Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
January 31st, Year of Our + Lord 2021
Our Redeemer and Our Savior Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
Am
I really forgiven?
Oh, to share King David’s confidence in the
Lord´s forgiveness. As we heard in our
Introit: I acknowledged my sin to
you, and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the
iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)
Do you share David´s confidence? He’s so matter of fact about it: I confess my sin, God forgives me. Period.
But, King David doesn’t know me ... I really sin. Can it
be so simple? It’s hard to believe,
¿no?
Faith is hard, which has been clear,
ever since the Garden. God said “For
your own good, don´t do just this one thing.”
Satan suggested that the Lord was holding out on us, and the fruit was
lovely, and appeared good to eat. And
that´s the thing: Faith is confidence in things unseen, but we prefer to
see.
For example, we’d love to see the Lord Jesus
cast out a demon. Wouldn´t that be great?
Not so long ago, believing in the existence of demons may have been a
struggle for us, living in our advanced scientific age. But times they are a changing. For all the material blessings we have, our
society is fraying at the edges, and passions are loose in the world that
frighten us. From every extreme and
sometimes from the middle of our body politic, we constantly see anger and
violence and destruction on our screens.
Patently loony ideas about how we should organize our society are going
mainstream, and formerly calm, happy and well balanced folks are now stressed
and angry. Everything feels
unpredictable. We are not crazy to
wonder what spirits have taken over.
So, yes, we would love to see a demon cast
out, to see a tortured person, or perhaps our entire country suddenly set free
from whatever it is that torments us.
However, throughout salvation history, exorcisms, visible demon
expulsions, are rare. The Lord can
choose to do it, but we are not called to wait for such extraordinary
events. Rather we are to listen and
believe. We’re supposed to believe the
Lord´s promises simply from the text, from the Biblical witness. Most of us will not witness a visible
miracle. Which is the way God
intends.
Faith, saving faith, comes from hearing the
Word of Christ. And so prophets preach,
for the sake of faith. The miracles are
an occasional add on, not the main thing.
Think about it. Almost all of the
miracles in the Bible are about this world´s problems, which can be bad, to be
sure. But they are temporary problems,
about health, hunger, physical death.
All very important. But not the
main thing. Not the eternal
decider. We will only be saved by
faith. Still, we would like to see, and then believe.
Bringing you to saving faith is not the
function of God’s miracles, whether those worked by one His prophets between
Moses and Jesus, or the miracles of Jesus and His Apostles. What’s more, the blessings of earthly
miracles are short lived. The cured
will get sick again. That restored sight
will eventually begin to cloud. Demons
still threaten those who have been recently freed, and physical death came again
to Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus.
As amazing as they are, the primary purpose of these miracles was, and
is, to teach, and attract attention, and point.
So that in the end, we might hear and believe the message.
These earthly miracles, demon expulsions,
healings, miraculous feedings, resurrections, all teach us about and point us
to the ultimate and greatest miracle, which doesn´t even look like a
miracle. The greatest miracle looks a
lot like a crushing defeat. It is of
course the miracle of love, the unimaginable mystery that God’s Son, Jesus
Christ, God in human flesh, submitted to suffering and gave up His life, in our
place.
The unfathomable miracle is that God the
Father poured out his just anger against our sin, not on us, but on His
Beloved, in order that we be forgiven.
For a brief cosmic moment, Jesus gave up His eternal connection to the
Holy Spirit, and was separated from His Father, in order to bear the eternal
suffering of us all. This is the miracle
that all the prophets and apostles preached.
This was the sole purpose of Jesus’ ministry, to arrive at the end of
all sin, in His own crucified flesh. And
thus, on the third day when the victorious Christ rose from the dead, all the
promises of God were fulfilled. This is
the source of David’s confidence: I
acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will
confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
(Psalm 32:5)
Christians acknowledge their sins, and their
sinfulness, to Almighty God. And God,
for the sake of the miracle of the Cross and Resurrection, forgives them. Period.
This has been true since that dark day when the first man and woman ate
what had been forbidden. God
sought them out, as they pitifully tried to hide in the Garden. The Lord sought them, not to destroy them,
but to forgive them. And to make the
promise to Satan that his deception and destruction of humanity would not
stand, that the Seed of the woman would come and crush him.
It was always hard for God´s people to
believe. The Promise only came into
focus slowly through the centuries. But
continually, the Lord has come to His people, confronting our sin to move us to
confession, for the sake of free and full forgiveness, each and every
time.
It is the same today. Everything in the Church of Christ is ordered
so as to deliver God´s forgiveness to repentant sinners. We still struggle to believe, and so, to help
us, the Lord has appointed means, earthly elements combined with God´s Word to
do the truly miraculous, create and sustain faith in our hearts, faith that
trusts in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting.
God has His means, and He has His
ambassadors: a whole series of prophets from Moses to Jesus. Thirteen Apostles to speak with authority on
His behalf. And their ministry goes
on. God has called me here today, to
publicly proclaim and deliver again all the promises of Jesus. And you, this afternoon and tomorrow, and
throughout the week, are also called, to live from the forgiveness of sins, in
your daily vocations, in those roles and responsibilities and relationships
that God has given uniquely to you, so that you might also share and even speak
of the Love that is Christ crucified, for the forgiveness of sins.
Regardless of where the Holy Spirit is at
work, in a tall cathedral, or over a cup of coffee, on a Zoom call, or at
bedtime prayers with your children or grandchildren, wherever the Good News of
free forgiveness is spoken into this dark and desperate world, the reality, the
power, the miraculous promise which empowers that Word is and always will be
the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus.
So yes, you can be sure, your sins are
forgiven. God has done it, and He is
faithful. He will not go back on His
promise. The steadfast love of the Lord
surrounds you, inviting you to trust, to rest, to take and eat, take and drink,
and to live free from fear. For you are
forgiven and restored, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, Amen.
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