THE HEAVY BURDEN OF SIN

Two evenings ago I watched a film about a man who carried a great burden that kept weighing him down. Before I continue let me say this, we find meaning even in the most meaningless of things and what I am about to retell is one of them.
I was watching a film on cable (I do not recall the name) about a couple who just married. They both found out that in all the wedding and honeymoon pictures, a third person always appeared in the background. The wife was curious and started researching and finding out what happened and why the picture of that particular person kept appearing. As the search went on she realized the lady who was the third wheel was her husband’s ex and she found out the terrible thing he and his friends did to the lady. It was a terrible thing that the lady killed herself and her ghost killed the friends but could not kill the guy. However what the husband and friends did a long time ago in hiding came into the open and the wife got to know, when she did she left him.
The husband in retaliation for his wife leaving was taking pictures and searching for the ghost and found out the ghost lady was sitting on his head. Then he remembered all the times he went to the clinic to do weight test and he was always overweight and his medical check showing a strain on his heart. He tried getting rid of the weight but it never left. Eventually he was put in a mental home where we were shown that the weight was still their hanging round his neck.
This film for me brought to mind the strain from a Yoruba song, “Temi teru ese mi ni mo wa sodo re Oluwa” which means I have come unto you with my burden of sin, O Lord. It also took me into the bible Mathew 11:27-30 were Jesus was telling the world to come to him with their heavy burden. At the end He tells us that in place of the burden of our sin He would give us his, one that is easy to bear and not hard to carry Matt 11:30.
Now let us come home, if that film where to be a Yoruba film something would have been done because they would have bothered to find out from the spirit why it was haunting and killing the living and given a solution to the problem. They probably would have told the guy to appease the dead if he went the traditional way, or to pray for forgiveness if he were a Christian or Muslim. The thing is he would have been free of the burden of sin. A sin he committed by default in a bid of getting rid of a lady he did not love who refused to take no for an answer. A sin he committed by listening to the advice of friends who wanted to satisfy their own sexual urge and who paid for it with their lives. This burden would have been taken off him and he would have been able to go on.
However, it is a quiet unfortunate that many in our world are like the husband who commit a sin and carry the burden of it to our death. We never seek out to find a solution or a way of easing the burden. We fail to remember that there is someone willing to take that burden off of us and give us his in replacement. In most cases we fear to give up the freedom that we feel this burden grants us, but fail to understand that not only does this burden make us overweight, it results in sickness (take the example of the guy’s heart problem) and in some cases we end up mentally challenged even if we do not appear so to the world.
What is that burden of sin you carry? Have you bothered to find out why you feel the weight of the world is on your shoulders? The reason why you have no cause to smile, or be happy is because you have a weight pulling you down. Or maybe your weight is suffocating you? Don’t try to get rid of the weight on your own there is an expat that is qualified to do that job. Just employ him for the job and his payment? His payment is you accepting that He is the only one that can get the job done. Without the weight we can dance and run and do all the thing we were meant to do. Let’s work to shedding the weight together.