Putting Sin to Death

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

It might seem cruel of Jesus to say, as He did: “Whoever wishes to come after my must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  Why does the path to Jesus have to go through pain and suffering?  Why does the path to Jesus have to go through death?  Is God sadistic?  Does He love seeing His children in pain?  What is it about following Jesus that the cruelest torture the Romans could imagine would be the image of being a disciple of Jesus?

God does not rejoice in the death of His children.  He is not a sadist.  Pain and suffering were not part of the plan.  But we chose to reject God, and through our sin, death entered the world.  While we have had original sin washed away from us in baptism, we still feel its lingering effects, like the cold winds of winter that try to keep spring from coming.  We still have the tendency to say no to God and yes to our disordered desires: eating or drinking too much; using our gift of sexuality not in accord with God’s Word; tearing others down by what we say; unforgiveness and vengeance in our hearts; power, greed, control.  

God had to put all of that, and more, to death, because as long as it lives, it could take over.  It had to die.  And so Jesus took all of our disordered desires upon Himself, and let them be killed in Him, on the cross, as He gasped for breath, desire for air competing with the excruciating pain of the nails in his body.  The death of sin became the opportunity for life in Christ.

God does not see sin as we do.  It is not simply a mistake, a bad choice, a wrong road that one goes down.  It is antithetical to who He is; a perversion; a warped way of living.  Sin is darkness to the light of holiness, and in the presence of the light, the darkness has no choice but to be destroyed.  There is no other way to deal with darkness.

Today as we venerate the cross, we have the opportunity to nail to the cross all the sins that we have committed.  As we come and genuflect or bow, and maybe kiss the cross, we bring with us the sins that led Jesus to a cross, to have to put to death every sin that was ever committed and will ever be committed.  As we come to venerate the cross we bring our darkness so that it can be put to death.  

This plain cross reminds us that there is no path to life except through it.  The only way to deal with sin is by killing it.  Bring all of your disordered desires, as I will bring mine, and let them die with Jesus.  Let darkness have its time today.  Let us keep watch, though, for tomorrow night, as darkness falls, light will have its eternity.