How to get away with murder. The show. I’ve been binge watching it. Don’t ask me why. And please don’t judge. I know. I know. It’s full of scenes I don’t want to see. I started to watch the show a few years ago and stopped. Spoiler alert. They really were trying to get away with murder. I just couldn’t watch it then. But, for some reason, now I am.

A couple of the characters were abused as children. A couple others had distant fathers. One had a rocky childhood. One lost his mother by suicide. One had been in prison. Another had a criminal record. They all admitted that they were broken people.

In one of the episodes, one of the characters said they all deserved hell because of all the bad things they had done. Oh. I think he just spoke for all mankind. We all deserve hell. Because of all the things we have done. Not one of us born on this earth is good enough to escape hell on our own. We need help. We need someone to rescue us from our sins. We need a Savior.

And there is a remedy. There is a Savior. He gave his life for my sins and your sins. For my brokenness and your brokenness. For victims and victimizers. We can be forgiven and healed.

So when you think of yourself, do you consider yourself to be broken or sinful? Do you step outside yourself and look at who you really are and at what you’ve done? Do you try to soften the blow by saying you’re broken instead of sinful? Because, hey. Perhaps someone else’s sin is what broke us. And some sin has broken the one who broke you. And, in spite of all the brokenness around us, we are all sinners. We don’t have to be broken to be sinners.

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If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:8-9

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Maybe it wasn’t my fault at all that I’m the way I am. But I do have a choice. I do have the ability to name my brokenness. And I can name my sin. Whether it’s your sin or my sin that caused my brokenness. It doesn’t change the fact that we are all sinners.

There is the mess that life gives you and there’s the mess that you make.

Annalise Keating (How to Get Away with Murder)

If we call our lives messy or broken, it doesn’t really describe the gravity of our sins. It somehow softens the blow of sin. Oh. Our lives may be messy and broken as a result of someone else’s sin or our own, but sin is a result of disobeying God. How messed up is that? When do we take responsibility for our sins?

Just imagine standing at the foot of the Cross looking up to the One who died for those sins. We must compare our sins not to other people’s sins, but to God’s holiness. Since sin is rebellion against a holy God, it means that God can’t have any part of sin.

We cannot redefine what God calls sins and presume to identify that ethic as Christian.

Alisa Childers (Another Gospel)

Oh sure. Our brokenness may be on different levels. One person may have suffered massive loss or abuse. Another may have experienced deep depression or anxiety. Rejection by someone who has suffered at the hands of others can lead them to hurt still others. Sometimes our brokenness is due to someone else’s sin. Their sin is not my sin. But sin shouldn’t go by any other name.

Sin isn’t pretty and it isn’t helpful to soften it up with gentle words. Oh. It may make me feel better for a while, but the root of the problem is that I have sinned. Sin will separate me from God. Is that what I want?