In a sleepy northern beach town, on a street lined with fibro 3-bedders and brick veneer homes, a young family settles in for the evening meal. A kid’s tricycle is resting up against the Ford sedan parked in the driveway. A pink bouncy ball is cooling off, all shiny and wet by the spit of the sprinkler working hard in the middle of their patchy green lawn.
Looking through their kitchen window, the strapping outline of the man of the house—a ‘rock star’ PE teacher—carefully slides a bubbling pot of baked beans off the stove. He rubs the back of his bronzed neck.
At the dinner table, a little girl reaches across, poking a ragged piece of sliced white bread in the mouth of her sister squirming in the highchair. The toddler’s cheeks flex and bulge in frantic rhythm. A silky thread of drool escapes.
The little girl spies her mum’s chair. It’s empty. And waiting in silence.
She misses her mum’s voice. Especially mum’s praises to her for being a ‘big girl’, whenever she helped with her baby sister. She misses her mum’s laugh. She misses her mum’s smile. She misses her mum’s hugs.
Where did mum go?
Like the teaser to a paperback novel, this description has elements of truth drawn from one of Australia’s longest cold cases.
In December last year, 74-year-old Chris Dawson was found guilty of murdering his wife, a crime committed 41 years ago. He killed his wife, Lynette, to pursue an illicit relationship with his sixteen-year old babysitter and student at the time.
New South Wales Supreme Court Justice, Ian Harrison, handed down a 24 year prison sentence. It is likely that Dawson will spend the remainder of his life behind bars.
Cases like this remind us of the darkness of the human heart. Unfettered passions can lead to horrific crimes like murder.
Instructions in murder?
Christians are instructed, in one sense to commit murder; to slay; to mortify. The apostle Paul uses violent terms to emphasize the seriousness of God’s commands.
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)
We are instructed to put to death all sins living inside of us. The human will is not enough to slay the wickedness that lives within. It is only through the power of Christ living inside the heart of the believer that will overcome our sinful tendencies.
As we grow in faith, Christ gives us the strength to follow him and to do what seems to be impossible.
My younger audience may be scratching their heads right now. What do these strange words mean? Well, allow me to unpack them for you.
Fornication simply means any form of sexual sin. Any activity outside the physical intimacy shared between husband and wife is wrong in God’s sight.
Uncleanness is translated as impurity. This includes evil thoughts and intentions.
Inordinate affection refers to sexual lust or strong physical sexual desire.
Evil concupiscence means evil desires that spring from the mind.
Covetousness is greed, or the unquenchable thirst to gain more, especially for things that are forbidden.
It is clear that the Chris Dawson case highlights the very sins that we need to put to death.
I know what you’re thinking. Shirl, I’m never going to go to the lengths of actually murdering someone, or engage in sexual immorality. Though we might be innocent of doing these things, we might be guilty of committing these acts inside our minds, in our imagination—in our hearts.
In God’s sight, to think evil in our hearts is the same as committing evil.
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Matt 5;18
If we do not curb our appetites for wickedness, it will grow in intensity to the point where we lose control, and lose ourselves.
We need to kill these sins, before they destroy us.
Angela Carter’s short story, Master, is a disturbing and harrowing tale that brings to light this truth. We encounter the ‘Master’, a white hunter whose livelihood centres on stalking wild beasts for their prized pelts.
But he is more animal than human, and we have a glimpse of the seedlings of his brutal and violent nature as a young man.
“He had first exercised a propensity for savagery in the acrid lavatories of a minor English public school where he used to press the heads of the new boys into the ceramic bowl and then pull the flush upon them to drown their hurling protests.”
So what? Big deal, you say. This happens all the time, even in our Aussie school system. However, it reveals to us a cruel streak that takes pleasure in the suffering of others.
Carter builds on this by describing in vivid detail of the hunter’s barbarism towards women. He is in fact a sexual predator.
“After puberty, he turned his undefinable but exacerbated rage upon the pale, flinching bodies of young women . . .”
Later, we find him turning from hunting animals in Africa, to killing panthers and jaguars in the jungles of the Amazon. There he purchases a girl who becomes the victim of his brutality.
Daily she is subject to physical abuse and sexual exploitation.
