Saturday, June 21, 2008
Forgiveness of SinAh today went cycling with Fariha almost all the way to Changi then ate 1.5 McFlurries before going to church for cluster meeting.
Oh well, it turned out to be a pretty small meeting but whatever that Chunxi (Spring Joy) said sounded really nice so yes, I’ve decided to blog it here before I forget.
Anyway, he was talking about forgiveness of sin, how Jesus had already died for us over 2000 years ago and that he had already forgiven us of our sins then. Because he was saying that what Jesus left us to remember him by was like, food – like when we have Communion, we remember him for dying on the cross for us. So he was talking about coming to the table at Communion with the correct attitude; we go there to be thankful to Jesus for having died on the cross for us, not going there and confessing our sins to Him again, because it’s pretty insulting, kinda like saying that His sacrifice way back wasn’t good enough for our sins when it actually was.
But what really got me was when he explained about the bit about how hard it is for God to say that He forgives us. Like he gave an example about a man who was lame, well, crippled, and asked us which was harder for God to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Get up and walk’. The former was harder because God is, well a God and miracles take place everyday for Him, so asking a lame man to stand up and walk is like normal to Him. The hardest thing is for Him to forgive our sins because He is a just God and that the punishment had to be meted out somewhere and it got meted out to His beloved Son. (Oh I am beginning to get confused about where to capitalize and where not to.) And that is really painful for Him because He loves His Son.
So yes, the main point of his story had been in whatchamacallit John 5: 1-11, where there was a story about a woman who had commited adultery and had been dragged to Jesus by the Pharisees who wanted Him to judge her. They were saying that according to Moses’ Law, which is
the law, a woman caught in adultery had to be stoned. It was like adultery = stonage; that kind of thinking – and they wanted to trap Jesus by asking Him whether to punish her or not.
Jesus gave a pretty smart answer, telling the people that they can stone her – only if they themselves have not sinned before and in the end, the woman was free to go, not condemned of any crime.
Thing is, Jesus himself was the only person qualified to stone her because He has not sinned before. But He didn’t because He had taken her sin onto Himself as well, He really does love us. Then Chunxi was saying that Jesus had specifically told the woman to leave her life of sin.
Now here was the catch, because the thing is, what’s stopping the woman from actually sinning again? Chunxi gave us three things which we had to remember which would not make the woman, who is symbolically us, want to sin again.
Firstly, it is the fact that the woman should have died for her sin, which was adultery, but she didn’t. The god, who had the right to condemn us, didn’t. That alone is powerful enough as a life-changing event – Chunxi was saying that the woman’s breakfast the next day must have been the best-tasting breakfast she had ever eaten.
Secondly, the fact is that she did commit a sin, and a price had to be paid – and it was paid by Jesus. He had taken her sin upon Himself and would be paying for it on the cross. So the woman has to realize that the price of her sin was paid but not by her.
Thirdly, the woman has to realize how much it actually took for the person to pay for her sin. God had to send His own Son to die for our sins, all our sins from even before we were born to even after we are dead. His blood just keeps on, keeps on cleansing us.
So yes, all these 3 reasons should be sufficient enough for the woman not to sin again. And I was listening to that and thinking about what a fantastic story it would have made, only that it’s true and here and now and I was really smiling away and…
It’s kinda like you getting into trouble for like… I don’t know, drug trafficking and your dad sells everything that is dear to him and precious to get you the best lawyer ever and if that doesn’t work, he takes your place in jail, giving up his time while you go free.
Which brings me to the next point.
So yes, it was very important for Jesus to rise up from the dead again because it would mean that the price has been paid. Like a friend goes to jail on your behalf and you’ll never feel free of that guilt until you see that man out of jail, having served his term because you know that you debt has been paid. So it’s like that, really.
So that’s really what Chunxi was talking about. And he was talking about it’s weird that we’d go to Jesus talking about sins and worrying about them because they’ve all been
cleansed away already and there’s no sin too bad, or big or horrid that Jesus’ blood can’t cleanse and the thing is that it’s been done
already so worrying about it makes you a bit of a prat.
So just eat up your communion bread and wine and be grateful that a god loves you so much that He’s willing to give up His only Son to die for you.
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And onto more random stuff! I remember reading about Catch-22 on wikipedia and it’s really, really very interesting as a concept. Catch-22 is actually a novel by this guy about flying and pilots. The whole idea starts with the fact that a pilot has to be sane to fly. Yet the missions a pilot carries out are so dangerous that a pilot has to be insane to fly and do the missions.
So for a pilot to prove that he is insane (and hence not fly) is that he has to ask for a doctor to certify that he is insane and hence unfit to fly (but you’d have to be insane to take the missions anyway). But the thing is that you have to ask for the certificate and only sane people would ask to be proven (in)sane or otherwise so in asking for the certificate, you would have already proven your sanity.
So either way, the pilots can’t get out of flying for missions and still have to fly them anyway, so now Catch-22 stands for a situation where there’s no way out… or something.
Wow, English is really an interesting subject.
Amazing love, how can it be?
Posted by norbert at 6/21/2008 02:37:00 AM