John stormed through the door and burst into the kitchen grumbling, “It’s not fair, it’s just not fair!”

“It sounds like you didn’t have such a great day,” said Mom as she turned from assembling lasagna.

“I could never have a good day at school,” said John. “My teacher sent me to the principal’s office and he told me that I can’t play in Friday’s game!”

“Why can’t you play,” asked Mom?

“They have this silly rule that if you don’t turn in your term paper on time, you don’t play in the next game,” stormed John.

“Did you know about this rule?” asked Mom.

“Yeah, I did”, said John, “but I never liked the rule and I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“So, you’re saying that because you don’t like the rule and don’t think it should be a rule, you can live like it isn’t a rule,” asked Mom?

“Well, yeah,” said John. “It’s the school’s fault, the principal’s fault and the teacher’s fault!”

We might smile and shake our heads at John’s faulty reasoning, but sometimes I wonder if we apply faulty reasoning to God’s clearly laid out rules about our sin condition.

The rules begin with, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 ESV). This means, like it or not, we are sinners. Another verse confirms, “…Just as one person (Adam) did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person (Jesus) did it right and got us out of it.” (Romans 5:18 The Message). The way to get us out of the sin we inherit from Adam is demonstrated in the Old Testament. There must be a blood sacrifice. This is also confirmed in the New Testament: “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.” (Hebrews 9:22b ESV). Jesus, whose resurrection we celebrate soon, gave the ultimate blood sacrifice. “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all…” (Romans 6:10a ESV). Finally, Jesus is the only way of salvation. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. ” (Acts 4:12 ESV). Accepting Jesus death and resurrection is the only way to spend eternity with him in heaven.

Consider this word picture. Let’s imagine that we are born trapped in a pit. We try climbing the walls but they are too high and slippery. There are no ladders or materials to make one. We hear people above us who have been in the pit, yelling something about a rope but we ignore them. We grieve the unfairness of it all till one day we actually see someone being pulled up by a rope! We finally understand that all the rope holder requires is that we admit we can’t get out on our own. We’ve tried everything else and failed, so we do as we’re asked and find ourselves out of the pit and celebrating in the sunshine.

Forgiveness of sin is much the same. The only thing we have with us in our pit is our sin. We must admit our sin and our need for God’s forgiveness. No good deeds, no good intentions and no perceived personal goodness or God blaming will get us out of our sin. Let’s celebrate Easter with a fresh look at our sin and God’s rule about forgiveness, admit that we are sinners and ask him for the rope! Then we too can celebrate in the Sonshine!