It’s Easter week. I am a staff pastor at a local church, and I’m sick. Yep that’s what my week is like as I write this. Good news is I don’t really have a “Key” role in Easter Services. I am not the lead speaker, nor part of the worship team which takes some pressure off, but still not the best week to be sick. Although there never really is a good time to be sick, is there? We all have responsibilities and things we do that are important and being sick, like it or not, trumps all of that.
Sickness aside it’s been a rough couple of weeks. I have had a funeral to help plan for a friend’s dad, another friend’s son was taken to rehab for the 2nd time, one friend had vocal surgery and another major surgery in a week, car accidents, kids who broke their arms. and a school lockdown that ended in peace. That’s a glimpse of my world. It’s also what I love about being a pastor. I hate that things go wrong; people get sick, but I love that God allows me to bring help to those in need.
I am in the midst of a study on Amos with women at the church. This small book has so much to teach us – it is blowing my mind. This week we are studying chapter 2. Amos is giving his prophetic word to nations that are going to be judged for their sins. It’s actually more bleak than the last couple of weeks around my world. It seems so hopeless….BUT God. There is this one strange verse that author Jennifer Rothschild points out and expands on. Amos 2:13 reads, “Look I am about to crush you, in your places as a wagon crushes when full of grain.”(Holman Standard Bible). Sounds like God is mad, and He is; but there is more to these words than you read on the page. The wagon is symbolic of God, who is weighed down with the sins of His people. A heavy wagon crushes the ground it rolls over due to the weight it carries. Jennifer Rothschild draws the understanding that God allows Himself to get weighed down from our sins. He feels the weight of sin.
Since this is Easter week my mind immediately goes to the scripture from Isaiah, “He was crushed for our iniquities” (Is. 53:5) God allowed Himself to be crushed by the weight of my sin, and yours. I read the rest of the chapter and finished the rest of this week’s study, and then just sat with the Lord. Here in the book of Amos, God is mad at the sins of the Israelites. In fact He is so mad He’s going to crush them according to this chapter. But we know the rest of the story. While Israel is “crushed” for a season – they are taken into captivity, killed, and scattered – God didn’t fully crush them. He didn’t do what their sins deserved. And He doesn’t give us what our sins deserve either. Israel is gathered back together. They become a people group again.
God hates sin. God loves sinners. God does not ignore injustice, but God does not act in wrath. It’s a mystery and a marvel all at the same time. I mentioned my week at the start of this blog. I pointed out the lows, but here are the highs. I was part of a prayer team who saw tumors dissolve, blind eyes see, a life saved from death, tears of joy, peace and love. In the midst of all that is bad God is moving and blessing, and healing, and saving. God always feels the weight of sin. It grieves His heart so much so that He finally had enough. He broke heaven open by sending Jesus to live and then die for the sin of the world. I believe Jesus felt double the weight of sin. The actual sin itself, and then the effects of that sin on others. We live in a fallen world but there is hope. The weight of the wagon won’t crush us because God won’t let it. No matter what sickness you face, or addiction your family member is tied up in; no matter how dark the darkness gets, Jesus is and always will be the light of the world. Light ALWAYS displaces the darkness. No matter how heavy the weight of the wagon God is always there to take that burden. It’s the crazy beauty of Easter. Jesus died. All seemed lost, until it wasn’t. Jesus rose. Nothing can stop God. Nothing can alter the love that is too great to understand. No circumstance is too far gone for God to redeem.
As Good Friday and Easter Sunday come, take a moment and think about what God did for you. What He saved you from. Then praise Him. If He cares enough about you to send His son to die in your place, then He cares deeply about your situation. Whether it’s due to your sin or someone else’s, God sees it; and He will not let it crush you. He is God and He will make right every wrong, He has made a way for us to come to Him. No sin is too big to be forgiven and no hurt is too deep to not be healed. Because of Jesus we will rise.
