"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21).
...Frustrated beyond belief, he watched his 17-hour flight take off without him... Needless to say, my husband's first bout with international travel did not set well with either of us.... Being that close to making a flight, and yet missing it, left a sickening twinge in both of our stomachs.
... Missing the flight seems incredibly intensified by the reality of being oh-so-close. And yet, it was missing the flight at all that was the problem. Whether he missed the plane by five or fifty minutes, he still missed the flight.
I confess it is easy for me to think of sin on a similar scale, in dramatic levels of "badness" or "forgiveableness." But the Greek word hamartia and its corresponding Hebrew word, each translated "sin" in the Old and New Testaments, counter this mentality. Both mean in the original language, "to miss the mark" or "to be without a share in." The apostle Paul's declaration to the Romans--namely, that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"--gives us a dramatic picture. In the presence of God, our vantage point is similar to staring at a plane you are supposed to be on from inside the terminal. It doesn't matter how close we are to making it; the problem is that we all fall irreparably short... Thinking about the depravity around me does not remove the stains I sense inside me, at least not permanently. Even when I am feeling "in" all of the right inner circles and mostly on top of the average, there is something about the mark I have set that convicts me. I expect behavior from people that I do not exhibit personally. I hold excuses for myself that I refuse to entertain when it comes to others. Their missing the mark, however greatly, doesn't wipe away my own missing of it. Had there been a person running into the terminal ten minutes after my husband had been told he missed the flight, it might have made him feel less alone in his frustration, but it certainly would not truly have consoled him. For it would not have put him any closer to being on the right side of the window. He needed someone to bridge the gap.
Christ became for us the righteousness we cannot offer, filling the gap we cannot cross. For all have missed the mark, falling short of the glory of God, and all who believe are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. In the presence of God, like Isaiah who trembled at the throne of glory, we gaze at the mark we fearfully miss: his fullness, his faithfulness, his glory. Standing with Christ, we hold all we lack, and we view it from the right side of the window.
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