200726 Sermon on Romans 6:19-23 (Trinity 7) July 26, 2020

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Our epistle reading last week was Romans 6 verses 1-11. Our epistle reading this week is Romans 6 verses 19 to the end of the chapter. Both last week’s reading ad this week’s reading are from the same chapter. It isn’t surprising that there is a connection between the two readings. So I’d like to refresh your memory of what was said last week.

Our reading began with Paul’s rhetorical question: “What then, shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!” What Paul says after that is not what we would naturally expect. So let’s start by talking about what we would naturally expect. When we are talking about sinning or not sinning we immediately, naturally assume that we are talking about knowing what is right and wrong, and then revving up the will power to do what is right. All the self-help books, all the ethicists and philosophers, say the same thing. What sells their books is some new, clever twist that they come up with.

They say stuff like, “You see, where you went wrong is that you were thinking about it in the right way. All that you need to do is think about it in this way! If you think about it this way you will find that everything will go splendidly. You will look better, feel better, and have money coming out of your ears.” If the sales pitch is clever enough we just can’t help ourselves. We say, “Mmm, that sounds good.” And we give them our credit card number over the phone.

As we all well know, a lot of times—dare I say, practically every time—the self-improvement program fails. But it’s never the clever salesman’s fault. He can always say, “Well, you didn’t try hard enough. It’s not my fault; it’s your fault! If you had just continued with my program you would have the results that you were seeking.” And who can argue with that? When they’re right, they’re right.

So when Paul brings up the topic of sinning, we immediately assume that he is going to talk to us about how we should improve ourselves. Perhaps he’s going to give us some new knowledge so that we think about it in a better way; so that it is easier for us to rev up our will power.

That’s not what Paul does though. Instead he talks about what baptism has done to you. He says, “Do you not know that when you were baptized into Christ Jesus you were united with him in his death? In Jesus you died to sin, because Jesus died to sin once and for all people. United with Jesus in a death like his you are also united with him in a resurrection like his. So this is how it is: you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Now it is very tempting to us to turn Paul’s words into something that we can more easily, naturally process. It is very tempting for us to turn this talk about baptism into some kind of object lesson where baptism is merely an empty symbol. The logic would go like this: Being dunked in the water is kind of like dying. Being pulled out of the water is kind of like being born. With this simple object lesson in hand, Paul is understood to be like a high school football coach who says, “Go get ‘em boys! Pretend that you have died. Pretend that you have been raised. Go, fight, win!” Baptism doesn’t do anything (so it is assumed). So it’s all up to you.

But what if baptism actually does something? What if God is active in baptism? Then we have a rather different picture. Then God has killed you with all your sins and evil desires. God has also raised you from the dead to live in the only true righteousness that exists, which is Christ’s righteousness. With this way of understanding Paul (which is the correct way), we are dealing with God’s grace, God’s working, rather than with yet another self-improvement program. What’s more is that this is at the very heart and soul of our salvation and the story of the universe. We are being saved by being crucified in Christ, God’s Son, who died for our sins, paying our ransom. We will rise from the dead when our Savior comes and rends the heavens wide. When we have been raised with purified bodies, then the work of our baptism will be finally finished. The continued dying and the rising that we daily experience in this life will be over and done with because we will finally be clean when our sin is left behind in the grave.

So that is what Paul was talking about last week. With this week’s reading he is continuing this discussion concerning the old man and the new man. The old Adam is born in sin. He can’t be reformed. The only step in the right direction is for him to die so that he can’t sin anymore because he is dead. This is done in baptism. The new man is the one who has been born again by the water and the Holy Spirit in baptism, united with Christ. The new man looks to God, believing his promise of salvation in Jesus. The old man and the new man match up with the terms that Paul uses with our reading this week. There are two kinds of slaves. All people and every individual, without exception, are one or the other. Either someone is a slave of sin, which results in death, or a person is a slave of righteousness, which results in holiness.

The same temptation exists here as what I spoke about with the beginning of chapter six. There is a temptation to turn Paul’s words into mere picture language that results in a motivational speech. We are hard wired into thinking that righteousness is a matter of one’s own doing—sink or swim, it’s up to you.

But Paul really means what he says about slavery. Slaves, by definition, are not free. If it were just a matter of will power, then what slave would ever remain in slavery? Slaves are slaves because they are forced to be slaves. They are held in slavery by a force that is more powerful than themselves.

