Sins Of Omission

I was going through piles of used books at Diplomat, randomly picked up an old and jacketless one, and randomly opened it, and here’s what I found.

The Sin of Omission

It isn’t the things you do;
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun

The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you might have sent
Are your haunting ghost at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way
The bit of a heartsome council
You were hurried too much to say;

The loving touch of the hand,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for
With troubles enough of your own.

The little act of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be helpful
Which everyone may find—

No it’s not the thing you do,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun

---Margaret E. Sangster

The Book is “The Treasury of Religious Verse” by Donald T. Kauffman. I bought it for twenty nine pesos.

This is a good poem. It made me reflect on sin. The Old Testament generally defines sins as disobedience to the commandments of God. But in the New Testament where Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, sin is not all about commandments; it is all about the loss of relationship. Sin in the New Testament can be summed up in Jo 3:6 So everyone who lives in union with Christ does not continue to sin; but whoever continues to sin has never seen him or known him. Sin is being out of Christ. For if one is in Christ one is incapable of committing sin against God; this is justification. Of course it does not mean we can’t sin, it only means that the payment for our sin is already accounted for.
So simple yet made complicated.
I was thinking: Christ died for all our sins—sins of commission.
But for sins of omission?