SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT SIN?

 That was the question a young man posed to me years ago.  We had been talking, and his biggest hang-up about the Christian Faith was the whole idea of sin.  He saw himself as a decent, moral, upright person of integrity, and he expressed that he was turned off by the Christian insistence upon sin.  He felt it was an ancient, antiquated idea that no longer held contemporary relevance – at least for him.

 “So what is the big deal about sin?”   Why does Christianity make such a big deal out of it?  What ideas about sin do you carry with you?  Do you agree with my young friend, or do you disagree, and why?   What is the big deal about sin?

 I think and talk about sin with a capital “S” and sin with the small case “s”. 

 I think of Sin with a capital  “S” in two ways:  First, it’s a disease, a fatal disease for which there is no human cure.  The apostle Paul expressed the futility of trying to overcome sin by his own effort in Romans 7 where in total frustration, exasperation and near despair he blurts out,  “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do… it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me… wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?” 

 Paul is not abdicating responsibility for his actions, he is just saying that sin is far more profound than merely bad choices.  Sin is a power and a force that is pervasive and insidious, that takes us over and can taint everything we do, everything we say, every action we take – even some of our most noble words and deeds.  If I am brutally honest about myself, I have to confess that I cannot say that even my most selfless decisions and most noble actions are totally devoid of some measure of a desire for self-glorification.  I cannot say that – not as I stand before God who knows and sees all things. 

 The Augsburg Confession of 1530 is the confessional foundation of the Lutheran Expression of the Christian Faith.  Article II is about something called Original Sin, perhaps one of the most misunderstood doctrines of the Christian Faith.  What the doctrine of Original Sin is saying is that sin, as a disease is so pervasive and so insidious it is something we are born into.  Sin is far more than merely making choices for good and evil.  Obviously a newborn baby does not make cognitive choices for good and evil.  However, in another sense, there is no better example of sin than a newborn baby.  Whatever do I mean?  Think about it! The center of a baby’s universe is self.  When a baby is hungry the baby cries?  The baby doesn’t care if you are busy with something else.  If the baby needs its diapers changed, it cries.  It doesn’t consider that you are asleep and you need your rest.  The center of a baby’s world is self.  Essentially Sin with a capital “S” is making self the center of the universe. 

 Now, we let babies off the hook because they are babies.  They don’t know any better.  However, when the baby grows up to be five years or ten years or a teenager and exhibits that same kind of self-centered behavior, parents are not nearly so patient and understanding.   A consider amount of time in the child’s life might be spent in time-out.

   Second, another way to talk about sin with a capital “S” is in terms of relationship.  The Bible is clear that human beings were created in the image of God, which is a Hebrew way of saying we are created to be in relationship with God.  For insight we turn to the familiar story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 and 3, which for me is the repeating story of every one of us.   In Genesis 2 all is well and life is good.  The garden is beautiful and the people lived in harmony with God, harmony with each other, and harmony with the environment.   All relationships were in the right balance God intended.  God was acknowledged as God and Lord and all other creatures related to God as God and Lord – the center of their life.

 But in Genesis 3 the balance is distorted.   Temptation showed its face, and of course the temptation was to push God out of the center to the periphery and put self in God’s place.  And, there were consequences – it’s the way God designed things.    Every relationship in life was affected; every relationship was fractured and distorted as a result - beginning with relationship with God; then relationship between the people and finally relationship with the earth itself.  Sin begins with a departure from the First Commandment, “You shall have no other Gods.”  Sin with a capital “S” is moving anything ahead of God beginning with the selfish interests and desires of self.  

 Sin with a small case “s” is different.  If we talk about Sin, with a capital “S” as a disease, as I first described it, then sin with a small case “s” are the symptoms. 

 If we talk about Sin, with a capital “S” as the breaking of relationship by putting self and the selfish desires of self ahead of God, then sin with a small case “s” are the expressions of the fractured nature of all of our relationships. 

 We see those expressions all around us and in us. 

