Sin is a loaded word. For those outside the faith, it’s a funny and dated religious term. For Christians, we repeat it so often that it loses its bite. Scripture reveals that sin is worse than we know. Jesus is so serious about it that he says, “If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.” What is it about sin that’s so fatal it would require Jesus to go to the cross?
This Lent we do a soul examination, studying all the ways God describes the complex of sin. Lawlessness, adultery, rebellion . . . The cancerous nature of sin means that we need to go deeper than surface confession. The problem is worse than we know, which makes our Savior greater than we can imagine.
Invocation
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who delivers us from all evil.
Invitation Prayer
Lord Jesus, you suffered evil at the hands of the religious establishment. Priests accused you of blasphemy. In their trial against you, they called the Good Shepherd evil. Forgive your people when we call evil good and good evil. We are sheep easily led astray. Renew us to be your people, clean and holy. Amen.
Word
Exodus 32:10
“Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.”
Meditation: After the Red Sea by Koleen Barnes
I have a hard time with this story. Maybe it was because my mom made me go to sleep every year after everyone crossed the Red Sea in “The Ten Commandments” movie. Probably not, but there is a small chance.
I think the reason I have a hard time with this is because it seems so foolish. Obviously it was foolish, but reading it several thousands of years removed really highlights that “hindsight is 20/20” aspect. All of these people just escaped slavery, and quite honestly, don’t seem to know what to do with themselves. The same God they prayed to for generations seems to be…insufficient.
I wonder what caused this flip. God was good enough to believe in for thousands of years. The idea of him was strong enough to get them through their harsh daily lives. So what changed? Maybe their circumstances were so vastly different out of Egypt that they needed something more tangible to hold onto. Everything was uprooted, which was a good thing, but nothing they could sense was the same as it used to be. So why would God, whom they also couldn’t see or touch, be the same?
Our human brains are weird, aren’t they? I may be too nervous to stand up for myself in a situation, but if someone picks on my friend? Strength mode activates. I can give great advice to someone having a tough time, but when I am experiencing it myself, it seems insurmountable. Maybe these recently freed slaves fell prey to the same mental inequality. They are only human, afterall.
I try to put myself in their shoes. Something that I prayed for, my mother prayed for, her mother before her prayed for, and so on for generations finally comes true. It happens to me. And it is the most miraculous thing I can imagine. The emotional whiplash alone, not to mention the physical and mental demands of uprooting and moving your entire line, would be overwhelming. Then, far away from the only place everyone you know has ever known, somehow God feels far away. The man whom you could see, touch, and hear, that led you here is nowhere in sight. He says he is going to commune with God, but your God still feels distant for some reason. Maybe because the major thing you asked him for is finally here.
Maybe I’m rationalizing, and that is my sin. But maybe it doesn’t hurt to try and see the very human reactions from our ancestors. To try and understand why they were doing what they were doing. It doesn’t make it right, but it may offer us a slight insight into our own minds and why we behave, and even sin, the way that we do.
Dear God, help us to understand why we behave the way that we do. Help us to avoid the lines of thinking that led our ancestors to lean away from you and towards physical idols. Help us to know that in the moments where you feel far away, you have never left our sides.
Sending
In the face of evil, may the God of faithfulness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Jesus Christ. Amen.