The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Assistant Pastor
Let’s face it; the bumper sticker is correct: Life is Good.
We live in a stable society, we get paid regularly, the electricity is always on, and we can count on life being pretty consistent. Yes, some have illnesses and people get sick and don’t recover, but Life is Good.
So in this season of Lent, it may be hard to grasp the seriousness of sin, particularly your sins that would send Jesus to the cross. Does the Father really get upset about sin? Yes, He’s holy, but my sins are low-key and I’m not that bad of a person; I’m struggling to plumb the depths of my sins and God’s justice upon Jesus on my behalf.
Where do you turn for help? How about re-reading the book of Lamentations in one sitting? The book is about Yahweh’s wrath and destruction upon the city of Jerusalem and daughter Judah at the end of the kingly era. While the structure of the book highlights that the destruction is not total, it is monumental. It cuts deep. Society is ripped apart because of Judah and Jerusalem’s sins of faithlessness and false worship. Destroyed. Demolished. “Jerusalem sinned grievously, therefore she became filthy…her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her end; therefore her fall is terrible; she has no comforter” (2.8-9).
Yes, the Lord takes sin seriously. He is jealous for his bride, and He will act to bring her back to himself. Because God’s people would not consider their end, he ended their future: “My eyes are spent with weeping…because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?…as their life is poured out on their mother’s bosom” (2.11-12).
Look in the mirror of Lamentations, and struggle no more. The necessity of Jesus’s death for you is real.