The answer is easy to see

He saw it first in his mother's eyes, in the dark watches of the night when hunger stirred him and roused her to cradle him in her arms, to meet that most basic human need.

He saw it also in his earthly father's gentle patience guiding him as he carefully planed and shaped the wood.

When Lisa was but mere weeks old, I woke to find myself in the overstuffed chair, cradling her in my arms. Apparently, I had fallen sound asleep while she took her bottle and gone on auto-pilot. We had slept like that for several hours, made apparent by her insistence that she was indeed hungry again. The midnight interludes with each of my babies were short-lived, but, oh, the sweet memories fill an entire room in my heart.

Danny, too, treasures in his heart his sons' enthusiasm whenever his job site allowed him to take one or both of them with him to work for the day. They only dare tell the stories now of their exploits in the field of highway/heavy construction and maintenance. If I had known then what I've since learned, they'd have never accompanied their dad again. Of course, they were never in any real danger -- Danny was too careful a dad for that. Lisa had her turn, of course, but it was "too cold, too wet, too dirty." She never went again.

I think what Danny and I both learned from our children was how to love more fully than at any other time in our lives.

And we first learned love, in any capacity -- just as our children learned it -- in the gentle moments of our own childhoods.

At this time of year, more than any other, the question resounds, "Why did Jesus go to the cross?"

What compelled him to say to his Father, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done."?

Part of the answer is easy to see. It is our helplessness, our hopelessness, our desperate need of a Savior. And he understood fully and well that no one else could do what he alone was destined to do.

The rest of the answer is found in the image of the tenth leper. The one who came back and worshiped Christ with a grateful heart.

The rest of the answer is found in the four friends who carried the paralyzed man up to the roof and lowered him down to be touched by Jesus' healing hand.

The rest of the answer is found in a young boy's meager lunch, filling thousands.

The rest of the answer is found in his tear-washed feet, the grime and the salty water wiped away with the hair of a humble, grateful woman.

The rest of the answer is found in the broken jar of pure nard, the last physical pleasure Jesus would know before the beating, the torture and the awful scourging began.

The rest of the answer is found in the clearest evidence available that God created man in his own image. Our capacity to love.

In spite of the mocking, the beatings, the darkness of soul Christ encountered every day, he never lost sight of our origins or of his Father's original design.

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." I John 4:8 (NIV)

Things you won't see in heaven: Crosses