From out of the past our sins will follow us!

From out of the Past our sins will follow us!

Take any one who has fallen from grace and see the very person for whom Christ was Incarnated.  Think for a moment about how sin came about and realize the weakness we have inherited before we were born.  Man is made of sinews, muscles, bones, and a heart to keep all of these attributes moving and functioning.  It is here, in that muscle called a heart, that more than biological operation it is the very center of a mystery called love.  

So when we fail at trying to keep that meaning of love in a healthy mode, that unpleasant entity called sin finds a way to disrupt the normal essence of God’s gift to us. Look at the giants who preceded us that would eventually set the examples of doing God’s will.  Each of them were the apple in God’s eyes, yet each one fell because of sin.  

The question is why?  What did God put within us that would allow this entity to corrupt the beauty each of us was created to reflect?  Is it a paradox that God would create people that he would love even before we were born, then allow the intricacies of sin to also enter our persona of weaknesses?  None of us can answer these questions with a definite resolve.  However, let us for a moment dig into the very reason that challenges us, and is a necessary element needed before we can have the weapons to counter-attack the inclusion of sin

If any one of us could see God as he is; pure love, perhaps the answers to many mysteries would unwrap and all of us would know God as he is.  Unfortunately, we would then not be able to find the true essence of God before our time.  That word time is important in understanding the reasons God allows many disruptions to our lives that will actually become the road that leads to him.  At the first sign from John’s Gospel, the wedding at Cana, the wine ran short and the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”  And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does that concern me?  My hour has not yet come.”  (Jn 2: 3 - 4).  

Hour and time are synonymous with the future of something far greater than simple gestures of life.  Here, we see a sign of the redemption of sin in a shrouded part of life’s beginning with simple, yet complex events that reach their conclusion at Calvary. 

David, the shepherd who would become king of Israel was the greatest of simple men who was the apple of God’s eyes.  “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the violence of the wicked.”  (Ps 17: 8).  David, the ancestor of Jesus, is the one person to whom God chose as the forerunner of our salvation through Jesus Christ.  

What does he have to do with sin?  “One evening David  rose from his siesta and strolled about on the roof of the palace.  From the roof he saw a woman bathing, who was very beautiful.  He had her brought to him and committed adultery.  She became pregnant and to cover this David had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, sent to the front of battle where he would be killed: Lust, adultery, murder! (2 Sm 11: 1 - ff).  What more could David sin before God?  Read Psalm 51.  “Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my offense.”  (Ps 51: 3).

“Now Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that, if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.”  On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.  He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  He said, “Who are you, sir?”  The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”  “Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.”  (Acts 9: 1 - ff).

Two of the most famous people and leaders of our Christian beliefs both in sin, yet purveyors of our lives for God through his Son Jesus Christ.  The answer to understanding the many reasons for sin is the free will of God’s creatures; both human and angels.  Without this gift man would never understand the reason why we are not able to see God in his fullness, yet.  We must come to God of our own free will because we want to be with him.

David and Paul both discovered through sin the meaning of forgiveness and the mercy he grants to all sinners once they accept his grace.  None of us is perfect, in spite of the purity God wants us to find through his grace.  We sin, are convicted through the Holy Spirit, and because of the Passion of Christ, redeemed and accepted into heaven for all eternity.

Ralph B. Hathaway