Just as you are

Today's texts: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15; Psalm 32; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3.



“Just as I am, without one plea, but that your blood was shed for me...” So goes the old hymn, and it’s true: we have little of our own to offer. And yet...

In the verse right before this week’s Gospel reading, Jesus says that he’s accused of being a friend of sinners. The Gospel reading that follows seems to confirm this: Jesus welcomes the unusual gesture of the “sinful” woman, who washed his feet with her tears and hair. And the beginning of the next chapter suggests that Jesus’ followers included a number of women with checkered pasts. And in the Old Testament reading David is confronted by the prophet Nathaniel about grievous sins. David! A hero of the faith! A man after God’s own heart!

Jesus, the friend of sinners. We know this, yet it is not uncommon to hear people speak of being too sinful or lost for God to love or accept. Here’s a truth we have difficulty accepting, at least for ourselves: in Jesus we see that God does not need us to clean ourselves up before he’ll have anything to do with us. Instead, we see a God who draws near to us in love for us and calls us with the offer of forgiveness. This week’s Psalm does not say, “Blessed is the one who is sinless before the Lord.” It says, “Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them.”

Our sin may keep us from God, but it won’t keep God from us.

This week's readings: Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:18-27; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39.