John 1:29; Ephesians 4:25-5:2 March 22, 2009
Fourth Sunday of Lent
40 Days of Community – Part 4
“The Cost of Forgiveness”
Rev. Meagan M. Boozer
Last week we focused on the importance of being aware of the way we speak to and about one another within the community of faith. This is so important. The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 53 that when Jesus was under the greatest pressure, he chose not to say a word – no deceit was in his mouth. We learned that there are times when silence is the most effective witness to our identity as followers of Jesus. Making the choice not to join in conversations about others that do not build up the individual and therefore build up the whole body of Christ is a loving gift to the Church. All week long I was convicted by the Holy Spirit about that teaching; I know it was the same for many of you. One person said to me this week that if you are starting a sentence with these words, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” But what? But you just want to? Well, if you know you shouldn’t say it, be quiet. Speak under peace – not under pressure.
Let’s pray: Thank you Lord God, for your words of truth. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for convicting us and helping us change. Thank you, Jesus for being our example. Thank you that you do not ever give up on us, in fact, we thank you that your words over us are words of encouragement and blessing. Thank you that you see what we can be, instead of what we have been. We open our hearts and minds to what you have for us this day. May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God – our Rock and our Redeemer. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
One verse serves as the foundation of this message today: one verse from the Gospel of John - John 1:29. The setting is the River Jordan. John the Baptist is preaching and baptism of repentance. He is the one who was sent to prepare the way for the coming Savior. “The next day he (John) saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
In Exodus 12 we find the historical record of the events that freed the Israelite nation from slavery in Egypt. For 400 years, the Israelites were oppressed and mistreated in Egypt. Finally, Moses was called by God to open the way to freedom for his people. Moses told the Pharaoh to “let his people go.” When Pharaoh did not respond favorably, God sent nine plagues upon Egypt: water turned into blood, frogs, gnats, flies, diseases upon the livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. Pharaoh did not budge. And so finally, God sent the 10th and final plague. In Exodus 11 we read, “The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go from here; indeed, when he lets you go, he will drive you away.” This last plague is very hard for us to accept from a God we know as a God of love. But the truth is that God is gracious to those who want to follow him, and harsh towards those who turn away. The Lord told Moses, “About midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock . . . Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the 10th of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. The lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male. You shall keep it until the 14th day, then at twilight, you shall slaughter it. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it . . . It is the Passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land . . . the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
In the book of Leviticus, a book that stops many Bible readers in their tracks, we read what God requires of his people. Leviticus sets out lots of laws – but it also sets out a lot of grace in giving instructions for particular offerings, offerings that give God’s people the opportunity to make amends to God for the ways they fail to follow the law. One of the offerings was the sin offering. We read about it in Leviticus 4. If someone sins, from the priest, to the whole congregation, to the ruling elders, to the lay people, a bull, or goat, or sheep, or turtledoves or pigeons, should be brought to the tent of meeting (which was their sanctuary) – and the person(s) who committed the sin have to lean onto the animal, and kill the animal themselves (taking personal responsibility for their sin) so that the blood of the animal flows. The idea here is the concept of transference. If you commit a sin, bring the right kind of animal, lean into it, transferring your sin onto the animal, then kill it – thereby making the animal take the punishment for your sin. Romans 6:23 tells us: The wages of sin is death. All sin is first and foremost sin against the Lord, and sin against the Lord deserves the punishment of death. In God’s economy, only shed blood can wipe out a person’s sin. That’s the way God set it up.
Every single one of us deserves death – because every single one of us is a sinner. When we do not recognize the truth before us that we are full of sin, we are nothing but deceived by the devil. For remember, he comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. If Satan can get you to believe that you ‘aren’t that bad,’ ‘you’re not really a sinner, you just make mistakes from time to time,’ or that ‘God’s commands do not matter,’ then the devil is stealing everything from you: he is stealing the full, joyful, peaceful life God wants for you here on earth, and he is stealing your eternal life in heaven. Our standard is not someone else’s life. Our standard for holy living is Jesus himself. All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). So, how do we find freedom from being slaves to sin as the devil so desires we would be?
When John the Baptist looked up and saw Jesus coming towards him for baptism, John said, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Think about that for a moment in light of the Scriptures we have read. “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Everyone who heard those words that day understood that these words meant eventual death for Jesus, though they couldn’t understand why or how.
