Grace, mercy and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
We
continue our annual Lenten pilgrimage toward Christ’s passion and resurrection.
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday. That week includes
Passover Thursday when our Lord’s replaced one promise with its fulfillment -
His own Supper, with Holy Communion in Him. The next day is Good Friday, when
our Holy Lord took upon Himself all our pollution; and then the Resurrection.
This is the destination of our Lenten pilgrimage.
And we are not the first to walk
toward the Promised Land. Take for example our Epistle reading from Hebrews. It
returns us to the Egypt Israel
Through the rituals of the tabernacle
that gift was what the Living God provided the Hebrews, giving grace and yet
promising something greater. As one commentator summarizes: by these rites “God
purified and sanctified every common person and thing that was properly
admitted into his presence… God’s holiness gave life to the ritually clean, but
for the ritually unclean His holiness was death dealing.” (Kleinig, Leviticus,
p7) Becoming uncommon, being cleansed, becoming holy are serious matters. They
are matters a Living God solved for a common, unclean, polluted people. He gave
them cleansing in complex rituals, a life for a life to wash away
transgression, to purify, to enter God’s presence. That’s what the Living God
did for the spiritually dead and dying, all the time planning something better,
something complete.
And Hebrews tells us Jesus Christ is
better than all that was formerly given. He fulfilled and replaced all that
foreshadowed him. He cleanses and makes us holy by His blood sacrifice. Our
passage from Hebrews concludes: Therefore
he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive
the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them
from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. To say it in a
wordy-way: “He is and forever remains the Peace-restorer through a new testament,
since a death occurred for ransoming and redeeming them from the transgressions
committed at the time of the first testament, in order that, they who have been
called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
The God-sent remedy is Jesus. He made
peace between a holy God and a defiled people. Since the beginning of Creation
no one has kept the law. Since nearly the beginning of the Creation the Holy
God provided another way of righteousness. He promised the coming Christ, the
gift of righteousness; and fashioned the Old Testament as a pattern to
foreshadow Him. The former testament was never meant to be the final testament.
So Jesus established a lasting peace between the Holy God and a polluted
people. He completed the pardon of sinners that we become a purified, uncommon
people. He established a New Testament by His death that gives the benefits of
that death. So we gather to hear and receive His last will and testament, soon
to eat from it. For Christ’s death bought us freedom from the law’s
condemnation and all that separated us from the Holy. He gave us the New
Testament, a fulfilled and fulfilling promise of holiness and life. His promise
is not like the old, requiring constant repetition, but it is eternal, it is
the inheritance of righteousness. Yes,
we gather each week and hear what was given us for all time, for we need to
hear and re-hear the terms of the testament. We need to continually hear not
because it is not ours, but we need continual encouragement to believe that
eternal pledge. Like a wife who needs the husband to say again and again, “I
love you,” or like the son, daughter, parent, needing to hear the same. So we
weekly eat from a banquet spread out for eternity, a banquet of fellowship with
God as Father.
And this testament promising
incomprehensible glory is for us now, for daily life, that we learn how God
sees us. Due to our weaknesses, our many sins, our failures, we need so often
to hear how our Lord sees us through the New Testament. Through Jesus Christ,
the Holy God regards you as righteous. And He sends the Holy Spirit that you
may begin to live in that righteousness. He disciplines you as sons that you
learn to walk in what He has given you. And He returns you to the temple of His Son
Consider well what Jesus did to
cleanse your conscience, so that you are confident that you please the Holy
God, and offer acceptable service through Christ. If God is like a fastidious
house cleaner who wipes away any speck on a gleaming porcelain sink, what hope
have we before the brilliant purity of God? If we look at ourselves apart from
Christ, what hope do we have of cleansing? However, if we receive the washing
Jesus Christ accomplished, what hope we have to in glory shine! So don’t follow the pattern of our fallen
race to cleanse the defiled conscience. Some run from conscience saying, “There
is nothing is wrong with me.” Some try to kill the conscience as a remedy. But our uncleanness finds us, even in dreams.
Some try for peace by obeying God’s law, and failing that create substitute
laws in a vain hope of purity. Some flagellate themselves, some try penance, or
wish to earn God’s approval by cheering the present “pop” sound-bite, “100%
commitment.” Some pastors use psychological manipulation to induce spiritual
feelings as if that is holiness. Some forbid food, drink, and gifts God gave to
be enjoyed; and outside what people call church can you count the methods to
wipe away the stain? Not to depreciate their proper use not to deny their value
for many things: why for guilt, the psychologist? Why for uncleanness the therapist? Why for the stain, institutions that deny the
name of God? Understand what I mean: for cleansing, these are dead works. They
are dead because they cannot purify. They are dead because the Holy God does
not receive them. The first testament told us so.
“God purified and sanctified every
common person and thing that was properly admitted into his presence… for the
ritually unclean it was death dealing and detrimental. For the ritually clean,
the effect of God’s holiness was life-giving.” Dead works still defile, as do
all works apart from Christ. But one cleansed by the blood of Christ is
restored to holiness and therefore life. You are freed from knocking on wood,
from spilling salt over your shoulder; from self-inflicted wounds to make the
darkness go away. You are freed from
being driven to earn God’s acceptance; you are freed from the tyranny of making
a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Holiness is not yours, but it is Christ’s. For
Christ’s sake God the Father regards you as holy, as cleansed, as sufficient.
And those cleansed in Christ, God regards what we do in faith as a good work.
The Creator regards even the smallest service to neighbor done in faith, your
washing dishes, taking out the trash, paying your taxes, going to church… even
after fighting with your spouse, as a good work.
Although what we do is never pure in
itself, the Holy God sees you as washed in the blood of Christ. And if you want
a superior example of a good work, here it is: confession of sin is a good
work, because it is not done to earn God’s favor but to receive it. In short,
it’s not about you; it is all about what Christ did for you. And that is
liberating. It is the message of Lent, why we confess our sins, for Christ was
sacrificed on our behalf. His death ransomed and redeemed you, delivering you
from the law’s condemnation, for freedom’s sake. He cleansed us by the water
and the blood, restoring us by His real presence. Fellowship with the Living
God is ours.
The peace of God which
passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord
(Amen).
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