Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What's up, you guys? Greetings from Michigan. I'm right near the airport about to return my car to the rental counter.
[00:00:05] Actually, I said car. What I meant was truck, because I rented a truck this time because I was speaking in a men's conference and it is right. And just when you're speaking at a men's conference to show up in a truck, if you have your pick. And I did. Of course. That's not the point of my video right now, guys.
[00:00:20] My point is something we don't usually like to think about or talk about. And it's really just how ugly your sin is.
[00:00:30] Passion Sunday happens every year before Easter Sunday in the Catholic world. We have a long gospel reading where we read about the betrayal, the torture and the murder of Jesus Christ.
[00:00:41] And this is a very rare gospel reading because in this gospel reading during this particular Sunday, there's an interaction between the priests and the people where we actually get to say certain parts of the gospel, but they're usually the ugliest lines like crucify him. Crucify him.
[00:00:57] And I don't know him, that kind of thing. But it drives home in the reality of the ugliness of our sins and how it wasn't the Jews or the Romans only who put Jesus to the cross. It was you, it was me. It was all the sins of humanity throughout all of human history that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross.
[00:01:16] Mel Gibson drove this home so beautifully in the Passion of the Christmas.
[00:01:20] The first hammer blow to Jesus wrist that drove the nail through his wrist. Mel actually stepped in for that part. And it was his hand holding the hammer. Oh, because he was saying, I did that.
[00:01:33] You and me did that.
[00:01:35] And here's the thing, guys, usually when it comes to our sins, our self perception is I'm a pretty good guy.
[00:01:43] I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to live my best life. I'm a good person. And we pat ourselves in the back and give ourselves a free pass all the time.
[00:01:50] And dude, the people who betrayed Jesus, I'm telling you, they were thinking, I'm a genuinely good guy. The people who put the crown of thorns on his head, I'm just living my best life.
[00:02:01] The people who turned him over to the authorities and then the authorities who said, this is not my problem. All those people were giving themselves a free pass.
[00:02:11] And we do this all the time.
[00:02:14] We fall into sins and think, I'm just trying to live my best life. I'm just a good person.
[00:02:18] Okay, fine, maybe you have good motives and good Intentions. But dude, you can best life yourself all the way to hell.
[00:02:24] I mean, I've seen dudes feeling kind of good about themselves as they left their marriage, left their kids, left their home behind them in ruins. I felt people, I've seen people like, with a smile, kind of embracing addiction.
[00:02:41] And it feels good as they exit the battle with their vice. It feels good for a moment because they have the relief from the battle and hand themselves over to slavery. But I'll tell you, man, they just smile all the way to hell.
[00:02:58] And some of us, even as Christians, who know the difference between right and wrong, sometimes our friends are falling into sin. And instead of calling them on it and saying, dude, what you're doing is evil to yourself, to your family, to God, we'll ask questions like, well, are you happy?
[00:03:14] Because again, you could let your friend best life himself straight into the fires of hell where they'll wake up someday and say, oh my gosh, how did I get here?
[00:03:24] This is a time to look your sin in the face and see how evil it is. Because if you look your sin in the face, you know what you see?
[00:03:32] You see Jesus on the cross. You see, you see the face of God bleeding.
[00:03:37] That shows us how ugly sin is. What happened on the cross is that Bishop Barron put this really beautifully, that all the sins of humanity all converge on him and all the types of sin as well.
[00:03:48] I mean, think about it, guys. The sin of bloodlust, Guys who just were angry and wanting to take it out on somebody. Just low class soldiers not fighting for a higher cause. They enjoyed torturing people.
[00:04:01] But then there's also the sin of religious pride, of the Pharisees who just wanted to keep the systems going. That kept them important and kept them in charge. I'll tell you what, I'm sure they were thinking, I'm a good guy. Look, I just gotta. I can't let someone upset the whole system. So I have to do this evil thing. But it's excusable.
[00:04:16] I'm excused.
[00:04:18] Or Pontius Pilate, who's just, he's just, again, he's just trying to live his best life.
