Sin is close and often hidden to us – so how do we walk in the light?

1 John 1:8-9: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Try and get out of your head the Catholic confession to the priest in the black box – the ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned’ image, followed by the confessor’s guilt-trip list of the usual lust, lying, and other religiously defined misdemeanours. Your sin, my sin, is much closer and hidden to us than this cliché can ever imply.

Of course, sin includes what is on this guilt-trip list, but it is also subtler and less obvious. Our sin often happens very quietly without any fanfare or announcement, occurring in between the gaps of our attempts at goodness, and when we are not self-consciously committing it, and so when we don’t even notice it.

For example, reflect for a moment on our need to have the last word in an argument to prove a point on supposedly God’s behalf; or when we want to appear to the other person as better or best in an effort to supposedly defend God’s reputation; or when we want to keep talking and telling stories about ourselves (often repeated) to proudly validate ‘who we are’ as supposedly Godly persons; or when the deepest wisdom is what we know, because we have thought about it more, because we have experienced it more, and so supposedly know God more.

These sins are often very disguised, even from the Priest, but all lead to the same thing – the judgement and criticism of others and the haughty self-assertion of ourselves over others. Let’s then confess these sins and ponder on them deeply, until we feel that healthy sadness motivating our need to be humble before God and others. Let us also acknowledge that these sins, because they occur in the nooks and crannies of our attempts to be good, can only therefore be cleansed by God’s faithfulness to us, and his purification and forgiveness of us through his Son taking the blame for it all. Praise God!