“FACE TO FACE WITH THE SINNER”
“Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.’” (Matthew 26:45, New International Version.)
Sometimes, my reading and study of God’s Word is very regular and orderly. At other times, my reading (and study?) is like me—chaotic. Although I don’t advise chaos, sometimes chaos has surprisingly salutary results.
Take this morning, for example. I decided to be decidedly chaotic. I opened the Bible at random, and read the words written in Matthew 26:45, the words which batted lead-off in this post.
I had always identified with the sleeping disciples. The suddenness of the verse jolted me out of my usual way of reading and interpreting it. Suddenly, I realized that maybe—just maybe—I should identify myself with the sinners who were coming to arrest Jesus.
Oh my!
It wasn’t the Jewish authorities or the Gentile soldiers who were coming to arrest and execute Jesus. It was I!
If Jesus died for the sins of all sinners, as Jesus and the entire New Testament say that he did, and if we are all sinners (and I don’t really need any book to tell me that I am a sinner), then I was one of the ones directly responsible for his death.
Christians are often accused of reading the Bible and believing what we believe because we find it “comforting.” The Bible and the Christian faith may or may not be true, but one thing that they are not is comforting.
Years ago, a short movie called “The Crossing” came out. In it, a young man who is not a Christian has a dream. In his dream, he encounters a friend of his who has just died of leukemia. His friend tries to help the living boy realize that he is a sinner and that Christ died for sinners.
At one point, the dreamer suddenly finds himself tumbling down an embankment, and finding himself in the midst of a crucifixion. A Roman soldier is about to drive a spike through a man’s wrist. (The man turns out to be Jesus of Nazareth.) The boy grabs the arm of the Roman soldier to keep him from doing any more harm. When the soldier turns around, the dreamer is looking into his own face.
Today—and perhaps at all times—we are preoccupied with us-and-them categories. For me, as a believer in Jesus Christ, there is no such thing as “them,” only us. And if I wish to come face to face with the sinner, I need only look in the mirror.
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