4-27-2016

 Good Morning All!! 

        1 John 1:7; “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

    Do you remember reading the book “The Scarlet Letter”?  Hester Prynne has a baby by a man other than her husband so she must wear the scarlet letter “A” and is shunned by her Puritan community.  Throughout the story, we see Hester become more contemplative on human nature.  Her absent and cold-natured husband appropriately takes the name of Chillingworth, while her paramour Dimmesdale suffers physically and emotionally from hiding his part in the affair.  As is often the case, she bore the brunt of the public shame and humiliation.  He suffered silently as his conscience worked him into a physical state that he eventually dies because of his guilt.  Some of those who witness his death claim that he too had the letter “A” on his chest.

    It is a powerful look at relationships on many levels.  It looks at personal, interpersonal, community as just a few of the relationships viewed.  It is quite a read but it is not much of a life.  As I have gone through life, I have met and known people who were each of these characters.  Maybe you have known some of these types as well; perhaps you have experienced a portion of your life as if you lived in the book.

    There are times when we feel like Hester.  Something happened and everyone is aware of it.  It caused embarrassment for your family and for you and you have been branded as such.  You were or are the outcast and you feel it.  You hear the whispers and feel the stares.  You have been “marked” and while many claim to have forgiven you years ago; no one forgets.

    Maybe you feel like Roger Chillingworth.  You are the wronged party.  Someone somewhere did something to harm you in some way.  It may have been an assault on your reputation or a lie that stuck.  Perhaps someone took something that was yours and damaged it and left it broken for you and you are stuck with it.  The guilty parties may or may not have been punished but you still feel empty.

    Perhaps you feel like Arthur Dimmesdale.  There is something in your past that is hidden.  Nobody else knows but if they did; they would lose all respect for you.  You would go from being liked, trusted and popular to the most despised person in the community.  The trouble is that the guilt that weighs you down is unbearable. 

    These are all the sins we live with but only because we just can’t think that God would truly forgive these sins.  Yet that is exactly what God does.  He forgives the sins which mark us, which weigh us down, which cause us to be bitter and hateful.  God releases us from sin in order that we may live a contented life.  God frees us because of his great love for us.  If you find yourself in this bitterness or suffering; let it go.  Your Father in heaven has and he frees you to do the same.

Father, move those who are hurting to see their freedom in your grace.  Guide us to release the pain and the anger and open our hearts and our lives to your love.  In Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret