It seems that in the Scriptures we're called to look at and take sin seriously--both the ways that we've been sinned against and the ways that we've sinned ourselves. But we never do that as an end, in and of itself.
Looking at the ways that we've sinned and been sinned against is always supposed to be a stepping stone to the need for grace, rescue, forgiveness, and healing--all things that are offered to us at the cross.
In the Luke's account of the resurrection story, the women go to the tomb and they meet a couple of angels who pronounce these glorious words: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen!"
Given how emphatically the New Testament, particularly Paul, emphasizes how we once were dead in our sin but now we have been raised in and with Christ (see Ephesians 2, and Colossians 3, among others) I think that we have a right to take on the angels' words as describing our own situation.
Next time you find yourself either over-infatuated with how you've been sinned against (therefore reveling in your victim status) or overly-fixed on how you've sinned (and stuck in the cycle of self-condemnation and guilt) hear these words of the angels directed to you:
"Why do you look for yourself among the dead? You are not here! You have risen!"
This is the good news of the gospel. We need to hear it. We need to preach it to ourselves and remind ourselves what is true.
And we need to speak it to one another. We need to remind one another over and over again what is true because we have so many other messages coming at us all the time.
This is one of the main purposes of Christian community: to speak the gospel of our "risen-ness" to one another in real-time, in the midst of our everyday lives. We need people that we can call on who will remind us what is true: we are no longer among the dead, we have risen with Christ.
Apart from that, we are barely alive.
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