Capital Punishment

In ancient Rome, if you were found guilty of a capital offense, you were sentenced with any number of capital punishments. One of which involved being tied foot to foot, waist to waist, hand to hand, face to face with a dead body. You would be assigned a Roman guard who would follow you around to make sure that you didn't untie yourself from the corpse. Essentially, you were living life with the extra weight of this rotting corpse. As you slept, you slept with a rotting corpse. As you walked through town, you walked through town with a rotting corpse.

Great shame would have accompanied you as you lived with this body. Everyone that you saw would have known you were guilty of a capital offense. Because of this, they would want nothing to do with you-you were cut off from humanity.

I doubt that I could put into words how bad I imagine a rotting corpse would smell. I can't imagine how nauseous the sight of a rotting body would be. So even if you were still loved by friends and family, they wouldn't physically be able to be around you without become sick-you were separated from relationship.

Eventually, as the corpse rotted, decomposed, and melted, it would rot, decompose, and melt into your own flesh, eventually killing you. This would have been a slow, disgusting, painful process. This process slowly separated you from life as death literally invaded your life.

The only way that you were allowed to untie yourself was if someone offered to untie you and tie the corpse to themselves.

As I think about that picture, I hear Christ's beckoning:

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." -Matthew 11:28-30

I think of all the things Christ is calling and bringing me out of as he unties the rotting corpse of my sin/flesh and ties it upon himself.

-I lose my certain death

-I lose the stench of living a me-centered existence

-I lose the shame that accompanies that existence (not to be confused with Godly guilt-we still have that as the Spirit brings us back to Christ again and again)

-I gain life (full-life, life as it was intended)

-I gain the ability to meaningfully relate to others

-I gain the aroma of Christ as he sanctifies me

-I gain freedom

This isn't to say that we won't chose sin. This isn't to say that we won't foolishly chose to re-tie ourselves to the rotting corpse of our flesh and sin. But it is to say:

"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" -Romans 7:24-25

May he increase and may I decrease.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy...