“Aaron will be gathered to his people. He will not enter the land I give the Israelites, because both of you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah. – Numbers 20:24

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 13, 2012): Numbers 20

I love the argument over the phrase that “the wages (or the penalty) of sin is death.” I love it because it is both a great discussion over what the meaning of the words actually is and because sometimes it involves the lunatic fringe of Christian culture – and I actually love the lunatic fringe. In reality, it is the ones on the edges of culture that sometimes remind us of a truth that we have either evaded or forgotten. Those that gather on the street corners with their placards, the very ones who embarrass a lot of those of us who identify with Christ actually have a purpose in our culture. The message that they speak so bluntly is sometimes one that we need to here.

Is the end near? Of course it is. Although cosmologically speaking the definition of near might be a little different from what many of us believe that the word should mean. All of our philosophies and all of our scientific knowledge agree that everything that we see is ultimately temporary – none of it is going to last forever. At some point our sun will go supernova – at some point the universe will collapse back in on itself. And all of this as far as the human race is concerned is only a concern if we do not poison our own world first. The end is coming. And it is near – or far - depending on your point of view.

And the wages of sin is death. We make the comment, but then we explain it a way. The wages of sin is death – and maybe by that we mean spiritual death or a death of the soul. Maybe it is the death of our dreams (I cannot imagine a scarier type of death.) But we write off the possibility that it might just mean physical death, because we all sin and yet we seem to be still alive. If the wages of sin is physical death, then we all should have already died (and as Scrooge would say – have decreased the surplus population.)

But ... sometimes the “wages of sin is death” means exactly what all those placards say it means – physical death. God asked for Aaron’s life, and the outstanding reason was sin. Because of sin Aaron died. It is not always that way, but sometimes it is. And there is no way to get away from that “sometimes.”  

 Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers 21