The Master Assizes

On first reading, I face my old enemy here: holiness for holiness sake or holiness for fear of judgment. "Keep yourself steadily faced by the judgment seat of Christ; walk now in the light of the holiest you know," Oswald wrote, and he based today's devotion on 2 Corinthians 5:10: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad." That certainly sounds work based. Only, we know that if we each truly receive what we are due, we are all damned. So, what are Paul, Oswald, and ultimately, God really saying to me?

The first nine verses of 2 Corinthians 5 are all about longing -- longing for our heavenly bodies, our heavenly dwelling, to be physically present with Jesus. I think longing to be holy is part of that -- longing not to disappoint but to please.

So what happens when I do disappoint? Like Adam and Eve, I run from relationship. I hide. I cover up. I do not want to bring my sin into the light and deal with it. This isn't just true in my relationship with God; it's true in all of my relationships. I don't want to expose my failure. I don't want to disappoint. I would rather pretend. I would rather clean up the outside, polish my strengths, and keep the death and decay boxed away, a lot like a whitewashed tomb.

"The penalty of sin is that gradually you get used to it and do not know that it is sin," wrote Oswald. I think the same could be said for the treatment of sin. I become unconscious of what is hidden away and begin to believe the pretense -- "unconscious unreality."

The cure Oswald prescribes is a scary one for me -- "Drag it to the light at once and say, 'My God, I have been guilty here.'"

My assignment: Today is at an end, but tomorrow, in one encounter with God and one encounter with another human being, I will openly confess my sin and ask for forgiveness.