In a lot of churches these days, more theologically liberal, more politically correct churches, the blood of Jesus is not all that popular. Some say, “Ooo, I don’t want to talk about the blood. I don’t want to sing songs about blood. It seems icky, gory.” But according to the Bible, blood is like Goo Gone. Blood is the ultimate cleansing agent! Blood is necessary to cleanse us from the defilement of our sin, from the guilt of our sin, from the shame of it. Why put it on the doorposts and the lentils? Why sprinkle it on the high points of the altar? Maybe so that the blood would be clearly visible to all; maybe to cause God’s people to look up as a reminder of God’s gift of freedom through a restored relationship with him through Jesus.
Listen to these verses from Hebrews 9, “So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that great, perfect sanctuary in heaven, not made by human hands and not part of this created world. Once for all time he took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took his own blood, and with it he secured our salvation forever.
Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people’s bodies from ritual defilement. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our hearts from deeds that lead to death so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”
Only God himself could give life for life. Jesus was fully human, but in the Christmas history in Luke 1:35 we read that the angel said to the virgin Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” In Hebrews 4:14-16 we read, “Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” When Pontius Pilate finished examining Jesus, he declared, “I find no case against him.” The King James version of the Bible states it, “I find no fault in him.” Only God himself, about whom we sing, “Holy, holy, holy,” could have been that perfect sacrifice without stain or blemish: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Do you remember from that Exodus 12 passage that we read earlier that on the 10th day of the month, the Israelite families were to select their lamb - then on the 14th day, that was the day the lamb was to be slaughtered? That four-day period is the same 4 days we read about in Scripture between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The day that Jesus came into Jerusalem on the back of that colt was lamb selection day. Is that coincidental? Of course not. Isaiah wrote, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7)
When we lean onto Jesus, putting the full weight of our sin onto him, taking responsibility for his death (because it was our sin that put him on the cross), and when we take his blood and put it on the doorposts of our heart, we can walk away not just from the guilt and shame of our sin, but we can walk away from the just punishment for our sin. We can. We can walk away in freedom, confident in the power of the blood to cover everything past, present, and future.
But this freedom does not come without responsibility. Listen with me now to Ephesians 4:25-5:2, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 1: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2: and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus, the Lamb of God, gave everything so that we could live forgiven and free from the guilt and shame of our sin. In response, we must choose to live in such a way that others see Jesus in us, and most especially see that we live forgiving others as God in Christ has forgiven us.
A little later in Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul writes this, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.” That should sound familiar. A lamb without blemish was to be chosen as the sacrifice for the first Passover back in Egypt. A lamb without blemish was chosen as the sacrifice for the sins of the world – Jesus our Savior. We, the church, as we mature in our faith, are supposed to be in the process of becoming less prone to sin and more prone to holy “without blemish” living. It’s funny – I looked up the word ‘prone’ as I worked on this sermon to make sure it was the word I wanted. The first definition confirmed the choice, “inclined to do or be affected by something.” That’s what I was shooting for: that as we mature in our faith, we are supposed to be in the process of becoming less inclined to sin and more inclined to holiness. But then I noticed the 3rd definition: sloping, or leaning, or moving downward – how wonderful! This is biblical: The only way we can make any progress towards holiness is to become prone: to lean, to put full weight onto, to put our trust in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
I was surprised when the order of worship was created this past week that the focus was on the Lamb of God. Usually this is a theme for Palm Sunday. But here we are on the 4th Sunday of Lent, in the midst of important teaching for our 40 Days of Community on learning how to love one another as God in Christ has loved us, and God confirms for us in Scripture that only when we lean on Him, can we change our self-centered, comfortable, predictable, sinful patterns of how we interact with one another as a community of faith. Only when we lean onto Him can we forgive one another, can we leave the past in the past, can we speak the truth without fear of broken relationships, can we give grace to one another in order to give glory to God – to protect and build up the reputation of the Church for the mission of seeking and saving the lost. And so, here is what I have felt in my heart that we should do this morning:
In your bulletin you will find an index card. This card is a confession tool for us today. If there are particular offenses you have committed that you know harm the reputation of the Church and dishonor God’s work within you, I invite you to briefly write down whatever the Holy Spirit has been bugging you about. Also, if there is anyone that you are withholding forgiveness from, I plead with you to let that go. Paul is writing to believers about believers: Forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. If you don’t want to forgive for the other person, and if you don’t want to forgive even for yourself, forgive out of love for Jesus and what he has done for you, forgive in obedience to God’s command – and he will give you peace. Write down the name of the person you are choosing to forgive as an act of worship, an act of letting go of your hold over them. Then bring your card and attach it to the cross by punching it over a nail here on the cross. (Put it so that your writing is private.)
Let us pray: Search us, O God, and know our hearts; test us and know our thoughts. See if there are any wicked ways in us, and lead us in the everlasting way. Amen.
