No unfinished business

The wheelie bins were out ready for emptying first thing on the morning of collection day. Perhaps I worry too much when setting off for a day’s work leaving the bins by the kerbside. Will they fall over in the wind, leaving an embarrassing spillage? Will the collection people turn up? Will they somehow bypass my property? Will I find the bins again when I get back? These are pointless fears, because nearly all the time things go right, and I am duly grateful to the Council for the service it so consistently provides.

This particular morning, the collection people turned up early, before I had left the house. As they returned the last bin, I gave them a cheery wave, took the bin round the back and left for church. All done. No unfinished business. Nothing to worry about for the remainder of the morning. It may seem strange to you that a bin collection could bring me such joy and reassurance, but it was a very happy feeling.

This feeling of contentment reminded me of how Jesus Christ’s work on the cross brings relief to believing sinners – that means, all of us who believe. He died for our sins exclaiming, “It is finished”. There remains nothing more to be done. Other religions leave you living life under a cloud of guilt, always feeling there is some other step that you need to take to satisfy a god who is impossible to please. Christianity is different.

Working that out in day to day life, however, is at times problematic. Many saintly men and women live life tortured by guilt. Critics of religion think that guilt goes hand in hand with religious belief and is cast off whenever anybody “grows up” and rejects religion as immature superstition. This is not true. Guilt is not an inevitable companion of faith. Instead it is the enemy’s way of exploiting issues from the past that we have not properly worked through, to burden us in the here and now.

In that sense guilt can be lifelong. But Christ died to free us both from the penalty of sin and from its power to destroy us. 1 Peter 2 verse 24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (NIV).

Father God, in your forgiving grace allow us at this Easter time to face remaining guilt and fully appreciate the scope of Christ’s victory.

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ, my own.

                                                 Charles Wesley