READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 40:25-31
1 Peter 2:11-20
- St. John 16:16-23
May grace and peace be multiplied to you. (1 Pet 1)
Who speaks to you today, saying:
As Jesus reveals more of His death and resurrection to His disciples at the Last Supper, that is the “not seeing and a little while and you will see”, He is also teaching us about sin in our lives. He includes this in His Word in order to teach that when we sin, we can’t see Jesus and His Spirit has left. He points us to the seriousness of sin in order that we approach Him with sincere repentance for all sins and that we approach our neighbor with love and compassion, in his sins.
When we encounter God, we encounter Him in our sin and He is not fair. Simply using the alleged difference between the Old Testament and the New, many people and scholars cannot match up that the God in both is one and the same. The Old Testament is rough and violent, they say, and the New is fluffy and kind. The Old Testament is full of stone-age misogynists and the New has goodie-two-shoes.
We mistakenly come to believe that God’s Word evolves and so do God’s people. Much worse we think that we evolve, as Christians, and some how increase our sanctification simply because we think we are doing God’s will. God’s Law, that is those things that seem to need to be done, looks like it outshines the Gospel, those things Jesus does for us.
Jesus then aggravates this further and says, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin…and he cannot sin”, in 1 John 3, and “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us“ in the same epistle but the first chapter. It is as if we are given a glimpse of God, like we can almost see Him, as He causes us to be born into a new life without sin, but then covers His tracks as we must confess that we are not without sin.
We do not see Him and we are sorrowful, because we have chosen to place our sin in front of our eyes and let it have its way with us. We have chosen to follow the devil, agree with the devil, and give in to the sin in our lives. Submitting ourselves to sin robs us of our place in God’s Creation.
Why is that? Two things: sin is not a thing, it is a corruption, a cancer that makes what is right, wrong. Two: God has come, in the flesh, to accomplish salvation. That means that those whom He Calls and Saves are no longer as they used to be simply because He says so. We are not the same as the world, but are a part of the vanguard of new humanity: the Church, the Body of Christ.
“There are two evils” that my people have committed, says the Lord in Jeremiah 2:13, “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
What Jeremiah is talking about is that we have turned away from the God Who Serves us living waters in His Church and instead created a church in our own image, where we are most comfortable.
Repent. Jesus has turned us from our sinful ways in order that we may live as He intended. He has remade us in His image that no sin may be present and that no sin have power over us. Look to the Old Testament reading for today. He gives power to the faint. He renews strength. They shall mount up with eagles’ wings!
Instead, what happens to you is that you continue to sin, as St. Peter teaches:
But it is not to your credit if, when you sin, you endure.
Indeed, our own Confessions state: “It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them, [they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost]. For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present. (SA III:3:43 )
The Holy Ghost, but not the Father and certainly not the Son. For Jesus has so joined Himself with humanity that there is no space left between them. The rescue is perfect. Sin, death, and the devil have been disarmed. The Gospel message is the forgiveness of sins, that is that sin really does have no more power over you and you are free to see Jesus Christ Crucified for you.
Thus, the sorrow we have is three-fold: we sorrow that our Almighty God has need of reducing Himself to such a state as to be killed because of our incompetence. We sorrow that we find that incompetence, that sinfulness, inside of ourselves so deep that there is no ridding ourselves of it. And we sorrow because we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus or come to Him.
In Christ, we are not the same as the world. The precious Blood of Jesus has flipped the world’s script. Where the world wants sorrow at the cross, faith rejoices in the depth, breadth, and width of that Love, that chases us to the lower regions of hell for our rescue. Faith rejoices that, though sinfulness rages in us, our sainthood has been secured by the Body and Blood of the forgiveness of sins.
And, Faith rejoices that belief comes from God alone and not any inward strength. Do not say, “Do whatever you please; if you believe, it all amounts to nothing; faith blots out all sins,” etc. (SA III:3:42). Rather say, my help comes from the Lord Who causes the weak to stand and the sinner to be forgiven, of whom I am chief.
