In the weightlessness of space some things, like jumping, are easy. But life as a whole becomes hard. To steal from Elizabeth Elliot: “In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them toward the center. The effort of performing ordinary activities without the help of that pull if often vastly greater than it would be under normal conditions (try pouring a glass of water, eating a sunny-side-up egg, or turning a screwdriver – water will not fall, the egg will not stay on your fork, the screwdriver will not revolve: you will).” Gravity is that invisible and critical force that draws us toward the center and makes life on planet Earth possible.

And there is a moral and life gravity in this world as certainly as there is a physical gravity. This gravity is created by the existence of the living God. When we escape this gravity we become spiritually weightless. And whatever temporary exhilaration we feel in our weightlessness, life as a whole becomes hard. Getting out of bed and going to work become increasingly difficult, marriages struggle, families disintegrate, and corporations, states, and countries lose even the ability to distinguish male from female. Whenever the weightiness (i.e. glory) of the living God of the Scriptures is far from your thoughts and supplanted by your own light and weightless notions of Him, whenever you neglect God’s law as your meditation day and night and float on the bed of your feelings and emotional experiences, you lose your reference point.

And it’s in Jesus that the gravity of life is restored. Paul tells us: “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist [συνιστάω]” (Col. 1:17 NKJV). The idea here is that in Jesus everything is held together. All things are brought or banded together in him.

You cannot treat sin lightly when you look by faith at Jesus crucified for your sins. Nor can you forget that the living God, revealed in Jesus, is pulling you toward Him in love. Nor, because of Jesus resurrection, can you live without the certain hope that all things will be put in their proper place.

Mindful of this gravity which is in Jesus crucified and raised from the dead, let us kneel and confess our sins together…