A Lent Journey and Reflection

Whoa, almost a week into Lent at this point.  This annual part of the Christian calendar seems to fly by so quickly, even though it is one of the more lengthy time periods of the year.  We move, week from week, with Jesus toward the cross, toward the empty tomb, toward the hope and foundation of our faith.  And as we journey, we reflect on our need for a Savior.

One of the things that I am doing this Lent season is keeping a log book of my Lent journey.  It isn't just a daily reflection, but one that has a greater purpose than that behind it.  For those of you who regularly check this blog, you know that I have recently introduced the idea of weaving Gospel threads into the lives of those you regularly interact with.  My Lent log book is actually a reflection upon my efforts to do that daily throughout this season.

Every day, I intend to keep a record of my interactions with others in which I weave a Gospel thread into their lives.  As accurately as possible, I want to remember and write down what I said to that person.  I want to write out the context in which the Gospel thread was spoken.  I want to write down my thoughts about the situation and why I said what I said.

Now, why keep a record such as this?  I see a couple of good points to doing this.  First of all, it actually makes me think daily about weaving those Gospel threads.  Instead of simply giving something up and laying it aside, I'm actively working to incorporate something into my life that fits with the sharing the message of Good News.  If I want to grow in doing that, well, the best way to learn to do something is to actually do it.  So my log book forces me to think about those on a daily basis, especially since I don't want to see many blanks in the book at the end of the season.

Second, keeping a record also helps me to consider the words that I say, and gives me the opportunity to think of other ways to weave Gospel threads.  Lets say that I look back on one day where I said something along the lines of, "God has been good to me today."  Now, as I reflect back on it, I can think of other ways to say the same thing, or ways to give a bit more of an explicit Gospel thread into it.  Having such a practice causes me to expand my repoirtaire, so to speak, so that I have additional things in mind, and don't always have to come up with them at the spur of the moment.

Another great thing is that the log book reminds me of just how often God sends people across my path, into whose lives I can weave a Gospel thread.  I've heard a few times where people say that they don't know 10 people in life who aren't Christian.  Doing an exercise like this helps me see just how many people I can weave Gospel threads toward, and pray that God's Spirit will be actively working through such words.

That's my Lent log book.  I would actually encourage you to keep something simliar, and see where God leads you as you reflect on thoughts, words, and actions this Lent season.

Easter Sermon

Here is the sermon from Easter Day, March 31, 2013.

It was just a small little whiteboard that Kevin kept on his refrigerator.  He would keep lists on it of things he needed to buy, or things he needed to do that day or week.  He had bought it a few years back, and had made good use of it.  When he would finish the things on it, he would erase them and then start a new list.  And at first, it had worked great.  He could erase things as he did them, and then fill in the blank with the next thing to do.  It worked great.

But over time, Kevin noticed something about his whiteboard.  It didn’t come as clean as it had been after he had been using it for a while.  He would erase things, but you could still see their outlines.  He would try to scrub them out, but they just seemed to stay.  And after a few years, he noticed that he had a couple of places on the whiteboard that he really couldn’t use anymore.  The markers had written on those spots so many times that they just didn’t come clean anymore.  Sure, he had been faithful in erasing them, and not letting things stay on there too long.  Yes, he had used the right kind of markers, but it just seemed that, over time, a little bit of the stain of the markers was left, and it started to add up.

As Kevin stared at that whiteboard one day, a light bulb clicked on in his mind.  There were a lot of ways that his relationships were a lot like that whiteboard.  He had some friends that had been friends for a long time.  But he knew that there were things that they just didn’t talk about.  Over the years, little hurts had come up.  A word spoken in anger.  The time he forgot to do something he had promised.  That one time when his friend had dated that girl that wasn’t any good for him, and Kevin had said something.  Sure, Kevin and his friends had always seemed to “wipe the slate clean”.  But he realized that, over time, there just seemed to be a little residual left each time.  They might wipe the slate clean, but there were always some lingering hard feelings.  They might still be good friends, but there were just some things that they didn’t talk about.

Some of those times had been really tough to deal with.  In one or two cases, there had even been a time where they didn’t talk to each other.  And as he stood there looking at his slightly darkened whiteboard, Kevin had a sudden surge inside himself.  He found himself wishing that he would never do things that would stain the whiteboard of his friendships.  He knew that he could continue to wipe the slate clean time and time again, but a little marker always seemed to be left behind.  What would it take to really wipe the slate clean?

Kevin is not unique.  Kevin is not alone in this.  There are a good number of you here today, and I can confidently state that this same thing applies to every single one of you.  Maybe not so much the whiteboard, but the idea with the whiteboard.  As you live out your lives in relationship with others, things come up that leave a bit of a stain.  Anger enters in, and even though you may take steps to resolve the situation, there’s still a little bit of an outline left.  Hurtful words leave your lips, maybe even intentionally, and sure, you may take steps to recover from them after they have been said, but there’s still a little stain left over.  You wipe off the event, but it never goes completely away.

And the more you live in relationship, the more you spend time erasing.  Some things are worse than others, but sometimes the little ones sting just as much as the big ones.  And sure, you go in and erase, but the whiteboard never stays clean for long.  Your relationships are never perfect.  Things may be going well for a while, but before long, another something or other enters in, and you need to break out the eraser again.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just erase everything on it, and nothing would ever show up on the whiteboard again?  Just think if you could erase that angry word you said, and no angry word ever came between you and that person again.  How great would that be?  What if you could erase that time when you tarnished someone else’s reputation, and you could know with confidence that you would never do it again, intentionally or unintentionally?  Sounds kind of unreal, doesn’t it?  Our life experience tells us that we simply cannot do that.  Sure, we can work to erase the things that come between us, but they never fully go away, and we’re pretty sure that something else will sooner or later end up on the whiteboard.

This is the case for every single one of you here.  It’s going to happen in the context of your families, perhaps more frequently than anywhere else.  It’s going to happen in the context of your friendships.  It’s bound to happen in the context of your work and career.  And I have one other little piece of bad news for you.  It’s also going to happen in the context of your church.  Yes, ya’ll will all have things that will pop up on the whiteboard in your relationships, and even your family of faith is not immune to it.

So let me introduce you to Easter.  Today is a very special day for us as Christians.  In fact, when you add the events of this past Friday, where Jesus was crucified, died, and buried, and you add them to our celebration today, where Jesus rose from the dead, you have the foundation and center of everything that it means to be a Christian.  Jesus died on the cross, and in doing that, He took every single thing that ever pops up on your whiteboard with Him.  Every single thing, no matter how big or how small, was heaped on Jesus on the cross, and it died with Him as He gave up His life.

Jesus wiped your whiteboard clean in His death.  And you know what?  If that was all He had done, that would have been enough for us.  It’s good to have a clean whiteboard.  It’s nice and shiny, and when we look at it in the context of our connections to each other, it’s always good when nothing is getting in the way of our relationships.  We don’t like having to deal with anger, or hurt feelings, or sadness.  We don’t want to have to worry about how someone will take the words we say, or if they’ll be upset that we didn’t say hello to them, or if we admit that we don’t know their name.  We’d dearly love to have a clean whiteboard for the rest of our lives.

My friends, today we are here to celebrate because Jesus rose from the dead!  Jesus did not merely die to pay the price of your sin.  Jesus rose from the dead.  Jesus came to live a new life in His victorious resurrection.  Jesus rose to new life, and He now lives a life that will never come to an end.  Jesus lived a perfect life prior to His crucifixion, but St. Paul says that Jesus became sin for us.  As Jesus hung on the cross, He became your sin.  He took every single thing that could ever be written on your whiteboard, and He wrote it on His own whiteboard.

But that wasn’t the end of it.  Jesus then rose to new life, which is what we celebrate today.  And that new life isn’t one that He is content to keep to Himself.  Jesus wants to give away His new life, and remember, that’s not just any life.  It’s a life that is lived perfectly with God.  It’s a life that never ends.  It’s a life that is connected with God, and that never has to worry about the anger of God, or about God’s punishment.  It’s a perfect life, a life that has a full and intimate connection with God as a God who looks at you and sees the life of Jesus, and who then smiles at you.

