What is "sin," and is it a flower or a thorn?
Fundamentally, sin is a disordering of what is good. The word itself is derived from an archery term, meaning to miss the mark.
Everything that God created is fundamentally good, and the devil cannot make his own "bad" things. Satan can only misuse and twist what is good and tempt us to do the same. The very first sin was a disordering of many things, namely trust in God's goodness, love of God, the use of free will, the desire for wisdom and human identity.
But what are we aiming for? And why would it be wrong to "miss the mark?" Really, the question which we'd all like an answer to is who are we hurting when we sin?
Our aim is for what we've been created to desire: God. And although we do hurt our brothers and sisters when we sin, the first answer is that we are hurting God.
We were created in order to be in relationship, and sin ultimately harms the relationship between God and people. We know that He loves us; He has demonstrated this in countless ways, not only by creating us and offering us life but also by taking our sins upon Himself and dying for us.
The crucifixion was an extremely painful way to die, but He did it anyway because He doesn't want us to be separate from Him eternally, no matter what we've done.
And with each one of our sins, we are crying, "crucify him!"
This is what St. Francis of Assisi said: "Nor did demons crucify him; it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still when you delight in your vices and sins."
This sounds really heavy, and it is. But here's the good news: we don't have to bear the weight of the offenses we've committed against the eternal, loving, personal and almighty being who is God.
He's already brought that upon Himself instead of us. He is the lamb who was slain.
All we have to do is accept His love and sacrifice and be baptized, dying and rising with Him.
Although, by itself, sin would be a horrible thorn to think about, we can reflect with so much joy on our salvation, which comes through Christ! And that's a flower.
