A brief sermon for the 11:30 am midweek Lenten service during the 4th week of Lent, March 17, 2015. Preached in Dubuque, Iowa, at my internship congregation, St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church. Our Lenten theme this year is “From Cross to Tree of Life” and this week’s specific theme is “Condemned – Absolved.” The text for the day is John 8:12-20.
When I saw the text assigned for today, I realized it’s about the most appropriate text possible for this Holden Evening Prayer service. The very first words of our service were, “Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome.”
I should confess that this year is my first time ever doing Holden Evening Prayer during Lent, but I see why so many churches do it. This focus on Jesus as the light of the world is an important emphasis during Lent.
Lent is a long season, and at least for me, it’s challenging to stay in Lent and not jump ahead to Easter. After all, Easter is only a couple weeks away now, and it’s the most important holiday of the church year. So, at the risk of skipping over part of Lent, I want to think about Easter a little today. Lent is important as a time of repentance and preparation, as a journey that leads to Good Friday and the cross, and of course, the cross is central to our faith.
But I want to talk about a question that’s bugged me for a while. Why is Easter important?
I struggled for some time with wondering why Easter matters. I understood why Jesus dying for our sins was important.
I understand the theology about God coming and taking our place. As we’ll read from the prophet Isaiah on Good Friday, by his wounds we are healed, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And from 1 Peter 3, Christ suffered for sins once for all. So I understand why Friday is good, but why does Easter matter?
In the Table Talk conversation on Sunday, we were talking about what’s unique about being Lutheran, and I said that part of what I liked about being Lutheran is that I think Lutherans are realistic.
Martin Luther’s issue, 500 years ago, was that he knew he wasn’t that great. He struggled for years trying to figure out how to be a better person, how to be a person God would love.
But no matter how hard he tried, he kept condemning himself. He couldn’t do better. He described himself as a sack of worms, as dung.
He felt that he wasn’t worthy of God’s love, because he kept going against God. He did the best that he could, but he knew it wasn’t good enough. He could only see himself as condemned.
There are some versions of Christianity that believe Christians ought to be perfect. And it does sort of make sense. After all, if God has saved you, why would you keep sinning? But Lutherans know better. We look at the world around us and at ourselves, and we realize Christians are far from perfect. I think Lutherans are more realistic about how deeply sin is embedded into us. Humans are fundamentally selfish. We’re curved in on ourselves. Everything we do is in our own self-interest. Luther saw that, but then he realized the miracle of God’s love, of God’s grace.
He realized that when God looks at us, God doesn’t see our failings, our sinful nature, our selfishness.
In his death on the cross, Jesus has taken that away. Jesus chose to be condemned in our place. And God has done this out of grace. So, as Lutherans, we understand that God’s grace is a gift that’s freely given to us.
No one’s climbing a spiritual ladder to heaven. No one’s self-improving, getting better and better until they become a good person, until they’re good enough for God to love. God always comes to us. God’s always the one coming to us; we don’t make our way to God. In the light of Christ, our darkness is erased. God absolves us of our condemnation, even as we stand condemned.
We’re both saints and sinners… at the same time. That’s a very Lutheran thing to say, and I think it’s realistic. It’s assessing ourselves and our own abilities honestly. Without God, we’re hopeless.
All of that is a great message, but it’s still a Good Friday message. It doesn’t answer the question of why Easter is important. God’s ultimate act of forgiveness is on the cross, dying in our place.
But I think our reading actually illustrates why Easter matters. In the reading from John, Jesus says he is the light of the world and whoever follows him will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. Great message. But listen to what the Pharisees say to him. They say, “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.”
Basically, all we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on. They want proof. After all, anyone can go around saying they’re the light of the world, claiming to forgive sins, even claiming to be God.
The message we proclaim as the church about God’s grace is wonderful, but I can see how people could be skeptical of it. Especially when we know how much we sin, how we keep pulling ourselves farther and farther away from God, I can see how someone could be skeptical of grace. I can understand Luther’s low opinion of himself.
For lots of people, it’s easier to see our selfishness, our sin, than it is to see God’s grace. Feeling shame is not hard. Feeling condemned, even guilty, especially as we repent during Lent is understandable. And as the Pharisees would point out, our testimony on our own behalf is useless. We can’t make ourselves acceptable to God.
So if all we have is Good Friday, how can we know? How do we know God is involved in this at all? If all we have is Friday, how do we know Jesus wasn’t just a great teacher who claimed God loved us, then died? If all we have is Friday, how do we know we’re absolved, forgiven? How do we know we’re not still condemned?
I believe that is why we need Easter. We need Easter to help our own faith, to be able to see ourselves no longer as condemned, but as God’s beloved children, freed from our guilt, our shame, and our sin. Freed to serve others, freed to believe that we are absolved, that we are loved by God.
The resurrection is God’s testimony that Jesus is not making this up. As Paul says, if we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
In Christ’s light, our guilt, our shame, and our condemnation are gone. Following Christ, we have been given the light of life in us.
As we draw closer to the end of this Lenten season, this journey to the cross, we also draw closer to the proof of God’s love for us.
As we talk this season about the cross being transformed into the tree of life, may the peace of the One who has given himself for us, may the peace and the light of Christ keep our hearts and our minds confident in the sure hope of the resurrection, and may you know the wonderful love of your Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen