When you can't do it
Relationships are not clear-cut things. We moralize about them, cast rules about them, form generalities about them...but when it comes down to it...what do we really know?
The imprecise nature of relationships...their confusing way of taking a new turn just when you think you know their path...of slipping through your fingers just when you think you have a grasp on them...
Have you ever had a relationship in which you really didn't know what to do next? It seems as if no matter which way you turn, you will do the wrong thing. This can be in all kinds of relationships: parents, kids, churchgoers, coworkers, siblings, love interests, spouses. But no matter who we're talking about here...you feel blocked in. You say to yourself, "There's no way out."
On those days when you don't know what to do...when you are blocked in from behind and before...you find that you truly are "in bondage to sin and cannot free yourself." You find that the other person in the relationship is as well. There are ropes tangled around your limbs. You can't move. You can't fix it. You can't save it. It's all messed up.
And in that moment is when you know you need to hear the absolution..."I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And as the sign of the cross is made over you, you know that Jesus has taken all of your failures into Himself. He has become sin for you. He has carried it all in His body. And He has made you (wonder of wonders!) the righteousness of God. It's the great exchange. The unlikely marriage in which Jesus takes all of our brokenness and gives us all of His righteousness and goodness.
And when Jesus gives you all of this, you know that you can face whatever the future may hold in this relationship. You can face it confident, knowing that you are not the miserable failure...rather, you are "in Christ." That is your identity now.
And Christ has unlimited resources to draw on.
The imprecise nature of relationships...their confusing way of taking a new turn just when you think you know their path...of slipping through your fingers just when you think you have a grasp on them...
Have you ever had a relationship in which you really didn't know what to do next? It seems as if no matter which way you turn, you will do the wrong thing. This can be in all kinds of relationships: parents, kids, churchgoers, coworkers, siblings, love interests, spouses. But no matter who we're talking about here...you feel blocked in. You say to yourself, "There's no way out."
On those days when you don't know what to do...when you are blocked in from behind and before...you find that you truly are "in bondage to sin and cannot free yourself." You find that the other person in the relationship is as well. There are ropes tangled around your limbs. You can't move. You can't fix it. You can't save it. It's all messed up.
And in that moment is when you know you need to hear the absolution..."I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And as the sign of the cross is made over you, you know that Jesus has taken all of your failures into Himself. He has become sin for you. He has carried it all in His body. And He has made you (wonder of wonders!) the righteousness of God. It's the great exchange. The unlikely marriage in which Jesus takes all of our brokenness and gives us all of His righteousness and goodness.
And when Jesus gives you all of this, you know that you can face whatever the future may hold in this relationship. You can face it confident, knowing that you are not the miserable failure...rather, you are "in Christ." That is your identity now.
And Christ has unlimited resources to draw on.
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