The Injustice of Jesus

In the Sending Center here at WHM, we've starting going through our new small group study, The Gospel-Centered Life in an effort to keep thinking about how the gospel renews and transforms us as work place.

A recent lesson on minimizing our sin got me to start thinking more about how and why I minimize my own sin, especially at work. One of the things that is definitely a "hot button" sin for me is the need to justify myself. Sometimes it is big, and grandiose, and I need to let everyone know about it. But most of the time it is far more insidious--it is a quiet, private, ongoing conversation in my head where I reply to each action and each response of everyone involved arguing my case, showing them how I'm right I am (or at least more right than they are). These sorts of conversations, whether public or private, always feature some element of, "I may not have done things exactly right, but that's because so-and-so ___________ (sinned against me first, didn't do what they were supposed to, is so stubborn and unrepentant, expects too much of me, doesn't understand how hard things are for me... take your pick). Ahhh... the heady elixir of blameshifting. It's hard to admit, but I'm addicted to it and no amount of resolution on my part will cure me of it.

So as I was thinking and praying these issues through, I was again reminded of a simple truth that I hadn't really thought about in a long time--Jesus knows exactly what it is like to have someone misread his motives and accuse him of something that isn't true. Although he was perfect, he came and lived and ate and worked with people who were decidedly not perfect. And as the quintessential human being, there was at least the temptation on his part to respond the same way I do when I feel that I've been treated unfairly. But he never does this does he? You never see Jesus walking around muttering to himself while mentally rehashing events, or yelling at the Pharisees, "Oh yeah. Well if you wouldn't have been such legalists to begin with, I wouldn't have had to turn Elias into a pile of dust! This is your fault."

The truly remarkable thing to me about Jesus' consistently perfect response to these challenges is that he KNEW he was right! Every single time something happened, Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't misreading someone's motives, or going off half-cocked without all the facts. He knew that whatever sin was messing things up, it wasn't his. The false accusations, the willful rebellion, the stubborn refusals, the out and out rejection of him in favor of pet idols... in each and every case, Jesus would have been perfectly justified in executing the exact judgement that the law required, because he knew that he was never at fault. And yet the only judgement that gets executed is upon Jesus, as he pays for the sins of his children on the cross.

I think one of the many (many, many, many) reasons I fall so short of Jesus in this particular area is that I find it impossible to completely, utterly and totally rely on his merit instead of earning my own. Think about this for a second, Jesus never (ever) tried to establish his own reputation before men and women because he rested so secure in his Father's love for him and the identity that the Father had established for him. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've had someone be in opposition to me at work where I've consciously and convincingly relied on the merit that Jesus has earned for me, instead of jumping in to start explaining why I'm right and they are wrong.

Sin has rewired my heart to be "auto-justifiying." I don't even need to try, it just happens. So here's to praying for more disruption and rewiring of my sin-hobbled heart. Here's to more situations where I can see clearly that my Father's love, Christ's hard earned merit, and the Holy Spirit's gentle helping and empowering offer me far more at work than a well worded e-mail, a well argued case, or a sense of "I may be wrong, but they are more wrong!" Here's to the seeming injustice of not defending my record, so that I can more desperately and clearly cling to Jesus' record.