10 December

Today's the day when in 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. At a ceremony in Stockholm prizes were given in the fields of physics, chemistry, literature and peace. This all took place on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite. In his will Nobel directed that the bulk of his vast fortune was to be placed in a fund whose interest would be 'annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, in the preceding year, had conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.' 

Nobel did not explain publicly why he created the prizes but it is widely believed that he did so out of moral regret over the increasingly lethal use of his inventions in war.

Moral regret is something we all understand. Who hasn't done something wrong and later wished they could turn back the clocks and do things differently. Sometimes we can make some kind of reparation for what has gone wrong, as Alfred Nobel was trying to do. But in our heart of hearts we know that before God we can never make up for the wrongs we have done. 

The good news is that someone else can. Jesus died for our sins and his righteousness makes up for our unrighteousness. This is how John, in his first letter, teaches us that because of Jesus we are not trapped in guilt before God:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.