The Sin Solution

There, on the hotel duvet cover, my favorite pen laid uncapped and unattended. A black splotch the size of a kidney bean marred snow-white fabric and I stood beside the bed, helpless. I looked away and fantasized not leaving the rollerball pen uncapped and unattended. I looked back and the ink spot stared at me.

But I smiled, for I had a bottle of Spray ‘N Wash packed along to save baby clothes.

A couple of cold sprays of hope softened the black ink to blue and purple. And then the ink spread. Inky puddles of Spray N’ Wash rolled back and forth, but there was more. Bluish, purple ink now stained the comforter, the sheets, and the mattress.

Sin is like that. It mars our hearts and stares back at us, even when we fantasize turning back the clock to make the right choice. Even when we attack it with our own solutions, sin like disease spreads and seeps into our core. Left unattended, sin gives birth to death.

After King David got Uriah’s wife pregnant, he commanded Uriah to return home to Bathsheba; a soldier’s visit home followed by a wife’s pregnancy would not awaken suspicision. But the soldier did not visit home. Even when King David made Uriah drunk and coaxed him to spend time with Bathsheba, Uriah refused. He would not indulge when fellow soldiers camped in open fields far from home.

I wonder if Uriah ever knew he was a father-to-be.

Instead, King David sent loyal Uriah to the front-lines to die. King David cared for the widow and lead Israel to believe Bathsheba carried a full-blood prince. King David’s attempt to cover one sin gave birth to a bloody mess of sin.

Just as our own solutions fail to kill sin, they also fail to fool God. Just as our sin stares at us, it does not go unnoticed by God. The only solution for inky black stain of sin is the bright red blood of Christ. If only we would cry out like David and say, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).