Our chief hymn last week spoke about the slavery that all people are born into. All mankind fell in Adam’s fall. One common sin infects us all. From one to all the curse descends, and over all God’s wrath impends. Through all our powers corruption creeps, and us in dreadful bondage keeps. In guilt we draw our infant breath and reaps its fruits of woe and death. From hearts depraved to evil prone, flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone. God’s image lost, the darkened soul seeks not nor finds its heavenly goal.

Our slavery to sin is a real slavery, not a pretend slavery. No amount of knowledge, no amount of effort is able to set us free. We can only be set free by God’s action, which he does through his Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. By dying together with Christ and rising together with Christ we are changed by God. A force more powerful than ourselves brings us into a new kind of slavery—slavery to righteousness—leading to our sanctification.

But don’t be turned off by the sound of the word “slavery” here. That word sounds especially bad to our American ears that pride themselves on liberty. When Paul says “slavery to righteousness” he is being somewhat ironic. It’s like saying that someone is enslaved to goodness. Or someone is enslaved to having everyone like him. We’re alright with slavery if it means that we are totally bound up with something good. And that is the case here. Being a slave to righteousness is being a slave to the incredible bounty of Christ’s gifts. He does great things in you.

Again, a verse from our chief hymn last week gets to the point: We thank you Christ new life is ours, new light, new hope, new strength, new powers. This grace our every way attend until we reach our journey’s end.

So there are two slaves. The one is how we all are by nature and by natural birth. Those who are baptized and believe are the other. Since this is the case, Paul says, you should no longer present the members of your body as slaves to sin, being obedient to sin’s desires as though sin were still your task master.

Guard the member of your body that is your tongue so that you do not speak evil of others, or even that it should be filled with useless garbage. Use your tongue to call on the name of God, to sing and declare his praises. Guard your eyes and your ears so that they do not lead the rest of your body into evil. Immediately we might think of sex here, which certainly is valid, but it’s not just that. Your eyes and your ears are bombarded by false philosophies, false understandings of who you are, of how you should live your life, what the future for this old world is. The media that you take in with your senses has its effect on your soul. It is constantly teaching you about what life is all about. The eyes and the ears are the pathway into the mind. Guard your mind so that you love the Lord your God who has filled you up with good things, and so that you know that what is best is love. Direct all the parts of your life toward being kind and helpful to whomever crosses your path (including, especially, those in your own household), rather than looking at them as people whom you can use toward your own ends.

You see, here’s the deal: All that old stuff is passing away. Jesus is coming. The resurrection from the dead is coming. So what should it profit a man even if he managed to gain the whole world but to lose his soul? The one to whom  a person is a slave is the one to whom a person belongs. So if you present yourself as a slave to sin, then you belong to sin. Sin comes from the devil, and so you belong to him. Wherever your master goes, that is where you, his property, will go too. The devil is going to go to hell, so if you remain chained to him as his obedient servant, then that is where you will go too. But if you are obedient to the teaching that God has caused you to hear, that is, if you believe that God’s promises to you are true, then you are not a slave to sin. You are obedient to what God has said. You say, “Amen! That’s true.” Thus you belong where your master is. You belong in heaven.

With last week’s sermon as well as with today’s I’ve tried to give you a big picture kind of look at what Paul is saying. I’ve tried to show you how Paul’s teaching is different from all the self-improvement projects that people have come up with since the fall into sin. There are many points of contrast. With baptism it is God who is at work. With self improvement projects it all depends on you. With baptism we are dealing with the utter incompetence of mankind for any true improvement. With self improvement projects people are taught to depend on mankind’s abilities.

But the most important point of contrast is that baptism actually works. It is the only thing that works. With self improvement projects it all ends in death, even if the person should be faithful to the program his or her whole life through. Baptism, on the other hand, works now and into eternity. It begins to work sanctification while we live and battle against the flesh, the world, and the devil. This prevents us from being completely sanctified in this life as Paul goes on to explain in Romans chapter 7. But God’s work of making us holy will come to completion with the resurrection from the dead on the last day. This will not be our achievement. It will be totally God’s achievement. God, who does all things well, is a whole lot better at achieving things, so this should really not be surprising.

