Sin is one of those things most of us don’t like to talk about in polite society. Too many people start getting anxious when we do. And yet, every week we take a few minutes near the beginning of worship to confess our sinfulness and receive God’s pardon. If it’s important enough to make it part of worship, then we should probably talk about it outside of worship as well.
The problem with sin is it’s a bit like the old saw about fish and water: “The fish will be the last discover water.” That’s because they live in it. The point is that some things are such a part of our lives, they are so ingrained in us, they are like the air we breathe, like the fish’s water. We don’t notice them until they’re gone.
Another example might be those poor souls who find themselves in addiction and recovery programs. Over time, they fell into a well addiction without even realizing it. For many, the descent was so gradual that their addiction was as important and unremarkable as the air they breathed. They didn’t even realize they had an addiction until their substance of choice was gone.
The hard reality is that all of us begin life on this road. We grow up thinking of ourselves first, ‘‘gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.” Today, we would say ‘gratifying our wants and desires, the drives of our ego.’ A force surrounding so strong that we’re not even aware of it until suddenly our lives are a wreck and we are gasping for a new way to live.
Fortunately, as Paul tells the young church in Ephesus, there is a way out of this polluted cesspool of ego-driven desire. “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.” By learning about Christ’s life, we are made aware that we are not the center of the universe. Our ego-driven pleasures are not lifegiving. If anything, they are addictive to the point of death.
In Christ, we learn a new way of live. A way not based on our own desires but on Jesus’ life of self-giving love. Jesus shows us that the most fulfilling life is not one devoted to our desires but rather to knowing God and sharing God with others.
God did not mean for us to go through life blithely swimming in waters of sin without even knowing it. Rather, we are meant to live joyful, meaningful lives of power and purpose. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Yes, anxious as we may feel about it, sin matters. And it matters too much for us to have to discover it the way a fish taken from a pond suddenly discovers water. Let’s make the most of every Confession of Sin and Pardon to remember its reality and that we are not meant to live in it.
