This week, the Church begins the observance of Lent, a season of 40 days before Easter, plus Sundays. It is a time to prepare ourselves for the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ, and a time of self-examination and reflection on our human weaknesses and sins.
During Lent, we go to the cross and grieve that our corruption cost the Son of God His life. We seek to repent, asking Him to lead us into victory over the flesh and develop mature Christian virtues in us which empower us to do the work of God in the world.
Lent is a good time to contemplate the seven deadly sins. There is not such a list in the Bible, but they are all mentioned there. The list itself goes back to the early church, around the fourth century of the Christian era. The seven deadly sins are pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, greed, envy, and wrath. They are inclinations of our weak human nature, tempting us to engage in sinful behavior.
Pride is placing ourselves above others. Before God we are all equal, for He loves each of us the same no matter who we are nor what sins we have committed. Self-respect is healthy, but arrogant pride is deadly to our souls and separates us from both God and other people.
In one of Jesus’ parables, when the prodigal son returned home, his elder brother refused to go into the house to celebrate. His father went out from the party and begged him to come in, but the elder brother answered, “Look, I’ve served you all these years, and I never disobeyed your instruction. Yet you’ve never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours returned, after gobbling up your estate on prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him” (Luke 15:29-30).
The elder brother was guilty of several deadly sins including wrath, greed, and envy, but his most prominent sin was pride. He rejected the offender as his brother, referring to him as “this son of yours.” After the father reassured the elder son of his love for him, he said “this brother of yours” was lost and now is found.
Pride drives a wedge between us and others, but mercy, humility, and compassion bring us close and enable us to love and serve in Jesus’ name.
Lust is the treating of others as objects of desire instead of people to be cared for. Lust causes us to look at others through the lens of desire alone, causing us to trample another person’s rights and personhood for our own selfish fulfillment. Desire can be good and is a part of our human nature, but unbridled desire makes us slaves of the devil instead of servants of God.
Gluttony is the excess intake of more food than our bodies need in a vain attempt to satisfy the needs of our souls. We all have insecurities and feelings of emptiness and unfulfillment, and gluttony attempts to fill that void with food. Overindulgence is an attempt to avoid dealing with our inner conflicts, hurts, and emptiness, while faith is a willingness to recognize and deal with our pain.
Sloth is not just laziness, it is indifference to what we need to do spiritually to care for our own souls and serve others as Christ’s representatives. Sloth castrates our spiritual vibrancy. It discounts the need for spiritual discipline. The poor in spirit know how much they need God and are blessed, but the slothful die spiritually. Sloth is choosing to be served instead of expending the energy to serve out of our gratitude to Christ our Lord.
Greed leads us to try to satisfy the needs of our souls through the accumulation of things, money, and power. God wants to fulfill our deepest needs, but we are tempted to replace the living God in our lives with worldly, temporal goods and products. Greed leads us to trample on others instead of serving them. Let us learn to seek God first and trust Him to supply all we need materially and spiritually.
Envy is jealousy of things that belong to others. It rolls in self-pity instead of being grateful for what the Lord has given us. Envy leads to dissatisfaction, depression, and sadness. Let us learn the discipline of contentment.
Wrath is unbridled anger that desires revenge against others for perceived hurts. It causes us to hate those we view as enemies and makes us slaves to our hurt rather than emissaries of the good news of the love of God. May we learn to practice the Christian virtues of long-suffering, forgiveness, and kindness.
During Lent, let us contemplate our own human weaknesses and sins, and pray that God will develop in us the nature of Christ, that we might fulfill our destiny to be the children of God.
Dr. Dan Darby is a retired United Methodist pastor.
