“Mr. Denny, I am calling to get your verbal consent for the surgery tomorrow for your left knee replacement?” My answer was one word: “No.” Awkward silence followed. “I don’t understand, are you not coming for surgery tomorrow?” “Yes, I am coming but my left knee was replaced in 2022! I consent to surgery on my right knee!” Apologies followed. I was not surprised but the question lingered: How Could That Happen?
Many of you will recall that after my 10-year career as parish pastor I spent 4 years working in Risk Management at a major Chicago hospital. Informed consents were regularly messed up. Fortunately, all of the mistakes were caught pre-surgery and we never had the wrong limb operated on. (Now that would be a lawsuit which I would LOVE to handle!)
The simple answer to How Could That Happen? is this: It could and does happen because we are humans and not machines! Our natural nature is to sin! Even the best human among us is a sinner who makes mistakes! Listen to how the Apostle Paul spoke about this: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV).
“All” leaves no room for me to be the exception! Every single one of us is a sinner. How often, if ever, do we “mature Christians” admit that we are “sinners”? Sure, we list our sins in our prayers when we ask God to forgive us, knowing full well that He always forgives us! We even admit to being a sinner in the ‘’Lord’s Prayer”. But such admission, as honest as it can be, hardly convinces us that we have an internal quality called “sin.”
The part of this famous verse that pastors rarely focus on is “and fallen short of the glory of God.” We are human sinners and we do not contain within us “the glory of God”. Is this a big announcement? Did we not know this before we read Paul’s letter to the Romans? Because we are all sinners, we must realize that we are not God, and we can never become God.
Today’s blog is not a total bummer! The surgery on the RIGHT leg was very successful and post-op I am walking pain free now with use of a walker. And Paul’s very next words totally take the sting out of “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Listen to Romans 3:24 — “And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ” (NIV). Hear the same verse from the NLT: “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Romans 3:24 NLT). And this, my friends, is very good news for all of us sinners!
We are “freed from the penalty of sin” is just about the best news a sinner can ever hear. So How Could That Happen? is completely, totally, and properly, answered for us. Thank you, Lord!
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[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com. I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]
The Merton Prayer 