I’ve been thinking recently about how “heavy” sin feels. Generally, it takes a moment of debilitating brokenness before we realize how weighty sin actually feels. Whatever the catalyst for our awareness the weight is still crushing. The reason is fairly simple: sin is never alone. Like parasites to a host, guilt, shame, and self-hate glom onto sin and give it a mass far greater than the acts of wrongdoing would have on their own. That’s why sin is so ugly: it always brings too many friends to the party, uninvited guests that overstay their welcome long after sin has left. The unholy mass of it is almost enough to crush your heart out your back with sorrow. And worse than that is the self-flagellating that we do over the next days, weeks, months, perhaps even, years, beating ourselves up again and again in an effort to assuage the guilt and “show God how sorry we are.”
He who knew no sin became sin for us.
I bring this passage to bear for two reasons: I cannot fathom the entirety of human sin placed on one man’s shoulders. I can’t comprehend the weight of it. Could there be anything heavier in all of creation? The weight was such that Paul says, “he became sin,” almost as if his very self was changed under the weight of it all. The weight of even my own sins crush me. I can’t grasp the weight of the entirety of humanity’s sin—sins I didn’t even commit—loaded onto my bleeding, bruised, straining back.
And yet…
This is the cross of Christ, at least in part, isn’t it? One man takes upon himself, not just our sins but Sin as an entity. By doing this he nullifies the effects on us forever. Sin no longer owns us. No longer do we need to self-abuse, linger in guilt, entertain shame. We are free from that because sin no longer has power. We need not be crushed by it any longer than it takes to repent of it, turn from it, move on. Paul says it this way:
There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So if God isn’t condemning us then why are we heaping guilt and co. upon ourselves? Why do we self-condemn so often and for so long? Yes, sin is heavy and carries with it consequences and reactions that can last far longer than we wish they would. Yes, those consequences hurt. But the tragedy of sin upon our souls, upon our real Self, is turned into a comedy because of grace through Christ. You see as weighty as sin may be, grace is “weightier” still, is it not? Again, I turn to Paul to explain:
Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.
The more we sin, the more grace God bestows upon us.
Read that again, please.
Realize that you are going to sin. It’s certainly not an excuse to do as you please, and no rational follower of Christ would believe otherwise. But you and I no longer need be buried by the weight of our sins anymore; Christ has been buried by them already…and rose above them.
shalom, matt
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