"DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE"
Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 29, 2020
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
God has done what the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.
Romans 8:3 (ESV)
If you listen at all and pay any attention to what is reported in our society these days by and about various religious leaders, you may be quite confused as to what the essential message of the Christian faith is. You might understandably come to the conclusion that the Christian religion is primarily about promoting morality and good values in our society in general and among our children in particular, and that the major task of Christians in the world today is to oppose everything evil--everything that contradicts Christian values and promotes a culture of permissiveness and immorality. This seems at times to be an impossible task for Christians, especially in view of everything that we are up against.
Now if you know me at all, you know that I would be the last person in the world to say that these noble ends shouldn't be pursued. The moral decline that we have witnessed in our lifetime is deplorable and even frightening, especially when you compare it to the decline and downfall all of the earlier civilizations in history that have gone this way and, as a result, are no more. And who better to say these things than Christians? It is a part of our witness. However, we are missing the boat if we think that this is the essence of Christianity or that this is carrying out the Great Commission of our Lord. Christianity is not primarily about what we should do and avoid doing; it is about what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did for us when He fulfilled the Law of God in our place and won the forgiveness of sins and everlasting salvation for every sinner.
The Law of God presents us with an impossible task--two of them, in fact. The first impossible task that the Law places before us is the task of living according to it. You see, the Law of God demands perfection. You don't even have to be a Christian to realize that "nobody's perfect." You hear it all the time, from secular sources as well as religious ones. We even say it ourselves, and often use it as an excuse for our own less-than-perfect words and behavior. We have become so accustomed to nobody being perfect that we don't expect perfection in anything anymore, nor do we even strive for it. We resolve the great gulf between what is supposed to be and what actually is by lowering our standards and our expectations. We figure that, if we have set a standard that no one can meet, there must be something wrong with that standard--and so we lower it. God, however, doesn't think that way. Because He is perfect, His standard is perfect--and He doesn't adjust that standard according to how we live. The standard remains the same. I think that's one of the reasons why so many people object to Christianity so strongly. They don't want to be told that they are sinners. None of us do, but when any of us look into the mirror of God's Law, we can't help but to see our sinfulness. The problem, however, is not with God's Law; it's with us: We are the sinners who fail to keep God's Law.
The other dilemma that the Law of God presents us with is its demand that sin be paid for by the shedding of innocent blood. To be sure, that's an unpleasant thought. It has to be, because sin is unpleasant. This is what all of those unpleasant animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were all about. God was teaching His people that sin is serious stuff--so serious that somebody had to pay for it--somebody had to suffer and die in the place of sinners--somebody who was totally and completely innocent of sin. This poses a real problem for us because, no matter how willing any of us might be to die in order to save ourselves or others, none of us has even one drop of innocent blood to shed. If we did, we wouldn't have this problem of sin in the first place. The fulfilling of God's Law--both the perfect keeping of the Law and the shedding of innocent blood--present sinners like us with an impossible task.
What Christianity is really all about is the doing of the impossible by the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. He came into this world to perform these two impossible tasks on behalf of sinners like us. When He lived in this world in complete and perfect compliance with the Law of God, it was not just an example for us to follow, as some have suggested. It was much more than that. In keeping the Law perfectly Christ offered to God, in our place, the perfect righteousness that the Law demands of us. Since He, being God Himself, was the Author of the Law, He had no obligation of His own to obey it, but yet He did it--willingly--out of His infinite love for you and me, so that, on the day of judgment, we who have been united with Him in Baptism can stand before the righteous Judge not in the ugly nakedness of our sin, but clothed with the perfect righteousness of our Savior. As the apostle Paul put it in another of his letters: "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus also offered to God the perfect sacrifice for sin. Unlike us, the Son of God does have innocent blood to shed. And shedding His innocent blood is precisely what He did on the cross for you and for me, thereby making full and complete atonement for the sin of the whole world. The penalty that the Law of God requires for human sin has been paid in full in the innocent suffering and death of Jesus. Since He was perfect in every way, He had no sin of His own to atone for. This made it possible for Him to be our perfect High Priest (as the writer to the Hebrews calls Him), shedding His own blood to cover our sin, so that we can face the judgment of God as offenders whose penalty has already been paid. The wrath of God against our sin has been visited upon "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
So what is Christianity really all about? Quite a few years ago a beloved former professor of mine made the statement: "The Moral Majority has come and gone, and I'm not so sure that any of us are any more moral than we were before." The statement drew a lot of laughs, but it reveals a profound truth. The problem of sin is not "them." It's not something "out there." The problem of sin is right here--in me--in my heart. It's not a problem that can be solved by electing the right candidates and passing the right laws, or by promoting the good guys and boycotting the bad guys. The problem of sin can be and has been dealt with once and for all in the cross of Jesus Christ. In His innocent suffering and death our sin has been taken away and in His perfect life we have been covered with His perfect righteousness. That blood-bought atonement for sin, which alone brings about true reconciliation between a just God and His sinful creatures, is the number one message that we proclaim to the world, so that all may know and benefit from the peace that comes from sins forgiven.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.