The Lost Sheep

I come across alot of christian debates on tiktok (And yes… I do watch tiktok) but most of them ask the same question which is if God is so good and perfect and he made man perfect that why did the first humans sin? Why did God send his ‘son’ to be tortured and die? In one video i watched the man asked if he was God he could have chosen any ransom why this way? Why Jesus? Why the suffering? Why death?

I think that’s a question that lots of atheist or anti-christians have and I don’t think it’s wrong to ask those questions. In fact when I was younger I also had similar questions. I was in the age with “The passion of the christ” it came out in 2004 and it was an intense movie about the crucifixion. About how Jesus suffered and died and I remember being young and not understanding how something like that could be allowed or tolerated. But as the thoughts circled my brain after watching another video an image appeared in my mind. 

Imagine a pregnant woman (Let me cook). We’ll say she’s a good person, a healthy person who’s never had any difficulties until one day, maybe at the influence of another, she makes a poor decision. We all do, even when we know better. Even when we know it probably won’t end well there’s a part that maybe magically thinks we’re unicorns and the consequences won’t apply to us. But they do, more often not and so back to the woman she ends up having a child who then because of that poor decision ends up with a health condition. 

This isn’t a new concept either. If you take cocaine especially as a pregnant woman whether your child consented or not they can be affected by the mother’s choice. Placental crossing, constricted blood flow, addiction. Before the child is even born they can inherit all sorts of consequences from one poor decision. Not to mention potentially losing the child, or even early delivery which has its own difficulties. 

So in this analogy imagine that the child does inherit a defect or issue and then the next and the next. It’s unfair. It’s always been unfair. This curse that was inherited. You can even imagine it financially. Poverty that continues through generation just as wealth does, the difference between those who have something to inherit and those who don’t. So imagine years upon years of a sickness that can kill you, that is killing you.

But…there is a solution. In fact from the very beginning a doctor told you when all the rest disagreed. When everyone else gave you medicine to cover the symptoms but never to cure the source. There was a doctor that mentioned a peculiar remedy. A transplant. A dangerous transplant but one that would not only save the current generation but provide a way of healing to every generation after. A permanent solution that could save instead of continuing to poison. But transplants are picky. They need to match, they need to be healthy. They have a checkbox that needs to be filled and the case is too special, too extraordinary that not any donor will do. For some people a match is a very limited pool. For some, it never comes. That is the unfair world we live in.

But there is a match. From the very beginning the doctor has been watching in pitying kindness as you reject his solution over and over but at the end of it all he is the perfect match. And it has a cost. This isn’t just a regular transplant, but a heart transplant. A transplant that if he does will kill him. That would require him to go through tests and blood draws and scrutiny, tortuous to a healthy person who never needed to endure it. But he’s willing. He knows the risk, he knows the cost but he agrees anyway because from the very beginning they’ve been trying everything to save her. 

So why did it take so long? Why didn’t they save her sooner? Why did she have to suffer generation after generation, each time worse than the next? What joy? What pleasure did they get from watching her suffer?

No, that’s not right. Because from the beginning the message has never changed. She just never realized it was that bad. Each one thought it wasn’t that bad. It’s just the way it is. It’s just the luck of the draw. It’s bad luck. It’s generational. It’s… normal. 

Life isn’t fair, it’s never been fair, it will never be fair. 

All that’s left is death. 

She chose to listen to the doctors that said it was fine because she could live the life she wanted to. Because it was funner, freer, more exciting; in the moment. While He stood in the back reaching, speaking, hoping she would hear,

“It’s killing you”

It’s killing you. Even if it doesn’t look it. Even if you think it’s better. It’s killing you. And he can’t give you what you won’t take. He can’t save you if you won’t hear. He can only reach and wait until the cost gets too high and the consequences too painful and there is almost nowhere else to go.

And even then, even after rejection he still says. 

“Use mine”

(Ezekiel 36:26) I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

(John 3:16) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

(Isaiah 53:5) But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

(Romans 6:23) For the wages of sin is death, but the [a]gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Psalms 49:7,8, 15) Yet they cannot redeem themselves from death by paying a ransom to God. Redemption does not come so easily, for no one can ever pay enough…(15) But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, For He shall receive me. Selah