I LOVE THESE LINES IN ISAIAH; the sweetness of their assurance is absolute:
I am the LORD your God,
who teaches you to profit,
who leads you in the way you should go.
And my heart is broken by the verses that follow.
O that you had hearkened to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
Your offspring would have been like the sand,
and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.
Would have been is a phrase that makes me wince every time I come across it in the prophets and in the Gospels. This would have been is an ongoing reminder how we—individually and collectively, historically and in the present—have missed the fullness of what was given. Had we received his instruction, we and all the world around us would have profited. Had we followed his leading, our way would not have led us to a world so torn by intervals of need and greed, so ravaged by cruelty and vengeful responses to cruelty, so divided into self-serving, partisan camps. Had we but hearkened to his commandments, the peace we would know would be an endless flow refreshing our land and ourselves, and our righteousness would be as measureless, powerful, and beautiful as the waves of the sea.
Still, notice the verb tense of those first lines above. Present tense: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.” Evidently, the promise continues even now, despite our historical and present failures to partake of them. Evidently, the hope that we might yet partake of them remains alive. One of the great blessings of growing older (that is, of growing older as a Christian) is a developing awareness of God’s continuing mercy, a sweet apprehension that his great mercy is tireless. I say that this is a great blessing, but it has sometimes, even so, caused me to suffer.
My own sins are not as visible as some, nor, perhaps, are they as various. No, my own sins today are pretty much the same sins I’ve known my entire life. That is to say, throughout my life, I have asked God’s forgiveness, repeatedly, for the same, familiar, habitual sins. The suffering in question, therefore, has to do with the chagrin I’ve often felt in asking to be forgiven, yet again, for the same damned things.
Still, a beloved priest once helped me a great deal with all of this during the sacrament of confession some years ago. Father George Paulsen said to me, “Most of us have been in the same boat. Most of us find that the sins of our days are the sins of our lives. And the worst thing we can do is let our shame or our pride keep us from asking forgiveness every time we must.” And then he said, “The fact that Jesus will always forgive you finally becomes the prod. One day, you realize that you are tired of this confession, tired of this sin; on that day, you’ll decide you truly want it gone.”
Is Jesus with us, even as we stammer to name our well-rehearsed sins? Is he with us still? According to the Scriptures, he knew us as we are before he came, and still he chose to come.
~Adapted from Scott Cairns, “Second Friday of Advent,” GOD WITH US: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, edited by Greg Pennoyer & Gregory Wolfe
