Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt

 

Have you ever been in denial?  Have you ever had an experience in which you did something wrong, or something bad happened to you and gosh darn it, you just didn’t want to admit that you did anything wrong, or that nothing bad ever happened? 

 

My first memorable experience with denial came in the fifth grade.  During my fifth grade year at Arrowhead school in Billings, MT, I sat next to the second most beautiful girl that I have ever seen in my life (my wife is the first).  Her name was Katie, and man, she was gorgeous.  All year long I tried to get up the courage to ask her out (I couldn’t drive, so I don’t know where we would have gone, but I’d have figured that out).  Eventually by the time summer came I had actually talked to her a few times and I convinced her to come to one of my baseball games.  After the game, we were running around flirting in the awkward way that fifth graders flirt and I uttered some of the smoothest words I’ve ever said to a woman.  I said, “Hey, why don’t you be my girlfriend!”  I then confidently awaited her reply and was a little shocked when she said, “maybe, I’m not sure yet.”

 

Now that felt pretty bad.  But it felt even worse when I found out a week later that she had decided to go out with a different guy on a rival baseball team.  I consoled myself through this difficult time using denial.  I told myself that she had said maybe, she never said no, therefore, I had really not been rejected.  To this day, she still hasn’t answered me. 

 

Another misfortunate event happened in our Old Testament reading for today. God sent poisonous snakes into the Hebrew’s camp in order to punish them for grumbling and complaining about the poor-quality of their food and water.  In order for the Hebrews to be saved from the snakes they had to look at an image of a snake set on a pole that Moses was parading around their camp.      

 

So what does a saving snake on a pole, and my experience of 5^th grade rejection have in common?  In order for me to gain the confidence and courage that I needed to ask other girls out later in life I had confront face to face those feelings of rejection and hurt that brought me down in the 5^th grade.  In order for the Hebrews to survive the snake attack and move on, they had to first look upon the very distortion that was killing them, a snake.    

 

And that is what this Old Testament verse is about. 

 

Only when we are willing to look at and face the sin and the hurt in our lives (whether it is our own sin, or a sin that has been afflicted upon us) will we finally be able to overcome it.  In other words, just like the Hebrews looking at the snake-on-a-pole, and just like me facing my 5^th grade rejection, only when we are able to acknowledge what is killing us or distorting us will we be able to overcome it and live in the healed way that God intends for us to live. (I eventually got over my rejection and met Christie, which I’m sure she’s thrilled about).

Now when I am talking about confronting our own sin or the sins of others, I am not talking about confronting some abstract theological demon that has no face or form.  I am talking about confronting real concrete issues in our lives that keep us from being fulfilled ourselves, and that keep us from having fulfilling relationships with those that we love. 

 

You see we all have these little knives that we use to cut at our own selves and at those closest to us without even wanting to do it.  Envy, Jealousy, Anger, Fear, all of these things slowly and subtly eat away at our relationships and at our sense of who we are, oftentimes without us even knowing it.  And I think we all have one thing in common; in the end, none of us want to use those knives.  None of us want those knives used on us.  We want to confront our sins and we want them destroyed so that they cannot distort our lives any longer.      

 

So, let me restate the first point of my sermon:  In order for the Hebrews to be healed from their snake bites, they had to look at and face the very thing that was destroying them, a snake on a pole.  In order for us to overcome the destruction and pain that sin causes in our lives we first must come face to face with that sin and acknowledge its existence.  We have to say, Ha!  I see you sin!  I know that you are there!  Denial of sin simply causes sin to persist. 

 

Now here comes point two of this sermon:  Our battle with sin does not end after we acknowledge our sin.  We cannot confront our sin empty handed.  We need another weapon, which has been given to us by our God.  We need our faith, which tells us as we heard today, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

 

Now how in the world does this help us?  When we confront our sins, those things in our lives that keep us from being the people we want to be and that keep us from loving others in the way that we want to love them…When we confront those sins with this faith, we hear God telling us that those sins will not and do not have the last say in what happens in our lives. 

 

And so what does this mean?  This means that I can be rejected by a 5^th grade girl, but know that I am not a person of no value.  It means that we can argue and fight with our friends and family, but at the end of the day we can still sit down and eat dinner with them, and tell them that we love them.  It means that although our lives will continue to be affected by sin, they never have to be destroyed by it.  In other words, we do not have to carry that sin with us until it distorts our life beyond recognition.

 

There is a story about two traveling monks who were carrying a beautiful woman across a river because she could not reach the other side.  Both monks were stooped low because of the heavy burden they carried.  When they finally got across the river the monks set the woman down and went on their way.  After a while one monk said to the other monk, “Since we picked up that beautiful woman by the river I have not been able to stop thinking about her.”  The first monk said to his fellow monk, “My friend, we set her down on the far side of the river.  Why are you still carrying her?” 

 

That is the beauty of our Gospel of forgiveness.  It allows us face our sin with a weapon that can render that sin powerless, and then allow us to let that sin go.  Our Gospel tells us that we are owned by God and not sin, and so we too do not have to remain burdened by it on our journey, but instead we may let it go.

 

We all have things going on in our lives that we are not proud of.  We all have snakes nipping at our ankles, we have knives cutting into us or cutting into those that we love.  Today I challenge you look at those snakes and those knives.  Don’t ignore them, and don’t deny them, look at them.  Face them.  Tell them that yes you know they are present in your life, and you know that they are harmful.  And then tell them that you know that they do not own you.  God owns you.  He claimed you.  He said, “For I so loved the world that I gave my only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  And then I challenge you to let those sins go.  Live as one who has been re-created, live as one who allows God’s word of forgiveness and not the condemning word of sin to have the last word in your lives.  Live as one who is redeemed!