Love compelled [Jesus] to go where it was not safe—to go where angels fear to tread.

I was driving down a busy four-lane road with my daughter when I spotted a dark object on the pavement. I slowed as I approached, when suddenly it moved. It was a small turtle just beginning to make its way across the road. My daughter begged me to stop and move it, but the road was too busy. Chances of that turtle making it across all four lanes alive were pretty slim.

Just a few days earlier I had been driving on a much less traveled road, and a chipmunk darted out in front of me. I was the only car around. Yet he dashed out just as I came to the place where he was. Then he stopped right in the middle of the road instead of continuing safely to the other side.

Both incidents brought to mind one simple question: Why? Why does a turtle, one of the slowest creatures on earth, try to cross a busy four-lane road? Why does a chipmunk dart out just as a car arrives and then stop in the middle of the road? The words of a poem by Alexander Pope, written three centuries ago, came to mind: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

Animals aren't the only ones guilty of this. Proverbs 22:3 says, "A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it" (emphasis added). Likewise Proverbs 1:16 describes sinners as those whose "feet rush into sin." It's easy to think, "I'd never do that." But my heart sinks quickly when I realize that the apostle Paul used Solomon's words in Romans chapter 3 to describe all people and to show that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God! Maybe I'd best pause to ponder my sinful nature's propensity!

How prone I am to rush in when I hear some juicy gossip and to share what I've heard too. How quickly I want to rush in when there are some off-color jokes being told. How apt I am to spend money on things I don't need and just watch the offering plate pass me by on Sunday. How easily my passions are aroused when flipping through cable channels. How swiftly unkind words run a marathon out of my mouth at even the smallest of miscues of others. I'm sure you could add your own. Like the four lanes for the turtle or the middle of the road for the chipmunk, those are dangerous places. They are sure to lead to our demise.

What grace to know that God rushed to rescue us! It wasn't the kind of blind rushing that the turtle and chipmunk did. Jesus knew exactly the danger. He even prayed about it in Gethsemane because he fully comprehended its peril. Nevertheless, love compelled him to go where it was not safe—to go where angels fear to tread. He rushed into God's wrath—not because he was a fool but because he was the very Wisdom of God. He rushed in to take the guilt for all the sins into which we have rushed.