The Passion of the Christ was an epic biblical drama produced by Mel Gibson in 2004. My first attempt at watching it stopped midstream. Though it was a film depicting the suffering of Jesus before His crucifixion, I couldn’t stand the vicarious effect it was having on me. I guess it was after the third attempt that I managed to watch it to the end. Our text today captures one of the statements of Jesus on the cross before He gave up the ghost. Romans 11:22 captures two sides of God – His goodness on the one hand, and His severity on the other hand. While we like to exult in our catechism of “God is good all the time; all the time God is good”, it is important to know also that God could be severe, particularly when sin is involved.

Nowhere is this better proved than in the crucifixion of the only Son of God. When Jesus hung on the cross, it was because He carried the sins of the entire world upon Himself. He became our substitute.  At that moment too, the Father looked away from Him. The Bible tells us that God is so pure that He cannot behold iniquity. (Habakkuk 1:13). Here is the point we are making: If sin could nail Jesus, it will nail anyone else. Similarly, if God looked away from His own Son because of sin, He will not break a sweat to look away from anyone who continues in sin. Yesterday, we learned, among other things, that age does not deal with sin; only the Blood of Jesus does. Jesus died for our sins so we don’t live as slaves of sin any longer.