Hi simplicity,
welcome to our little cerebral wrestling match …
This does weigh a lot of Christians down and is an issue that needs to be addressed. The problem with Christianity today is that it tends to be a moral bludgeon rather than a way to spiritual redemption. How will you find redemption? In that you learn what sin is and where it is leading you.
Sin, as it is described in the Bible, is essentially the fall into polarity and the inability to see the universe as a whole. Mankind is left in its one-sidedness, unable to gain the full perspective on life. He is unable to recognise his blindness and assumes, naturally, that his opposite is blind. The fact is that both are blind. Not only that, this polarity also leads to imbalance within the physiology and consequently to illness – which is effectively the illness of the soul, not of the body. The body carries the symptoms and signs of the psychological imbalance.
The asking for forgiveness has more than the superficial side to it. Forgiveness effectively looks for the holistic perspective, it wants to see things from Gods view – “Listen Israel, the Lord your God is one!†God is unity, wholeness and integrity. We all have our being as part of that wholeness, we belong in that unity, although we are very often avoiding it by reverting to our polarised view of life, forgetting that we live from the rhythm of two opposites, not from one side. Breathing makes this very clear to us if we try to breathe in without having breathed out first. If we close one eye and walk about, we could stumble because half of our view has gone, plus the ability to judge depth or distance too. We have two sides of our brain which complement each other and work hand in hand, switch one side off and things start going wrong – which we can see every day because we have not trained both sides of the brain equally.
Sin isn’t about what you do, but what you are. You are unable to see both sides, you have a blind spot, you don’t have the full story, you are reacting one-sidedly. You have to recognise this fact, understanding that you need help to understand that life is a rhythm in which you have to find your position and move along with it. With time you understand that, for example, striving for wealth is vanity and one-sided, but another kind of vanity wants us to become recluse and poor. The wholesome attitude would be to deal responsibly with what you are given – but we tend to the one side or the other.
So you see that the view of the Bible and of Christ comes to you from a different direction to what many theologians may tell you. It doesn’t want to make you feel bad, but to enlighten you. Jesus calls to the people, “Come to me all of you who are weary and heavy laden. I will refresh you!†He wants to free us of our incompleteness and lead us to the unity in the One. Part of the way is exemplary in his death – understanding that some times we have to accept the cup as it is offered us.
Shalom