The Fingers of Humanity

“Guilty!”

The fingers of human kind are an active bunch. We love pointing out the mistakes of others and then hiding our own. We turn on the news and sit with a sense of awe as we hear the mistakes of our fellow humans play out in front of us. We shake our heads and comment on how stupid this world is. We stare in disbelief as the world implodes with acts of violence, robbery, sexual crimes, and a laundry list of other problems. We grab our children and run, as this world becomes a zone of danger rather than a home of peace.

We go to church and listen to pastors preach about the need to repent, forgive, and treat each other as we would want to be treated. It sounds like a simple plan but when put into motion it quickly becomes apparent that this is not an easy task. There is too much anger, to much hatred, to much sadness….how can we even make a dent into the quagmire that has become the human race.

Maybe we should change the direction of our fingers.

We spend so much time pointing out the mistakes of others that we often forget that we ourselves are sinners. As a human race we love to categorize the sins that we commit and as long as we don’t touch the ones that society has deemed to be unacceptable we are fine. We separate ourselves into “good Christians” and “bad Christians”. We look around the world and associate ourselves with the people on the right side of the fence and then look with disdain on those who fall onto the wrong side. We beam with pride at our life of so called perfection and turn our backs on those whose lives have taken a turn for the worse. We unwittingly contribute to the pain of this world by ignoring the plight of others and banishing those who have done wrong. We are no better than the people who have made mistakes….for we all make them.

The season of Lent has begun and I urge all of us to change the direction of our accusations.

We all are guilty. We all are sinners. We all do not measure up. We all need help.

Unlike in a court of law…being guilty in God’s world does not banish you to a life of steel bars and darkness. We have a God that loves us so much that He actually sent His son to earth and then did the unthinkable…..

He took all of our sins and put them on a cross….and died…..and then rose….taking those imperfections to heaven. We are loved….truly I tell you….we are loved.

We are guilty…………We are forgiven…….

Welcome to the Lenten season.