We are not acquainted with grief in the way our Lord was acquainted with grief. We endure it, we get through it, but we don’t become intimate with it. The reason for this is that we don’t understand the cause of grief and sorrow in life. Grief and sorrow are caused by sin— but many of us refuse to recognize the fact that sin exists.
At the beginning of our lives, we take a rational view of things. We say that human beings, by educating themselves and looking after their instincts, by controlling “the ape and tiger” within, can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we go on, we discover the presence of something we hadn’t taken into account: sin.
Sin upsets all our calculations. Sin has made the basis of things wild, not rational. Some of us never learn to accept the fact of sin because we don’t think it should be there. We have to recognize that sin is a fact.
Sin is red-handed mutiny against God. Either God or sin must die in my life. The New Testament brings us down to this one issue. If sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed. If God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no other possible outcome. Sin reached its climax when it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine. We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation for why Jesus Christ came, and the only explanation for grief and sorrow in life.