The superiority of God’s work over our self improvement projects should be obvious, but realize that this way of thinking does not come naturally to us. I’ve studied the bible for many years now, and I still have to read these chapters in Romans very slowly and carefully. I think it’s because my fleshly mind always wants to play tricks on me while I read it.

We are hard wired into thinking that it’s all up to us. Or, on the other hand, if it’s all up to God, then we end up asking those rhetorical questions that Paul asks such as, “If it is all a matter of grace, then why not sin all the more so that grace abounds?” Our brains have an easier time making sense of either of these ways of talking, but both of them are false. Both of them end in death and rottenness. Salvation, on the other hand, comes by hearing and believing God’s working through his Word and Sacraments. There’s no graduating from this hearing and learning. Those who think they’ve graduated have almost certainly been taken over by fleshly, worldly thinking. The lies are easier for us to understand and accept than the truth.

But God has given us the gift of Paul’s instruction. The Gospel Paul preaches of Christ and him crucified is the power of salvation to all who believe. The salvation of God that is worked through his preaching is the truth. It will prevail. Whereas other notions, while they sound good to our ears now, will most certainly let down those on Judgment Day who believe in them. Continue to grow, therefore, in your knowledge and understanding.

He who has begun a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

200719 Sermon on Romans 6:1-11 (Trinity 6) July 19, 2020

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There is an advent hymn that goes like this: “O Savior, rend the heavens wide! Come down, come down with might stride! Unlock the gates, the doors break down! Unbar the way to heaven’s crown.” We have some dramatic imagery here. “Jesus,” the singer says, “Rip the heavens in two as though you were ripping some fabric. With a determined march, looking neither to the left nor to the right, come right down here to us. There are gates and there are doors that are in the way. They are between us and heaven. They are between us and God. Kick them down and let us out! There’s a crown for us in heaven, let us get to it.”

We do not know when this day will be when Jesus will come. It could be today. It could be this Christmas. Perhaps Jesus will delay his coming for another couple years. But it is coming. Perhaps it won’t come before your body dies and you are placed in a coffin in the ground. With this event, unlike other things that might happen after your death, you won’t be excluded from experiencing it. Jesus says that when he comes down, comes down with mighty stride he will have an alarm clock of sorts. There will be a mighty trumpet that will be blasted by the angels. I wonder what that trumpet will sound like. Jesus will speak with the voice of an archangel. The net result of this is that all those who have died will wake up. The second coming of Christ is an event that all of the creatures whom God has made in his own image are going to participate in whether they are living in that moment or had died thousands of years before.

All will participated in it, whether they like it or not, whether they believed that it would happen or not. This is something that God is going to do regardless of whatever anybody else thinks. Unfortunately, there will many people who will want to hide on that great day, but they will find that they won’t be able to. In fact, the Bible seems to indicate that there will be more people who will be wishing that the mountains would fall on them or that the ground would swallow them up, than there will be those who are looking for their crown to be given to them.

The fear that is put on display for us as we anticipate the Day of Judgment is tremendous and awe inspiring. It easily holds our attention. But Paul says that this word of condemnation, although tremendously glorious, is actually the lesser glory. The glory of salvation on that day will be so great that the terror of condemnation, although extremely glorious, won’t be able to hold our attention. The glory of the resurrection to eternal life will be so glorious that we won’t even notice the condemnation.

It’s like the glory of the moon and the glory of the sun. The moon has a bright countenance and a definite glory. Full moons are impressive. But the moon’s glory is such that when the sun rises in the morning, the moon can no longer even be seen. The moon is often there somewhere in the sky during the day, but we can’t see it.

That is how it is now with the thought of condemnation. While we are still making our way through this darkened world, there is nothing that is so captivating to all people as the thought of God’s judgement, of death, of horror, of hell. I can always count on having people’s attention while talking about such things. They might think that I’m crazy, but they can’t help but look at the light of that full moon shining down on them.

“But,” Paul says, “we Christians are not preachers of the letter of the Law that kills. We Christians are preachers of the Spirit, who gives life.” The ministry of the Spirit so far surpasses the ministry of the letter that condemnation’s impressiveness is swallowed up by the greater glory of our justification in Christ, God’s only-begotten Son. When the life giving Holy Spirit raises us and all believers in Christ from the dead, we will see him with an unveiled face. We, who have died together with Christ and been raised together with Christ, will see God. We will fully see God, whom the Scriptures say no man may see and live.

