“Boy, you’re gonna’ carry that weight”

“Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly!”  Isaiah 1:4  NASB

Weighed down – What burdens do you carry?  Debt?  Past mistakes?  Children from divorce?  Broken contracts?  Public shame?  Write them down, as painful as it might be.  See what a long list you have to carry.

Then listen to Isaiah.  We are a people weighed down with the heaviest of loads.  It’s not debt or divorce or breach of contract that supports the psychotropic drug industry.  It’s sin!  We carry the load of our sins.  The Hebrew words are very instructive.  Keved ‘awon – laden with iniquity.  You might recognize the first adjective, keved.  It’s from the root kaved (kbd).  That’s right, it’s the same root for the word kavod – glory – a word that literally means “heavy.”  What is the flip side of God’s glory?  The flip side is still heavy.  Its weight signifies its importance.  The flip side is ‘awon – iniquity.  What is iniquity?  To be bent, to be twisted, to deviate from the way.  God’s glory is the straight path.  Iniquity is the twisted course.  God’s glory is the weight of righteousness, a burden that He promises is easy to bear.  Iniquity is a crushing load, the torturous freight of deed and consequence.  In Hebrew thought there is no separation between bent actions and ensuing punishment.  There is only the process by which we are burdened with sickness, abandonment and despair.  ‘awon is the entry to purposelessness and the roadway to disappointment.  You and I determine which weight we carry—the gentle yoke of the luminous God or the burden of Atlas.

The Beatles knew the truth about our godless reality.  “Boy, you’re gonna’ carry that weight, carry that weight a long time.”  Unless God lifts, we collapse.  It is only a matter of time before the weight of the earth covers our disobedience in the grave.  The weight we carry will not leave us in this lifetime unless someone lifts it from us.  We can deflect.  We can divert.  We can ignore.  We can pretend.  But “man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”[1]

Take the ton out of the closet.  Lets its elephantine enormity envelop you.  Feel the loss of breath, the strain of bone, the clamor of your heart.  Know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is something you cannot bear.  Sin is the boa constrictor of your soul.  With every move it tightens its grip until the Lord Himself calls hoy (alas!).  Six times the word is used for the mourning of the dead.  It might as well be six billion times.  There is no comfort for the godless departed.  They have chosen the Beatles’ path. 

“Wash yourselves.  Make yourselves clean,” says the Lord.  But how can a man become clean in polluted waters?  Only by this: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.”  Only the promise of the weight-lifter can move us from keved to kavod.

Topical Index:  weight, kaved, heavy, sin, iniquity, ‘awon, Isaiah 1:4, Isaiah 1:16