Sermon for The seventh Sunday after Pentecost
WNEW CreationW
“Far be it from me
to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for
anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all
who walk by this rule, and upon the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:14-17).
Almighty God and
Father, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ into the world, not for the righteous,
but for the sinner. Send us now your Holy Spirit, that we might be the sinners
for whom your Son bled, so that we might also, through the hearing of your
gospel, be made righteous through faith in him. Amen.
Dearly Beloved: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
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moderns don’t like authority. The
very word itself offends us. It seems to threaten our basic sense of what it
means to be “fully human”—to be “self-ruled,” to be “autonomous.” After all,
the root word of authority is “author.” To have an authority, then, means to be authored. It means to have all your
aspirations of being the writer of your own life-story swallowed up in ruins, and
instead to be written into the story
of Another—a story you have neither created nor co-created, but a story that has
created you.
The entire enterprise of sinners, from the Fall
of Adam to the Final Day, may be summarized as the attempt to silence and put
to death every authoring voice that is not my
own. And so we hear the oft repeated mantras of our own dying age: “Discover yourself,” “Affirm yourself,” “Fulfill yourself,” and so on. The answer,
so we think, lies within. “If only I
could get rid of all those voices—commanding and demanding, forbidding and
denying, accusing and condemning,” dreams the old being, “then I would finally
be ‘free’: the author of my own destiny; the master of my own fate—a god of my own making!”
The problem, of course, is that the
project of getting rid of the Author of life by becoming your own
autobiographer doesn’t actually set you free at all—in fact, it only makes your
bondage that much worse. Jumping out of the frying pan, you are plunged headlong
into the fire. Why? Because the authoritative voice of the law doesn’t actually stop accusing you; it doesn’t actually come to an end. What the sinner
thought was an “extreme makeover” turns out to be nothing more than a mere
rearranging of furniture—and a feng shui
designer’s worst nightmare at that! Because no matter how one chooses to
shuffle, shift, or modify, the law remains: steadfast and unwavering. The only
difference is that now the law has moved from addressing you from the outside—in the form of a
preacher—to addressing you from the
inside—in the form of your own self-accusing conscience.
This binding authority of the law is
the common experience of every human
being; it is universal. The law is
the one and only authority this world knows to be true; and the world has spent
its every waking breath trying to domesticate it—declawing it and defanging it—tailoring
the law to fit the proportions of its own sin. But the law did not enter into
the world to pardon sinners, or to make them righteous according to it. Rather,
the law entered into the world to increase
sin, to make it great (Rm. 5:20)—so great,
in fact, that it becomes lethal! Through the law sin is not assuaged,
diminished, or moderated, but instead becomes “sinful beyond measure” (Rm.
7:13). The very commandment that promises you life—on the condition that “If you do this, then you shall live”—can only finally deliver you into the depths
of your own grave. “For the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law” (I Cor. 15:56).
Now this all comes as quite a shock
to the world. Not because the world does not know that the law condemns the
wicked, but because no sinner actually thinks of themselves as being worthy of God’s wrath and judgment. “Sure,” we
say, “I may need to make a few adjustments in my life, a few minor alterations here
or there; but, hey, nobody’s perfect!
So why is God picking on me, then? Why doesn’t he pick on someone else? Like that guy over there! He’s a far greater sinner than I am. That must count
for something, right? Maybe if I just try
harder—give it everything I’ve got. That should keep God off my back—at
least for a while. After all, God wouldn’t damn someone for doing their best, for
doing what is within them—would he!?”
Yes, he would—and he does! God sends
you a preacher, not to scratch behind the itching ears of your old sinful self,
but to place the muzzle of the law around its big, fat yapper that incessantly
howls praises for what it has done and yowls excuses for what it has left
undone. The preacher comes, then, not to coddle, primp, or pamper the old
being, but to put the damned thing to
sleep!
The biggest bombshell, however, has yet to land. Because, as it turns
out, God is not interested in killing sinners as an end in itself, as a final
goal. This is strange to us because we cannot think of what God could possibly
want beyond the fulfillment of the law’s demands. The law demands the death of
the sinner, and the sinner has been
put to death. The law is thus satisfied—but God is not. Why? Because God is not the law. God kills to make alive; he crucifies to resurrect; he destroys the old to create the new.