Carter holds nothing back in her descriptions of the evil inflicted upon this young innocent girl.
Her story left me visibly shaken. And I couldn’t help but grieve for those who endure such suffering not in a fictional world, but in the real world.
You only have to watch the news to understand that our world is infected by sin, and we’re swimming against a current of bacteria infested waters.
Bacteria infested waters
Though it is not my first choice of water activity, canoeing up and down a stream can be both invigorating and relaxing as you take in the natural beauty of the riverbank. With an abundance of flora, assorted gums and native shrubs, it’s easy to unwind, release the oars, and let the river carry you away.
One time, for a school camp activity, paddling down the river was not such a tranquil thing to do. Instead, it became a cutthroat competition to get our team’s canoe from one side of the river and back before the rest of the competitors.
With only 3 canoes on the starting side and 5 teams, it was as hectic as shopping on Boxing Day. There was mudslinging and elbows thrown with reckless abandon, red faces, and sludge brown stained sneakers. I’m surprised no one copped a black eye, or an oar to the ribs.
Jumping into an unclaimed canoe was the most difficult aspect of the challenge. Paddling to the other side of the river and back was, by comparison, an absolute breeze.
There were cows standing on the riverbank, watching us, the silly humans paddling across the river. The cattle knew it was their river. They owned it. It was where they relieved themselves.
Oh yes, the river had the distinct aroma of fresh cow patties. And, if you looked close enough, you could see these small floating islands of manure bopping in the water.
Just a few splashes of that river water ruined whatever clothing you had forever. No amount of laundry powder, hot water, or heavy-duty spin cycle (AKA washing machine walkabout setting) was going to remove the river stench off my clothes.
So, I condemned my shirt, shorts, underwear, socks and shoes to the garbage bin; never to be worn again.
Only an insane person, or one who lost their sense of smell, would take a nice hot shower and afterwards put those stinky, dirty, river clothes on again. Unless their objective was to score a seat on public transport during peak hours.
What not to wear
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, God instructs us to remove things that are offensive, repulsive and filthy to Him. We are to strip these away like dirty clothes from our bodies. We are to rid ourselves of ugly character traits and sinful behaviour linked to our lives before we came to know Jesus.
It’s a process. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s easy to get rid of these things.
But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; (Colossians 3:8,9)
We’ve all been guilty of being angry—and not the righteous sort either. Anger makes us behave in ways that we shouldn’t, and makes us appear foolish. Anger is a choice. Anger can become habit. Anger may even be infectious.
God warns us about anger in the book of Proverbs.
Make no friendship with an angry man; And with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, And get a snare to thy soul. ( Proverbs 22:24-25)
Wrath is rage, or an outburst of sinful anger. Malice refers to damage caused by evil speech. Blasphemy here is not the same word for blaspheming God, but rather it is to slander people. Filthy communication is filthy language.
Believers in Christ have the Holy Spirit and a new nature. Jesus dwells in our hearts by faith. He helps us to kick bad habits and ingrained patterns of bad behavior and thinking.
Never one to leave us cold and naked, God motivates us to wear particular types of garments.
The Beautiful New You
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (Colossiansl 3:10)
What to wear
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. (Colossians 3:12-14)
Bibliography
Atkinson, S. 2022, ‘Chris Dawson: Husband in podcast-famous case jailed for murder’ BBC.com. Retrieved 26 Feb 2023 from
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-63830021
Daoud, E. 2022, ‘Chris Dawson sentenced over murder of wife Lynette 40 years ago’, 7News.com.au. Retrieved 26 Feb 2023 from
Hislop, V. 2013. The Story. Love, Loss & the Lives of Women. 100 Great Short Stories chosen by Victoria Hislop. Head of Zeus Ltd, Clerkenwell Green. London.
Oxford Dictionary online. Retrieved 26 Feb 2023 from
Swindoll, C.1998. Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations and Quotes. Thomas Nelson, Nashville. USA.
Tozer, A.W. 2008. The Worship Driven Life. The reason we were Created. Monarch Books. Oxford. United Kingdom.
Watson, A. 2022, ‘Chris Dawson sentenced to 24 years for killing his wife 40 years ago’, Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 26 Feb 2023 from
