Sin is a heavy thing to bear. Its jacket is shame, its medals are guilt.
Back in the day, high school letterman jackets were a bigger deal. Almost everyone got one if they could. You knew where people went to high school by their jackets. You knew the colors and the letters.
Some sports received more than letters. Some got medals, too. Good wrestlers especially jingled as they walked, their accomplishments heralding their arrival. Every day was leg day with such a jacket. I had a few medals, but no one heard me coming. My legs didn’t work too hard.
Imagine if sinners got a letterman jacket. Imagine if we got medals for every sin. Imagine how we’d jingle with shame. Imagine how weighed down we’d be. How would we stand, let alone walk? We would be recognized everywhere we went. Everyone would know who we were, what we were. There would be no hiding. There would be no running away. There would be no standing tall. Our jackets would weigh too much.
Those who know me know I’m very picky about hymns. I can’t read music, but I don’t let that get in my way. I’m hard to please. I think one of the hymns people would be surprised I like is “What Wondrous Love Is This.” It has two obvious knocks against it: it’s repetitive, and it might tempt you to sway. I let that slide in this instance, however. I look forward to singing it in Lent. The second verse comes to mind:
“When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down, when I was sinking down, sinking down, when I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown, Christ laid aside his crown for my soul, Christ laid aside his crown for my soul” (Christian Worship 526).
Sin is a heavy thing to bear. Its jacket is shame, its medals are guilt. Shame might not hit us as it used to, so that the prophet could say of us, too, that we’ve forgotten how to blush (Jer. 6:15). But I think it’s making a comeback, even if we blush at the wrong things. No one wants to be cringe or canceled. We might call shame embarrassment, but we still know what it is.
I don’t think guilt is going anywhere, either. Whole industries are built around it. The question is whether we feel it about the right things, things that are greater than plastic straws or political allegiances. Guilt is a powerful thing, and misplaced guilt is a dangerous thing.
Sin is a heavy thing to bear because it does so much harm, even the seemingly hidden sins or those that don’t seem to hurt anyone. Sin offends God, wrongs my neighbor, and attacks my human dignity. Every sin is a sin against God, and every sin is a sin against myself. I was created for more than sin. And yet, here I am, with my heavy letterman jacket and all my medals, sinking down, sinking down, beneath God’s righteous frown.
Every sin is a sin against God, and every sin is a sin against myself.
Christ came to save sinners. He came to save them while they were still weak. He came to save the ungodly. He came to save them while they were still his enemies. Are you a sinner? Excellent! Christ came for you. Are you ungodly? I’ve good news for you! Christ came to reconcile you to God.
This isn’t an easy thing to believe, which is why the gift of faith is required. Our jacket is heavy. Our medals preach. It’s hard to bear up, to stand. Christ, however, got cold, so to speak. He needed a jacket. He needed that jacket because he loves sinners but can’t leave them that way. He’s taken your jacket and given you a robe with a yoke that’s easy and light.
The sick need a doctor, not the healthy. The Great Physician came for you. The righteous may not need forgiveness, but sinners do. Christ came to take your sins away. The godly don’t need a God, but the ungodly do. Christ came to be your God. Scarcely will one die for a righteous person. Even more scarcely will one die for a sinner. But Christ did just that for you.
Your sins are more than you can bear. Stop trying to carry them. There’s no need to blush anymore, no need to try to jingle away. Stand in grace through faith. Stand in grace from Christ through faith in Christ. Stand fast, knowing that your legs have pierced feet to buoy them. You are a sumo wrestler in Christ.
Are you sick of that jacket? I know I am. What sense would it make to try to get it back now that Christ has taken it away? Wear your robe with joy, woven as if part of your skin, so light you might develop a spring in your step even in suffering.
What’s left after that? I’ll tell you what the hymn says:
“To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing; to God and to the Lamb I will sing; to God and to the Lamb, who is the great I AM, while millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing, while millions join the theme, I will sing.”
