Lent day 3

Romans 5:12-17Living Bible (TLB)

12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die,[a] for all sinned. 13 We know that it was Adam’s sin that caused this[b] because although, of course, people were sinning from the time of Adam until Moses, God did not in those days judge them guilty of death for breaking his laws—because he had not yet given his laws to them nor told them what he wanted them to do. 14 So when their bodies died it was not for their own sins[c] since they themselves had never disobeyed God’s special law against eating the forbidden fruit, as Adam had.

What a contrast between Adam and Christ who was yet to come! 15 And what a difference between man’s sin and God’s forgiveness!

For this one man, Adam, brought death to many through his sin. But this one man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God’s mercy.16 Adam’s one sin brought the penalty of death to many, while Christ freely takes away many sins and gives glorious life instead. 17 The sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to be king over all, but all who will take God’s gift of forgiveness and acquittal are kings of life[d] because of this one man, Jesus Christ.

I like the Living Bible's version of these verses - it makes it clear and easy to understand.  Adam and Eve ( she doesnt get a specific mention but I think we can safely include her here !) ushered in a whole heap of doom and gloom by their one act of disobedience. Sin, death , separation and alienation.  But Jesus through His one act of obedience not only reversed all of that but did SO much more.  

Today I have a lengthy and deep ' God' conversation with the boys in the car on the way back from an afternoon at the beach.   They wanted to know what was the difference between Christianity and all the other world religions.  Muslims and Buddhists etc believe in God, want to do good - who is to say that we are right and they are wrong?   It's a crucial and important question to ask, and to answer.  And the answer I gave them came back to the problem of sin and what the Bible says about it.   No other religion (as far as I know, and I have not made an in depth study of them all) provides an answer for the problem of sin.  If we have to work to gain acceptance with God, to make ourselves good enough, to pay off our debts...... well, as far as I can see we will never make it.   Sam asked me today whether someone like Hitler, someone evil who had committed unimaginable atrocities, could be saved if they truly repented and came to Jesus .  I said yes.  YES!  Sam was not coinvinced.  So we talked about the punishment we thought Hitler should have received for what he had done.  All those lives annihilated in the holocaust  .  Sam said it would have to be the worst death imaginable.  Tortured and slow and cruel and horrible.  And I explained to him that this is what the death of Jesus was like.  Because Jesus was taking Hitler's place.

It's sad that we have somewhat sanitised the crucifixion.   Sam didnt see it as particularly horrific.  How can anyone not see a crucifixion as horrific?    Perhaps because we have seen it so often portrayed as this . A pale white perfectly clean Jesus neatly placed on a piece of perfectly carved wood with a modest loincloth covering Him and a halo shining.

But the punishment Jesus took in His body for us was truly horrific.  He was beaten to a pulp with a cat of nine tails studded with broken glass and nails.  His skin was flayed from his back.  In searing heat he had to carry his cross on that butchered back with a crown of vicious thorns rammed onto His head. His beard was pulled out.  Stop to think about that for a moment.  He was spat on and jeered at and then nailed stark naked to a piece of wood in front of his mother.  Adam was naked in the garden - as God had intended him to be.  Unashamed and vulnerable before God.  Shame at his nakedness is the very first consequence

of the fall.  Now Jesus is naked before the world He has come to die for.  To be naked is deeply shameful.  But He is reversing every detail of the fall in his death.  And He does it willingly for me, for you, for Hitler.  He takes what we deserve and what He does not deserve and trades places with us for love.    It was good to have the chance to explain this to Sam and Josh today.  And good for me to realise it all over again.