A HOLY WEEK VOLCANO
Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were
mocking him as they beat him. They also blindfolded
him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that
struck you?” And they said many other things against
him, blaspheming him. (Luke 22:63–65)
As I read these terrible words, I found myself saying to
Jesus, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jesus. Forgive me!” I felt myself
to be an actor here, not just a spectator. I was so much a
part of that ugly gang that I knew I was as guilty as they
were. I felt that if the rage of God should spill over onto
those soldiers and sweep me away, too, justice would have
been done. I wasn’t there, but their sin was my sin. It would
not have been unjust for me to fall under their sentence.
Has it ever bothered you that sometimes in the Old
Testament when one man sins, many get swept away in the
punishment God brings? For example, when David sinned
by taking a census of the people (2 Samuel 24:10), “there
died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men” (2 Samuel 24:15). In another example, Achan kept some of
the booty from Jericho and his whole family was stoned
(Joshua 7:25). Maybe my experience in reading Luke 22 is a
clue to the divine justice in this.
My Volcanic Rebellion
An analogy came to my mind. The hearts of humanity
are like a molten mantle beneath the surface of the whole
earth. The molten lava beneath the earth is the universal
wickedness of the human heart—the rebellion against
God and the selfishness toward people. Here and there
a volcano of rebellion bursts forth which God sees fit to
judge immediately. He may do so by causing the scorching,
destructive lava to flow not only down the mountain
which erupted, but also across the valleys which did not
erupt, but which have the same molten lava of sin beneath
the surface.
The reason I confess the sin of beating Jesus, even
though I wasn’t there, is that the same lava of rebellion is
in my own heart. I have seen enough of it to know. So even
though it does not burst forth in such a volcanic atrocity
as the crucifixion, it is still deserving of judgment. If God
had chosen to rain the lava of their evil back on their own
heads and some of it consumed even me, I would not be
able to fault God’s justice.
We may wonder why God chooses to recompense some
evils immediately and not others. And we may wonder
how he decides whom to sweep away in the judgment.
Why seventy thousand? Why not fifty thousand, or one
hundred, or ten? Why Achan’s wife and not the greedy neighbor two tents down? I doubt that answers are available
to us now. We are left to trust that these decisions
come from a Wisdom so great that it can discern all possible
effects in all possible times and places and people. How
widely the lava of one person’s rebellion and judgment will
flow lies in God’s hands alone.
And I believe from Romans 8:28 that, even though the
lava of recompense overtakes me at a distance from the
volcano, there is mercy in it. I do not deserve to escape, for
I know my own heart. But I trust Christ, and so I know
the judgment will be turned to joy. Though he slay me, yet
will I trust him. For precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of his saints.
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