Paraphrasing Augustine of Hippo: “Sin is anything that displaces or gets in the way of our relationship with God.” I’ve always liked this definition because it is inclusive, as opposed to the Old Testament enumeration of things to do, or not to do (as in Leviticus), in order to avoid the wrath of God.
In the book of Jeremiah, God makes it very clear: “I have given you free will. Trust in man and flesh and you are cursed; trust in the Lord, you are blessed. Straighten out your lives!” The Hebrews, of course, don’t get it and they say: “Why should we? What’s the point? We’ll live just the way we’ve always lived, doom or no doom!”
At this point God sends Jeremiah to a potter’s house, where he reports the following: “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he re-worked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.” At first, Jeremiah was puzzled, but then he heard God’s message: “Can’t I do just as the potter does, people of Israel? …watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you…at any moment I may decide to pull up a people by the roots and get rid of them. But if they repent…I will think twice and start over with them.” Sounds pretty draconian, doesn’t it? But the thread of a miracle exists in this passage. Nowhere in the story does it say that the clay is destroyed; it still exists and is re-workable, as are we if we only listen for God’s word.
The season of Lent, for me, is a reflective time of examination. Where do I need to change my life? What have I been doing or thinking that gets in the way of my relationship with God? I pray that I may seek repentance and renewal, and once again accept God’s grace and love. “Give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy endures forever.”
—Dwight Russell
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