What is a sinner? We might have many definitions. For instance, Pascal put it, "There are only two kinds of men, the righteous who believe themselves a sinner and the sinners who believe themselves righteous." Or Mary Wilson Little put it, "Men who make no pretensions of being good one day out of the week are known as sinners." Or, as Oscar Wilde has said, "Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner."

It would be so simple, wouldn’t it, if the fact of sin could be brushed off as easily as these quipsters make it appear. It doesn’t work, though, does it? You know it, and I know it. Every one of us labors under the terrible weight of guilt. It can’t be dismissed with a snappy saying and a smile. As one psychiatrist put it, "God may forgive your sins, but your nervous syste…