Wednesday, May 18, 2011

CC--Christianese 18d: Sin (part 4 of ?)

--Once again, remember that sin is the catchall phrase for everything that’s wrong with the world and the Gospel is God’s comprehensive plan for rescuing the world from every aspect of sin.
--And we’re looking at metaphors to understand what sin it.

Metaphor 5: A burden
--As we discussed yesterday, if you view sin as a massive debt we owe to a very wealthy person whose prized possession we have ruined, then it’s pretty easy to see that the condition of living under the constant worry of having to pay back that debt or of being sold into slavery or thrown into jail for it would be a tremendous burden. And sin is precisely this sort of burden.
--But even apart from the debt, one of the key aspects of sin is the guilt of knowing you have failed to measure up to God’s design for your life and the shame of living with your evil choices.
--As these psychological pains accumulate, they become quite a load to carry, what some people these days would describe as “baggage.” Well, carrying around that sort of properly deserved moral baggage weighs you down.
--Think of how a man feels who has killed someone while drunk and gone to jail. He feels horrible about what he has done, and even after he is released, he knows that he is still responsible for causing great pain and suffering to others.
--The same is true when we betray those we love or when we cause harm to even ourselves. There is a great burden in knowing you have only yourself to blame. And it is this sense of being weighed down and depressed by shame that is a vital feature of sin.
--So when Jesus comes and says “My burden is light,” it must mean that our intended way of existence was to be free and unencumbered.
--So although sinful temptations often promise to liberate us or deliver us from something, they always wind up making us ever-more burdened.
--That’s part of what sin means.

No comments: