It was a day that stands out in my memory above nearly all others and not for a good reason. Elen was around 9 months old and had been suffering with a virus for several days. Her temperature had been gradually creeping higher and higher, until one afternoon it reached crisis point and she started to convulse uncontrollably on the floor. We rang 999 and within minutes a medic was on the scene. Moments later Elen was rushed to hospital in an ambulance.
I still remember catching up with them shortly afterwards in the Children’s hospital of Wales. My tiny little girl lay motionless in a huge bed, pale and scared. Drugs were being pumped into her via a drip in her tiny hand. Her temperature was still really high and we were told that she would not be allowed to leave until her temperature had returned to normal and remained stable for 24 hours. This did not happen for several days.
It was an exhausting time both emotionally and physically, so you can imagine how grateful I was for the hospital’s merciful provision of a Coffee Lounge for parents! As I was making a coffee one afternoon I got chatting to the father of another child who was also sick in hospital. We talked about the pain and helplessness we felt as dads being unable to do anything to relieve our kids from their suffering, and as we did so I made this simple comment:
“I’d do anything to swap places with my little girl right now!”
I meant it from the very depths of my heart. Literally if there had been any physical way that I could have exchanged her virus for my health so that I would be the one sick in a hospital bed while she skipped and danced her way back home – I would have done it in a shot because she’s my little girl and I love her deeply! It was as these words passed my lips that the sheer miracle of God’s love dawned on me in a fresh and profound way.
As we have already seen, this world is seriously sick – infected by the virus of sin. Furthermore, no matter how much religion, philosophy, self-help, or technological progress we turn to for salvation - we remain incapable of saving ourselves. We’re broken and we can’t fix it!
Incredibly, however, when God sees the affliction of the people that He loves, His heart-cry is exactly the same as mine was for Elen:
“I’d do anything to swap places with them right now!”
And that’s precisely what He did for us on the cross. Jesus literally swapped places with us and died in our place. This one incredible ‘great exchange’ (A phrase coined by the radical German Monk, Martin Luther) changes everything for those who believe:
Why did He do it?
Because He loves us to death!
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5v8)
Dai Hankey is a church-planting pastor in South Wales and the author of the The Hard Corps soon to be published by The Good Book Company.
Dai Hankey is a church-planting pastor in Cardiff, where he lives with his wife, Michelle, and four young children. He is founder of Red Community, a Christian charity that fights human trafficking in Wales. Dai is a former skateboarder and loves to DJ. He is the author of The Hard Corps, A Man's Greatest Challenge and the Eric Says… series.
