Unholy Week

“’ There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, There is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness,
there is not even one.’”  Romans 3:10b-12

             

It’s Holy Week, and I’m not feeling that holy.  I am aware of the sin within and the sin around.  I’m often frustrated in the ways I fall short as a parent, a husband, a pastor, and as a person.  I was just returning to the church on this Maundy Thursday (Mandate Day—to obey what Jesus commands his disciples at the Last Supper), and while eating a candy bar that was masquerading as a granola bar, I must have witnessed 5 or 6 traffic violations—in about a 3 mile drive.  It was frustrating.  Yet, I am also the very last one who should judge or condemn.  Who am I?  Who are they?  What was that diving move that screamed “ME FIRST!” or, “THE LAW DOES NOT APPLY TO ME!”  And what really got my attention was the thought that it could be me breaking that law, or that I could be insisting on going first, or getting my own way.

            This week I am more and more aware that we are incapable of avoiding sin (that’s the John Calvin influence in my tradition).  And today, I also seem incapable of avoiding the naming of others’ sins.  But it is hard when they are thrown in your face.  It’s a constant reminder from God that there is a great deal of difference between God and myself.  There is a great deal of difference between our sin and the substance of God who has offered his own Son as a sacrifice to make that sin all better in our eternal life—but also in our present life.  When losing my patience with my children, overwhelmed by the list of things to do, eager to care for my own needs before the needs of others, I struggle with the balance.  After all, I try to be the patient one, the one who calms and keeps cool, the one who tries to find that balance.  But when I can’t, that sin creeps in and takes over. 

            I think that both the beauty and the stress of this, the thing that John Calvin was getting at, is that there is nothing we can do about it.  So, we turn to Paul’s words in Romans.  If we’re struggling, Paul understands.  And he quotes some of his Hebrew scriptures where the very real struggle of the human condition is expressed.  “There is no one who is righteous, not even one.”  Paul must have been Reformed, even before that was a theological tradition.  He knew the strain of sin about as well as anyone.

            This week we are moving through the reality of the necessity of Jesus once again.  For some it is about the betrayal, the torture, the sense of injustice.  For others the focus is on the death, the brutality, the agony.  For others still, it’s the waiting, the unknowing, the abandonment and apparent hopelessness that pervades.  But no matter where we find our connection this week, the reality meets us at the empty cross, the empty tomb, the astonishing news of life that has been renewed.  We just can’t see our sin, or the sin of anyone, the same way ever again.  This good news should transform us.  It can even turn our greatest cynicism into hope renewed as well.  Thank you for listening.  He is risen, indeed!