Fourth Sunday of Lent
40 Days of Community – Part 4
“The Cost of Forgiveness”
Rev. Meagan M. Boozer
Last week we focused on the importance of being aware of the way we speak to and about one another within the community of faith. This is so important. The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 53 that when Jesus was under the greatest pressure, he chose not to say a word – no deceit was in his mouth. We learned that there are times when silence is the most effective witness to our identity as followers of Jesus. Making the choice not to join in conversations about others that do not build up the individual and therefore build up the whole body of Christ is a loving gift to the Church. All week long I was convicted by the Holy Spirit about that teaching; I know it was the same for many of you. One person said to me this week that if you are starting a sentence with these words, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” But what? But you just want to? Well, if you know you shouldn’t say it, be quiet. Speak under peace – not under pressure.
Let’s pray: Thank you Lord God, for your words of truth. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for convicting us and helping us change. Thank you, Jesus for being our example. Thank you that you do not ever give up on us, in fact, we thank you that your words over us are words of encouragement and blessing. Thank you that you see what we can be, instead of what we have been. We open our hearts and minds to what you have for us this day. May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God – our Rock and our Redeemer. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
One verse serves as the foundation of this message today: one verse from the Gospel of John - John 1:29. The setting is the River Jordan. John the Baptist is preaching and baptism of repentance. He is the one who was sent to prepare the way for the coming Savior. “The next day he (John) saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
In Exodus 12 we find the historical record of the events that freed the Israelite nation from slavery in Egypt. For 400 years, the Israelites were oppressed and mistreated in Egypt. Finally, Moses was called by God to open the way to freedom for his people. Moses told the Pharaoh to “let his people go.” When Pharaoh did not respond favorably, God sent nine plagues upon Egypt: water turned into blood, frogs, gnats, flies, diseases upon the livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. Pharaoh did not budge. And so finally, God sent the 10th and final plague. In Exodus 11 we read, “The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go from here; indeed, when he lets you go, he will drive you away.” This last plague is very hard for us to accept from a God we know as a God of love. But the truth is that God is gracious to those who want to follow him, and harsh towards those who turn away. The Lord told Moses, “About midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock . . . Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the 10th of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. The lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male. You shall keep it until the 14th day, then at twilight, you shall slaughter it. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it . . . It is the Passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land . . . the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
In the book of Leviticus, a book that stops many Bible readers in their tracks, we read what God requires of his people. Leviticus sets out lots of laws – but it also sets out a lot of grace in giving instructions for particular offerings, offerings that give God’s people the opportunity to make amends to God for the ways they fail to follow the law. One of the offerings was the sin offering. We read about it in Leviticus 4. If someone sins, from the priest, to the whole congregation, to the ruling elders, to the lay people, a bull, or goat, or sheep, or turtledoves or pigeons, should be brought to the tent of meeting (which was their sanctuary) – and the person(s) who committed the sin have to lean onto the animal, and kill the animal themselves (taking personal responsibility for their sin) so that the blood of the animal flows. The idea here is the concept of transference. If you commit a sin, bring the right kind of animal, lean into it, transferring your sin onto the animal, then kill it – thereby making the animal take the punishment for your sin. Romans 6:23 tells us: The wages of sin is death. All sin is first and foremost sin against the Lord, and sin against the Lord deserves the punishment of death. In God’s economy, only shed blood can wipe out a person’s sin. That’s the way God set it up.
Every single one of us deserves death – because every single one of us is a sinner. When we do not recognize the truth before us that we are full of sin, we are nothing but deceived by the devil. For remember, he comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. If Satan can get you to believe that you ‘aren’t that bad,’ ‘you’re not really a sinner, you just make mistakes from time to time,’ or that ‘God’s commands do not matter,’ then the devil is stealing everything from you: he is stealing the full, joyful, peaceful life God wants for you here on earth, and he is stealing your eternal life in heaven. Our standard is not someone else’s life. Our standard for holy living is Jesus himself. All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). So, how do we find freedom from being slaves to sin as the devil so desires we would be?
When John the Baptist looked up and saw Jesus coming towards him for baptism, John said, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Think about that for a moment in light of the Scriptures we have read. “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Everyone who heard those words that day understood that these words meant eventual death for Jesus, though they couldn’t understand why or how.
