Behold, the Chief of Sinners.
Whoa. Am I the meanest mom or what? To put a picture that perfectly describes Matthias'....perfection, and caption it thus?
I often have the lines to the hymn of the same name in my head....Chief of Sinners though I be, Jesus shed his blood for me...I can't rightly remember the rest of the verse, but I find the hymn powerful, even spine-tingling, whenever I hear it. Once I posted the lyrics on Facebook, only to be met with a volley of comments assuring me that I couldn't be the Chief of Sinners. You're a good person, they assured me.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not. I'm the Chief of Sinners. To burst it further, so is Matthias. So are you. I have been reminded of it a lot lately in my role as a parent. I love-love-love Matthias so much that I could just squeezehimsniffhimkisshimlovehimup all the time!! I am constantly bragging about how Matthias is the Sweetest, Cutest, Snuggliest Baby on Earth. But how fair is it of me to bestow him with this title? To put him on this high pedestal?
For Matthias has been learning the meaning of the word "no" lately. With a roomful of toys at his disposal, he finds my plants, my antique radio, and my cell phone among the most tantalizing things in his little world. "No," and I lead him away. "You can have this, or this, or this. But you can't have Mommy's plant." Sometimes a flick of my finger removes his grip on the leaves. Sometimes he grimaces, sometimes he laughs in my face, sometimes he cries. But to the plant he returns.
Am I saying Matthias is a "bad baby?" No way! All my previous comments still apply. But it's so apparent to me, as the mother, why Matthias can't have the (fill in the blank). But he wants it. It reminds me of the garden in Genesis, where our ancestors Adam and Eve coveted the ONE THING they were instructed not to have....and how, as adults, we continue in that same pattern, not understanding when or why God tells us, "no."
What I'm getting at is this....Matthias, no matter how earthly-perfect of a little person he may be, has a sinful nature. It is unfair of me to hold him to a standard of impossible perfection, poor critter. You, I, all of us...no matter how earthly-perfect we may be...have sinful natures. Doing good deeds, donating our money, "being good people," can't change it. If we think that our puny deeds can erase the dark mark of sin, we are stuck. Stuck. It is only through the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we have any chance at all. And by "any chance," I mean "eternal life." Whoo-hoo! It is such a relief to know that Matthias and I and anyone else can rest assured knowing that we don't have to earn our trip to Heaven, for that would be impossible, because we're the Sinners-in-Chief, after all.
By God's grace we can do good things--be a sweet, wonderful baby, an attentive mother, a conscientious worker. But we don't have to rely on those good things for our salvation. All we have to rely on is Jesus!
In this Easter season, I say that calls for a Hallelujah!
Thanks for the reminder, and thanks for the cute icture. I can really see those nice straight top teeth!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Auntie Linda
ok...the word is picture.
ReplyDeleteLove this, and love your little Chief Sinner. ;) Reminds me of a contemporary song getting at a similar issue: Jesus, Friend of Sinners, open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers. Let our hearts be led by mercy. Let us lead with open arms and open doors. Oh, Jesus, Friend of Sinners, break our hearts for what breaks Yours. It's a bit different idea, but similar since WE are the sinners for whom Jesus came. We just sometimes think we can't possibly be since WE are "good people"....and then we point our fingers at those "others". Maybe that more than anything breaks His heart.
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon this...who'da thunk Martin Luther could have said it better than I did? :)
ReplyDelete"I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want ‘free-will’ to be given to me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavor after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities, and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground and hold fast my ‘free-will’; because, even were there no dangers, adversities, or devils, I should still be forced to labor with no guarantee of success, and to beat my fists at the air. If I lived and worked to all eternity, my conscience would never reach comfortable certainty as to how much it must do to satisfy God. Whatever work I had done, there would still be a nagging doubt as to whether it pleased God, or whether He required something more. The experience of all who seek righteousness by works proves that; and I learned it well enough myself over a period of many years, to my own great hurt. But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him.” (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will