And so, wonder of wonders, we find that there
is not only one authority, but two: the law and the gospel. The law says, “Do this,” and it is never done. The
gospel says, “Believe this,” and
everything is done already. It is this promise of the gospel—God’s final word!—that breaks in like a bolt
from the blue, so utterly unprecedented that no one could have ever expected or
anticipated its arrival. Where the law could only demand what it could never
give; the gospel freely gives and so has no need to demand—transforming
everything it touches into the image and likeness of the one who, in the
fullness of time, was born under the law to redeem us who were under the law, so
that we might come to live beyond the law
through faith in him, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Once this word of the gospel gets a hold of you,
a totally different situation obtains—a completely changed state of affairs—so different and so changed, in fact, that we can only call it “new,” yes, even “good
news.” And just as there is not only one authority, but two: law and gospel, so also there is not
only one you, but two: old and new. You have been violently translated,
by means of a promise held in faith, from your old story—entitled “My Triumph: How
I Became Righteous By the Law” (found at your local bookstore in the “fantasy”
section)—to God’s new story—entitled “My
Cross: How I Justified You, a Sinner”
(a true death-to-life story!).
The law does not come to an end where we sinners
had hoped it would—with the law feverishly applauding our own righteousness—but
in one place—and one place only!—in the
one who, though innocent in himself, became your
sin, your death, and your hell, and who now sends forth his
preachers into the world so as to give you his own self: his life, his
righteousness, and his kingdom—which,
unlike this perishing world, is now and forever. Amen.
The law ends
where Christ begins (Rm. 10:4). Far
be it from you, then, to boast in anything except in the cross of your Lord, by
which the world has been crucified to you, and you to the world. Because now
that Christ has come, nothing else matters—neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither lawfulness nor lawlessness, neither virtue nor vice. The only thing that matters now
is the new creature, the new creation, born of the word and the Spirit, who for
freedom has been set free (Gal. 5:1).
“That’s
all well and good,” you say, “but if the word of the gospel really is so powerful as to change me—even to
create a new me altogether!—then where is
it? Where is this so-called ‘new creature’ you keep prattling on about that
God has supposedly made me into? Because, to be honest, I don’t see it—and I
don’t feel it either. Every day I struggle and am overcome; every day I am put
on trial and found guilty; every day I am crushed beneath the weight of the
same sin that I committed and repented of the day before. So tell me then,
preacher, where is the glory?”
And with such a question as this, I myself am now tempted. My temptation is
to backpedal, to retreat, to go on the defensive and tell you that, to be sure,
the word has done its part, but now
you must do yours; that yes, of
course, the grace of God got you into
the kingdom, but now you must prove to God why he should let you stay. My
temptation is the same one that overtook the Judaizers in Galatia, who were so
desperate to add something—anything!—to
Christ, that they were willing to settle for a foreskin—or the lack thereof!
But if St. Paul’s letter to the
Galatians teaches us anything at all, we will realize that such a move is
impossible. Because any addition to Christ is the negation of him. With our
little added something we make Christ into nothing. For if righteousness were
through the law, then Christ’s death was for no purpose (Gal. 2:21). If we
retreat here, if we turn our ear away from the promise, even if for only a
moment, then all is lost.
The word of God does not need our help—it is
not waiting around for a deed to be added to it before it can be effective. The word is the deed itself! It does
what it says and it says what it does. Therefore, when God says, “Let there be
light,” there is light. When he says, “Come forth,” the dead are raised. When
he says, “It is finished,” so it is. And when he says, “You are a new
creation,” so you are!
The
old you can be seen and felt. The new you can only be heard. And so everything
depends on to whom you listen, to whom your ear is bent, and emptied, and just waiting
to be filled. So bend your ear now to the mouth of Jesus Christ, and listen to
the word he has come to give—without any additions, subtractions, or
substitutions: “I, your Christ, was once dead, but by the glory of the Father
was raised again. Now it’s your turn. The old you has died; it is nothing. So
stop boasting in it as if it were something.
If you want to boast in something,
then boast in me; boast in my cross; boast in the new creation I have made of
you. Then your death might actually be of some use. Not to me—I don’t need it.
And not to you—you don’t need it either! Your death is for your neighbor. So let it go, and pour yourself out like a drink
offering, waiting in joyful hope for the promised age to come, when your new
life, now hidden, will appear with me in glory.”
Peace and
mercy be upon all who walk by this rule of faith. AmenW
