God used a strange mix of physical, temporal things to show love—splintered beams, nails, 40-minus-one, hypovolemic shock. This was real love on earth; as Bonhoeffer puts it, “This love of God does not withdraw from reality into noble souls detached from the world, but experiences and suffers the reality of the world in the harshest possible fashion.” In time and space, God made a way for his love to be “poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” so that we can “know and rely on the love that God has for us.” The cross is a real-space, real-time pillar to which I am tethered, an anchor that gives me the thing I’m looking for but can’t seem to find anywhere else: security.
from RELEVANT