Palm Sunday Reflection: Miracle by Miracle

Last updated on: March 20, 2016 at 6:59 am by Anne Kennedy

Palm Sunday Reflection: Miracle by Miracle 2016-03-20T06:59:06-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In Lent, Morning Prayer begins with “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

It’s the kind of verse that rolls off the tongue, that you can say without thinking about it too much. It’s an important verse to have wedged in your mind if you ever want to talk to someone about Jesus, about the need of each person to admit that he himself can’t just carry on as if everything is ok, as if there is no terrible problem between him and God. It often is heard from the pulpit at Good Shepherd, and in class, because you can’t understand anything about what everyone is wandering around doing if you don’t have this single truth embedded in your heart, mind, and soul.

Trouble is, most of the time, we are all trying to quietly say to ourselves that we, in point of fact, actually have no sin. It’s not usually a conscious, defiant choice to say, “I have no sin”. It’s not like we wake up and say, “I have no sin”. Most of us don’t give it much thought. No, it’s the regular order of life and the frustrations that go with it that bear out the belief most of us have in our own goodness. If I am constantly irritated with other people, that irritation flows from a wellspring of belief that I am good, and everybody else is doing bad things to me. If I am offended, well, who are you to injure me? I do not deserve to be injured or treated unfairly. If I hold myself to some impossible standard, it is because I believe that, being good, I can meet it. I might not say with my lips, “I have no sin” but my life is a testimony my heartfelt embrace of that belief.

So, along comes the bible, or morning prayer if you’re an Anglican, and you hear or say the words, ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us’, and, if we are honest, which we really can’t be, we will admit that the verse itself produces a war. ‘Well,’ you might mutter, ‘I haven’t said I have no sin.’ And really, what is sin?

And yes, that is a good question. What is sin? When Jesus stood mute before Caiaphas, at the beginning of his long ordeal of saving the world from sin, Caiaphas played the part of the judge. He asked the questions. He tore his robe. He looked at the very perfection of God and so utterly and completely deceived himself that he condemned God rather than himself. That is what sin is. It is looking at God, and then at yourself, and concluding that you’re not the one that needs to change anything. Every small, inconsequential sin is a recapitulation of you being right, and God being wrong, and the deceit of that lie being clung to ever more tightly.

So for a human person to read the words, “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” and mean them, or believe them, or even want to believe them, some kind of miraculous revolution has to take place. The mountains have to fall down and be thrown into the sea. Your entire self has to topple over and be broken open. And you can’t do that yourself. You can’t say these words and mean them by yourself. Your lips might say them, your mind might grope toward them, but as soon as you walk away to do the next thing, your heart and flesh and being will carry on living as if they are not and could never be true.

The man standing there before Caiaphas, accused of blasphemy, the only perfect man, the only guileless and deceit-less man, he didn’t have to do anything. He didn’t have to go forward step by step into death. He could have gone away and decided we deserve what we get. But his extraordinary love kept him fixed there, enduring the mockery of the sinner, the lying of self justification, so that those very lies could be their own undoing. Jesus, very man and very God, bore within himself the due penalty of sin, and effected the necessary miraculous revolution on the human will. It was impossible, for you, but with God, even this thing was possible.

Therefore, if we confess our sins, if we stop in the middle of our deceitfulness and try to say that we are wrong and we are sorry, God doesn’t stint on forgiveness. He doesn’t stand there like Caiaphas the judge, quick to condemn. He leaps up, hikes up his robe, and takes off down the path to grab you. He takes off your filthy clothes and gives you himself to wear, a mantel about your shoulders. He himself removes all the unrighteousness and stain, he feeds you and rejoices over you, and gives you something to drink. He doesn’t wait for you to get rid of the sin, or undo its effects, or fix yourself up and make it all better. No, as soon as you, embarrassed and tired, mutter the crumbled, defeated words that you in fact are wrong, and God in fact is right, he himself removes the sin and cleanses you. You stand there, or rather kneel there, maybe in church, maybe not even really kneeling, maybe just sort of perched on the pew with your knees pointing down so that it looks like you’re kneeling, wishing that you could be good on your own, and you mumble the words, ‘I am a sinner, I am the offender,’ God, who is faithful And just, will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

And we wander away and wish it could have been a flashier miracle. But that single confession is the most catastrophic revolution that the human person can ever endure. The mountain of the self is toppled, fallen, picked up and made straight and sure by a God whose faithfulness never ceases, never forgets, never flinches, never falls short.

A blessed Palm Sunday to you all.

Reading the Bible

Work and the Christian

Anglicanism

Just Plain Spiritual

Previous Post

March 19, 2016

Saturday on the Holy Links

Next Post

March 21, 2016 Do Not Hinder Him: Bringing the Child to Sunday School

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book of the Bible ends with the word 'Amen'?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Philippians Jude Revelation Romans

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »