Jesus Died for Our Sin, Just One Sin, and It’s Yours, Harold

I hope you’re proud of yourself, Harold. That nice Jesus boy has died, and it’s all your fault. He had prospects, that Jesus, a nice carpentry business going. And that voice! He could climb a mount and give a sermon, and you’d be rapt. Rapt, I tell you! And now, pfffft.

All because of you, Harold, you and your sin. That one sin.

Oh, you know perfectly well which one, Harold. Don’t make me spell it out for you. We’ve all seen you. You think we didn’t notice, but a sin like that, how could we not? Any sensible person would tell themself it wasn’t right. A normal person, a good person, would know in his heart that this sin they were doing was bringing on eternal damnation. Not just for you, Harold, but for all of humankind. Such a sin!

We were all going to go to H-E-L-L, Harold, because of that sin of yours. And on a weekday evening. Who sins like that on a worknight? There were children nearby.

You know he’s the Son of God, don’t you? He has—I’m sorry—he had some very important connections. So humble, Jesus, he never mentioned it, hardly ever, not a braggart at all. “I am the resurrection and the life,” he said. “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” Very nice words. Oh, don’t roll your eyes at me, Harold. He said it in a very humble-ish way—you can ask anybody.

And then poor Jesus learns of this sin of yours. How? I don’t know, I for sure didn’t tell him. You think I go around telling every Tom, Dick, and Jesus about that? No, thank you. It’s a small town; word gets around. You know that Lazarus boy? Not dead at all, it turns out. See? We hear things.

So, yes, Jesus learns all about you, what you did, the whole sordid business of your big, fat sin—God, Harold, I can hardly look at you—and he says to himself, “This filthy nogoodnik just stuck it hard to all of humankind, the fink!” I’m paraphrasing, Harold. I know Jesus wouldn’t talk that way, but I’m very upset right now. You killed Jesus.

That’s right, Harold. You. With your sin. Jesus took one for the team, all because of you. What a doll. “I’ll die for Harold’s sin,” he said. How do I know that? I told you, we hear things. Did he say “Harold” specifically? I wasn’t there, but I’m told it was very clear from the description and the hand gestures that he was describing your sin.

Then, boom, nailed to a cross. A cross, Harold. Left there to dry in the sun like jerky. Are you proud of yourself? We all could have had eternal life just fine and dandy, no problem. But then you had to sin and mess it all up, and now Jesus is dead. I really, really liked Jesus. He was going to build me a nook. A nice kitchen nook. Do you know how hard it is to get a good nook in this economy?

So, way to go, Harold.

Lucky for us, in the end, we still have eternal life because of that sweet boy. It works out very nicely, no thanks to you. But enough with the sinning, Harold, because, mark my words, Jesus won’t be coming back to save us!