But after he had considered
this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of
David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is
conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you
are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their
sins.” (Matthew
1:20-21)
Today’s
Christmas themed verse from Bible.com returns my thoughts to the question of
why Jesus came. It’s one of those obvious old ones that you’d likely answer if
you were asked. In fact, we might all be tempted to say that the verse(s) that talked
of Jesus coming to bring salvation covers today’s verse, too. And we’d be
right, but the wording puts a slightly different spin on it.
He would come
to save us from our sins. Point one: sin is bad. We know that, but do we really
know that? Murder, rape, assault, abuse, and polluting are bad, but there
are other sins that we don’t put in the same league: gluttony, anger, lust,
disobedience, lying... Add your favorites that “aren’t as bad as” those big
boys.
Do we really need
to be saved from our sins? And, well, I mean, as Christians, we are saved, aren’t
we? Doesn’t that go along with the adoption? Of course, Christians aren’t
perfect, so we do sin, but aren’t we already saved? This is one of those “already-not
yet” things. We are saved from the ultimate effect of our sins. When our sins
get us in trouble, we pray to be saved from the consequences of our sins (which
might be a mistake on our part.) But do we regularly pray to be saved from our sins?
This morning, I
can think of a couple sins I would love to be saved from: fear/anxiety, doubt,
anger, pride, and lack of self-control. Listing them is a little like praying
for patience – it’s scary to do because God might answer the prayer. Saving us
from our sins involves removing them from our lives, and these are at the core
of most of our beings. It feels like an invitation to a quintuple whammy!
We should so
desperately want to be saved from our sin that any price is a bargain. This
morning and today’s passage lead me to my prayer theme as I walked the dog. Save
me from my sin, even if it hurts.
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