What a dramatic picture of coming face-to-face with our own sin.
As Buechner put it, “Well the old pulpiteer might have cut himself”
because his lecture came from “the deep trouble that he was in or the
deep trouble that was in him.”^1
There is deep trouble in us all—trouble that we may manage to
turn our eyes from... until that day when we are shaving or putting
on lipstick and suddenly there it is—staring us in the face.
Read the Bible and you’ll meet the cast of characters on every
page: This great march of humanity. This great parade of sinners.
From Adam to Paul, with the exception of Jesus himself, all of them
weak and faulty and fallen and frail. All of them in need of a Savior.
And unfortunately, sin is an ongoing predicament. Our suscepti-
bility to it never goes away. That’s why Jesus taught his followers to
pray, “Lead us not into temptation and keep us from the evil one.”
But there is an awesome postscript that comes on the heels of the
bad news. It is the good news of Calvary.
Buechner put it this way:
The Gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that
man is a sinner... that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather
what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the
tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished,
forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for.^2Oh, Lord, how good you are to us, your children. We let you down
and still you love us. We fall and you lift us up. Forgive our sins
today, Father, and deliver us from the evil one. Amen.101 MOST POWERFUL PRAYERS IN THE BI BLE 13