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.
No comments:
Post a Comment