We rejoice that we are forgiven sinners, not that we are sinners. We rejoice that we see each and every one of our sins, big and small, as leading us to destruction. In this confession, the confession of complete dependence on God for sanctification, we see Jesus again, and no one can take that joy from us. For we have sinned much, therefore much forgiveness is needed.
In Jesus, God has done His utmost to make Himself visible. In the beginning, He was just as present as Christ was with the disciples, but that vision was lost. In Jesus, it is won back, such that we are not the same as the world. We are under the Lordship of the Risen Jesus.
His decree is simple: He rules. He rules not with an iron fist, but with iron nails and spear in Him. He reigns, not from a worldly throne, but from a tree, the tree of the symbol of the world’s salvation for the weight that hung upon it, that is the Body of God.
In this Kingdom, sin has no dominion. In this Kingdom, death has no dominion. In this Kingdom there will be no one who is born again that will sin, even if it means they have to be resurrected from the dead to accomplish it. The King has spoken.
On this side of that promised glory, we dare not say “we have no sin”. We also dare not say “we have no Savior for that sin”. This is the battleground of the Christian, that at the same time he is sinner and saint. Both fully worthy of eternal condemnation and fully worthy of the throne of Christ.
We have been given the right to see Jesus in His triumphant, Easter light, we are His Church, His Risen Body. And as proof of that gift, we have been given to eat and drink that promise at His Holy Supper, set before us: His enemies and His Saints.
So it is that the life of a Christian is the life of repentance, daily and richly. For we daily sin much and daily are in need of repentance and forgiveness. We daily blind our own eyes, in sin, so that we do not see our Savior condemning, but the Gospel reveals our Savior strong to save, and strong to give sight to the blind.
In our newly regenerated life, we understand now why we see God and not see God. Because we are both sinner and saint at the same time, it can be true that we do not sin, in Christ, and that we have sin. Only Christ perfectly keeps the Law, therefore it is true that you are perfect, that is, righteous and blameless, in the sight of God. In Christ, this is true! Through faith in Christ, you are forgiven. You are His! If you would die this very day, your life would open up to fullness and blessing you have not yet experienced!
Christ has redeemed you, and we dare not confess anything different.
Alleluia!
Amen.
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again
a little while, and you will see me”
As Jesus reveals more of His death and resurrection to His disciples at the Last Supper, that is the “not seeing and a little while and you will see”, He is also teaching us about sin in our lives. He includes this in His Word in order to teach that when we sin, we can’t see Jesus and His Spirit has left. He points us to the seriousness of sin in order that we approach Him with sincere repentance for all sins and that we approach our neighbor with love and compassion, in his sins.
When we encounter God, we encounter Him in our sin and He is not fair. Simply using the alleged difference between the Old Testament and the New, many people and scholars cannot match up that the God in both is one and the same. The Old Testament is rough and violent, they say, and the New is fluffy and kind. The Old Testament is full of stone-age misogynists and the New has goodie-two-shoes.
We mistakenly come to believe that God’s Word evolves and so do God’s people. Much worse we think that we evolve, as Christians, and some how increase our sanctification simply because we think we are doing God’s will. God’s Law, that is those things that seem to need to be done, looks like it outshines the Gospel, those things Jesus does for us.
Jesus then aggravates this further and says, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin…and he cannot sin”, in 1 John 3, and “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us“ in the same epistle but the first chapter. It is as if we are given a glimpse of God, like we can almost see Him, as He causes us to be born into a new life without sin, but then covers His tracks as we must confess that we are not without sin.
We do not see Him and we are sorrowful, because we have chosen to place our sin in front of our eyes and let it have its way with us. We have chosen to follow the devil, agree with the devil, and give in to the sin in our lives. Submitting ourselves to sin robs us of our place in God’s Creation.
Why is that? Two things: sin is not a thing, it is a corruption, a cancer that makes what is right, wrong. Two: God has come, in the flesh, to accomplish salvation. That means that those whom He Calls and Saves are no longer as they used to be simply because He says so. We are not the same as the world, but are a part of the vanguard of new humanity: the Church, the Body of Christ.
