, his delight in his love for you, a delight so perfect that he would suffer and die rather than see you pass away.