When I, in Awesome Wonder...

As Easter approaches, I've found myself thinking more and more about my Savior. And when I think about Him, I feel so much gratitude, so much love, so much amazement. Usually, I feel like my little words are so inadequate to express how I feel. But I want to try.

Before Christ was crucified, the Governor Pontius Pilate brought Him before the people and he offered them a choice: "Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas (referred to as a robber, murderer, insurrectionist, and a notorious prisoner), or Jesus which is called Christ?" "And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas."

Jack Christiansen, an LDS speaker, points out that the Aramaic name "Barabbas" literally means "son (bar) of father (abba)." Christ Himself referred to God as "Abba" (modern Biblical research shows the word more accurately means "Papa" or Daddy") in the Garden of Gethsemane.

So Jesus Christ, a perfect man, suffered and died in the place of a sinner, a "son of the Father."

And in beautiful parallel, we each as imperfect sons and daughters of our Father in Heaven are freed from death because of the selfless sacrifice of the Redeemer of the World.

"And when I think that God, His son not sparing, sent him to die,
I scarce can take it in.
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Oh, it is wonderful to me."

"How Great Thou Art," Hymn 86