And God gives that gift of that life to you.  How, you may ask?  In a very simple way.  In the splashing of a little water, and a powerful word of God spoken over you.  It’s what God has given in the cleansing water of baptism.  When the water touched your body, and you were brought into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God gave you the perfect gift of the perfect, eternal life of Jesus, resurrected from the dead for you.

That’s the kind of connection that God wants to have with every single one of you here today.  God wants to connect with you.  He doesn’t want to connect with you by looking at everything that He could keep a record of on the whiteboard.  He wants to connect with you as you are connected to the perfect life of Jesus.  God wants that connection with you, and He doesn’t want you to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to have it.  He wants to give it to you in as simple of a way as possible, and so He gives it through the splashing of water, and His holy name spoken on you.

God wants to connect with you.  And then, God wants you to be able to connect with each other.  He really wants you to have those connections with each other that are unmarked and clean.  He wants you to know that you have a connection with Him, and that you share that connection with many others who have received that same gift in baptism.  And God reminds us today that we’re connected to each other as we are connected to the perfect, eternal life of Jesus, who rose so that you may have that new life too.

God connects with you to bring you into a community.  Sure, you already have different kinds of communities, such as your family, your friends, your coworkers, and others.  But God wants to bring you into a community of those who share the life of Jesus with you.  That’s the community that you are surrounded by today.  As you turn to the left and to the right, and as you look in front of you and behind you, you see the community that God wants to connect you with, a community that finds its being in its connection with the new life of the resurrected Jesus.

It’s true, though.  Even in this community, the whiteboard will be needed.  We have that connection to the perfect life of Jesus, but it hasn’t completely taken over in our lives.  We still find those occasions cropping up where our whiteboards get covered.  And that’s where we find that Jesus brings us a great gift as He rose from the dead.

That gift is called forgiveness.  Jesus forgave you as He wiped your whiteboard clean.  He doesn’t hold anything that could ever be written on your board against you.  It’s gone, and Jesus isn’t going to remind you of that thing that was on there last year, or five years ago.  It’s gone.  The price was paid on the cross by Jesus, and He now connects you with His new life.  

And that same gift of forgiveness is a great one when it comes to our connections with each other, whether they are in our family, at work, or even here in our church.  Forgiveness is the single most powerful thing you can give, or that you can receive, when it comes to your whiteboard.  Forgiveness says that you acknowledge what happened.  It hurt.  It wasn’t supposed to be that way.  But forgiveness also says, let’s erase it, and let’s look at each other as if it was never written there to begin with.

Forgiveness wipes off the whiteboard of our sin.  Forgiveness connects us to one another, just as we have been connected to Jesus through His forgiveness to you.  That’s the assurance that you have through His resurrection.  Jesus has completely and fully forgiven you.  He proves that through the connection He created through your baptism, and if you realize that you don’t have that connection, but would really like it to be part of your life, come talk with me after we’re done today.  Jesus gives you that connection to His new life, which is what we celebrate today as we celebrate the resurrection.

That is your assurance.  It’s the assurance of one who died with everything written on your whiteboard.  It’s the assurance of one who connects you to His perfect life through the simple gift of water and God’s name.  You never have to doubt it because Jesus died, and then Jesus rose from the dead!

And that resurrection gives us a great deal of hope when it comes to our connections in life.  In fact, in the coming weeks, I’m going to be introducing us to a kind of “theme” to describe our life together here at Oak Road.  “Connecting Community and Christ.”  It’s the kind of theme that is full of resurrection.  Jesus connects with us, giving His perfect life, His everlasting life.  It speaks about our relationships, as people who were created to live in communities of different kinds.  And it speaks of the core and center of those communities and connections.  They are all centered in Christ.  Christ, who gave you life and who knew you, even before this world was made.  Christ, who took everything on your whiteboard on Himself into death on the cross.  Christ, who rose to connect you to His new, perfect, everlasting life, and who gives it as a gift.  Jesus is one whose work is connecting community and Christ.  And while we celebrate His resurrection and new life today, I invite you to continue to journey with us, to see the many ways He is connecting community and Christ.  Christ has risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia, and Amen!