This is because with the resurrection from the dead we will have been set free from this sin rotted flesh, this old evil heart. This is what makes it so that no man may see God and live. Our wretchedness and incompatibility with God are such that we can never be reformed with any amount of effort. The only way we can even begin to make any kind of step in the right direction is by being dead instead of alive. That is when our flesh will finally no longer be able to sin. But it doesn’t stop there with that first step in the right direction. We die with faith in Christ and his power to save. We know God will be victorious over our death, just as he was victorious over Christ’s death. Then all things will be made new and right.

Thus we will find the day of the resurrection from the dead to be the best day that has ever happened to us. Wonderful things will be happening all around us. The sights and the sounds will be tremendous. We will see Jesus Christ our Savior. We will see God’s glory. We will hear and see the angels. We will also find that we are entirely changed within. Our hearts will finally be completely pure and trusting and good. There will be no suspicion or cynicism. We will not be self-conscious anymore. We won’t see our faults. The thing that will fill our hearts is thanksgiving towards God our Creator for the wonderful gifts we will be living in. Like kids on Christmas nobody will have to tell us to be happy. We won’t be able to help ourselves or do anything otherwise. “O Savior, rend the heavens wide. Come down, come down with mighty stride! Unlock the gates, the doors break down! Unbar the way to heaven’s crown!”

Now what does this all have to do with our readings today? I’ve just rehearsed some of the facts of the resurrection from the dead, the best day for us creatures since before the fall into sin. Our readings, especially our Old Testament and Gospel readings, are saying something quite different. Our Old Testament reading is what God said to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt, and thou shalt not.”

Our Gospel reading is from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus is showing us how God’s commandments are rightly understood. We might think that we are in the clear when it comes to the fifth commandment against murder. Jesus says, “No, the commandment is not broken just by the physical act. The commandment is broken by the heart that is angry, by the heart that condemns the other.”

So it is with all the commandments as the meanings to the Ten Commandments in Luther’s Small Catechism teach us. “We have the Law to see therein that we have not been free from sin, but also that we clearly see how pure toward God life should be. Have mercy, Lord!” These readings are intimately tied up with the ministry of condemnation, for God’s commandments show us why we die, how we deserve hell, how dreadful the Day of Judgment would otherwise be for us if only our own selves were in the balance apart from the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake.

But the real reason why I’ve spoken at such great length about the glories of our resurrection from the dead is so that we can get a proper sense of Paul’s tone in our epistle lesson. The way that our reading begins, we might think that it is just like the other two. Paul asks the rhetorical question: “What then, shall we continue to sin so that grace may abound? By no means!” It sounds as though we are dealing with morality, with what we should and should not do. But what Paul says after this shows that we are not talking in a normal way about morality. He speaks of death and resurrection.

He says, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, to make our sinful body powerless, so that we would not continue to serve sin. For the person who has died has been declared free from sin. And since we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

The normal way to talk about morality is that it is a matter of personal accomplishment. A person learns what’s right and wrong. Then the person revs up his will power to accomplish what is good by sheer grit and determination. This is the natural and normal way to think about the Law, about what we should and should not do.

Paul does not understand the Christian life of good works in this way whatsoever. Where do you see Paul saying that if you believe in yourself and never give up then you can stop sinning? The one who is doing the actions in what Paul says is not you, but rather God. God baptizes. By that baptism God unites you with Christ. In Christ God kills and crucifies you so that your sinful body is brought to nothing. God raises the dead Jesus, so also he raises you. When Jesus was raised from the dead sin and death no longer had control over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all. The life he lives he lives to God. “So also,” Paul says, “You should consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

There is a hopefulness in what Paul says that isn’t possible otherwise when you are talking about how people should live. When you are talking about what a person should do and should not do there isn’t much hope. Maybe you can get people to change when there are prying eyes stand at the ready, itching to judge them. When other people are watching people shape up for their own self interest, because they do not want to be ashamed. But what does the person do in secret? And if the person should make a great deal of progress reforming himself isn’t he proud as punch about himself, worshiping himself, singing his own praises? And what about those dark recesses of the heart. Who can root out those burning coals of anger, those slimy thoughts of lust? Anybody who is honest with himself has to agree with what the Scriptures say: All are imprisoned under sin. While I suppose it is a nobler thing to try to rid yourself of your enslavement to sin rather than just leaving it be, that doesn’t mean that you will actually succeed. In fact, you won’t. No matter how hard you try. And the Law will still condemn you after all that striving for personal achievement, because you haven’t done what it says.

