You should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
(James 5.20 NRSV)
Book Four of WAR AND PEACE contains a touching scene. Nicholas Rostov has lost a huge sum at gambling. Now he must face his father. Only the week before he has borrowed money from his father with a promise that he would never borrow again. Nicholas is filled with grief over this breach of honor. Yet his pride will not allow him to admit it. He compounds his error by affecting a casual attitude. "It can't be helped! It happens to everyone!" says Nicholas with a bold, free, and easy tone. In his soul he regards himself as a worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He longs to kiss his father's hand and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but instead he says in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone!

The old count casts down his eyes on hearing his son's words and begins bustling about, searching for something. "Yes, yes," he mutters, "it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to raise... happens to everybody. Yes, who has not done it?" And with a furtive glance at his son's face the count goes out of the room. Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all expected this.

"Papa! Papa!" he calls after his father, sobbing, "forgive me!" And seizing his father's hand he presses it to his lips and bursts into tears.

It is a modern dilemma, isn't? How can you experience God's forgiveness when you don't really feel you have done anything wrong? That's where many of us are. We don't really feel that our sins are all that bad. The cross says to us that sin is serious business. Sin brought about the shedding of Christ's blood. Sin drove nails into his hands and feet. Sin drained the life out of him as sin always drains out life. How can we forget something like that? Christ surrendered himself to the will of God.

Dear God, I am a sinner in need of your forgiveness. Amen.

Ron Newhouse

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