Lent 33: Laid down his life

"I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."  John 10: 11.

Lays down his life.

We always interpret laying down of life as meaning 'dying', but it suddenly occurs to me that the laying down of Jesus' life has a fuller meaning than the event of his death in isolation from his life.

Jesus laid down his entire life for us, for his sheep.

Jesus was fully human, whilst being fully God, and so had all that we have as human beings.  Jesus laid down his learning, his goals, his time, his priorities, his love, his interests, his desires, his family, his ambition, his dreams.  He laid down everything, which finally meant his life.  His sacrifice to God was everything he had and was, including (and most-importantly) his very life-force, but not excluding everything else he was.

This doesn't cheapen the crucifixion. 

This makes the crucifixion the culmination of something: no stand-alone event, but a seemingly inevitable outcome of the kind of sacrificial life he chose to lead. 

He was called to lead this life, but he also chose it willingly ("No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." v. 18).

He gave his all.

I wonder if we cheapen the fact of Jesus' laying down of his life by counting it as only the crucifixion.