Easter Vigil Sermon

Here is the sermon from our Easter Vigil, on Saturday, March 30.

You glance down at your watch or at your cell phone.  It very plainly displays 2:13.  You take another quick glance at the door, and then another brief look around the room.  They were supposed to meet you there at 2:00, and they had given you every assurance that they would be there.  But as you glance down once again, you watch 2:13 turn into 2:14.  An impatient breath streaks out of your nose as you push your lips tighter together, wondering what the hold up could be.

You’re in your kitchen.  You had been looking forward to getting together with your friends for a few days.  Everyone had been looking over their schedules for weeks, and everyone had finally found a date that would work.  Through a flurry of emails and text messages, you lined up the different foods that everyone would bring.  Only now, the day has arrived.  Your contribution to the meal is still sitting there in the oven.  It sure doesn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to get done.  You feel like you’ve almost poked it to death, waiting for it to cook all the way through, watching the clock tick past the time when you were supposed to be there.  Not only do you have to wait for this yummy contribution to get done, but you then have to jump in the car and get there as quickly as you can.

You’re sitting at the airport.  You know how the security lines usually are, so you got there plenty early.  The only thing is, since you got there so early, of course, the line wasn’t very long.  Your stuff passed through with no problem.  And then, it turns out that your plane is at one of the closest gates to the security point.  You had planned for the usual 45 minutes or more to be early, but everything went a lot faster than it usually does.  Now, you sit down in one of those so very comfortable airport chairs.  Only a couple of other people are there at the gate.  As you look out the window, you see that your plane hasn’t even arrived at the gate yet.  There’s really nothing else for you to do but to sit there and wait.  And you start to wonder why you insisted on leaving so early, but you know that if you had delayed even five more minutes, there would have been traffic problems, and a long security line, and then a dash to the other end of the airport.  You did everything you were supposed to do, and now all you can do is sit and wait.

Patience is said to be a virtue, isn’t it?  And if that’s the case, we all have to admit that we aren’t all that virtuous.  I live just about one mile away from the church right now, and I have two lights that I have to drive through.  I’m so impatient that I really get a little upset when one of those lights is red.  If patience is indeed a virtue, then it’s a virtue that seems to be in great demand.  I’ve met very few people who say that they have more than enough patience.  Usually, it’s just the opposite.  I wish I was more patient.  I wish God would give me more patience.

With that in mind, travel with me for a moment back to that Friday afternoon and evening long ago.  Jesus was hung up on the cross around 9:00 in the morning.  From the biblical accounts of the Gospels, around noon, the sun stopped shining.  Then, right around 3:00 in the afternoon, we have Jesus speaking a few words, with His last cry being, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.”  And then, we’re told that Jesus gave up His life.  All of this around 3:00 in the afternoon.

That started a flurry of events.  All of these things were happening late in the day on Friday.  Saturday was the Sabbath, the day of rest for the people of Israel.  And their day, according to their calculations, began at 6:00PM.  From 6:00PM on Friday to 6:00PM on Saturday, they would observe the day of rest.  And with this particular Sabbath being the one observed as part of the Passover remembrance, it was a particularly special one. 

But that meant a few things for the body of Jesus, as well as those of the two criminals on the other crosses.  Their bodies simply couldn’t be left on the cross on the Sabbath.  So as the day began to wind to its end, a few people realized that they needed to do something.  First, they had to make sure that the men were dead.  So a few of the authorities went to get Pilate’s permission to break their legs and hurry along their deaths.  As they came to the two criminals, both sets of legs had to be broken.  But when they arrived at Jesus, they discovered that He was already dead.  So, rather than breaking His legs, a soldier took up his spear and thrust it up into Jesus’ side, up into His heart.  No need to break His legs.  Jesus was already dead.

Then, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked if he could take charge of Jesus’ body.  While Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead, he gave permission.  So Joseph and Nicodemus went and took the body of Jesus down.  They quickly wrapped it up in linen cloths along with burial spices.  And then, since the Sabbath was rapidly approaching, they took Jesus’ lifeless body to a nearby tomb that had been cut in the hillside for Joseph.  They laid the body there, and then went off to observe the holy Sabbath day.

