Monday, March 16, 2020

Third Sunday in Lent (A) 2020

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Romans 5:8
Theme: “While We Were Still Sinners…”



Dear followers of the Saviour,

The Spirit says, “God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”1 This God, this Christ, is in the serious business of reconciling sinners and rectifying the destruction of sin. Yet, His love is often not what the popular imagination would like it to be. Many people want a God who doles out lollies indiscriminately like Santa at Christmas. They want a God who is nothing more than a fairy godmother or a genie in a bottle granting wishes without regard to reason or responsibility. They want a God who guarantees prosperity without measure. They want a God who keeps His distance, who allows autonomy in running our own affairs, but is at our beck and call when we need Him. They want a God who will intervene to stop the corona virus or other threats, but only according to their parameters.

No such God exists. Such a being is a pure fabrication, a human construct of a magical, mythical power beholden to human definition. Even the ancient heathens recognized that such constructs of divine beings were foolish. That’s why they were always seeking to appease their idols when they became angry or working to prevent them from becoming so in the first place. Dear friends, the true God is much more faithful and capable than anything the human imagination can construct. He cannot be duped. His manner of operating cannot be circumvented. We cannot sidestep what He ordains.

So, when it comes to spiritual matters, we should never take detours and never look for short-cuts. It’s a big ask in a society that prizes convenience above almost everything else. Everything worth having resolved must be resolved through the crucified Jesus. That means we shouldn’t hide in the bushes like Adam and Eve for fear of being found spiritually naked before God. It means not trying to cover our sins with fig leaves- these are evasions.
It means owning our sins- not seeking to redefine sin on terms more favourable to us- and then taking them to God who absolves penitents through the power of the cross.
It means not trying to justify or down-play the hurt and pain we cause others- these too are attempts at circumnavigating the truth. Not detouring around the cross means making ourselves vulnerable to the contempt of the world for whom the message of the cross is foolishness.

The cross reveals the entire mission of God. There is no greater thing that God desires to do than to reconcile sinners. What does our Scripture say? “When we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.”2 Think of how profound that truth is! Of course, that reconciliation includes an impressive retinue of encumbrances and consequences. The entire creation will be judged, destroyed, restored, and immortalized. Death, hell, sin, and Satan will be eternally incarcerated. The saints and the angels with the Trinity will enjoy celestial and everlasting communion, magnificent beyond comprehension. Yes, our God, the Maker of heaven and earth, who has designed a universe too immense to be measured, too inaccessible to be delineated, too magnificent to be truly appreciated; who has endowed just this one planet with living things fantastically marvelous in their array of beauty and complexity... Who could go on to create worlds and dimensions, wonders and mysteries to further boggle the mind... this God is concerned most of all, about YOU!

You, the sinner-made-saint by grace through faith. You are the object of His passion. You are the target of His mission. You are engraved on the palms of His hands. Jesus says you are worth more than many sparrows. The hairs of your head are all numbered. The days of your life are all measured. And these things are so not because it’s God’s duty to keep a forensic account of the limitations of all His creatures. It’s so because God has intimately planned the entirety of your existence and loves you beyond comprehension. You are His baptized. That’s why the apostle says, “Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”3

Brokenness can never be holistically addressed by bypassing the power of the crucified and risen Jesus. There will always be no end of therapies for this, programs for that, and self-help regimes for countless other things. Many will be pragmatic, insightful, and cathartic. But nothing that detours around the crucifixion of Jesus will bring meaningful healing from the consequences of sin. The cross is the crucible that purifies, the sieve that separates, the surgical device that removes the cancer. The cross is the settlement that pays the debt, the key that unlocks the prison, the black hole that swallows the darkness.

The cross does not do this abstractly, the cross is not magical. It does it because the Son of God was hung there. The purposes of God are not found behind or beyond the death of Jesus. (To try and see God beyond the cross is to be like the not-quite-yet-healed blind man of Bethsaida who said, "I see people, but they look like trees, walking.") In this life we can’t see beyond the God of the cross. That is, we see only Jesus who died that we might live and lives that death may have no power over us. “God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”4

So, what does it mean, practically, to not detour around the message of the cross? It has nothing to do with trying to ‘step back in time’ and imagine what it was like at Calvary in hopes of sourcing some reverence from the experience. That would be a naive effort at accessing God’s blessing through historical re-enactment. We cannot draw near to God through a mere meditation on the past.

It means taking Christ at His word when He says your sins are forgiven and that there is much rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents. It means receiving the bread and wine in humble acceptance that Christ is present there with His body and blood. Doubting Christ’s genuineness undercuts the promise of forgiveness. Not bypassing the crucified Jesus means seeing things as they are not as we imagine them to be. Not detouring the cross means seeking the Spirit’s help in loving others humbly and allowing ourselves to be loved by others graciously. It means seeking always to be transformed and renewed with the mind and will of the Saviour.

Not deviating from the message of the sacrificial Lamb does not mean we should’t eagerly anticipate the glory of the future kingdom- as if we knew only the suffering Jesus and had forgotten about the resurrection. But it does mean believing that the crucifixion is the definitive expression of God’s love, His will, His purpose. The crucifixion was not arbitrary. It was indispensable. God could not authentically redeem humanity in any other way.

Dear friends, the blessings of prosperity, whether they be good health, longevity, a good reputation, financial or vocational stability, meaningful and godly relationships or anything else we could name; they are not proof that God loves us unconditionally. God could take some or all of these things away and He would love us no less. Note that carefully: Blessings (as we typically define them) or the lack thereof are not the definitive proof of God’s love. His love is only certain through the forgiveness of sins earned at the cross. So, not detouring the cross means accepting that our sufferings are not evidence of God’s absence or apathy but of His sanctifying work within us. That is, the cross (and this includes the resurrection) does not catapult us to glory- as if all the consequences of sin suddenly disappeared from our lives once we believe that this Jesus died and rose for us- but immerses us in the struggle and contentment of faith.

“God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”5

+ In nomine Jesu +

Third Sunday in Lent
15 March 2020
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 Romans 5:8 2 Romans 5:10
3 Romans 5:5 4 Romans 5:8
5 Romans 5:8