June 16 - 1 John 3:4-6. Lawlessness

June 16 - 1 John 3:4-6. Lawlessness

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

When you read the first sentence did your imagination take you to the wild, wild west? When I think of lawlessness, I think of Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, the James gang and so many others I read about when I was a kid. It seemed as if the only thing standing between good and evil on the prairie was a strong lawman and his gun.

However, if I let my imagination go a little further, I wonder about Jesus showing up in the middle of one of those shoot-outs; standing in the dusty street as the onlooker’s mouths dropped open in shock. Would his appearance startle the gunmen, causing their trigger finger to twitch? Would he stop the bullet in mid-air?  Would the outlaw drop to his knees while Jesus stood beside the lawman with his hand on a shoulder, offering him support?  What about the outlaw’s family?

All of the good stories have a family ready to take revenge against the lawman and break their family member out of jail.  They ride into town with their guns a-blazing and their horses stirring up the dust as they dance and prance. They frighten the women and children, who hide behind closed doors, they threaten the strong men of the community.  All of this happens so that they can continue robbing the trains and banks, stealing from local merchants and generally doing evil wherever they go.

We live in a lawless society. We live as a lawless society.  And this isn’t new to God. He isn’t surprised by it at all.  Jesus did show up … right in the middle of a gunfight.  He stopped the bullet and took it Himself so that no one need die.