Joel M Bradshaw

20“The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.–Deuteronomy 28, part 2

The final chunk of this chapter is a depressing jolt of reality. Show covenant love to God and receive blessings. Show covenant hate and receive curses. Each one seemed worse than the one before it. And yet, God said right at the start that it was because of the evil of their deeds.

That is key. Did we expect God to just ignore evil or to shake it off? If God doesn’t punish evil, then he is not just. If God is not just then there’s no justice. If there is no justice then he no longer is trustworthy. All comes crumbling down if God lets evildoers off the hook. So this chapter did serve as a profound warning, but it also illustrated the faithful justice of God. Evil is responded to with wrath.

It’s at this point you may ponder the title of today’s post. Think back to your first job. There’s nothing like the feeling of receiving your first paycheck and looking at that paystub. You saw the hours you worked, marveled at the words ‘gross’ and ‘net’, and dreamed of how you would spend it. It was an honor to cash that paycheck because you earned it. You worked very hard and deserved your wage. Now some of my theologically-minded friends know where I am going. For the rest, here is Romans 6…

23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Like that paycheck, a wage is earned. The work earning it is sin. Cashing it is death. Ancient Israel’s evil deeds and forsaking God would bring about the curses described in Deuteronomy 28. It was their sin that would earn those wages.

But it’s not just Israel’s story, but ours. Each of us has sinned. We are left on our own with no hope. When those wages are cashed, only death follows. Separation from God. Eternal punishment. And it is all of our stories, for each of us has sinned. We all have earned that wage. We worked really hard for that paycheck, too. Our sins are intentional. Forsaking God is not an oversight, but a purposeful thing.

And yet there is grace that is offered by God in Jesus Christ. Grace is giving a gift. Gifts cannot be earned. If you tell me as I give you a gift that you have earned that gift, then that will be the last gift I give you. I give you a gift because I wanted to, not because you earned it. You can’t earn a gift like you can earn a wage.

We earned our wages. We deserve the punishment. But we cannot deserve grace. We can’t earn it or manipulate it or expect it. We can only rejoice when God gives it.

We who belong to Christ are ones who get to open a present rather than cash a paycheck. And that’s all because of God’s grace given to us. We were otherwise like Ancient Israel as Moses described them in our text today. Without hope, lost, and doomed for destruction.

What a thought to picture today, Good Friday. It is good because on the cross, Jesus cashed your paycheck. Remember, God is still just. That wrath has to still be given towards evil. Only it was your evil, not Jesus’. It was Jesus on that cross and not me.

The wage is still death. The paycheck is still cashed. I earned that paystub. But Jesus in our place cashed our checks. There is nothing better than that. Happy Good Friday.–JMB