Admitting our sins

ADMITTING OUR SINS

Mk. 1:1-12

John the Baptist had one burning mission in life, and that was to prepare the people of his time for the coming of the Messiah.  Part of that preparation was to turn the spotlight of truth on the ugly reality of their sins.  Some faced up to that reality.  They confessed their sins and repented of them.  They recognized that any real relationship with the Messiah was going to require some cleansing of heart and changing of life.

The message that John proclaimed centuries ago is as valid today as it was then.  If Christ is to enter our world and our hearts, then we must face up to and deal with the awful fact of our sins.  Recognising our sinfulness is a painfully unpleasant experience, and we may go to almost any limit to avoid the pain.  The sin of our day is to deny the existence of sin.  Some people say, “No one has a right to tell me how I am to conduct my life.  I am a free agent.  I can do as I please.”  To think like that is sheer madness and denial of the truth of sin is a fact of life.  Sin is not just a word in the Bible.  It is not a morbid idea that some gloomy prophets invented.  It is not something the Church has dreamed up to spoil life.  Sin is a reality.

If we have any doubts about that, then forget the Bible, forget religion and look at life.  Read the newspapers.  It is full of the sins of mankind, murders, rapes and cruelty of all sorts.  Take a walk into town and there you will discover every shopkeeper believes in the reality of sin.  They all have locks on their doors.  Some of them have bars on their windows.  If you drive a car, at this moment where are your car keys?  Safe in your pocket or handbag.  Why?  Precisely because people who manufacture cars and people who buy them believe in the reality of sin.

Most of us could feel smug about these more obvious forms of sin.  After all, we’ve never stolen a car.  We’ve never broken into a shop and don’t plan to.  We’ve never committed any of those violent crimes that get reported in the newspapers.  We may be inclined to dissociate ourselves from the sin problem as though we were spectators looking on from afar.  But when Jesus comes we can’t get by with that.  Jesus takes us on a tour of our hearts and minds and shows us the seed beds where sin gets started.  Jesus knows the problem is a deep-seated wrongness in the human heart.

All of this may sound depressing, but in reality once we recognize it, it is the beginning of hope.  This is what the coming of Jesus is all about.  To make us face the reality of our problem of sin, and then with His help to find a cure.  We can only be cured once we acknowledge that we need a cure.

Why do we shy away from the thought of being saved when we seek salvation so readily in other areas of life?  We go to the doctor to be saved from sickness.  We go to school in order to be saved from ignorance.  We go to work in order to be saved from poverty.  We go to friends and family to be saved from loneliness.  Why then do we not go to Christ in order to be saved from our sins?  All we need is to face up to our sins and commit them to the forgiving grace of God.  Only Christ can help us do this.

Lord Jesus, You are saying to each one of us, “Make sure you recognize the sin that is in you.  Confess it and be sorry for it in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”  It is only then that we will give birth to You in our lives.  We ask Mary, our sinless Mother, to help us give birth to You in our lives just as she did in hers.  ‘O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.’

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