“There are two evils” that my people have committed, says the Lord in Jeremiah 2:13, “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
What Jeremiah is talking about is that we have turned away from the God Who Serves us living waters in His Church and instead created a church in our own image, where we are most comfortable.
Repent. Jesus has turned us from our sinful ways in order that we may live as He intended. He has remade us in His image that no sin may be present and that no sin have power over us. Look to the Old Testament reading for today. He gives power to the faint. He renews strength. They shall mount up with eagles’ wings!
Instead, what happens to you is that you continue to sin, as St. Peter teaches:
But it is not to your credit if, when you sin, you endure.
Indeed, our own Confessions state: “It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them, [they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost]. For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present. (SA III:3:43 )
The Holy Ghost, but not the Father and certainly not the Son. For Jesus has so joined Himself with humanity that there is no space left between them. The rescue is perfect. Sin, death, and the devil have been disarmed. The Gospel message is the forgiveness of sins, that is that sin really does have no more power over you and you are free to see Jesus Christ Crucified for you.
Thus, the sorrow we have is three-fold: we sorrow that our Almighty God has need of reducing Himself to such a state as to be killed because of our incompetence. We sorrow that we find that incompetence, that sinfulness, inside of ourselves so deep that there is no ridding ourselves of it. And we sorrow because we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus or come to Him.
In Christ, we are not the same as the world. The precious Blood of Jesus has flipped the world’s script. Where the world wants sorrow at the cross, faith rejoices in the depth, breadth, and width of that Love, that chases us to the lower regions of hell for our rescue. Faith rejoices that, though sinfulness rages in us, our sainthood has been secured by the Body and Blood of the forgiveness of sins.
And, Faith rejoices that belief comes from God alone and not any inward strength. Do not say, “Do whatever you please; if you believe, it all amounts to nothing; faith blots out all sins,” etc. (SA III:3:42). Rather say, my help comes from the Lord Who causes the weak to stand and the sinner to be forgiven, of whom I am chief.
We rejoice that we are forgiven sinners, not that we are sinners. We rejoice that we see each and every one of our sins, big and small, as leading us to destruction. In this confession, the confession of complete dependence on God for sanctification, we see Jesus again, and no one can take that joy from us. For we have sinned much, therefore much forgiveness is needed.
In Jesus, God has done His utmost to make Himself visible. In the beginning, He was just as present as Christ was with the disciples, but that vision was lost. In Jesus, it is won back, such that we are not the same as the world. We are under the Lordship of the Risen Jesus.
His decree is simple: He rules. He rules not with an iron fist, but with iron nails and spear in Him. He reigns, not from a worldly throne, but from a tree, the tree of the symbol of the world’s salvation for the weight that hung upon it, that is the Body of God.
In this Kingdom, sin has no dominion. In this Kingdom, death has no dominion. In this Kingdom there will be no one who is born again that will sin, even if it means they have to be resurrected from the dead to accomplish it. The King has spoken.
On this side of that promised glory, we dare not say “we have no sin”. We also dare not say “we have no Savior for that sin”. This is the battleground of the Christian, that at the same time he is sinner and saint. Both fully worthy of eternal condemnation and fully worthy of the throne of Christ.
We have been given the right to see Jesus in His triumphant, Easter light, we are His Church, His Risen Body. And as proof of that gift, we have been given to eat and drink that promise at His Holy Supper, set before us: His enemies and His Saints.
So it is that the life of a Christian is the life of repentance, daily and richly. For we daily sin much and daily are in need of repentance and forgiveness. We daily blind our own eyes, in sin, so that we do not see our Savior condemning, but the Gospel reveals our Savior strong to save, and strong to give sight to the blind.
In our newly regenerated life, we understand now why we see God and not see God. Because we are both sinner and saint at the same time, it can be true that we do not sin, in Christ, and that we have sin. Only Christ perfectly keeps the Law, therefore it is true that you are perfect, that is, righteous and blameless, in the sight of God. In Christ, this is true! Through faith in Christ, you are forgiven. You are His! If you would die this very day, your life would open up to fullness and blessing you have not yet experienced!
Christ has redeemed you, and we dare not confess anything different.
Alleluia!
Amen.
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