Radioactive

Maybe you saw the report last week of a truck hijacking in Mexico. It would have been a pretty routine story, I suppose, except for the fact that the thieves ended up with a capsule of cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope that will kill you if you open it up to look in. The lead-lined protective container was found abandoned in a field.

Exposure for even a few minutes to cobalt-60 would be fatal. Various articles predicted the death of the thieves within a couple days. Understandably this worried the 4,000 people in the farm town near where the truck and the isotope were found.

The latest report I saw claims the cobalt-60 has been secured by government officials, who now say there was no threat to the residents. (Riiiiiiiight!) 

It probably sounds strange, but that ominous story made me think of Christmas.

Remember how afraid people were on Mt. Sinai when the Lord came down to deliver the Ten Commandments? (My emphasis added in the following...)

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them.” And Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying, ‘Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.’ ”And the Lord said to him, “Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them.” Exodus 19:21-24

Or how about the story of Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, who offered “unauthorized fire” in the Tabernacle?

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace. (Leviticus 10:1-3)

And then there’s the sad tale of Uzzah, who put his hand on the Ark of the Covenant.

And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:5-7)

The holiness of God is so pure that it is fatal to sinful human beings. Unchecked, mankind's trajectory ends in a lake of fire.

All this changed when Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. Now His glory, filtered through perfect humanity, is lovely and approachable and winsome. And the withering, disintegrating force of God's wrath fell upon Him at Calvary. 

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

--from In Christ Alone, by Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend