Piss Christ and Our Sin

Back in 1989, American photographer Andres Serrano stirred up a firestorm of controversy when he used $15,000 of taxpayer funds from the National Endowment for the Arts to create "Piss Christ". The photograph depicted a plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. I do not know what the artist's intent was with the piece (I hate to imagine) but I do remember what my reaction was the first time I heard of it as a boy growing up in a Christian home. I was angry, shocked and a little scared at what our society was coming to.

And I am now curious what your reaction was (or is) upon hearing of this piece of "art". Perhaps you are angry at the seeming intended insult tossed at Christ and/or his followers. Maybe you are upset that public funds are being used to produce art such as this in our postmodern climate. Maybe you even resent a government and public that seems to support freedom of speech when it's anti-Christian but squash it when it's pro-Christian.

But I want to turn the finger back at you and at me. 1 Corinthinans 6:15-20 outlines for us the fact that, as believers, our bodies are joined with Christ. It goes so far as to say that our bodies are members of Christ himself, and when we willfully and deliberately sin, we are doing something much worse than what Andres Sorrano did. We are not joining a plastic image of Christ with physical bodily refuse. We are joining Christ and His temple (our bodies) with a spiritual refuse.

We can too easily become comfortable with our pet sins, our vices that we think no one knows of. I hope your heart, as mine does, rises up and cries "NO! This should not be!". Oh, that we could hate our sin that much, that we could comprehend the utter vileness of it. There should be nothing of the old man that we tolerate, nothing that we hang on to, nothing that we hold back. We must be in a constant process of mortification; death to our old self so the new creation may thrive.