Jesus rescues us spiritually from sin, but we have to choose, again and again, to stay with Him
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
It’s not comfortable, but we need to talk about sin. As we read St. Paul’s letter to the Romans this week, some form of the word “sin” comes up more than 20 times.
There’s a forgetfulness — or a denial — of the problem of sin today. But, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, the truth about sin is the reverse side of the Good News that Jesus Christ is the savior. If we deny the problem, we’ll miss the solution!
Sin is, first, an interior disintegration of our thoughts and desires. That interior disintegration then expresses itself exteriorly in sinful actions. As C.S. Lewis says, it’s like a boat with a bad engine and a broken navigation system: Of course, it crashes into other boats!
When we seek to assuage the shame that follows our sinful actions — by soothing it or denying it — we’re just treating the symptom rather than the problem.
Then we try to rationalize sinful acts, to explain them away “as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness … or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure” (CCC 387). But the rationalization never works. Something still haunts us. And one might ask: Why the vehemence in the attempt to explain it away? To paraphrase Shakespeare: We protest too much!
And so, at the bottom of it all, we’re left with the root: the interior disintegration. And that, according to St. Paul, is precisely what Christ came to heal!
In Romans 7, St. Paul gives a brilliant psychological treatment of sin. He says, in effect: I know the right thing to do, but I don’t do it, and I know that certain things are wrong, but I do them anyway. All of us can relate to that!
As we might say, in simple frustration: “Ack!” As St. Paul says, expressing our frustration more poetically: “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this?”
But this is precisely the point at which he says: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus came for this problem. He is the mechanic, as it were, for the bad engine and broken navigation system.
There is, in our experience, a mysterious solidarity with Adam — a kind of centrifugal moral force pulling us away from God and leaving us frustrated. But there is also, in our experience, a mysterious solidarity with Christ, a kind of pull back toward God as the center of our lives that brings us wholeness and leaves us at peace.
And that’s where our choice comes into play. God rescued ancient Israel physically from Egypt, but they could choose to stay with God or return to Egypt in their hearts. Likewise, Jesus rescues us spiritually from sin — not only externally, but also internally. We have to choose, again and again, to stay with Him.
It’s tempting to blame our problems on politics, or culture, or finance, or some other external reality. And it’s true that there are problems in all those areas. But the root of the problem lies within each of us. The root is sin. The solution is Jesus Christ. We need to get back to those basics.
