If you’re more a video person, here’s the link on Youtube: https://youtu.be/R0Dfq-B5hkI
Luke 13:1-5 Another super short one, if you haven’t read it yet, click here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2013%3A1-5&version=NLT
This feels like a “water-cooler” discussion doesn’t it? “Did you hear about those guys and Pilate? Disgusting! And what about when the tower killed those people?”
People are just standing around talking about all the awful stuff going on and Jesus overhears. It’s the sort of conversation you or I might hear anywhere. Jesus seems to recognize a judgemental tone in the conversation. I wonder if people assumed these awful things were somehow God’s judgement. Jesus seems to suspect it or why would he say what he did? “Do you think these things happened because these people were evil?”
Time to be really painfully honest with ourselves. We’ve watched the headlines. You’ve seen awful things happen in certain communities. I have. I’ve seen floods and landslides sweep through towns where God’s name is long forgotten. I’ve heard of mass shootings or building collapses at events that celebrated degradation or hate. It’s hard not to entertain the idea that maybe these calamities are an act of God’s judgement. But Jesus strongly opposes that line of reasoning here. Every single one of us has fallen short of God’s standard. If we want to escape God’s judgement, we need to confess our own brokenness, believe in Jesus, and let him enable us to live in ways that honour him.
I have come to believe very strongly that God doesn’t judge us in this life. Let me clarify because that’s going to freak people out. God is the judge of all people, the ONLY judge, and the fact is that we are all guilty. So in one sense, judgement has already been delivered. But with judgement comes penalty, and I don’t believe God punishes us for our sin in this life.
The punishment for sin is death and eternal separation from God. It’s hell. If and when difficult things come into our life from God, I don’t believe they are judgement. They may be direction, correction, his gracious attempt to get our attention so that we will turn to him and avoid judgement at the end of our lives. They may even simply be that we live in a broken world and he allows humans to freely choose their own actions and sometimes they freely choose to hurt others. God allows stuff in our lives that we would prefer he did not. But those things are evidence of his kindness, of his love for all humanity and his deep desire to bring us into relationship with himself. He wants us to come to repentance so that we never have to face his judgement.
For me, this short, random-seeming anecdote is a warning to watch my heart when I read the headlines. If I feel a spark of self-righteousness, it might be a good time to repent and ask God to keep doing the work he started in me.
