Day 2857 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 21:44 NIV

The problem the world has, or rather, the problem we ALL have with the Gospel is that it's offensive. It’s offensive because crucifixion is terrifyingly brutal. It’s offensive because that brutality was levied upon an innocent Man. It’s offensive because we hate all things dealing with death. It’s offensive because it carries a message that confronts the lies we’ve always preferred for their comfort. It’s offensive because it hits home. It’s offensive because we know that cross was ours.

It’s offensive because it’s the truth. And we all know how badly the truth hurts.

In recent years, we've been able to see just how easily offended this civilization has become. But in reality, our being offended is nothing at all new. It isn't just a symptom of this modern weakness that has infected the dejected and deceived among us. It's not just a new hobby that the masses are enjoying for the moment. No, our ability to be offended by pretty much anything has long been a part of our fallen nature. And I don't know of an example that highlights this truth better than the Gospel of Christ.

He is the cornerstone that the builders rejected. He is the spotless lamb that bore our stains. He is the Son of God who looks unremarkably like a man. He is the part of the puzzle that we don’t want to have admit completes the pretty picture. Christ is the full embodiment of all that we've failed to be, and as such, He is a constant reminder that we have fallen woefully short of being anywhere close to as good and decent and moral and righteous as we like to claim to be.

Christ is the final piece of evidence that points to our brokenness, and since He reminds of us of all we were made to be yet failed to be, He is the utmost offense in our eyes.

Humanity loves lies. We love living in these illusions that allow us to walk around with our chests puffed up telling the world how amazing we are. We love the attention, the acknowledgement, the accolades, the applause. We love to have our good deeds seen so that those who see them think we're good people. We want nothing more than to make the world think that we're the epitome of human ability and strength and wisdom and virtue.

But then this Jesus dude comes along and tells us about the things we're doing wrong and totally blows our cover in the process.

And considering how long and how hard we've worked to fashion these lies that paint the portrait of perfection that we want everyone to see when they look our way, we just don't really appreciate His sharing of the true nature of who we really are.

That's why we fight back. That's why we reject Him and His teachings. That's why so much of society will never accept Him as Lord and Savior because He is just too offensive. And we're not even talking about the bloody mess seen upon the cross. We're just talking about the guy who walked around here for a few years trying to help us see that actively trying to do better is far better than simply acting like we're already good enough.

I think what we run from in terms of the Gospel is the realness of it. As we've discussed countless times in prior posts, truth isn't well received by those who obviously prefer lies. And considering how much work we've put into creating all these lies that tell the world who we want them to think we are, we can't handle the damage the truth will do to that facade that we've spent so long constructing.

And that's what Christ and His truth does. He breaks us. He tears us down. He rips apart all the veils that we have hung up to keep the world from seeing who we really are. We are so terrified of showing the world all of our struggles, our weaknesses, our imperfections because we know this place only accepts the perfect, the strong, the handsome. And deep down, we know we're not any of those things. Truth is that nobody is. But still, this society is one in which perfection is expected and imperfection is therefore unwelcome.

So we hide it all. We cover it up and pretend it's not there. We send this message that tells the world that we're the perfect ones who are worthy of being loved and accepted and appreciated. We paint ourselves up, whitewash our lives, and deny any hint of transgression as those truths would inevitably bring rejection from those we're trying so hard to please.

When a man looks at the cross he has two choices: fall or flee. We either find it in our hearts to accept the truth of what was done and who it was done for and Who did it and why He did it. Or we run away and pretend it's just another random guy suffering for some other reason that will eventually be forgotten by the sands of time.

Well, He hasn’t been forgotten and His story is still being shared even 2,000 years later. Safe to say that Christ and His truth aren’t going anywhere. Ever. Which He actually told us Himself, but seeing as how we tend to avoid the truth and the Bible is truth, I guess many wouldn’t know that. But yeah, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” See, He did say it!

Anyway, it’s sadly rather obvious that much of the world has chosen to run. They deny. They ignore. They look at the cross as just another story of another person from another time in another place that has no bearing or impact or applicability to our lives today. The world looks at the cross and just sees a guy dying, and they look away from the horror of it all because we don't want to see that bad things happen. And we definitely don't have it in us to admit that bad things happen to good people.

And we definitely don’t have it in us to admit that we’re the ones who did that to an innocent Man, who is truly the only good person who has ever walked this earth.

Fact of the matter is that the Gospel tells us that there are no other good people. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us have sinned and done things we shouldn't have done. All of us have scooped up our inheritance and wandered off to squander it on worldly living. All of us have bitten the apple, stormed out of the Garden, and convinced ourselves that we were finally free from all these rules and expectations that we thought only existed behind us.

We've built lives seeking and serving only the desires we've learned to desire from the desires desired by the rest of those who are being deceived. We've tuned our ears, our hearts, our minds, our days and weeks and years to bowing before the wicked offerings of the devil just because his stuff looks pretty and doesn't make us admit the truth. We have forsaken the One who never forsook us and the guilt that truth brings hurts in ways that we can't tolerate, and so we just bury it under all the lies that bring far more comfort.

