“‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined!
For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips,
and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’”
(Isaiah 6:5)

“When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly
the evil that is still left in him.
When a man is getting worse,
he understands his own badness less and less.”
(C.S. Lewis)

The most distressing aspect of my pastoral duties is a statement I make in a class or chapel. It is both painful for me to share and unsettling for residents to hear. It goes something like this: “Your problem is much worse than you could imagine.”

I continue, “You are here because of a substance or alcohol use disorder. Additionally, some of you have been diagnosed with a mood or personality disorder, maybe an eating disorder, or some other psychological dysfunction. Some of you are suffering from trauma and perhaps dealing with clinical depression. These illnesses are all very real and awful. But that is not the half of it. On top of all this, you (along with me) are sinners* who have scorned a holy God and are rightly deserving of his judgment.”

Now before some of you dismiss me as a hateful, dangerous, right-wing, fundamentalistic, bombastic preacher, please bear with me. I have two stories—one mine, the other, Jesus’.

Story 1: It was at least twenty-five years ago. I was making my way through our Detroit campus lobby when I came upon a man who was filling out an application to enter the program. I introduced myself and did my best to express heartfelt welcome and acceptance. Acting as if he did not hear me, with a finger pointed downward toward the resident handbook, he angrily asked me about one of our rules. “You mean guys go through my personal mail before me!? That is a violation of my civil rights!”

I was momentarily dumbfounded. The gentleman before me was probably no more than thirty-five years of age but looked well into his fifties. Disheveled and toothless, face deeply wrinkled and complexion peaked, he had obviously hit some very hard times. He had been brought to us by two meek, elderly women from an area church who were seated next to him. His ship had come in (so I thought). It was his lucky day. He had the opportunity to enter a safe and loving community where he would be clothed, fed, and given the chance to experience freedom from the dark powers of evil that held him captive. But here he was, stuck on some trivial condition of becoming a resident, protesting the horrible injustice of it all.

I walked away thinking, “This man is insane, completely out of touch with reality.” Maybe he was splashing his self-hate on me. Maybe he suffered from mental illness or was demon possessed. Perhaps he had a recent breakup with his partner and was short on sleep. Maybe he was crashing from not having had a recent hit from his drugs, or he had problems with authority stemming from his childhood. Maybe he was at a point of despair, thinking his life was over and there was no way out. It could have been a thousand different things. I didn’t know his story and sadly never found out. He stormed off, never to be heard from again.

Story 2: In Matthew’s gospel, we meet a distraught woman who comes to Jesus for help (15:21-28). Everything is against her—gender, race, religion, marital status, and place of residence. Her daughter is under the spell of the devil, and she begs for mercy from the Lord. Strangely, Jesus ignores her. Pays her absolutely no attention. She is relentless, however, and continues pleading to the point where the disciples become exasperated and beg Jesus to send her away. Jesus seems to agree with their sentiments and curtly declares, “I am not here for these kinds of people.” Undeterred, the woman persists and cries, “Please help me!” Jesus’ reply only gets worse, “I don’t take the children’s bread and give it to dogs!”

At face value, Jesus’ interaction with this woman seems so uncharacteristic of him. The warm, compassionate, friendly Jesus we know appears insensitive, harsh and downright rude. What are we to make of this? What might these two stories, one of the program applicant and the other of the mother, share in common? How might each character be different?

On the one hand, we have two desperately needy people—a man who looks like he has been living in hell and a woman whose child is inhabited by the forces of hell. On the other hand, we have two people who respond very differently to the “test” given them. One is defiant, the other deferential. One asserts rights, the other claims none. Two people in crisis who are polar opposites in how they respond to their plight. Why? What is the reason behind how either acts?

It has something to do with how each sees him/herself. My friend from the Life Challenge lobby still had some ego left in him. His pride (impacted by many different misfortunes as I have already hinted) prevented him from coming to terms with his true condition. He could not come to grips with his utter powerlessness, neediness, and . . . sinfulness. You see, a drowning man never complains about the color of the life jacket thrown to him. A man who has reached the end of himself, who recognizes his own destitution and damnableness, humbly and gratefully accepts whatever helping hand is extended to him. However, a man who is blind to his own bereftness and badness has some fight still left in him. He vainly holds to the belief that he yet has negotiation privileges.  

By contrast, the mother of the demon possessed daughter clearly saw her right-lessness and  deserved-lessness. Thus, her petition, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!” There was no quibbling on her end when Jesus appeared to stiff-arm her. There was no bargaining, “If you do this, then I will do that.” She knew she had no business asking for any favors. Those who face their unworthiness make no demands but simply appeal for mercy—unmerited, unwarranted pity. So, when Christ insinuated she was a dog, she did not huff and puff and counter with a rebuttal but took her dire reality in stride and politely stated that even dogs get scraps. Jesus marveled at her faith and humility and immediately granted her request by healing her daughter.

