British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once said that, “The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” Put that quote in your back pocket for the next time you need to break the ice in a sluggish conversation, or if you’re stuck with a chatterbox and you want to pump the brakes, or maybe you could add it to your repertoire of pious pick-up lines? Allow me to emphasize that a great way to secure your position of popularity at any party is to be the first one to bring up the ubiquity of sin.   

But Muggeridge’s point is worth being pricked by, because each of us knows all too well the sting of sin. It’s a kind of hurt that we hope will go away if we can just manage to ignore it willfully enough, but it doesn’t. At this point, let me reassure you my intention with this episode is not to whack you with a newspaper and say “bad dog”. It’s always tempting to roll up the Good News that way and beat people with it, rather than read the sweet words. No, I’m breaking the ice by starting with sin, more as a personal confession, because my own failures are so constantly biting at my heels, and I write so often as a way to retrace the kindnesses of God that dapple my life like warm light pouring through leaves onto the shadowy ground. 

If you turn on the television now, you’ll see what Muggeridge, who was a journalist himself, meant. Humanity’s wickedness is empirically verifiable; the evidence is all there. For me, regardless of what’s being reported upon, just the rude, cutting tone of the newscasters (pick your station) is evidence enough of mankind’s meanness. On the other hand, the News Jesus brings really is good, and the Church has always been called to give a glowing report of the wildly enduring lovingkindness of her Lord, her kinsman redeemer.

One of my favorite psalms is number 107. I wrote a song around it some years ago, and I won’t do so now, but I recommend reading the psalm aloud. It lays out four main scenes where people have gotten themselves into some terrible trouble and each time they cry out to God, and, without fail, every time, God shows up and seems more than happy to help. The psalmist repeatedly calls for anyone who’s been rescued by the kindness of God to find some way to tell that story.  Particularly, he mentions that this kind of responsiveness to our cries calls for songs to be written in commemoration and celebration. But songs are not the only things that have a way of singing, all kinds of things have a way of carrying the tune of redemption, and we’re called upon, by way of whatever craft we’ve been given to ‘make something of’ our experience of God’s mighty acts of mercy. 

At any rate, the pattern in the psalm is clear: we get into all kinds of trouble, but no trouble is too much for God to break us out of, if we call on him and welcome his help. The psalm ends by saying, if you want to be wise, spend some time thinking about this pattern. Today as I think about it, I’m so encouraged to see God’s willingness to rescue us. In the psalm, as soon as folks cry out, God doesn’t hesitate. Do you remember the leper whose question was not about God’s capability to heal – that was obvious – but God’s willingness? Jesus didn’t hesitate; of course he’s willing. In contrast to the caustic, biting tone of our newscasters, stop to imagine for a moment the warmth and verbal tone of Jesus’s response to the leper, even the tender expression on his face as he reaches out to touch, embrace, and heal him.  “Willing? Of course I’m willing,” he says. That leper took a chance, and got so much more than he bargained for. He couldn’t have dreamed God was so deeply willing and, even, affectionate. That’s news worth reporting, though we mustn’t model our reporting on any of the forms we see on the media as we seek to mediate the Gospel. 

I can imagine how that leper felt. Think about the days leading up to the moment he approached Jesus. How many times did he talk himself out of his plan to ask for help? Can’t you see this guy? He’s hearing stories about some new teacher who can heal, maybe he’s managed to make his way near enough to see Jesus, but he can’t get quite close enough to tell what he’s like. The arguments play tug-of-war inside him whether or not to even try – “clearly this new teacher moves in the power of God, but why would he listen to me?” he thinks, “This is your lot in life, leper, just accept it.” Who knows how long he waited afraid to approach? Who knows how long doubt kept him from asking? In the end, why not? Why not, just try. Surely, the rejection could not be worse than life as it already was. So, this downcast leper, lifts his eyes up to the face of Jesus and finds, to his amazement, the warm glow of love candled there, and the family-making touch the Father sends through the hands of his Son. 

The words of the centurion come to mind, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” Or the tax collector in the temple who beat his breast wondering whether God’s mercy could reach him. Or the woman who, sneaking through the crowd, touched the hem of his robe. Jesus could have had her stoned for touching a male non-family member. That’s what she was likely thinking was about to happen when he asks, “who touched me?” But he wants to know so that he can bestow family-status on her when he calls her, “Daughter”. He’s telling her she need not sneak, she need not hesitate; the invitation to touch the healing Lord remains free and open to her always. 

I could go on. In fact, I want to, and I guess in some way I will forever go on trying to find more words, songs, poems and stories to tell how the Lord is so much more good than I could’ve ever imagined. And I started this conversation with the reality of sin, because pretending nothing is wrong is just one way to prolong my hesitation. Contesting the reality of my own brokenness and rebellion just puts off the joy of discovering how deeply loved I really am. For God won’t trespass against us, he’s not rude, and will not intrude; he waits to be called upon, invited, welcomed. 

Have you noticed the pictures Jesus has given us to describe what it’s like when we finally take a chance on him? It’s like a loaf of fresh-baked bread landing in the lap of a starving soul; like cool water tickling the tongue of a withered desert wanderer; like the sweetness of sleep for an insomniac; like frozen toes warming in front of the fireplace and the voices of family for the one who just hours ago was buried hopelessly underneath an avalanche. That’s why Henri Nouwen urges us, whenever we run off the road into the ditch of sin, to waste no time getting back on the road and picking up where we left off. When I run away, I shouldn’t hesitate, however ashamed or proud I may be,  to turn for home. And look, someone is already running toward me. 

Muggeridge, who made no bones about the reality of sin in our opening quote, also said, after late in his life, calling on the Lord for help, that “In the end, coming to faith remains for all a sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life, of responding to a bell that had long been ringing, of taking a place at a table that had long been vacant.”