“FORGIVENESS AND FAVOR”
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10)
July 12, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You covered all their sin.
You withdrew all Your wrath; You turned from Your hot anger.
Psalm 85:2, 3 (ESV)
In most Bibles Psalm 85 has the heading: “A Psalm of the Sons of
Korah.” These were descendants of Levi, one of Jacob’s sons. The
Levites were the priestly tribe of Israel. When the promised land was
divided up among the twelve tribes, no land was given to the tribe of
Levi because they were cared for by the rest, since they devoted
themselves full time to the conduct of the worship of God’s people.
“The Sons of Korah” were specialists among the Levites, since they
were the temple musicians. They composed this psalm when the
Israelites returned from exile and celebrated their freedom. But
their celebration was dampened somewhat because they were still beset
with many difficulties, most of them caused by their own
unfaithfulness and sin. Having been delivered from their past sin and
its consequences, the people of God found themselves once again
frustrated in their attempts to put sin behind them and give glory to
God.
This experience of God’s ancient people is not unlike that of His
people today. We rejoice in our forgiveness but no sooner are we
forgiven than we need the Lord’s forgiveness all over again. Even the
apostle Paul agonized over this, as we can tell from his own words:
“I do not understand my own actions” (Romans 7:15), he writes. “I
have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it
out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is
what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18, 19). . . . Wretched man that I
am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). He
immediately answers his question (or at least implies the answer) when
he says: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans
7:25). He’s not thanking God for the spiritual struggles that he is
undergoing, but rather for the forgiveness and restoration that he has
in Christ. As we celebrate our forgiveness, even as we ask for it
over and over again, let’s examine the forgiveness and favor that God
has extended to us in His Son, paying particular attention to what He
has done for us in Christ and what effect it has on God and on us.
One thing that God has done for us in Christ is that He has forgiven
us. That may seem to be a statement of the obvious, but I’m not sure
we really understand what forgiveness is. This can be seen in the way
that we most often react when someone apologizes to us after they have
wronged us. We usually respond to that kind of repentance with a
quick and embarrassed: “That’s okay” or: “It was nothing.” If we
say that to someone, we’re not really forgiving that person. All we
are doing is dismissing both their sin and the power of forgiveness as
being insignificant and trivial. Just think about it: If the
person’s offense was “okay” or “nothing,” then there was no need or
reason for the offender to repent. Real forgiveness is acknowledging
that the offender has sinned against you and releasing that person
from the guilt of his or her sin before God and others. It is saying
to that person that on the day of reckoning he or she will no longer
be held responsible for the offense.
God shows us that real repentance and real forgiveness are worth
something. They are not just an “easy come, easy go” proposition. He
shows us this in that He “covered all [the] sin” of His people. He
did this for each and every one of us when He became human in Christ
and, as Luther puts it in the catechism, “redeemed me, a lost and
condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and
from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His
holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death” (Small
Catechism, explanation of the Second Article of the Creed). Sin is
serious stuff. So is the guilt that it places upon us. We cannot be
rid of either simply by wishing them away or redefining them or
excusing them or by doing any of the other things that sinners usually
do in a desperate attempt to justify themselves. God’s Word is very
clear: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of
sins” (Hebrews 9:22). By God’s grace our sin is covered with the
blood of Christ so that when God looks at us He no longer sees our sin
but only the righteous blood of His incarnate Son.
All of this has a tremendous effect not only on us but on God
Himself. The sacrifice that God made on our behalf when, in Christ,
He bore our sin and put it to death in His own body on the cross has
fully and completely satisfied His divine justice and fulfilled His
perfect righteousness. In demanding so tremendous a sacrifice to
atone for sin, God was not being hateful or vindictive; He was merely
being true to Himself in fulfilling His own Law and executing His own
judgment. Because God is perfectly holy, He cannot tolerate sin, and
because He is perfect just, He cannot close His eyes to our sin and
guilt. Sin must be punished. The righteous “wrath” and “hot anger”
of God against human sin was taken out on the One who bore our sin,
causing Him to cry out: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
(Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). Later He declared: “It is finished”
(John 19:30), proclaiming that He had accomplished the payment of
everything that humanity owes God in terms of the righteousness that
His Law demands and the penalty to which it sentences sinners. This
is what the psalmist is speaking of prophetically in the text before
us when he says: “You withdrew all Your wrath; You turned from Your
hot anger.”
What God has done for us in Christ affects us in that we are no
longer God’s enemies but are restored as His dear children, as Paul
tells the Corinthians when he writes: “In Christ God was reconciling
the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2
Corinthians 5:19). Because Jesus died and rose again “we have been
born anew to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3 RSV)--the sure and certain
hope of forgiveness and restoration, no matter how many times we have
fallen and had to be forgiven and restored in the past. This is not
to say that it doesn’t matter how we live. On the contrary, it is our
motivation and power to keep on striving to be the people that God has
created, redeemed, and called us to be. We do so because we know that
His forgiveness is not just a bunch of nice-sounding empty words (as
our “forgiveness” of others often is) but that it is forgiveness
purchased for us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit’s work in us--called “sanctification” by the
theologians--is a process by which He uses the Gospel of Christ,
together with all the good and bad things that happen in and around
us, to shape us into the image of Christ. It begins at our Baptism
and isn’t completed until we close our eyes in death, trusting in the
mercies of our Savior. In this life it is often frustrated by Satan,
the world, and our own sinful nature, but God’s grace--the same grace
that moved Him to become One of us and to take our place under His own
Law and judgment--will see us through until the day when He welcomes
us into His presence with the words: “Well done, good and faithful
servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:23).
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.