This weekend someone had fun at our expense. The night before last, as I lay in bed, the rest of my family discovered that our front lawn had been thoroughly TP'd, i.e. covered in toilet paper. I was told the following morning that my husband and two children spent an hour in the freezing nightfall, sometime after midnight, retrieving what they could. Two and a half garbage cans later…

I didn't get to see the full aftermath of this event. I imagined a few kids gleefully flinging roll after roll of toilet paper throughout our tall trees in the front yard, trying not to giggle too loudly lest they be heard over the soundtrack of the late movie my three were watching. I thought of how it didn't cost much for a few rolls of toilet paper. I thought of the impossible mess entangled in the branches. And the whole picture reminded me of sin - the thrill of not being caught in flinging (it gave new light to the term "fling") and the messy aftermath that impacts others disproportionately. Then there was the timing of committing the act at night, in the dark. My husband actually told me that the deed had been done with such extreme enthusiasm that it looked incredibly beautiful in the moonlight. When I followed with, "Then why did you clean it up last night?" He said, "Oh, you wouldn't want to wake up to it." So it is with our sin. Sin exposed is not a pretty sight.

The culprits created a wasteful mess requiring time and labor to clean. The fragility of the paper, caught on tiny branches, made it hard to get it all down, as it is with "sin that so easily entangles" (Hebrews 12:1). Only time and weather will remove all visible traces. The memory of this event, however, will always be with us. The next morning, my husband was outside once again to remove the vestiges with a pole-cutter pruner. The father is taking care of the final clean up. Our Father, the Master Gardener, pruning us to be holy...

The source of sin is not always recognizable. The culprits remain anonymous. My fifteen-year-old son wants revenge. I tried to calm him down by explaining this is a common rite of passage for many high school students - something that happens. Sin happens. It is in our nature. That shouldn't make it acceptable.

Sometimes the impetus for our sin is as clear as day. We may well be aware of our resentment that sent a barbed comment out of our mouths to "let" a friend know that we've been hurt. We may or may not acknowledge the low self-esteem that led us to seek attention in an inappropriate sexual situation, or to feel empowered through alcohol, or to escape through drugs.

The consequences may be physical, e.g. AIDS, an unexpected pregnancy, or addiction. Consequences of sin are almost certainly relational. If we're lucky, we can swallow our pride, repent of our sin and ask forgiveness of those we've hurt. Often, the most difficult part is forgiving ourselves. With sin, the remnant is not so easily removed as with our toilet paper mess going out with this morning's trash pick-up. Yet God is gracious, with our true repentance, to remember our sins no more. Our personal memory becomes the issue and needs to be used only for testimony of God's grace in our lives and never for guilt.

I John 3:4-5 tells us that "everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He [Jesus Christ] appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin." Therein lies the key: in Christ, there is no sin. He bore our sins on the tree to be a curse for us. Every day we need to live our lives in Christ. He will guard us from sin and its aftermath.

Let this New Year be a reminder to each of us that we are new creations in Christ, freed from the sin that entangles us!