That rush of events then gave way to a period of waiting.  And for quite a few people, that day of waiting went on and on and on.  A group of men who had been following Jesus for a while, who suddenly didn’t know what the future held in store for them.  Would they be next on the hit list?  Could they just go back to what they were doing before, since they now knew so much more about God?  Or, was it all even true?  Jesus had been their hope, and now their hope lay lifeless in a tomb.  Jesus had shown so much promise to them, and now that promise seemed to have died along with Him.  How could they ever go back to how things were before He came into their lives?

For a group of ladies, that same day of waiting must have seemed to stretch on and on.  They had followed Jesus around.  Some of them had even given of their own treasures to support Jesus as He ministered to others.  A few of them had even received miraculous cures from His hands.  And so that day of waiting seemed like it would never end.  They wanted to honor the man who had done so much for them.  Even though He was no longer with them, they wanted to make sure that He received a proper burial.  And so that Sabbath day of rest seemed as though it would never end.

Waiting.  It probably wasn’t any easier for any of those individuals than it is for you and I.  Patience may indeed be a virtue, but there are times where we simply do not want to be very virtuous.  And yet, that’s exactly what we are doing tonight as we gather for worship.  We’re waiting.  We’re being patient.  We have heard, over the past couple of days, of Jesus instituting His holy meal.  We’ve followed Him to the mountainside to pray.  We’ve watched Him be arrested and tried, and eventually sent to the cross.  We’ve seen Him be crucified, and heard as He gave up His life.  And so today, we wait.  We have patience as we await the morning.  And we have patience because, unlike those disciples or women, we know what to anticipate in the morning.

And yet, we still engage in this time of waiting, and of patience.  Part of that waiting is spent in prayer.  As we think about it, what better activity do we have to engage in as we wait?  We can be impatient, and snarl about how slow time seems to be moving, or curse at the things that we have to wait for, or we can approach the Father in conversation.  We can appeal to the one who holds all time in His hands, asking Him to move things along according to His timeline, even when that timeline seems to involve far more waiting and patience that we seem ready for.

Times of waiting and patience are great opportunities for reflection.  We have the opportunity to share those things that we are thankful for with our Father.  We can lift up the situation in which we find ourselves waiting, asking that He would work His spiritual gift of patience in our lives.  We can reflect on the sin of our impatience, confess it to Him, and know that He has forgiven it because of that event which we will be celebrating in the morning.

Prayer can lead us to a more fruitful waiting, rather than an impatient, sinful approach.  We have that fruitful waiting because we know what happens in the morning.  Our waiting and patience is not in vain.  God does what He had set out to do.  We anticipate resurrection.  Death could not hold God’s own Son.  We anticipate resurrection and new life.  True, there were few on that particular Sabbath day years ago who anticipated resurrection and new life, but we are blessed to be on this side, where we know what would happen at the end of their time of waiting.

That means that our time of waiting this evening is a time of thankfulness.  It’s a reason to engage in conversation with our Father, to be thankful for what He has revealed through His Son’s resurrection, and through those chosen servants who shared that message that has reached all the way to our ears today.  We wait for our celebration of resurrection, knowing and believing that God has accomplished His will.  Even His own Son waited for the day of resurrection, and so we join with Him in our waiting. 

Fruitful waiting.  That’s what we are about tonight.  We eagerly anticipate the early morning message.  “He is not here.  He has risen, just as He said.”  But in the meantime, we wait.  We pray.  And we ask God our Father to make all our times of waiting a fruitful waiting, guided by His Spirit, who leads us to seek Him out in prayer.  In the eager anticipation of the resurrection of Jesus our Lord.  Amen. 

Good Friday Sermon

Here is the sermon from Good Friday, March 29.

There are some things in life that just call for much more of a demand for justice than others.  Just last week, I remember reading a story about a little 13 month old who was shot in his stroller.  Being the father of a youngster of about the same age, you can imagine that I could relate a little bit to the story.  Somewhere deep in my heart, I found myself thinking that there could be no punishment suitable enough for the person who had done such a thing.  I didn’t know of all the circumstances surrounding that event, but that didn’t matter.  I don’t know that you could ever make a convincing argument that such a thing is the right thing to do.

And as I thought about that, my thoughts inevitably flashed back over the last decade or so.  We’ve had other similar moments that make us want to see justice served.  A rampage in Connecticut.  A guy unleashing his fury in a movie theatre in Colorado.  A little further back, airplanes being crashed into towers and other significant buildings, simply to strike fear into our way of life.  And deep down inside, we want to see justice paid.  We want to see the wrong made right, and we want to see the guilty party suffer and pay for their role in such events.

And yet, I would suggest that these aren’t the only realms where we want to see someone get what they deserve.  Sure, there are other things in our lives that aren’t quite on the same scale as these that I’ve just described, but we still want to see right done, even if it may not be quite as “big” as gunmen and terrorists.  We know of that person at work who will say or do anything to get a leg up on everyone else, even if it means lying or taking credit for something that doesn’t completely belong to him or her.  We want to see that person exposed for who they are.  We want to see the right thing done, and the right thing is for justice to be done.

That desire for justice is a remnant of the original design with which God created us.  When God first molded the man out of the dust of the earth and breathed His very own life into the man’s nostrils, God made Him to know what was the right thing to do.  Since the man, and shortly after that, the woman, knew God perfectly, they knew exactly what God’s desire and design for life was.  They knew that God had created them to live according to His perfect design, and were happy to do so.

That is, until that day when they first followed their own thoughts and instincts rather than what God had said.  Immediately after they had done what God had said not to do, they recognized that God was a God of justice.  They knew that they had done what God had specifically said not to do, and so they tried to hide.  They knew that God would demand justice.  Deep inside, they knew that justice would be demanded of them.  And rather than face that justice from God, they sought to hide away from the God of justice.

As we gather today, my friends, we are witnesses to a God of justice.  There is indeed a price to pay for wrongdoing, or, to use God’s more serious word for it, there is indeed a price to pay for sin.  God is a God of right.  God is outraged at wrong, or at sin.  Even from the beginning, God warned the man and the woman about the price of sin.  It demanded death.  And as we continue to live as His creation, we still see that sense of justice that God originally created within us.  When we see wrong, we want to see a price paid.  We want to see justice.

And yet, there is also something troublesome about our desire for justice.  We want to see God’s justice done.  The thing is, we often want to see God’s justice done when it comes to the things that other people do.  We want that liar in our office to get caught in a lie and to pay the price.  But we really don’t want to see justice done for that time when we stretched the truth a little bit.  We don’t want to see justice done for that time we forget to get our task done.  We’d rather have it overlooked.  We try to hide it from the sight of others.

But today, we stand face to face with the cross of Jesus.  That cross of Jesus is a cross that demands justice.  And we simply cannot stand there and face that cross without facing a difficult truth in our lives.  There is that within us which demands God’s justice.  Not a single one of us can stand before that cross of Jesus and claim that we have no sin.  We stand face to face with the cross of Jesus, and that cross calls us to repentance, to a recognition that we have indeed sinned and done what is wrong in God’s eyes.  That cross calls us to repentance, and to confession of that sin, and to reflection on our lives as God’s Spirit searches out the sin within us.

But that’s not all we see when we stand face to face with the cross.  In a fashion, the cross itself shows us that we see more than simply God’s justice at work.  We see two different wooden beams that intersect to form the shape of the cross.  And, in a similar fashion, we see two very significant characteristics of God which intersect at the cross.  We’ve already focused on the characteristic of God’s justice.  We see that very prominently as we stand facing the cross.  But we see another characteristic of God at work on that very same cross, the characteristic of mercy.

God doesn’t always give us what we deserve.  In fact, God seems to go out of His way to withhold His hand from giving us what He really should give.  We get cut off in traffic, and a few choice thoughts flash through our minds about that driver that definitely do not demonstrate love for our neighbor.  If God were only a God of justice, that should be it.  We have failed to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we should get God’s justice.  But God withholds His hand.  He doesn’t give us what we deserve.  And that’s where we see God’s mercy at work.

