Somebody Had to Die

"Christ died for us." Romans 5:8c

With our friend Little's illness, I've been thinking a lot lately about heart transplants. My employer is one of the largest transplant centers in the country. Our transplant patients' faces are currently featured on large billboards all around the city celebrating the multi-faceted (heart, liver, lung, and kidney) transplant program.  But thinking about a transplant procedure and personally knowing a heart transplant patient are two very different things.

Six years ago Bruce and I had a dear friend who received a much needed heart transplant. Prior to his surgery, our friend was tired, pale, and short of breath. His heart was failing. Two days after his surgery, I went over to the HTIC (Heart transplant intensive care unit) and saw our friend. The difference was amazing. He was sitting up in chair; his color was good; his eyes were clear, and he had a smile on his face. He looked so much better than the last time we had seen him.

"You look great," I said.

"I feel great," he responded. "In fact, I feel like a 15-year old who could play football again."

I laughed and we chatted about his whole transplant process. How the "We've got a heart for you" call came; how quickly he and his wife needed to be at the hospital; what it felt like to see his new heart beating on a monitor for the first time after his surgery. And with that last reflection, our friend's eyes welled with tears as he said, "You know...Somebody had to die so that I can live."

Silence fell briefly as we both processed the reality involved for any heart transplant: somebody has to die so that another can live.

But my friend's transplant reality is really nothing new. All of us who know Christ as our Savior have experienced the "someone had to die so that I can live" truth. Paul writing to the Christians in Rome some 25 years after Jesus' death on the cross penned these words, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Paul realized that Jesus' substitutionary death was necessary for the fulfillment of the prophet Ezekiel's words regarding God's promise: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26 NIV)

That's the reality of the Gospel. Christ died for us so that we can live for Him. Jesus' death on a cross makes a new heart and new spirit possible for all who by faith believe in Him. Now, as I pray for Little's heart transplant, I am thankful for my own. And every time I pray for Little's physical heart, I am challenged to pray for countless others- family members, friends, millennial "nones," those living in the 10/40 window- who also need a spiritual heart transplant. And as we pray, we can all be grateful for our own heart transplant.

"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)