As I write this we are about in the period of Lent, when Christians prepare for Good Friday and Easter. We look forward to Easter when we celebrate the sign of God's victory over the powers of Evil, the rising from death of God's son Jesus Christ. But before the resurrection there had to be a death. A terrible and humiliating death on a cross, which was to the Jews a symbol of utter shame and rejection by God. So during this period Christians should keep in mind a picture of the cross, may be empty or perhaps with the figure of Jesus hanging there, and we must remember why it was necessary.

We cannot understand the full mechanism of what we call the atonement, or how it can be that this ultimate act of self giving could in any way wipe out our sinfulness. We must just have faith that through what Jesus did we can be cleansed of the effects of our sinful nature and have full fellowship once more with our creator.

When we think about sin we usually go to the Ten Commandments to discover what sin is. These are found in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 5. They are primarily a series of 'Do and Do Not' statements which start with our relationship to God, and end with our relationship to our neighbours. However I regard these more as symptoms of a deeper Sin. They are given as guide lines to show us when real Sin is lurking in our lives. To discover this real Sin we need to go back to the very start of the Bible where God's creative initiative is described.

Here we are told that after creating the universe and the world God made Mankind in his 'own image' and put him in a garden. God and the man and woman had a relationship together, they talked together and were in harmony, but unlike the other creatures that God had made Mankind had a special sort of freedom, it was this that enabled the relationship to work. It was also this freedom which could destroy the relationship. The Bible story describes this using the imagery of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil the man and woman are free to partake of its fruit, but are warned that they should not, for if they eat of it they will die, that is their relationship with God will be broken. Eating the fruit symbolises the taking of the initiative in defining what is Good and what is Evil, a Godly quality which only God can handle without being corrupted.

In taking and eating the fruit Adam and Eve were in effect saying to God, 'we want to be exactly like you, We want to make the rules by which we live.' As soon as they had eaten they felt vulnerable, symbolised by their nakedness, because each wanted different rules. So here is the root of real Sin, a desire to govern how life should be lived, and the root of that is Pride. Pride also leads to another root Sin present in Eden that is prevalent today, apathy. From the story it is obvious that Adam was near by when Eve took the fruit after being lied to by the Satan. He did nothing to stop her however, even though it had been to him that God had given the warning about eating the fruit. A third Sin stemming from the root of Pride is the telling of half truths, exaggerating statements, or even outright lies. We see this in the way that the Satan, depicted by the serpent, distorted God's words. 'You won't die' he said. Well physically they did not die there and then, but their relationship with God died, for they were afraid of Him, and that led to their ultimate physical death.

Now if we look at these Sins and compare them with the commandments we see that there is a correspondence. We are told to 'Love God with all our hearts minds and souls'. Going our own way and defining our own rules for life is actually saying to God, 'I don't want you'.

Then we are told to 'Love our neighbour as ourselves'. But our apathy towards our neighbour, i.e. other people around us and in distant places, shows that we do not care about others. We say to our neighbour 'I'm all right, that's what really matters'. We want our own rights but are not too bothered if by getting them someone else's rights are infringed.

As for half truths and one sided statements we need only look at the daily paper or listen to the news. But is that the only place where we encounter such spin. Do we not have this tendency within our own lives?

If we look at the Sins of Eden we see that they lurk within all of us not far beneath the surface. It is to release us from these Sins that Christ gave himself on the Cross on the first Good Friday. Only someone on whom the Satan could have no claim, that is a totally Sinless person, could take our Sin to Hell and return. Only God is Sinless, and Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof of that, so on Easter day we can rejoice that God, in the person of Jesus, has dealt with our Sin if we are willing to confess it and repent of it.

  Written - 20th March 2005

---

---