God could give us what we deserve at the moment that we sin against His design for our lives.  But God chooses to hold His hand still.  And that’s a little unfamiliar to us as we live our lives.  We like to see people get what they deserve.  When they go speeding by us, we want to see the police car pull them over as they go around the bend up ahead.  Or if they do something against us, we look forward to letting them know what they did wrong.  If they deserve a chewing out, we often find that we can’t wait to let them have it.  And so, mercy is something that we aren’t all that familiar with.

But as we stand facing the cross, we see God’s justice and God’s mercy come together.  God withholds His hand from giving us what we deserve.  But God still pours out the full price for the wrong and sin that has been done.  God withholds His hand from us, and instead puts it on the cross.  God will see justice done.  The price will be paid, and that paid in full on the cross by Jesus.  God will see mercy done.  God doesn’t give us what our sin calls for, but pours it out on Jesus on the cross.

Justice and mercy come together in a way that only God can imagine.  Jesus willingly pays the price for justice, choosing to bear the weight of your sin, and my sin, and the sin of the whole world, on the cross.  Jesus pleads with God to look upon us with mercy, by offering to take the price upon Himself.

That’s what we gather in worship to observe today.  God is a God of justice and a God of mercy.  In the cross of Jesus, God shows us that He can be the God of both of those equally.  And yet, even as we stand face to face with the cross today, what we see is only an ending point.  A cross, as an instrument of death and judgment, simply cannot be more than an ending point.  You only encounter death at the cross.  Death is found here, and nothing more.  And even if it means the death of our sin, we simply cannot stop here.  Death is an ending.  But as we stand face to face with the cross today, we anticipate something more.

Setting us free from our sin is only part of what our God desires for us.  As Jesus dies the death that God’s justice demands, and as He shows the Father’s hand in mercy, as God withholds His hand of judgment from us, we are set free from our sin.  But we simply cannot stop here at the cross.  If we did, we only stop at death.  And Jesus’ death on the cross anticipates something more, because God desires for more than simply the death of our sin, and the price of our justice.

As we stand face to face with the cross, we also anticipate God’s grace.  Death is not the ending that God had in mind.  Yes, death became involved, because sin calls for death.  Sin calls for God’s justice, and justice in this case means death.  But even though God may withhold His hand in mercy, we still are face to face with death at the cross.  Jesus may have taken our sin, but He died with our sin.  And so, the cross anticipates something more, the grace of God.

Death is not the end.  The price of God’s justice has been paid for you by Jesus on the cross.  God has withheld what your sin deserved, and has shown you mercy, as Jesus endured in your place on the cross.  But God’s design and will isn’t to merely end in death.  God doesn’t want it where only the price is paid and nothing more.  God is a God who does new things.  He kills, but He brings back to life.  God not only withholds His hand from the justice that we deserve, but He goes to extra lengths.

God pours out His grace into our lives.  As we stand face to face with the cross today, we anticipate more.  We anticipate God’s grace.  We anticipate resurrection.  We anticipate new life.  You and I may feel sorrow for our sin today, but we know that we will come upon the day of rejoicing, when death is overcome.  We are thankful for God’s mercy shown to us by Jesus on the cross, but we also anticipate God doing even more in our lives.  God will pour out His grace as He gives new life.  Our sin, and the nature tainted by sin, will be put to death, and God will give new life.  And the sign of that new life is resurrection!

God’s justice and mercy intersect at the cross.  But even as they intersect, they point us in anticipation of God’s grace.  God will do for us above and beyond what we could ever expect.  God kills, but God makes alive again.  God not only sets you free from your sin, God gives you new life.  God not only withholds what you have deserved, God gives good and perfect gifts to you by His grace.  

Today, however, we stand face to face with the cross.  We confess that we have done that which calls for God’s justice in our lives.  As we humbly stand before the cross of our Lord Jesus, we bow our heads in humble thanks that He would endure the cross and its shame in our place.  And even as the sorrow for our sin washes over us, even as we hear Jesus giving up His Spirit into death, we still find ourselves with a measure of anticipation.  This is not the end.  God is not only a God of justice and mercy.  And so, we wait.  We anticipate God’s grace.  We anticipate new life.  We anticipate resurrection.  May it be so, for Christ’s sake.  Amen.