Soul Sister Time

            As the Lenten Season draws to a close approaching Holy Week, can you look back and honestly admit that you are the chief sinner?   I hope so.   There is no spiritual lesson as helpful as seeing your own sin as so hideous that it sent Jesus Christ to the cross.   When you bundle up all the sins that others have sinned against you in this year—none compares to your lifetime of personal sin against a Holy God.             I attended the Forgiveness Sunday service at the Orthodox Church that precedes their Lenten journey.   There is a special liturgy that is used for this service focusing on the reality that each of us are grave sinners.   The closing of this time of prayer is when the clergy come out in their black robes (the beautiful purple is laid aside.)   Then beginning with the head priests, and assistant priests each person in the church comes before one another, one at a time, and confesses Forgive me a sinner, to which they hear the response God forgives .   A

H. Richard Niebuhr said that Americans believe: A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross [i] .   That is a convicting statement.   It’s easy to think of the cross as a beautiful piece of art or jewelry, rather than what it fully represents. When I meditate on my sins, I have no place to leave them but the cross.   As much as I don’t like to think over my sins, I don’t like to think about the cross even more.   It is a truly horrific and inhumane site.   The movie The Passion of the Christ, physicians’ documentation of the cross’s effect on the body, and reading the Bible’s description of Jesus’ sufferings alert my senses to the reality of the suffering Christ endured on my behalf.   But no matter how serious I am about identifying my sins, or meditating on Christ’s sufferings, I could never fully understand what it was like. The cross of criminals was the most brutal treatment one man could

            What does it mean to forgive as God?   What does it mean to forgive as man?   To forgive as God, God said it was necessary for God to become man.   Forgiveness insisted that God shed His own blood. To forgive as God is a perfect and eternal action that results in perceptible and mysterious outcomes.     Walter Wangerin ( As for Me and My House ) calls forgiveness a divine absurdity .   Forgiveness is the intention of the Lenten journey.   How can we conceive of what it means to forgive as God? Evidentially, it is to forgive as man.   God says it was necessary for man to forgive in the same manner as God.   In Matthew 6:12 Jesus says , And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.   He goes on to explain:   For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15). God forgives as God and asks me to most f

Lent, the color of purple and church prayers invite us to ponder our sins in a way we normally avoid.   At least that is what happens for me.   I try to remember to repent.   I really do; it’s just so easy to overlook my own sins.   I have too many other things to think about.   Even in prayer, I forget my sins and get on with what is on my heart,--what I want God to do for me.   During a Lenten silent retreat I forced myself to focus on sins.   It was a slow and surprising effort.   I always begin silent retreats with a period of confession.   It just seems the place to start.   But then I move on.   I want to have adventures with God.   During my silence, I want to be loved, make a connection, and find out what God wants me to do with my life during my silence.   Rather than quickly cover confession I fully surrendered and even challenged myself to name as many sins as possible.   I needed God’s help in this process.   I began by painting in watercolors what my sins cost me