And why?
Why? Because he is looking on, not to torment,
but to help. Because he loves us better than
we love ourselves. Because he is more anxious
for us to get safely through this world than we are
ourselves.
Will you understand that, and believe that, once for
all, my friends?—That God is not against
you, but for you, in the struggles of life; that
he wants you to get through safe; wants you
to succeed; wants you to win; and that therefore
he will help you, and hear your cry.
And therefore when you find yourselves wrong, utterly
wrong, do not cry to this man or that man, ’Do
you help me; do you set me a little more right,
before God comes and finds me in the wrong, and punishes
me.’ Cry to God himself, to Christ himself;
ask him to lift you up, ask him to set you right.
Do not be like St. Peter before his conversion, and
cry, ’Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
O Lord; wait a little, till I have risen up, and washed
off my stains, and made myself somewhat fit to be
seen.’—No. Cry, ’Come
quickly, O Lord—at once, just because I
am a sinful man; just because I am sore let and hindered
in running my race by my own sins and wickedness;
because I am lazy and stupid; because I am perverse
and vicious, therefore raise up thy power, and
come to me, thy miserable creature, thy lost child,
and with thy great might succour me. Lift me
up for I have fallen very low; deliver me, for I have
plunged out of thy sound and safe highway into deep
mire, where no ground is. Help myself I cannot,
and if thou help me not, I am undone.’
Do so. Pray so. Let your sins and wickedness
be to you not a reason for hiding from Christ who
stands by; but a reason, the reason of all reasons,
for crying to Christ who stands by.
And then, whether he deliver you by kind means or
by sharp ones, deliver you he will; and set your feet
on firm ground, and order your goings, that you may
run with patience the race which is set before you
along the road of life, and the pathway of God’s
commandments, wherein there is no death.
This, my friends, is one of the meanings of Advent.
This is the meaning of the Collect, the Epistle,
and the Gospel.—That God in Christ stands
by us, ready to help and deliver us; and that if we
cry to him even out of the lowest depth, he will hear
our voice. And that then, when he has once put
us into the right road again, and sees us going bravely
along it to the best of the power which he has given
us, he will fulfil to us his eternal promise, ’Thy
sins—and not only thy sins, but thine iniquities—I
will remember no more.’
Psalm vii. 8.
Give sentence for me, O Lord, according to my righteousness;
and according to the innocency that is in me.
Is this speech self-righteous? If so, it is
a bad speech; for self-righteousness is a bad temper
of mind; there are few worse. If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us. If we confess our sins, God is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. If we say that
we have not sinned, we make him a liar.
