Why is sin so bad?

Here's something I read in Our Daily Bread today which really spoke volumes to me. The bible passage is taken from Isaiah 53:3-9

3He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

5But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

6We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

8By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And who can speak of his descendants?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Pain. Abject, horrible, excruciating pain. Unrelenting, unbearable, unspeakable pain. With each slash across jesus' back and with every muscle-burning step up Golgotha's hill, our Savior received the punishment for our sin.

In our let's-make-everything-okay world we often look at sin and wonder, what's the big deal? After all, our sin isn't so bad. If we lie a little or cheat just a bit - what's the harm? If we gossip some or use coarse language a few times - whom will it hurt? What's so bad about sin?

It's bad because of what it put Jesus through. Yes, our sin was the reason for the torment Jesus suffered as He made his way to the cross - and as He hung on that cross and ultimately died a horrific death.

Of course we can never undo what has been done; that pain can never be reversed. Yet we must understand that if we continue to sin knowingly, we are in effect turning our back on Jesus and His pain. It's as if we're saying that it doesn't matter to us what we put Jesus through, we're going to do what we want. To sin in the light of the cross is to tell Jesus that even His intense suffering has not taught us about the awfulness of sin.

Why is sin so bad? Look what it did to Jesus.

- Dave Branon