The burden of guilt
My husband and I were searching through Netflix to find a film to watch on a Saturday evening. We seem to spend as much time searching for a film as watching it sometimes! Eventually we settled on a film with Emily Blunt in it. ‘Can’t be too bad,’ said my husband, looking sideways at me. It was the subject matter which interested me. Emily Blunt plays a sales rep (Liza Drake) for a large drug company who is having trouble selling its pain relief medication aimed at people with cancer. The story behind the medication was that it was manufactured after the company owner’s wife died from cancer. Liza really bought into his story and through her tenacity and sheer determination she gets her first doctor on board and from there on the company and Liza go from strength to strength. Everything is going well until the owner gets greedy and decides to market the drug off-label which Liza feels very uncomfortable about. At the same time people who have taken the drug for a while start to die from overdoses of it and it becomes apparent that the drug, being an opioid, is very addictive. It also transpires that clinical trials of the drug were only tested on stage 4 cancer patients whose life expectancy was deemed to be very short.
Liza’s conscience gets the better of her and she decides to go to the police. The case goes to court and prominent people in the company, including Liza for her part in the deception, are given custodial sentences. The film ends with Liza, having done ‘her time,’ confidently getting on with the rest of her life.
This story reminded me of John 8: 1-11, the woman caught in adultery about to be stoned by the pharisees. She was sentenced to death because of her crime. Jesus said simply; ‘let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!’ One by one her accusers went away. She stood in front of Jesus alive and unhurt. I wonder if she felt remorseful or just amazed that she was still alive! Jesus words must have gone right to the core of her being; ‘Has no-one condemned you? Neither do I. Go and sin no more.’ She was free to get on with the rest of her life…free of guilt and shame…..because the Lord hadn’t condemned her.
How many of us go around carrying guilt and shame that feels like a heavy sack full of stones on our backs? I’m including myself here. I can feel guilty over the tiniest thing I feel I’ve got wrong. It can linger and take away my peace. Guilt becomes a burden, weighing us down, stopping us from having fun. It sucks the life out of us. It takes away our freedom to live our lives free from the torment of self-blame, remorse, self-loathing. It becomes a heavy weight round our necks, pulling us down. Eventually we become miserable, bitter, unproductive. We can get into the mind set that we don’t deserve anything better.
Jesus never meant us to live our lives like that. That is why He said, ‘Neither do I condemn you.’ The greatest words of freedom man has ever heard. If Jesus doesn’t condemn us, why do we go around condemning ourselves? We were meant to live lives free of condemnation. Jesus died to take away our sin once and for all. Like Liza and like the adulterous woman if we have actually committed a sin we need to repent, make amends, say sorry, take responsibility for our sin, do ‘our time.’ Then we need to get on with the rest of our lives, free from the burden of guilt and condemnation.
‘Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8:31-32) The truth is Jesus loves us and wants us to live unburdened, unchained lives, free from misery and torment. Only in this will we then be free to love others. The truth is if we’re hanging on to our own baggage we won’t be truly free to love others. The truth of Jesus love will really set us free to love others and love ourselves. What does this freedom look like? It’s hard to get your head around it. It’s more of a feeling, like when you climb to the top of a hill and feel on top of the world or run barefoot on the sand; that feeling of absolute abandonment. In that moment you know nothing but sheer joy; you are set free, free to get on with the rest of your life.
‘
Liza’s conscience gets the better of her and she decides to go to the police. The case goes to court and prominent people in the company, including Liza for her part in the deception, are given custodial sentences. The film ends with Liza, having done ‘her time,’ confidently getting on with the rest of her life.
This story reminded me of John 8: 1-11, the woman caught in adultery about to be stoned by the pharisees. She was sentenced to death because of her crime. Jesus said simply; ‘let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!’ One by one her accusers went away. She stood in front of Jesus alive and unhurt. I wonder if she felt remorseful or just amazed that she was still alive! Jesus words must have gone right to the core of her being; ‘Has no-one condemned you? Neither do I. Go and sin no more.’ She was free to get on with the rest of her life…free of guilt and shame…..because the Lord hadn’t condemned her.
How many of us go around carrying guilt and shame that feels like a heavy sack full of stones on our backs? I’m including myself here. I can feel guilty over the tiniest thing I feel I’ve got wrong. It can linger and take away my peace. Guilt becomes a burden, weighing us down, stopping us from having fun. It sucks the life out of us. It takes away our freedom to live our lives free from the torment of self-blame, remorse, self-loathing. It becomes a heavy weight round our necks, pulling us down. Eventually we become miserable, bitter, unproductive. We can get into the mind set that we don’t deserve anything better.
Jesus never meant us to live our lives like that. That is why He said, ‘Neither do I condemn you.’ The greatest words of freedom man has ever heard. If Jesus doesn’t condemn us, why do we go around condemning ourselves? We were meant to live lives free of condemnation. Jesus died to take away our sin once and for all. Like Liza and like the adulterous woman if we have actually committed a sin we need to repent, make amends, say sorry, take responsibility for our sin, do ‘our time.’ Then we need to get on with the rest of our lives, free from the burden of guilt and condemnation.
‘Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8:31-32) The truth is Jesus loves us and wants us to live unburdened, unchained lives, free from misery and torment. Only in this will we then be free to love others. The truth is if we’re hanging on to our own baggage we won’t be truly free to love others. The truth of Jesus love will really set us free to love others and love ourselves. What does this freedom look like? It’s hard to get your head around it. It’s more of a feeling, like when you climb to the top of a hill and feel on top of the world or run barefoot on the sand; that feeling of absolute abandonment. In that moment you know nothing but sheer joy; you are set free, free to get on with the rest of your life.
‘
Tim Sparkes
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