A Far, Far Better Thing

In the final pages of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, a man named Sydney Carton walks toward the guillotine in Paris. He is not the one condemned to die. Charles Darnay — a husband, a father, a man deeply loved — sits in a prison cell awaiting execution. Carton, who has spent most of his life dissolving in self-pity and drink, who has called himself "a disappointed drudge" with no worth to anyone, makes a quiet exchange. He drugs Darnay, switches clothes with him, and takes his place.

What makes the scene so devastating is not just the act itself but who performs it. Carton is not a hero by anyone's measure, least of all his own. He is a man who believes his life has amounted to nothing. And yet in his final hours, he finds that the one thing he can do with a wasted life is give it away. As the blade falls, Dickens gives him those unforgettable words: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done."

Dickens understood something the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans centuries earlier — that scarcely for a righteous man will someone die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The cross was not a trade between equals. It was the Holy One stepping into the place of the undeserving — and calling it love.