This rough way of talking is biblical. It is entirely necessary. Without it people will be satisfied with their hypocrisy. It is the ministry of condemnation. But this is not the way that Paul is speaking in our epistle reading. He is not saying, “Try harder.” He certainly isn’t saying, “Reform yourself” or “Believe in yourself.” He is saying, “You have died.” That’s good news, because you certainly couldn’t stop sinning otherwise. And you have not been left in limbo. You have not been left in some in between state. You have been raised together with Christ. You are forgiven and justified for Christ’s sake. You are alive to God in Christ Jesus. Instead of your old evil spirit, you have been given the Holy Spirit, so that you leave behind the works of darkness that are passing away and press forward to the day of the resurrection of all flesh. The glory of the ministry of the Spirit has begun in you. New and even more glorious works of God are right around the corner for you. So why would you go back to those old things that are dying and passing away?

What you see here is a different kind of logic for how we might live. There is no “Do this, or else you will be punished!” That is a true word. It is utterly biblical. But it doesn’t apply to you who have been united with Christ in his death and his resurrection. You who believe and are baptized shall be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. So there is no “Do this, or else!” for you. Instead there is a promise of God’s continued working for you and in you. He did not spare his only begotten Son, but sacrificed him for your redemption. He continues to give you his Holy Spirit who fights against the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh. This working of God on your behalf will continue and culminate in the tremendous events of the last day of this earth and the eternal life of the world to come.

The strength of the Christian life does not consist in self improvement. It doesn’t consist in feeling good about yourself or bad about yourself. It consists of trusting in God’s working for you and in you for your salvation. It is very necessary for us to hear what God says about our salvation, about the resurrection and all its glories, because such thinking certainly doesn’t come naturally to us. When we think of morality, when we think of judgment, we most easily think about it in terms of willpower and personal achievement. It is not at all natural for us to think of it as God’s working on our behalf in Christ the crucified and resurrected. If we were never told it, we’d never believe that Christ’s death and resurrection could make us one whit better. But in point of fact, it is the only thing that can make anybody truly better. We are declared righteous for Jesus’s sake. We are made alive again in part now by the Holy Spirit’s work of faith, hope, and love in us. We will be perfect and complete when our Savior rends the heavens wide and comes down in mighty stride.

200712 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (Trinity 5) July 12, 2020

200712 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

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In our epistle reading Paul says, “we preach Christ crucified.” Just a little later in the epistle he says this again. He says that when he came to the Corinthians he didn’t put on a big show. He didn’t speak super eloquently. He was determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified. According to Paul’s own words, therefore, talking about Christ being crucified is important. In fact, he says that it is everything. He didn’t want to know anything among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So what does this mean? This is what I’d like to try to get at today. What is Paul talking about with the message of the cross or the preaching of Christ crucified?

Before we get into the particulars of the message itself, we should first note what Paul is pointing out about this message in our reading so that we are properly prepared. Paul says that no one likes this message. Jews don’t like it. Gentiles don’t like it. No one can like it by their own reason or strength. The only ones who like this message are those who have been called by the Holy Spirit. So you should not expect the preaching of Christ crucified to tickle the fancy of the crowd. Your flesh won’t like it either. How come?

Because here we are dealing with death. That’s what it means to preach Christ crucified. That is the preaching of a dead Jesus, a dead Christ, a dead King. That’s depressing enough on its own, but this was not just any death. He didn’t pass away with the help of morphine in a comfortable bed somewhere. Jesus was painfully executed after being convicted of a crime by the governing authorities. He was convicted for having said that he was God’s only begotten Son. He had said that he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. The Jewish authorities said that this was blasphemy. He was given the death penalty as punishment. Jesus died shamefully as a criminal.

And this was not just a matter of appearances either, as we might suppose. To be sure, Pontius Pilate and the Jewish leaders were wrong with their charges of wrong-doing. However, Jesus truly dies with guilt and as a criminal. Paul says elsewhere, “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Jesus did not know sin, that is, he himself did not commit sin. But he became sin.

