THE AMAZING ME:

Amazing Sin, How Deep We're Bound: Finding the courage to trust in grace. (Mark R. McMinn, 05/04/2004, Christianity Today)

A robust finding from social science research is that most people think they are better than others—more ethical, considerate, industrious, cooperative, fair, and loyal. People think they obey the Ten Commandments more consistently than others. One polling expert noted, "It's the great contradiction: the average person believes he is a better person than the average person." Sixteen centuries earlier Augustine bemoaned: "[My] sin was all the more incurable because I did not judge myself to be a sinner."

Theologians discuss the noetic effects of sin, meaning that our intellect is dulled—our eyes closed—as a result of living in a fallen state. In the narrow sense, it means we cannot reason well enough to see our need for salvation unless God, in grace, first reaches out to us. In a broader sense, it means our awareness of sin is dulled in various ways by pride.

Karl Barth, the 20th-century Swiss theologian, shows the absurdity of this sin. Our pride demonstrates how much we want to be like God. Meanwhile, God—the eternal and majestic Creator, filled with all power, knowledge, and goodness—empties himself in the form of Jesus, even to the point of a violent and horrific death on trumped-up charges. Humans are puffed up in pride as God is emptied in humility. It is absurd.

But it is nonetheless real. While pride blinds us spiritually, our defense mechanisms—the psychological armor we use to protect ourselves from seeing the truth about ourselves—keep us in the dark, and for good reason. If we live in a world without grace, then our defense mechanisms are the only things keeping us from the precipice of despair.

In this broken world, we have two options.

First, we can deny our complicity and blame others for messing up the world. In doing this, we put ourselves in the role of moral spectators, critics, or victims. In Jesus' parable of the two men praying in the temple, the religious leader says, "I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don't sin, I don't commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income." This is the path of self-deception.

The second option is to dare to believe that God is gracious and to admit our sin. In Jesus' parable, the tax collector does not even risk raising his eyes to heaven, but beats his chest and cries out, "O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner" (Luke 18:13). This is the path of hope, the journey of Lent that leads toward Easter.

We are sorely tempted to take the first option. I do sometimes. I am usually nice to my students, treat my colleagues fairly, deeply love those in my family, pay my taxes, provide psychological help to pastors in crisis, go to church and tithe. I don't steal, commit adultery, use illegal drugs, or swear. And I floss regularly. When I was younger, I would gladly sing, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound" and then remain uncomfortably silent for the next six words. I was no wretch, that was for sure.

But when I look at myself honestly, I see my sin.

And we'd rather do just about anything other than look at ourselves honestly.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2004 7:02 AM