Give thanks to the Father
who made us fit for the holy community of
light,
and rescued us from darkness,
bringing us into the realm of his beloved
Son,
who redeemed us, forgiving our sins . . .
(Colossians
1:14, ICEL translation)
"who redeemed
us, forgiving our sins."
I have always
wondered why forgiveness of sins is so important in the Gospels and other New
Testament texts. The people I know and live with don't seem that sinful. I
don't feel sinful. Sometimes I think my sin is that I don't feel sinful.
Either that or the people in New Testament times must have been a lot more
sinful than we are today.
But then, praying
that the other day, it struck me. No. Those people weren't any different from
us. They weren't any more sinful than we are. Maybe the sense of
"sin" in these texts is a vague sense we all have that, deep down, we
must be guilty of something.
We all hurt
sometimes, and it is a human tendency to think that when we hurt, we must have
done something wrong. That is why people have so often offered sacrifices in
atonement for sin. The book of Leviticus scheduled such sacrifices routinely.
They would never run out of things to be forgiven.
And then comes
Jesus, saying so often, "your sins are forgiven." What he was really
saying was that we should quit seeing God as the Grand Inspector, peering into
the depths of each of our days, spotting the places where we should have loved
more.
Yes, Jesus was
saying. You should have loved more. So? God knows that. God knows how you were
made, and God accepts you as you are. That's forgiveness. Your sins are
forgiven. God loves you anyway.
This all seems
like trivializing the Gospel. It's pop psychology, "positive
thinking." But it's more than that. I'm not just okay, and you're not just
okay, but you and I are loved, and not just by each other. We are bathed in
love greater than any of us.
We are in the
realm of God's beloved Son, who redeems us, forgiving our sins.