[00:04:22] I mean, man, I can't have someone mess up my career. I just have to do what it takes to keep the career I've been working on and have Rome be pleased with me and not lose control of these people. I just have to do what I have to do. You know, I'm not even gonna do it. I'm just gonna step back and let other people do it. So it's not really my fault. I'm just a good dude.
[00:04:40] And all these different sins, from abandonment to betrayal to bloodlust, all show us how evil sin is. Because they all converge on the God who is love on the cross. And look what our sins actually do.
[00:04:55] Look, and don't turn away.
[00:04:57] The Old Testament, hundreds of years before Jesus was crucified, there's a prophecy that they will look on him whom they have pierced.
[00:05:05] Look and don't turn away.
[00:05:07] Don't turn away from the God who is love. But also don't turn away from the ugliness of your own sin.
[00:05:11] That is what your sin does.
[00:05:15] So, Christian, don't give yourself a free pass if you're tempted to cheat on your spouse.
[00:05:21] And I'll tell you what, man, maybe you feel like you deserve it because marriage has been hard. So giving into. Or maybe giving into flirting when you're married, don't give yourself a free pass. It's not okay. Don't give yourself a free pass to have that third drink when you know you should have stopped at one or two because you're getting a serious buzz on it and you're about to get trashed. You don't get a free pass because you had a stressful week at work.
[00:05:41] Sin is sin. It's ugly and it takes away. It deprives you of who you fully are, deprives people around you of who you are, giving to the sin of greed. And like, you know, I'm dishonest. Things in my business, but I just have to pay the bills. No, you just have to honor God who will provide for you.
[00:05:56] Stop giving yourself free passes. Because every single person who put Jesus on the cross gave himself a free pass.
[00:06:02] Ouch. Now why am I telling you this? To make you feel bad? No, to make you feel grateful.
[00:06:08] Because when you look at the cross and see the full ugliness of sin, you see just how far God would go out of love for you. The church fathers talked about how we in our sin against God, because God is infinitely good. Every one of our sins, even the small ones, carry an infinite weight because we offended infinite goodness. And there's no way we could possibly have paid the price in our finite nature. So God, in his infinite love and infinite power, made the sacrifice we can never offer ourselves.
[00:06:38] Thank you, Lord.
[00:06:40] Thank you. No matter how good you feel, even your small sins, you can't atone for a single one of them. Almighty God did that for you. Thank you, Jesus. So that's one so you can be grateful, but two, so you can take your sins seriously.
[00:06:52] Stop giving yourself free passes, Stop patting yourself on the back, Stop making excuses. Stop sitting down in confession and saying all the reasons and background behind it. Just give your sin straight up to the Lord and say, I messed up. I'm sorry.
[00:07:04] Please forgive me, Lord.
[00:07:07] Look it straight in the eye and stop beating around the bush.
[00:07:12] And then three, so you can imitate Jesus. Look, what he did for us makes us grateful. What he did for us shows us how ugly our sin is and that we should repent. But what he did for us also provided an example for us of how you and me are supposed to respond when we are on the receiving end of the sins of others because all of us find ourselves there sometimes.
[00:07:33] Maybe you're the one who's been betrayed. Maybe you're the one who's been stabbed in the back right now. Maybe you're experiencing the pain of rejection. Maybe you just experienced someone doing something unjust to you and the legal system won't back you and they took money from you and you can't get it back. Whatever it is, Jesus shows us on the cross how to respond when all the evils in the world converge on our heads and it's this, father, forgive them. They know not what they do.
[00:07:56] You see, guys, we often want to respond to evils and to sin being committed against us with indignation. And by saying, I won't let you get away with that. I won't let you do this to me.
[00:08:07] God's real power is when you say, I will not let you take away my peace, my joy, my power to forgive, my love, even for you, right now as you commit this sin against me.
[00:08:21] Jesus didn't let what we had done change who he was.
[00:08:28] So should we respond to every evil done against us? Lord, give us the power and strength to do that, because we don't have it ourselves.
[00:08:39] Happy holy week, guys.
