Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror? I mean REALLY looked? What do you see? Every single day I view a figure. Blue eyes, stubble of hair on my head and chin, a little bit of a crooked nose from a little "incident" in Grade 9, a little bit of a tire around the waist. It's all in passing though. Brief moments in the morning and at work in the bathroom. Fleeting. The mirror just reflects an image but doesn't get to the heart of that image - the "who" of it.
Who am I? Am I what I do? Am I a group I'm associated with? Am I the letters after my name (Okay, I know. I have no letters after my name. Gimme a break!) I have started to question this today. Why? It's because of my rampant sin. Weird, eh? I have discovered that I find it very easy to measure myself against other people - and I always come out on top. I see their garbage, their attitudes, their life and I measure it against mine. Of course, theirs is All bad (okay, I'm a nice guy so I sometimes give them little charities here and there in my assessment) and mine is all good (okay, I'm not ALL good so sometimes I back off on my greatness...just a little). It is in the times of being confronted with my sin, when I see what I do and how I go about doing it, that I realize what a tremendous hypocrite that I am. I can't even bring myself comfort by telling myself that others are this way as well because I see the lie in that - I'm still measuring myself by others. I realize how much (and I don't think I really realize HOW much) I have offended God and His Son, Jesus Christ, who bought me with his Life. When I measure myself against Him, I'm hooped! AND, it seems the only time I do a serious measure of myself against Him is when I am face to face with my sin.
I am me. I KNOW I am no better than anyone else, although right now I feel I am worse than everyone else. Inwardly so pious and all-knowing and then to have to see that I'm not, that I'm worse than the people I've measured myself against. I find in these moments that I am like the tax collector who could not even LOOK towards heaven but beat his chest saying, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!" I'm no longer that Pharisee who looks down on the sinner and tsk tsk's at how bad he is.
I am the sinner that I look down on.
