It got me thinking about the lengths that we go to make sure that we aren't going to end up getting help from pretty much anyone. Even and especially people we pay to help us. Think about the optometrist, or the dentist, or the doctor, or whoever, and most especially think of your maid, whom you pay to come into your house and clean it. God forbid she should ever see the state you actually live in. God forbid your optometrist should know that you have a problem with your eyes, and be able to correct it. Nah, to avoid the coke bottle lenses, you do that squinting thing that makes it seem like you have better eyesight than you do. Of course, the most greivous of any of these would be pretending there's nothing wrong at the dentist's office. You see, everything else in your body, you can leave it alone, and hope it will go away on its own. Teeth don't work like that. If your teeth get damaged, they can't and don't repair themselves. The only way that problem with your toothache will go away by leaving it alone is if the tooth itself goes away. But we're proud people. We'd rather that nobody, not the doctor, not the dentist, not the optometrist, not anyone knows there's a problem than they help us fix it.
Not even God.
As I say, we're a proud people, and sort of what we want more than anything else in the universe is to be right. That's been the guiding principle behind fights, wars, marital breakups, all sorts of squabbles, because we'd all rather be dead than wrong. As long as we're right, it doesn't matter how badly heaven itself is burning down. We were right. But as I've long said, the difference between the Christian ethic and the non-Christian one, hopefully, if properly considered, is not that the Christian will be an objectively better person than the non-Christian. Usually it's the opposite. There are an awful lot of folks who keep the law, who behave decently, who have nary a thought of Christ or him crucified. So what does the Christian ethic offer you? If taken seriously, the Christian worldview has you staring at the eye exam letters saying 'honestly, I can't see a single thing.'
This is why Simeon and Anna were so happy to see the Christ child in the Temple that day, because of what his arrival promised: As John the Baptist said, he is 'the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.' And what does that Lamb of God do when he takes away the sin of the world?
He takes away the sin of the world.
And what does that mean? Well, it means that when you come to church with a laundry list of stuff you shouldn't have done, and a bunch of stuff that you should have done but you didn't, well, it means that you have to be honest about what that is. Jesus is called the 'great physician' for a reason, in that he actually plans to make a few key improvements to you. He plans for you to be perfect, just as you heavenly father is perfect. But how is this going to be achieved if you just keep on hold onto the problems you've got and insist that you have nothing to work on?
Seriously folks, this is the big deal right here. Most of us live our lives in such a way as to try to convince ourselves, God, and everyone else, that we don't really have any problems. Ignore it, and it'll go away, right? Right?
Well, if you take the confession of sins for what it says, it says this: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Who do we deceive? Not God, certainly. And not anyone else, either. We deceive ourselves. We do ourselves a disservice. We're the ones who sell ourselves short, in the same way as if we go to the optometrist having memorized where all the letters are in advance, then the only thing that'll happen is that you'll fool the optometrist into not giving you corrective lenses, but you'll be squinting all the way down the block. The thing is, God has promised to divide us from our sins, and that's a scary thought for those of us who don't want to admit that we have any problems, especially most of us in the church. We think of these things as so much a part of us, that we wonder what could possibly be left? If we take away everything that was rotten and bad and licentious from us, what would remain?
What would remain is you. Not squinting, not hiding problems, not concealing difficulties, not pretending your mouth feels great while your teeth are rotting out, not pretending you don't have a limp, for goodness' sake, admit you have some problems in your life that aren't going away the more you ignore them.
Yes, you, Christians.
This is where the rubber hits the road, and why the reading from the Bible for the week before Epiphany is so important to Christians. Simeon and Anna were excited to see the Christ child why? Because he comes to take away sins. Not because he promises a new economic order, or to fix politics, or to give you a twelve point plan for living, but to forgive sins. In the same way as optometrists and dentists and doctors who head into impoverished areas don't bother giving you a ten step guide on how to avoid needing glasses in the first place. They get to work fixing those problems. And what we've forgotten in the church is that we're not the doctors, or the dentists, or the optometrists.
We're the impoverished patients. We're the ones who need help. That's why we're in church in the first place. If it bothers you to hear from my mouth, or from the scriptures, that you're too proud of yourself, that your lifestyle is a mess, that you're living in disharmony with your neighbors and your family and I don't care who started it, then you're barking up the wrong tree, and you're refusing the glasses that are being offered. And have fun squinting.
But if you realize that this whole forgiveness of sins is something for you, then you'll react like Simeon and Anna did in the temple, with great joy, because Christ, the light of the world, has come. The long awaited one. The one who promised to free people, essentially, from themselves. And that's a bit of good news for us at Christmas, as the new year gets going, that the promise, for us, for our children, is that corrective lenses can be given, rotten teeth can be fixed, and limps can be restored.
Happy New Year everyone.
PJ.
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