No Bible to explain it...

“I must ask my readers to erase from their minds the…very notion of history itself. More especially, we must erase from our minds all the suppositions on which our world is built. We must reimagine ourselves in the form of humanity that lived and moved on this planet before the first word of the Bible was written down, before it was spoken, before it was even dreamed.” – Thomas Cahill

 

“The voice of truth tells me a different story. The voice of truth says do not be afraid.” – the singer of the song I’m listening to right now

 

I’m sitting in my 2000 Chevy Blazer at the edge of Amarillo, TX watching a sunset. It’s one of those where you can see the last traces of the Sun and the brightly lit Moon at the same time. And it occurs to me in the silence that I am in (I just turned off the radio), seeing the beauty that replays itself each and every day, and constantly is being done at the edge of some city at all times non-stop, how very few people I know are slowing down to do the same thing tonight. It’s a tragedy, really.

 

I don’t get to feel self-righteous about it, of course. I am only doing so because 10 months ago I somewhat reluctantly became a preacher, and Saturday night is my “time with God” where the lesson I will preach on Sunday morning takes it’s somewhat final shape. Since then, I spend my Saturday nights quite alone, and quite contemplatively, and allowing my longings for usefulness, for peace, joy, and righteousness, for connection, for God Himself to come fully alive. When this happens (I don’t DO this, IT happens), I naturally head for something natural...which makes sense, I guess (Dude, this sunset it beautiful! It changes every time I look down and up from the computer, each time altering itself into a scene that I don’t want to change. Wow.).

 

Tomorrow I begin a 4 week sermon series focusing on sin. This focus has driven me to ask the question “What is sin?” anew…and that has driven me back to the beginning, back before there was a word to describe sin, before there was something resembling it that needed description, before sin existed, and before there was a Bible to extract explanation from…back to Eden.

 

I won’t preach my sermon now, partly because it hasn’t fully formed, partly because you can hear it online after tomorrow (at www.southwestcofc.org), and partly because right now I’m longing for God and want to indulge myself in the longing as the last bit of sunshine fades away.

 

I will say that tomorrow’s piece (I think I like that…calling my sermon a “piece” instead of a sermon…much more accurate) will make the connection between sin and the longing I now have and must endure. Two folks, my parents in a way, back in Eden, people who saw the same sunset that I watch die right now, severed their fellowship with God. And I have inherited the results. This makes every human being on the planet my brother in this regard. Sin is not merely a set of rules that some follow and some do not, as I was told growing up. A set of rules outlined in the Bible for me check off a list. No, the voice of Truth tells me a different story.

 

Sin is a disloyalty that man is capable of, disloyalty that hurts any relationship.

 

And I have been disloyal to God, like Adam was. And I long for the relationship that is broken with Him. I have sinned and fallen short of His glory. And I was made for His glory to bring me mine, which is life. Sin interrupted that. Sin stole life to the full. Sin is why I sit here, now with darkness in the sky, having to enjoy the longing for God, rather than God Himself.

 

God have mercy on us.