CHRISTIAN GRAVE ROBBERS

You may have seen the news from Springfield Illinois:  "Thieves nabbed a 3-foot-long copper sword atop Lincoln’s Tomb in what is believed to be the first theft at the site in more than a century."   Copper theft has become pretty common, why did this one make headlines?   Because it’s the tomb of Abraham Lincoln whose life and sacrificial leadership gave us a country free of slavery.  To steal from Lincoln's tomb is to desecrate the ideals of the United States of America.  This means the thieves were either anti-American or they were ignorant of history - either way they are guilty of irreverence, that is, taking lightly those things which are heavy.  We’ve all been guilty of this.

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for God’s honor and glory is “kabod.”  It means “heavy.”  When we treat lightly the truly weighty things of God we lack reverence for Him.  American Christianity has been guilty of this by being both anti-“take up your cross” and ignorant.  

We treat lightly the command to gather regularly, we treat lightly the instruction to listen to the word AND obey, we steal from God by not tithing, we refuse to be like our Lord  and hold grudges instead of forgiving.  We have turned the command to love others into an attitude of the heart when it is actually a call to action. We call ourselves followers of Christ, followers of the one who said, ‘Take up your cross daily and follow me,” (Luke 9:23), but we have remade that cross into recliner.

The tomb we have stolen from is the empty tomb, the from which Christ rose to give us new Life, capital “L.”  Irreverence is thinking our life, small “l” is of more importance than His.

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