But what we find here in Matthew chapter 21 is the outcome all of us will experience one way or another. It doesn't matter how long it takes us to reach it, we will all face the truth at some point. Doesn't matter how much we pretend all this is just made up, one day we'll realize otherwise. Doesn't matter how hard we focus on the world and all the junk in it, one day it'll all be stripped away and we'll be left holding only the truth of who we are and what we've done with the lives we've lived.

It's gonna hurt. The truth always does. Humility always does. Admitting our faults and flaws hurts worse than any kind of physical pain because we know that we alone are the cause of all the mistakes we've made and the guilt they bring. Jesus Christ hurts because He is the truth and His truth uncovers the reality of who we've been, what we've done, and even what we were willing to do to an innocent Man just so we didn't have to take it ourselves.

It is going to hurt. But we choose the hurt. Is it a hurt that kills, or just a hurt that alters? You see, we look to the cross and see death. We see a Man dying. We see the death that our sins deserve. We see the death that we know we deserve. And so we equate the cross and the One who carried it with death, and in our minds at least, death is the ultimate pain because we don't want to lose life. Just one more reason to keep running away from Him.

But, the hurt we choose determines the message we hear. In Him is both life and death. As I've put it before, we all live and we all die we just choose which one first and how it goes. We can "live our best life" and fear the death that seeks to end it. We can live making this world love us by pretending we're better than we are and fear the death that ushers an end to the praise and applause. We can live making ourselves comfortable by ignoring the mistakes we make and the cost they owe and fear the death that signifies the moment our bill comes due.

Or, we can accept our hurt now by falling unto the stone that the builders rejected, that society has rejected, that we have long rejected. We can stumble over Christ and the truth He embodies and allow that fall back into reality to break us apart. We can allow Him to shatter us to pieces, to burn off the chaff, to rip out the roots of all anger and jealousy and greed and lust and hatred and darkness. We can choose to die now and find life in Him.

This verse in Matthew makes it clear how either choice will pan out. Hurt is involved in both, but the hurt that leads to humility brings the hope of healing while the hurt that runs from humility brings only the promise of destruction.

If we're broken to pieces, He can put us back together. He hurts but He heals. He wounds yet also He bandages. He tears apart and puts back together. He is a carpenter after all! So though it still be enormously painful, stumbling over Christ along our foolish path of self-indulgence and learning the lesson taught by the pain that stumbling causes is far better than being crushed without hope of remedy.

Friends, we're under a week away from the celebration of the arrival of a baby who would become a Man who would atone for all mankind by paying for our sins upon our cross to achieve our salvation. He's not just a baby that stayed in a manger. He's a baby that grew to accomplish His mission of overcoming death and ushering in new life for those who allow themselves to be broken apart by the truth He carries.

Make no mistake, the baby the world has no problems celebrating is also the Man that the world largely fears and denies and rejects. From birth through life to death, He is truth and yes the truth hurts. Choose your hurt. Choose it wisely. Choose it knowing that it's going to be miserable either way. We can either be the ones who can humbly look at the cross as a gift given to us, a gift we don’t deserve, a gift that died our death so that we don't have to endure it ourselves. Or we can be the ones who arrogantly look at the cross, turn our backs, deny His gift, and try to pretend that we don't have a cross to bear.

Looking at the cross and knowing that our poor choices cost the life of an innocent Man is a kind of humiliation that we've not known in this life. But it leads to life. Admitting that He did that for us because we deserved it enters us into sharing in that death to sin and also into the resurrection into new life. Either way, a cross has to be carried, suffered, endured. He offers to do it for us, but in order for it to happen that way, we have to fall into Him and let His truth shatter who we've been.

If we don't, the full weight of His wrath will be levied upon us, and we'll one day find that we still owe the death we refused to admit that He died for us. And friends, there's no coming back for us. We don't walk out of the tomb. We don't have that power. If we reject His gift because it's offensive and hard and painful, we'll find a little more time here comfortably ignorant of the Gospel and what it accomplished. And when our time of stupidity is up, we'll be crushed by all the guilt from all the mistakes we never allowed ourselves to admit we made.

Again, choose your hurt wisely. Fall into Him, or have Him fall on you. Just know that He is full of grace for those who humble themselves and repent of their sins and strive to take full advantage of the chance to live better lives through His selfless sacrifice. But He is also full of wrath for those who refuse to acknowledge Him. May we all consider ourselves warned and choose very wisely how and when we face the hurt that His truth holds.

Accept it now and be saved. Reject it now and think you’ve nothing from which to be saved. Choice is yours. But eternity is a long time to spend having to think about how you made the wrong choice just to avoid a little bit of humiliating pain. Endure the hurt of His truth while you still have a life in which to heal. We won’t have that luxury in hell.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold