Heaviness - Psalm 51, Lamentations 3
It's Black Saturday. For the first Christ Followers, it was a day of grief and sadness. They had lost a friend, a very good friend. They had lost their dreams. The darkness of their souls must have been great on this day. I would guess that the heavy sadness must have drowned out any memories of what Jesus had told them about a resurrection.
And yet there is a heavier sadness than that. Psalm 51 is from the journal of a man carrying his own sin. It was from the pen of Kind David. Read his words:
My sin is always before me.
Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
Do not cast me from Your presence.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.
And then there are these words from Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:
He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light.
He has turned His hand against me.
He has surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
He has weighted me down with chains.
Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer.
Both passages remind me of the heaviness of sin uncovered. And as I think about Jesus' death and the events surrounding it, I think of how heavy my sin was for Him to carry. More than the physical torture was the spiritual torture of what His death meant. My sins and failures and wrong choices. My harsh words and critical attitudes. My refusals to act when I should. On and on the list could go of all that Jesus paid for - on my behalf. He carried my sins so I would not have to carry them. Jesus knew I would drown in my sins were it not for Him. And so this Easter (like every Easter) brings me back to the simple basics of what it means - I'm forgiven and made new by the blood of Jesus Christ.