“Just imagine what the weight of the sins of the world felt like. Just imagine the one man ‘who knew no sin’ being ‘made to be sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God…
For the sins of abortion, adultery, anxiety, arrogance, backbiting, bearing false witness, bitterness, blasphemy, boasting, bribery, complaining, coveting, contention, coarse joking, deceit, defrauding others, despising the poor, dishonoring the government, disregarding the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day, disrespecting your parents and elders, envy, evil thoughts, fornication, fortune telling, fraud, gambling, giving grudgingly (or not giving at all), gluttony, gossip, greed, harsh words, hating your brother, holding a grudge, idleness, idolatry, immodesty, losing your temper, lust, lying, malice, murder, prayerlessness, racism, rage, rape, resisting the Holy Spirit, returning insult for insult, rioting, scoffing, selfish ambition, showing favoritism, slander, sloth, speaking idle words, stealing, unlawful divorce, violence, witchcraft, loving the world, loving yourself, not loving your neighbor or enemy or fellow Christian or God…to name a few sins. For all those and more. Just imagine what the weight of the sins of the world felt like.
You see, nothing reveals the weight of our sins like the sufferings of Jesus. Nothing reveals the mercy of God like the sufferings of Jesus. Nothing reveals our absolute inability to save ourselves like the sufferings of Jesus. And thus something of our heartfelt thanks offered up to him is more than appropriate, don’t you think?”
Douglas O’ Donnell, Matthew, 854-855