We continue in today's reading to see the fruit of sin and deceit. Jacob thinks he has found true love. He works for seven years to gain his bride. Apparently he trusts Laban. Laban seems to esteem Jacob. Yet when it comes time to marry Rachel, Jacob the deceiver is himself the deceived.
This is a fact of life. We are sinned against. The critical question is how we respond when we are sinned against. Do we respond with anger, indignation, sorrow, envy, maybe a desire for revenge? Some of these responses may be appropriate in some limited circumstances. Yet if we look at ourselves carefully, our response to sin is almost always to sin right back. Do we start out with righteous anger at someone's sin? Good. But then we become angry not because that person has sinned against God but because the person has sinned against us. We start to want retribution and to think how God's vengeance for sin isn't timely enough. Or maybe we start to feel self-righteous, saying we would never do what that person did. Our response to sin is almost always sin. We are just as capable of sin as those who sin against us.
When we are sinned against we have an opportunity to see that we have need of repentance, just as the person who sinned against us does. And the good news is that we have a savior, the kind of savior we need, Christ the Lord, who became sin for us. He became sin not only for those who sin against us, but also for us as we sin right back. Our Lord has become sin, taking our sin upon himself, the undefiled becoming that which is defilement. Our Lord has received the full measure of justice at the hand of the Father. The soul who sins must die, and so God the Son clothes himself in mortality, becomes sin for us, and dies in our place. Our savior shows us the power of resurrection. Though sin kills, we are brought to life in Christ. When we are sinned against, let us look to our mighty savior.
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