He gives us two things we cannot measure—the distance of heaven from earth and the tail-chasing distance of east from west...—to convey the idea of a mercy that is beyond our experience in other human relationships, a love that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Literally, the sky is the limit when it comes to God’s mercy. No request that is made from a good motive is outrageous. Let me not limit my prayers to what men say is possible.
But if God’s love is so big—and He is so earnest to communicate how big it is—why do I keep thinking I’m just about to get the boot? How can I insult Him so? Do I think so highly of myself as to imagine that I’m the only person on earth that the gospel isn’t going to work for? I’ve finally done it: I’ve finally committed a sin that’s more powerful than Jesus’ blood!
The Christians I admire most—and I know precious few of them—are those whom I can see are so confident of God’s undeserved love that they are not constantly revisiting their sin or crime, but they have moved on with their lives and have peace and joy. Oh, if the matter of their past comes up, they will not deny it, and will be the first to call it evil. But you will not suck them into a morbid dwelling on it... “. . . as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
How far is east from west? About as far as yes is from no, I suppose, or guilty from innocent. Or as far as future is from past. They can give each other a good chase, but they will never catch each other.
If you were trying to encourage a fearful soul to understand that he is forgiven, if you were dealing with someone given to serial relapses into self-incrimination, what would you say to him? God bends over backwards; He multiplies metaphors till one of them works for you: Your sin is so forgiven that only if the east could become west would you become unforgiven.
Don’t like that one? Then how about this: Your sin is so forgiven that it is like the goat whose head the high priest Aaron laid both his hands on it and confessed over it everything he could think of, transmitting all the vileness of his person and his people onto the animal. And then he took the sin-ridden beast to another man, who led it into the wilderness, never to return (Leviticus 16:20-28).
That one doesn’t do it for you, either? Try this: Your sin is like the curtain between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies (don’t picture your mother’s drapes but more like an iron curtain) that was ripped clean from top to bottom in the hour that Jesus, the archetypal scapegoat, took on our sins (Mark 15:38).
Or if it helps, picture yourself standing before God, covered in human excrement (that’s the actual word in Zechariah 3), with Satan accusing you—and making a very good case. And the Angel of the Lord rebukes Satan instead of you and calls for the filthy garments to be taken away and brand new, pure garments put on you...
Andree Seu