In a lot of churches these days, more theologically liberal, more politically correct churches, the blood of Jesus is not all that popular. Some say, “Ooo, I don’t want to talk about the blood. I don’t want to sing songs about blood. It seems icky, gory.” But according to the Bible, blood is like Goo Gone. Blood is the ultimate cleansing agent! Blood is necessary to cleanse us from the defilement of our sin, from the guilt of our sin, from the shame of it. Why put it on the doorposts and the lentils? Why sprinkle it on the high points of the altar? Maybe so that the blood would be clearly visible to all; maybe to cause God’s people to look up as a reminder of God’s gift of freedom through a restored relationship with him through Jesus.
Listen to these verses from Hebrews 9, “So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that great, perfect sanctuary in heaven, not made by human hands and not part of this created world. Once for all time he took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took his own blood, and with it he secured our salvation forever.
Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people’s bodies from ritual defilement. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our hearts from deeds that lead to death so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”
Only God himself could give life for life. Jesus was fully human, but in the Christmas history in Luke 1:35 we read that the angel said to the virgin Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” In Hebrews 4:14-16 we read, “Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” When Pontius Pilate finished examining Jesus, he declared, “I find no case against him.” The King James version of the Bible states it, “I find no fault in him.” Only God himself, about whom we sing, “Holy, holy, holy,” could have been that perfect sacrifice without stain or blemish: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Do you remember from that Exodus 12 passage that we read earlier that on the 10th day of the month, the Israelite families were to select their lamb - then on the 14th day, that was the day the lamb was to be slaughtered? That four-day period is the same 4 days we read about in Scripture between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The day that Jesus came into Jerusalem on the back of that colt was lamb selection day. Is that coincidental? Of course not. Isaiah wrote, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7)
When we lean onto Jesus, putting the full weight of our sin onto him, taking responsibility for his death (because it was our sin that put him on the cross), and when we take his blood and put it on the doorposts of our heart, we can walk away not just from the guilt and shame of our sin, but we can walk away from the just punishment for our sin. We can. We can walk away in freedom, confident in the power of the blood to cover everything past, present, and future.
But this freedom does not come without responsibility. Listen with me now to Ephesians 4:25-5:2, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 1: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2: and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus, the Lamb of God, gave everything so that we could live forgiven and free from the guilt and shame of our sin. In response, we must choose to live in such a way that others see Jesus in us, and most especially see that we live forgiving others as God in Christ has forgiven us.
A little later in Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul writes this, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.” That should sound familiar. A lamb without blemish was to be chosen as the sacrifice for the first Passover back in Egypt. A lamb without blemish was chosen as the sacrifice for the sins of the world – Jesus our Savior. We, the church, as we mature in our faith, are supposed to be in the process of becoming less prone to sin and more prone to holy “without blemish” living. It’s funny – I looked up the word ‘prone’ as I worked on this sermon to make sure it was the word I wanted. The first definition confirmed the choice, “inclined to do or be affected by something.” That’s what I was shooting for: that as we mature in our faith, we are supposed to be in the process of becoming less inclined to sin and more inclined to holiness. But then I noticed the 3rd definition: sloping, or leaning, or moving downward – how wonderful! This is biblical: The only way we can make any progress towards holiness is to become prone: to lean, to put full weight onto, to put our trust in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
I was surprised when the order of worship was created this past week that the focus was on the Lamb of God. Usually this is a theme for Palm Sunday. But here we are on the 4th Sunday of Lent, in the midst of important teaching for our 40 Days of Community on learning how to love one another as God in Christ has loved us, and God confirms for us in Scripture that only when we lean on Him, can we change our self-centered, comfortable, predictable, sinful patterns of how we interact with one another as a community of faith. Only when we lean onto Him can we forgive one another, can we leave the past in the past, can we speak the truth without fear of broken relationships, can we give grace to one another in order to give glory to God – to protect and build up the reputation of the Church for the mission of seeking and saving the lost. And so, here is what I have felt in my heart that we should do this morning:
In your bulletin you will find an index card. This card is a confession tool for us today. If there are particular offenses you have committed that you know harm the reputation of the Church and dishonor God’s work within you, I invite you to briefly write down whatever the Holy Spirit has been bugging you about. Also, if there is anyone that you are withholding forgiveness from, I plead with you to let that go. Paul is writing to believers about believers: Forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. If you don’t want to forgive for the other person, and if you don’t want to forgive even for yourself, forgive out of love for Jesus and what he has done for you, forgive in obedience to God’s command – and he will give you peace. Write down the name of the person you are choosing to forgive as an act of worship, an act of letting go of your hold over them. Then bring your card and attach it to the cross by punching it over a nail here on the cross. (Put it so that your writing is private.)
Let us pray: Search us, O God, and know our hearts; test us and know our thoughts. See if there are any wicked ways in us, and lead us in the everlasting way. Amen.
