'Sin' or simply a 'Cause of Pain'

‘Rather that our sinfulness being the reason why we cannot look on the face of a righteous God, could it be that he who loves more than any other being in the universe also suffers the most? Could it be that all the suffering that has ever taken place has been etched onto his face? What is God’s “holiness” or “otherness”? Could it not be chiefly his love (the very quality by which the New Testament defines him) – and the pain, which is the inevitable consequence of it?’

Chalk and Mann 2003 The Lost Message of Jesus

What if the ‘Sin’ that Jesus came to deal with in the world was our greed, oppression, abuse, ignorance and apathy? What if the consequences that Jesus came to deal with were the pain and suffering caused by this ‘Sin’. What if the reason that an imperfect human, all of whom have caused some of this suffering, cannot look on the face of God because we’ll see the results of our sin etched so deeply and painfully on His face that we won’t be able to live with ourselves?

What if we substitute the word ‘Sin’ with all it’s connotations for the phrase ‘Cause of Pain’? Maybe Jesus would say to the woman who was caught in adultery ‘You may go, but don’t cause anymore pain to yourself or to others’? What if he would say to us as wealthy nations ‘you may go, but don’t cause more suffering and injustice for the poor’? What if he said to the healthy ‘You may go, but please take care of the sick and the broken rather than ignoring them’? What if He said to the in-crowd ‘You may go, but reach out to others and lift up those who you see as losers’?