            Sin with a capital “S” results in millions upon millions upon millions of small “s” expressions.

            We all have seen the little thing  “Love is…” and then you finish the sentence.

            We could do one called “sin is…” (sin with a small “s”  and literally have an endless supply of answers.”)

             Sometimes when we think of sin we tend to think of exclusively big things like murder or  stealing.  But in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus levels the playing field:

“You have heard it said… You shall not murder, but I say to you if you are angry with a brother or sister you are liable to judgment.”

“You have heard it said, “You shall not commit adultery, but I say to you if you have lust in your heart you have already committed adultery.” 

 For Jesus sin was not merely the big things but all the negative and destructive little and hidden things of the human heart that make up the everyday fabric of our lives. 

                        Let’s take a very brief look at a few of the Ten Commandments and briefly reflect for a moment. 

             #1  You shall have no other gods.    We live in a culture that offers a million other gods: money, sex, power, popularity, security, and a zillion other things.

             #2   You shall not use the Lord’s name in a meaningless or trivial way.   I won’t ask for a show of hands, but who has kept that one for the past week?   You see the moment you trivialize the name, you devalue the personality behind it.  

            #3   Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.  In our contemporary context this it so much more than merely going to church on Sunday; but rather it is about carving out regular Sabbath time to do the necessary and important things to grow, nurture and cultivate your ongoing faith formation.   How easy we cave in on that one and make time for everything but

            #5    You shall not murder.   We’ve already heard what Jesus had to say about this one.  How often do we find ways to kill with our words and actions through condescension, passive-aggressive behavior, gossip, dehumanizing humor and the like. 

            #6    You shall not commit adultery.     Again this is another one upon which we heard in the Sermon on the mount level the playing field. 

             #7    You shall not steal.    I doubt that many of us here this evening have robbed any banks lately, but what about corporations that offer no benefits, or keep wages low, or pilfer the pension funds; or what about not giving someone your best effort, or overlooking the need of another when it stares you in the face? 

             Are you getting the idea?  As we stand before a holy and just God who demands nothing less than perfection and total righteousness we are guilty.  And it’s not a matter of degrees before God.  Either we are or are not guilty - and we are!      And in being guilty we find ourselves and our lives ravaged by the disease of Sin, with a capital “S” and estranged and separated from God; out of balance with each other as individuals and nations, and with creation.  And if we are really tuned into this we, with the apostle Paul in Romans 7, shout out in frustration, exasperation and near despair, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”      In the very next verse Paul rejoices saying, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

 My dear friends:  this day and this season has two focuses that we sort of bounce back and forth between.  On the one hand we have a just God who demands total obedience and total perfection.  God doesn’t lower His standards to patronize His rebellious children..   A primary focus of Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season is the acknowledgement that before our just God we stand accused, indicted, tried, and convicted - and deserve just punishment. 

 But God is not only a just God, but a loving God.  This created a dilemma for God to be sure.  How does God reconcile God’s self-imposed standards for justice and be loving at the same time?  It would seem that one would have to yield to the other. 

 It is precisely here that the Christian faith becomes unique among all the religions and faiths of the world.  God sends his own Son into the world to be that righteousness for us; to take the punishment for our sins for us; to take into his own flesh and blood the inevitable consequence of sin – death and rejection by God. 

 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was His despairing cry from the cross. 

 But that was not the last word.  There was more.  “Father forgive them,” were the glorious words that set us free.  You and I can now live forgiven and declared righteous by God himself a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ. 

 The Christian life is not a glorious attempt to cure the disease of Sin ourselves, or living the futility of nobly trying hard to make ourselves righteous before God.   The Christian Faith is living in a joyful reconciled relationship with God by grace through faith.    Salvation, which literally means to “be made whole”  is a free gift of God through faith - nothing we can ever earn or deserve.

 The bottom line is that now my life is no longer a feeble and uncertain attempt to pacify a just God who demands perfection, but my life has become a gift given back to me that I live to honor and give glory to Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Savior.  Amen.