Surprised by sin (Good Friday)

Recently, I was surprised by sin.

Oh, I know I shouldn’t be surprised.  The Bible teaches us that everyone sins, everyone still sins, and that sin leads to death.  The idea itself of rejecting, ignoring, and spitting in the face of the God of the universe is hard to even understand.

I’m not usually surprised anymore when I see horrors in the news.  Most of us have seen what mankind is capable of.  I’m not generally surprised when I see sin around me, or even when a friend fails me.  And of course, I’m not surprised when I see sin in my own life.  That’s something God continues to point out to me, and He continues to forgive me and set me on the right path.

But actually, it was my own sin that caught me by surprise.  It started with something I would consider very minor.  And it wasn’t that itself that shocked me.  It was my reaction.  All of a sudden, I realized I didn’t want to confess.  I didn’t want to do anything to make it right.  The shock was that suddenly, over something very small, my flesh seemed ready to give up everything just to protect something small and insignificant.

Every once in a while, we need to realize just how powerful sin itself is.  Sometimes we think in the back of our minds that, if we just had enough time, the right program, the right environment, we could reform.  We think of sin as extra fat we can just work off.  Or perhaps it’s something mainly in the past.  Sure, we need a Saviour because we did this and that way back when.  But if we had the chance, we wouldn’t do it again.

It’s not that we simply need to "reform".  It’s not so much that we need God to clean our hearts even.  We need Him to give us a whole new heart.  The old one is beyond reform.  And its power is incredible, even in the life of the believer.

We have to realize how powerful sin is before we can really appreciate the cross.  Before we came to the Lord, we were dead in our sins.  That’s pretty hopeless.  Not much you can do when you’re dead.  But even now, we still feel the pull of evil.  It’s all the worse because we really want to follow Christ now.  And yet we still fall again and again if we down allow the Spirit within us to keep us on the right track.

We need the cross and the empty tomb at the centre of our lives.  As Christians, we need to remember the forgiveness there, remember that a victory over sin and death was won.  We need to recognize the power of the cross in our lives again and again.  We need to allow the Spirit to make the power of Christ’s victory real in our lives each moment.

We also need to recognize the power of sin in the lives of others, and live with compassion and humility as we point them to the Lord.  Understanding sin from God’s point of view changes our view of those around us.

It’s almost impossible to underestimate sin.  But then again, that power is nothing compared to the power of Jesus, and the good news of His forgiveness and new life.  We would be totally, completely helpless and without hope if it weren’t for what Jesus did on the cross.  Then again, we are saved completely because of what He did there.  The cross is never just for my past, or just for someone else.  It’s the transforming power of today.