This is a shocking statement, but truthful and revealing at the same time. We are accustomed to talking about people in a more polite way than Paul does here. We carefully separate the person from the evil works that he or she might do. We say that the person himself is good. He just happened to get mixed up in some bad things now and then. We say this about ourselves too. When we think of ourselves we forget the bad things we have done. If we should happen to actually recall something then we brush it aside. That’s not the real me. The real me is good. From henceforth I will never ever do that bad thing again.

This is delusional. If that’s not you, then who is it? Why did you do it? If you really are good, then why don’t you act like it? You’re no different than the criminal who always says that he didn’t do it. And supposing, for the sake of argument, that he did do it, then he didn’t mean to do it. He’s really a good person. You can see right through his delusion. You should see through your own as well. You should see through your own because this is the truth. This is how it is. Everyone is judged rightly according to his or her works. The label gets affixed whether the person likes it or not according to the works. Thus Christ is not only known as a sinner, but according to Paul’s word he is “sin,” having taken upon himself our sin. The label sticks because it is true. Hence Jesus’s death is not a miscarriage of justice. He is sin. He is supposed to die.

Here we see another unpleasant truth about death that is carefully avoided by the funeral industry. Death is not benign. It is not beautiful. It is not natural. Death is God’s punishment for breaking his Law, that is, for sinning. Death has morality wrapped up in it. It is God’s death penalty. Whoever dies, dies as a criminal. If we weren’t criminals, then we wouldn’t die. God’s Law wouldn’t allow it. The Law would justify us and say that we can live because we deserve to live. But as it is, whenever you see somebody die—including even Jesus himself—you can know that here God’s justice is being carried out. Death is not a fuzzy rainbow, nor is it a crown of laurels. We weren’t created to die. We were created to live, to thrive, to multiply over the face of the earth. The reason why this doesn’t happen is because justice requires that we die.

With the preaching of Christ crucified this fundamental truth of God’s Law about sin and death is established as true and binding. This life is such that we are and will be judged by our Creator. Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the Law. Every jot and tittle, every last shred of God’s Law stands. He did not come to abolish the Law, Jesus says, but to fulfill it. This is indeed what he does too. There is no sin that is not punished in him. There is no sin that is not atoned for by his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. On the cross he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Jesus was punished for the sin of the world in our place.

This is a tremendous thought that we cannot even begin to wrap our minds around. Beyond the physical aspects of what Jesus suffered, there was tremendous spiritual anguish. What we can see is but the tip of the iceberg. His anguish is the anguish of the sinner before a righteous and almighty God. His anguish is the anguish of sinners on Judgment Day when they know that they’ve been caught. This, and much more, is what is involved in Christ being crucified.

We can see the depths of Jesus’s suffering even before they fully happened. On the night when Jesus was betrayed he knew what lay before him. At the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed to our Father in heaven that this cup should pass from him three times, but not his will, but God’s will be done. His sweat splashed on the ground like great drops of blood. He had to be ministered to by angels to give him a little strength to go on. It was not a little price that Jesus paid. It was the costliest sacrifice that ever can be made. It was the sacrifice of God himself, incarnate in the man Jesus.

So what did all this accomplish? It brought about the end of the Law’s claims against you for how you have lived. The Law says that you will be punished. The Law says that you will die. Jesus, God’s own Son, said, “punish me instead.” The Father loves his Son. The Father says several times in the Gospels, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” The Son of God’s desire to save you from death and hell was pleasing also to the Father even though it broke God’s heart to carry out the awful sacrifice. Abraham’s hand was stayed when he was to execute his son Isaac. God did not allow this mercy for himself when it came time for Jesus to die. And why not? Because he was and is determined to reconcile you to himself and restore your true life of holiness and blessedness under him in his kingdom.

You, therefore, are not justified by the Law. You are justified by faith in Jesus. He is your justification. This is all the result of Jesus being crucified for you. This is all a result of God’s action for you. The apostle preaches Christ and him crucified so that you may know your God, believe in him, and through faith have a good conscience. According to what you have done and left undone you can never have a good conscience no matter how hard you try. By the gift God gives to you, you are loved by God and well pleasing to him. Jesus has made it so.

