Sin.
We just can’t get away from it.
Its like glue or fly paper, it sticks to everything, gums up the works.
Whether it’s the latest media frenzy on corruption, high finance or infidelity.
The local news on murder, abuse and addiction.
The crazy things we do and say and think, just driving down the road can be full of unexpected and dangerous behavior, often our own.
The ones we love the most are usually the victims.
Sin. That fly paper is just stuck all over us.
In Lent we pay special attention to Sin, we pay special attention to our failures, and we call them what they are, no word games.
The universal condition of our failure to love, in thought word and deed, through our actions and inactions, but what do we do with it?
Sin and failure is old news really, nothing new or interesting about it, the same old reruns over and over, yet we always fixate on it, we can’t let go, either of the failures and sin of others and less often our own sin and failure.
They are evidence of absence. We focus on the evidence but we fail to look beyond to what the evidence points toward, absence.
Now here is the interesting part, Christian baptism transforms sin and our perception of it. No matter what our sin and failing we know that God’s grace in Jesus Christ is even greater, much greater, overwhelmingly greater.
Sin. Our failures. They are a small speck.
God’s grace in Christ is a mighty torrent, an ever flowing stream.
Our Lenten disciplines call us beyond sin and failure into a grace beyond measure or category, a love and a mercy that broods over us, that gathers us under wing like a mother hen.
We weigh ourselves down with this little grain of sand, when the whole sky beckons to us to fly, to freedom.
Lent invites us to put things back into perspective.
Christian hope is built upon a realistic and honest admission of sin and failure that sees them as windows and invitations into something much bigger.
The darkness of Good Friday is very small next to the brightness of Easter morning.
The misery of death and betrayal are a slight momentary affliction when held up to the regenerating and restorative power of the resurrection.
This is the living hope we carry within us, no matter what pit we are in the resurrection of Christ finds us there, this is God’s doing and it is wonderful to mine eyes.
Our sin. Our failure. They have been transfigured by the resurrection into the miracle of a new life.
So the life of faith is not about dwelling upon the failures of others or ourselves, it is about rejoicing in the victory of our Lord that has found us right where we are.
The only way to take sin and failure seriously is to take the love and grace of God in Christ more seriously yet.
Grace.
We just can’t get away from it.
Its like glue or fly paper. It sticks to everything.