Just as my husband and I were getting caught up in all the fun of Christmas activities, the harsh reality of sin reared its' ugly head. We had just finished dinner in a well-known French restaurant in Westchester County New York. Even though Jean-Jâcques Pâtisserie serves some of the best dessserts in Westchester, tonight we would not partake. Instead, we were looking forward to a party that evening at Church that was billed as "Christ, Carols &Cookies." We were laughing about, I don't remember what, as we walked out into the restaurant parking lot. Our mood immediately changed as we saw a large minivan maneuvering strangely right beside the front of our car. The Anatomy Of A Sin! Running toward our car I realized that the driver had just hit our car and dislodged its' bumper. I looked at his license plate number and partially memorized it. As he was about to leave the parking lot, I ran up to the car and frantically called out to the driver.
"Excuse me, excuse me" I said, "but I think you hit our car!" He rolled done his window and in a less than innocent way remarked, "oh, I didn't think I did." The Anatomy Of A Sin! After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence (where I felt as if I could see the inner workings of his conscience contemplating what it should do), he said "I guess I ought to take a look at it." He then proceeds to back his car up until the car behind him, (trying to exit the parking lot), honks because he's about to hit them too!
He tells me that he will exit and then circle back into the parking lot so as to let the cars out behind him. He was skittish,very skittish. At this point, I wondered if he was about to flee. After all, if we had come out to the parking lot one minute later than we did, we would not have caught him in the act. Further, although I feel he was hesitating at the parking lot exit, he had been about to leave when I caught him. No note on the car or anything and he was leaving. The Anatomy Of A Sin
Happily, he did indeed come around, get out of his car and examine the damage. My husband and he, both tried to get the bumper back into place to no avail. We exchanged names and telephone numbers at this point. His name was Jotham Hull.* I definitely was not on the ball that night, all caught up in the holiday season as I was, or else why was I so stupid? I didn't even get the man's full license plate number. He could simply have given us some phony name and telephone number. To my defense, I have never had a fender bender before. A friend later advised me that the thing to do in such a case would be : to take a photo with my phone of the license plate.
As we assessed the damage, I wondered aloud if we would make it to church that night or should we just head home. This seemed to peek Jotham's interest. He remarked, "are you going someplace?" Feeling nervous to reveal anything of a personal nature to this man of a questionable character, I reluctantly related our Christmas party plans. And, from that moment on, I sensed something in his demeanor change. A lightening up perhaps.
I told Jotham that I would take the car to a local body shop and get an estimate of the damage and then call him. Jotham assured us that he would take care of the bill. I thanked him. His response was that "of course I will take care of the bill, after all wouldn't I want someone to pay for damages if they had hit my car?" Furthermore he remarked, "my son just had his car damaged in a train parking lot. Someone hit his car and then just drove away. It cost a thousand dollars to fix it!"
Jotham seemed to be saying all the right things, but was he being truthful or just trying to throw us off the scent? I wondered if mentioning Church and alluding to the holy had not kickstarted his conscience into operation. I would not know the answer until a few days later. In the meantime, I wondered a lot about what is the Anatomy Of A Sin? How does the wrong that we do in our life come about? Is it just the way we are, the way we were raised or something else? When does what we have learned and practiced become our responsibility? After all we all do have a free will.
The word sin connotes missing the mark, as when a spear thrower or archer fails to hit their designated target. If you think of all your actions as archery practice, it is very easy to understand how you could not possibly hit the target every time. The Bible confirms this and says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of the Lord -Romans 3:23. Sin is part of the human condition and we all do it. In fact, I have always been amazed at the fact that you can't read very far in the first book of the Bible before you read about sin, i.e., the Garden of Eden, and Cain and Abel.
God said to Cain : "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But, if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it"-Genesis 4:7. This is the situation in a nutshell. Sin is ever-waiting to ensnare us. It is always at the door waiting to come into our life. We have to realize that fact and get a hold of ourselves the way Jotham apparently did. According to the mechanic at my body shop, there is no way that the driver of the car that hit us did not know that he had almost dragged our bumper off. The Anatomy Of A Sin!
Yet, what made him almost drive off and leave the scene of a collision? What made him hesitate at the exit? He may have saw us and assumed that we had gotten his license plate number. Or, perhaps, he went through a battle with sin and won. I have reason to believe it is the former and not the latter, because a few days later when I called the telephone number that he had given me, he did answer the phone. Then, he had complete mastery over any sin that may have been present. He happily took care of the repair bill, assumed moral responsibility and apologized profusely for putting a damper on our Christmas holiday. He told me during that phone conversation, that he was a committed Christian. I was amazed if not speechless.
Dear readers, to be a Christian does not make us perfect. We are and always will be sinners. Knowing what is right and choosing to fight and rule over our very nature will produce victory in our daily life. We can do this with God's help. Jotham said that he hoped to see us sometime at Jean-Jâcques Pâtisserie in the future, and I could honestly say that I hoped so too. Jotham even sent us a New Years's card with a very nice message. Isn't this the way every auto collision should end?
* the names have been changed.
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