This is an astounding thing. God himself sacrifices everything for you. So why is this message of the cross distasteful to both Jews and Gentiles, which is to say to everyone? There are a lot of things we could talk about in this regard. First of all, people find the fundamental truth of God’s Law to be distasteful. People don’t want to believe that death is God’s punishment. They don’t want to believe that there is such a place as hell. They want to be able to continue to safely ignore God. They want the skeletons stuffed into the closet and moss to grow over the sins they’ve buried in the land of forgetfulness. They want to believe that we are all more or less good people. Sure, we slip up every now and then, but who’s counting?

This is the great pseudo-gospel that holds almost the whole world in its thrall. “Everything will be fine,” pretty much sums up its message. This is the lie that brought our human race into slavery to the devil in the first place. The serpent said to Eve, “Everything will be fine. You won’t sure die.” That devil is a liar and a murderer. Strangely enough, though, our flesh wants to be deceived. Probably because it enables us to continue to live in sin.

Another reason why the preaching of Christ and him crucified is distasteful to everyone is what Paul specifically addresses in our reading. The cross of Christ is offensive to Jews and foolish to Greeks. It is offensive to Jews because they were expecting an earthly Christ who would lead their nation into greatness. They were expecting a second King David. They thought that the Christ would solve all their earthly problems. The actual Christ who came didn’t meet these expectations. The Jews weren’t entirely wrong with their expectations of Christ being gracious and helpful, but they weren’t looking deeply enough.

Christ does not just bring about good government, good laws, fine arts, and so on. He addresses and fixes our most deeply seated problem—our slavery to the devil and to death. This is a tremendous blessing that we can’t begin to grasp, but it is also something that is not yet fully manifested. The Jews wanted something they could see. They were looking for signs. The fullness of God’s kingdom has not yet come though. This will not happen until the last day when Jesus will come again on the clouds with power and great glory.

The Greeks seek after wisdom, Paul says. As I think you will see, our own people have drunk deeply from this Grecian spring. The Greeks want to solve problems. They want good democratic government. They want to fix the problems we have so as to make life better and better. The Greeks believed that if we only try hard enough and believe in ourselves that nothing can stand in our way.

Notice the similarity between the Jews and the Greeks here. The Jews were looking for an earthly christ who would fix all their problems. The Greeks believe that humanity itself is the christ who can fix our problems given enough time and effort. Both the Jews and the Greeks hate it when they are told that their christs are false christs. They hate to hear that the things of this world, in which they put their trust, are passing away. Only those who are safe and secure in the holy ark of baptism will be able to ride out the destruction. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus says, “but my Word will never pass away.”

As Christians we do not believe in making the world a better place by instituting this reform or that reform. First of all, instituting this reform or that reform is very difficult, because hardly anybody agrees on what we are supposed to do. Just consider the state our country is in right now. Everybody is at each other’s throat about how we are supposed to think about this or that. One reform conflicts with another. But suppose that all the reforms could be made. Suppose that we made tons and tons of progress. All of this would be superficial and cosmetic. The old evil heart would still be there in the people. New forms of oppression and violence would inevitably be invented, as has always been the case.

The only true “fix” that exists is our Creator’s own fix in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This alone gets to the root of the problem of our evil heart. That is why the apostle Paul is determined to preach Christ and him crucified regardless of the consequences. And there are consequences. Paul was hated by his own people, the Jews. He had betrayed his church and disobeyed the church’s leadership. The Greeks and the Romans thought that he was a danger to the empire. He would corrupt the youth with his other-worldly notions. They thought the kids should be kept in school so that they could learn a useful trade that actually addressed the real world’s problems instead of looking to the life of the world to come. These and more are the reasons why Paul was kicked out of cities, beaten, mocked, whipped, and so on, until he was finally beheaded by the Roman government. But do not worry. He has lost nothing and gained everything by remaining faithful until the end.

Paul says in another place that he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is the power of salvation to all who believe, both Jews and Greeks. There are plenty of opportunities for us to be ashamed of the Gospel today too. Other ways of living, other forms of wisdom, other false hopes of blessing are all around us. All these are vastly more popular than the salvation God has revealed to us in the death of his Son.

But all these other things are passing away. The death and resurrection of Christ puts no one to shame who puts his or her trust in it. It is the very thing our Creator would have us believe in, so how can we go wrong even if the whole world should oppose us? The preaching of Christ and him crucified will prevail, because our God, who is behind this preaching, will prevail.