What lesson might there be for us in this story? If the Lord calls you a dog, bark!

We are not only sick; we are sinful. We have rebelled against the King of the universe, ignoring his presence, rejecting his rule, squandering his gifts, and have lived for ourselves. In the words of the Apostle Paul, we have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images . . . the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:22-25). Such offense makes us worthy of God’s wrath. This is a hard pill to swallow in a secular age where: 1.) God has been banished to the margins and morality is purely subjective and relative; 2.) self-everything is the mantra (-image, -esteem, -acceptance, -care, -fulfillment, -interest, -assertion, -expression, -importance, -determination, -presentation, ad nauseam); and 3.) victimology is the religion of choice. This is the toxic air we breath, producing a self-righteous, self-centered, self-meritorious mindset—“I am innocent. I have been wronged. I am owed.” A sure recipe for ingratitude and entitlement culture.

One of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith is that we are both sinners and loved, depraved yet treasured. We have defied the obligations our Creator has made upon us. At the same time, our Creator still loves and wants us. The late Timothy Keller often said, “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” This is the contradiction of all contradictions.

It is one thing to admit weakness (a good start); it is quite another to confess wickedness. But we can never know the joy of forgiveness, the wonder of reconciliation, the peace that comes with justification, the freedom that is experienced through adoption until we grieve our depravity. This is the hard path to real joy, holding two diverse truths in balance with one another. But this should not surprise us: How can anyone truly appreciate the good news unless he or she understands the bad news? The charm and power of love is undermined by attitudes of superiority and self-righteousness.

When I communicate this sobering news to residents, it may seem as though I am adding insult to injury and beating down a man who is already lying on the ground. But that is not the case. If you or I am stricken with cancer or some other disease, we need to know the unpleasant truth of our situation if we are to properly treat it. This is no different when it comes to mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Unless we know the gravity of our problem, the sweetness of God’s mercy will forever elude us, and we will forfeit the abundant life he offers. Professor Richard Lovelace once wrote, “The shallowness of many people who are saved is due to the fact that they never realized how lost they really were.” What is true pre-conversion is true throughout our continued journey with Christ. Both the precondition and the ongoing condition of gladness is sadness. That is why Jesus said the poor in spirit and those who mourn are blessed (Matthew 5:3-4). As we stand on the rock-solid ground of God’s unconditional, unsurpassable, unending love for us, we must at the same time not deny our status as sinners. God’s grace, in this way, becomes increasingly more wonder-filled to us. Interestingly, the redeemed will forever worship and adore Jesus Christ as “Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the earth.”

Friends, we are more marred, corrupt, degenerate and, consequently, undeserving than we could ever realize and at the same time, more precious, valued, loved and, accordingly, worthy than we could ever imagine. It is that bad AND that good. We must learn to hold these two truths in a holy, dynamic tension as they are the two rails upon which progress in Christian living and recovery rests. They must be more than intellectual propositions to which we subscribe. They must become heart-felt knowledge, penetrating the depths of our soul. This vision of human depravity and dignity is completely counter-cultural. To genuinely believe and embrace the seriousness of our condition coupled with the glory of our significance requires the illumination of the Holy Spirit working through engagement with the spiritual disciplines (e.g., meditation on the Word of God, prayer, the Lord’s Table, confession, Christian community, etc.).

We are both loved and sinful. Because of God’s mercy, we do not get what we do deserve and, on the flip side, we get what we do not deserve. This is the dual identity we all have in common. 

I know of no better way to capture this paradox than to quote at length from an old hymn, “At Calvary,” written by William R. Newell (1868-1956):

Years I spent in vanity and pride,
Caring not my Lord was crucified,
Knowing not it was for me He died
On Calvary. 

Chorus:
Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty
At Calvary.

By God’s Word at last my sin I learned;
Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned,
Till my guilty soul imploring turned
To Calvary.

Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan!
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span
At Calvary!

May God quicken our understanding and may thanksgiving resound from our hearts! This is the hard and strange path to joy unspeakable and full of glory. 

***************

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.
But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners,
Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those
who would believe in him and receive eternal life.
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God,
be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
(1 Timothy 1:15-17)

*Seeing ourselves as sinners is not meant to produce self-hate and self-rejection or an inferiority complex. “Sinner” is a descriptive—not devaluing—term. It expresses the breach occurring between persons (God and humans, people towards one another). Further, while “sinner” in relation to God makes one unworthy, it does not make one worthless. Merit is not to be confused with value. Our worth is intrinsic to our nature as those created in God’s image and unsurpassably loved. It is not tied to our performance. It is durable, unalterable, and permanent.