Praise the Lord for this new day. It is going to be sunny and bright. It is spring time in Orissa, India. The mango trees, the cotton trees, and all wild spring flowers are in full bloom. "Cooku" is the spring bird that ushers the brilliant spring season.
We had a very blessed Wednesday evening gathering of sweet fellowship and sharing. I saw geese flying north yesterday making "holy honks". The daffodils and the tulips by the parsonage are popping up. Praise be to Jesus.
In the summer of 1996, as a family we visited Stratford on Avon in England. This is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. During my undergraduate days I studied English literature. My studies concentrated on the works of William Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. William Shakespeare based most of his works on the Biblical themes. Guilt is an interesting word; it is the opposite of innocence. William Shakespeare, though he lived in what many of us would describe as a pristine and unspoiled age, had such an incredible grip on the effects of guilt upon our lives when guilt is dismissed or not dealt with in an appropriate and godly way.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we see how Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, suffer because of their insistence on dealing with their guilt and shame in their own way. For those of you who are like me and are much more familiar with Sports Illustrated or the comic section of today’s newspaper than Shakespeare, let me give you an abbreviated version of the destruction that came upon Macbeth and his wife because of their sin and guilt. In the Shakespearian tragedy, Macbeth is really a noble figure in the beginning of the story. As time progresses Macbeth develops a hunger for power and prominence, but there is only one problem that stands in his way, King Duncan. For Macbeth to realize his dream and satisfy his thirst for power, Duncan must be deposed as king.
Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, comes up with a plan to kill the king and make way for her husband to become the king. Macbeth is unsure at first. He is fearful, not convinced that murdering Duncan is the right thing to do. Macbeth and his friend, Banquo, seek out the advice of three counselors who are much like the false prophets of the Old Testament who tell the people whatever they want to hear. They tell Macbeth that he deserves the throne and that he will soon become king. The seed of wicked ambition began to grow in Macbeth’s heart. Macbeth should have recognized the bad advice for what it was, but instead he began to be obsessed with the thoughts of power. Rather than rejecting their advice, Macbeth finds his mind constantly dwelling on their evil suggestions.
While Macbeth is obsessing on thoughts of power and killing the king, his wife is busy calling upon the powers of darkness so that she and her husband can pull off the devilish deed they have planned. As soon as the murders are committed Lady Macbeth and her husband are overwhelmed with guilt for what they have done. Because they don’t deal with their guilt in the right way, they dive even deeper into the darkness and commit more murders. At one point Lady Macbeth mocks her husband’s guilty feelings by saying that he is sick in the head. Instead of recognizing her husband’s need for forgiveness she says, "You do unbend your noble strength to think so brainsickly of things. Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand." All of the water in all the world wouldn’t wash away the guilt Macbeth felt in his heart. Pontius Pilot had tried washing his hands of his responsibility for the death of Jesus years earlier, but instead of leading to his cleansing it led to his insanity.
Macbeth, though on the way to possessing all the power he ever wanted, is now powerless over his own mind. He starts having problems sleeping. He has tormenting nightmares and begins hearing voices. His wife can’t sleep because of the guilt upon her heart. She begins to feel desperate because she doesn’t think her husband is adequately covering his tracks or hiding his feelings in front of others. Lady Macbeth begins going into trances and recreating the murders while walking in her sleep.
There is no other way to describe what is going on in the Macbeth household than to say that everyone is losing their mind. The sin within is rotting away their soul. What happened to this "noble" man? Quite simply put, he sinned and refused to repent with a broken heart before God for what he had done. The best that Macbeth can do to help deal with his guilt, because he refuses to go to God, is to wash his hands over and over again. Both he and his wife incessantly wash their hands to try and cleanse themselves from their sin, but there is only One who can wash our sin whiter than snow my friend. Macbeth, tormented by his guilt, cries out to his idols and asks, "Will all Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clear from my hand?"
Things went from bad to worse for Macbeth and his wife. His actions would have gotten him the modern-day diagnosis of being psychotic. He sees things and people who are not there, but people that he had murdered. He is flooded with paranoia and anxiety. He acts crazy in front of his guests. He is spinning out of control.
Though Macbeth becomes king he still cannot find any satisfaction. He craves more and more power. Macbeth kills his friend Banquo. He can’t ask for God’s blessing. Even though he knows he needs God’s blessing, he has an even greater sense that his sin is separating him from God.
Unwilling to face his guilt, he turns away from God back to the wicked counselors of his day. Macbeth tells them to summon their master, the devil himself. Do you see what sin and guilt will do to us if we refuse to bow before the throne of grace, confess our sin, and repent of our wrongdoing? We will sink deeper and deeper into sin and depravity.
Lady Macbeth becomes so tormented and depressed that eventually she dies. Some have suggested that she even committed suicide. Macbeth is left alone, and although he decides life is meaningless, still he pursues even more power.
Macbeth had the innocent wife and child of the noble Macduff murdered. Macbeth was once considered an honest and noble man. What happened? Shakespeare ends his play with Macbeth dying at the hands of Macduff. The tragic story of a once noble soul eaten away by sin ends in his ultimate destruction - not just the destruction of his life, but also his character.
What do we do with our guilt? Do we compulsively wash our hands or take showers to try and wash it away? Pontius Pilate and Macbeth ought to be proof that this will not suffice. A solution that takes guilt and sin and removes it as far as the east is from the west from those who will come to God with a repentant and broken heart.
10:1-18,"The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ’Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God.’ First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roArM2ldIZ0
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday February 26, 2011
6PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Earle Cowden
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