Discomfort Discussing
Sin
“When was the last time you sinned?”…is not an easy question for me to answer. I don’t like to think about my own sin. I’d rather think about other people’s. It is much easier for me to gossip or accuse or judge. Sometimes I even enjoy talking about other people’s sin. “How could they do that? What were they thinking?” Maybe talking about other people’s sin makes me feel safe from sin. Distant from it. Removed. I would never act that way. I’m still a long way from that behavior.
Some of you know that before I came to Trinity, I spent three years researching and writing a commentary on Leviticus and Numbers. (As a side note, I want to share my joy: I’ve just completed and submitted my final edits—so now you can keep your eyes peeled for my name on the bestsellers’ list!) Most people keep a safe distance from Leviticus and Numbers. I know I did. It’s a bunch of blood, guts, and fire, right? Animal sacrifice, archaic purity laws about what you can and cannot touch or eat, barbaric wars. What could these things possibly have to do with the gospel? Well, as I painstakingly separated the crust of ancient culture from the spiritual meaning within, I discovered there is quite a lot of wisdom and good news in Leviticus and Numbers. Let me share with you one surprising revelation.
Before reading Leviticus, I thought of sin as wickedness. Sin is what the bad guys do. Or it’s what happens when good people slip and act with bad intentions. Sin is in the heart. But in Leviticus, God overwhelmingly talks about sin as unintentional or unacknowledged behavior. In other words, what is in the heart does not matter nearly as much as the real-life, hands-on consequences of our actions. One Hebrew word for sin, chatta’, literally means “to miss the mark.” Sin is any action that misses the mark of God’s design for the good life, anything that hurts oneself or another. According to God in Leviticus, the problem with sin is not that we have bad intentions or evil hearts, but that we rarely listen to our hearts. Most of the time, our hurtful actions that miss the mark are unintentional or unacknowledged. (To illustrate with an exception that proves the point: we may on occasion knowingly break a law, but we usually justify or rationalize our action in a way that keeps any actual wrongdoing hidden or unacknowledged; we actually think what we did was okay.)
Perhaps this explains why it’s easier for me to acknowledge other people’s sin than my own. I’m not aware of it. I keep it hidden, repressed, unacknowledged. Think about all the distractions in our world today that we can use to drown out or ignore our own sin. People lose themselves in their phones, or in food, or even in the constant company of friends. They numb themselves with work, or with drinks, or with drugs. They keep themselves busy chasing their desires for profit, for pleasure, for prestige. For some people, to be alone with themselves for even ten minutes is a frightening prospect. Who knows what they might hear? Who knows what their heart might whisper to them?
Leviticus seems to appreciate these dynamics of repression and denial. According to God in Leviticus, the first step to resolving any sin is becoming honest with ourselves. It is a crucial, unavoidable step. All the sin and guilt offerings revolve around this common turning point: a moment of realization when the person becomes aware of their error and feels guilt or remorse.
Maybe you know what this feels like. For some people, it’s a sudden, unexpected onset of tears, a breaking open of the heart, as they realize a deeper truth about the way that they have missed the mark. For others, it may be a gnawing anxiety, something that wakes them up in the middle of the night when they defenseless, when they have none of their distractions to keep the sense of sin at bay. However it appears, we all from time to time encounter these moments of truth when we know we have missed the mark.
Where Christ Appears
The good news of Leviticus is that no sin can separate us from God when we are honest about it. When people acknowledge their sin, they immediately know God’s forgiveness (which I suspect is there from the very start), and they once again experience God’s loving embrace.
And that’s the good news of our scripture today, and specifically the good news of this Epiphany season. Epiphany, remember, means “appearance,” and in the church we celebrate the appearance of Christ. Last Sunday, when we celebrated the day of Epiphany itself, we remembered how Christ appeared to all the world—to the people of Israel in Jerusalem as well as to the strangers from far away in the east. This Sunday, we celebrate how Christ first appears to the individuals who will follow him. And the first words we hear in our scripture are John the Baptizer’s proclamation: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).[1] The first two disciples of Jesus begin to follow him immediately after John has made this proclamation (1:36; cf. 1:29). The implication is that they follow Jesus precisely because they have a sense of their own sin, their own missing the mark, and they desire a better way of life.
