Sermon Title: - “The Sinless accepts the Sinful ” - Pastor John
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When I got back from the Peace Corps in 1978, I took a job at my old high
school in Reisterstown as a long term substitute in a World Culture's class.
I had to show a movie about tribal people in New Guinea. The story was
about two neighboring tribes who were often at war with one another. One
tribal member had accidentally killed the daughter of a member of the other
tribe and instead of going to war they wanted to resolve the matter without
bloodshed. They spent several days deciding what the guilty tribe had to do
to "atone" for the death of the innocent girl.
Every culture, everywhere in the world has an innate sense that wrongdoing
or "sin" as we call it in the church that must be atoned for. Wrongs have
to be righted. At our Supreme Court in Washington we have an image of the
ancient Greek muse who holds a balance in her hands. When something wrong
happens it must be righted. The world is somehow out of balance until
justice is done. Our hearts cry out for the guilty to have to pay for their
crime or somehow make things right.
Our lesson from Hebrews alludes to the sacrificial system that the ancient
people of Israel had developed to atone for sins. Israel still maintains
the high feast day Yom Kippur, celebrated in late September or early
October. The Day of Atonement is a day of fasting, repentance and sorrow
for sin. At this time of Jesus, actual sin offerings were required in the
temple. Poor people would offer a dove and the wealthy a ram or a young
bullock. The blood of the offering was taken as a payment for a person's
sins. After the sacrifice, people were made whole again. They were "at
one" with God. If you put those two words together in English, they spell
"atone". Atone means righted, at peace with, scales balanced, justice done.
The priest of Israel's Jerusalem temple played an intermediary role in this
system. They prayed for the people's sins, they offered the sacrifices
which affected the atoning. Yet they themselves were sinful also. First,
they atoned for their sins before they made sacrifices for the people. In
the theology of the book of Hebrews, the writer reflects on this reality and
inspired by God, he or she, (we don't know who wrote Hebrews) concludes that
Jesus was in the unique position of offering the perfect sacrifice because
he himself was without sin.
The animals offered as sacrifices in Israel were always the best money could
buy. You didn't offer a ram with one horn broken off, or a dove with a
broken wing. To do so would be to try and get off cheaply and would be
contemptuous of God's mercy and grace. God is magnanimous in offering us
forgiveness. We do our best to honor it. So did the people of Israel.
The Christian doctrine of atonement is straightforward and simple. No human
being could fully pay the price for sin because of the great weight or
magnitude of sin. What God does instead is pay the full price for sin. The
innocent takes on the burden of the sinful. The scales are permanently
righted. God does, once for all and once, and for all, what we human beings
cannot do. God resto res our sinlessness to us. God cleans us. God takes
away the sin of the world.
Martin Heineken, once a Professor at the Philadelphia Seminary where I
studied, tells a story to illustrate this concept. It is allegory, but a
divine one. The story goes that there is a Queen in a far off land. She is
a just, noble and righteous Queen who rules fairly and honestly.
Unfortunately, she inherited a dominion and a realm that was beset by
corruption. People would bribe judges to buy their favor and law and order
had broken down. Without honest judges and a justice based on truth, and
not one up for sale, order and honestly could not return to the country.
So, she issued an edict, "The next person to bribe a judge would be given
fifty lashes with a monstrous whip " the cat and nine tails."
All went well for six months, then nine months, but the inevitable happened,
someone bribed a judge. The Queen was incensed and screamed "Who dares to
disobey my Word?" The messenger, shrinking back from her wrath whispered
"Your Father, your Highness." The Queen was torn. She loved her father and
he was old. He couldn't endure the punishment. She had him arrested, tried
and he was found guilty but when the moment came for him to be whipped ( and
it would have meant his death), she offered herself, her bare back to take
his place and his punishment. By enduring his pain, she preserved justice,
yet showed to everyone that mercy was her first principle and the first
principle of her reign. Like God, the Queen through royal sacrifice, made
atonement possible.
How does our "paid for" atonement, our new sinlessness impact us? What does
it enable or make possible?
When I was on internship in 1984, a story broke about a woman in one of the
Midwestern states who had come forward to admit that she had falsely accused
a man of having raped her to cover her own indiscretion of having gotten
pregnant by someone else. The man had spent seven years in prison tho'
innocent of the crime.
During the press conference that followed the initial announcement, she
revealed how God had worked on her to right her wrong, to atone for her sin.
She said, she couldn't go to worship, open her Bible, hear a prayer, and
say the Lord's Prayer without God throwing the full weight of conscience
onto her to do what was right. She quoted this line from Hebrews, "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." She knew she had done a horrible wrong but Jesus, understanding of
her weakness gave her the push she needed and the compassion she needed to
undo the wrong she had done. She even said she could feel that Christ had
prayed for her to do the right thing.
We are forgiven for everything we do. But this prior, guaranteed
forgiveness is not a permit or a license to do whatever we please. We live
in a moral universe and as our lesson from Hebrews says, "before God, no
creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the God
to whom we must render an account." So we come to worship with two
simultaneous needs - the need to confess and the need to be strengthened so
that we have less to confess next week. We also come to be blessed in
hearing that the one who guarantees our forgiveness is the one who
understands us best and empathized with us the most " Jesus" Our High
Priest, everyone's High Priest.
Amen
Who We Are