The Reason Why

Sometimes I feel like redemption is overrated.  We are often too quick to find silver linings.  We take a shortcut around sorrow and brokenness, jumping straight to “God can use this!”  Getting to redemption too quickly robs us of the need to grieve and feel pain, and by extension, our need for God.  And so what I’m about to write needs to be taken with that caveat.

Despite all the pain and destruction that sin has wrought in this world, there is a silver lining.  It triggered the incarnation.  Our rebellion made this week happen - the week where the Son of God would suffer and die for the sins of the world and also rise to new life.  There is no excuse for sin.  It is devastating.  I am sickened by my own failures and brokenness.  Yet that’s why Jesus came to earth.  Driven by God’s unimaginable love for you and me, Jesus came to rescue us.  It’s hard to think that the knowledge of God’s grace is worth all the destructiveness of sin.  But God chose to do it this way.  God chose a world where my sin and yours would be the reason why Jesus made his dwelling among us, died for us, and rose to new life.