The paradoxical good news, then, is that our sin is a blessed site of epiphany. Our sin is precisely where Christ appears, where Christ meets us. Contrary to the conventional thinking of our world, where we must first prove ourselves and present ourselves as qualified, Christ appears to us when we are honest and broken. As he says elsewhere, it is the sick who need a physician (cf. Mark 2:17).
Disciples as Lifelong
Learners
Jesus’ first words in the gospel of John are the same words that he speaks to us today, “What are you looking for?” The first word of the two disciples’ response is “Rabbi.” In other words, they are looking for a teacher. They are willing to be lifelong students, because they recognize that they have missed the mark and need to relearn the way of life. When the disciples ask where Jesus is staying, his response, “Come and see,” implies that the removal of sin and the learning of God’s way is not comparable to reaching a destination once-and-for-all. It’s not a single transaction. It is a day-by-day journey through which we are always learning and discovering. “Come and see.” We might ask ourselves at the end of every day, “What did I see following Jesus today?”
What jumps out to me in this initial conversation is that, while for the disciples it begins with honesty and an awareness of their sin and brokenness, its good news is rooted not in fear of damnation or worry of judgment but in curiosity and desire. There is a warmness in this encounter, a recognition that, though they are sinful, they are already safe in the presence of Christ. Previously they may have lived in anxious repression or denial of their missing the mark, but now they are honest and hopeful about it; they have a teacher who embraces them and knows the way. They have someone to follow.
Discipleship as
Relationship
But following Jesus is only half of today’s story of discipleship. It’s only half of the story of this Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. The other half of today’s story is staying with Jesus. The disciples who follow after Jesus, stay with him. Later in the gospel of John, Jesus will use the same language when he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you” (John 15:4). Later, he is even more specific: “Abide in my love” (John 15:9-10).
Sometimes I think of a teacher as a person who imparts knowledge of concepts and ideas. But I don’t think Jesus is primarily this kind of teacher, and I don’t think our faith is a matter of this kind of education. We are disciples not of a method but of a person. We are not in a course but in a relationship. We are not learning knowledge but love. Christ is not something we get, but someone who gets us. This means that Christians are not experts with the answer to everything. Rather, they are broken people who know their need for relationship and guidance. A wise follower of Christ will not tell you the answer to your question, but rather point you to God.
Our strength is not being alone. Everyone can relate to this on a human level. Not being alone is a great strength, whether that is against a difficult prognosis, an uncertain future, a great loss. How much greater is this strength, then, to know that it is God who is with us. That God meets us right where we are, in our honest brokenness, and invites us to follow him and stay with him. We are safe with him.
A Life of “Come and
See”
How we live in relationship with Christ is probably a question that each of us could answer a little differently. But I appreciate the example of Gregory of Nyssa, a church leader from the fourth century, who said this: we see clearly when we keep our eyes on Jesus. To follow Jesus and to stay with Jesus is a life of “Come and see.” It means keeping our eyes upon Jesus, which we do when we contemplate scripture, when we bare ourselves honestly in prayer and seek him, when we gather together with two or three others in Christ’s name. Keeping our eyes upon Jesus helps us to recalibrate where we have been sinning, or missing the mark. It puts everything in perspective. Life is no longer about winning or control, about possessions or prestige, about shame or failure. Life is about God’s love, from which nothing can separate us, not even our sin. In fact, if we look at today’s scripture…that’s precisely where this story of good news begins.
Prayer
Who does not condemn us for our sin
But meets us there to show the way—
Help us like the first disciples
To be honest with ourselves
And to know our brokenness
…
That we might train our eyes on Jesus
And be lifelong learners of his way
And abide in him as he abides in us.
Through the Lamb of God,
[1] Many
have interpreted this identification as a reference to the Passover lamb, but I
would offer a thought to broaden our thinking. The Passover lamb did not take
away sin; it defended the Israelites from the death of the firstborn. In
Leviticus, however, sacrificial offerings did often act as purification for the
tabernacle; that is, these offerings symbolized the cleansing of the tabernacle
from the people’s sin. John the Baptizer’s metaphor, then, may suggest that
Jesus comes not as a substitutional offering, who dies in our place, but as a sacrificial offering whose death purifies the world of sin.
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