The love of Jesus didn’t begin at the cross; it defined His incarnation and life in this world. In love He drove out demons from the possessed, in love He healed disease, in love He raised the dead. When Jesus wept outside of the tomb of Lazarus, the gathered mourners exclaimed, “See how He loved him!” Jesus poured out His love on this sinful and corrupted creation, for that is what He came to do. The Creator was present in His creation to renew and restore it, to make right what had gone so terribly wrong. Jesus came to show love, and the creation responded with hate.
“Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite? He made the lame to run, he gave the blind their sight. Sweet injuries! Yet they at these, themselves displease and against Him rise.” In hatred this world raged against the God who is love. What has Jesus done? What makes this world scorn and abuse Him? He has done what Isaiah prophesied He would do: “The Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” He came in love to free this creation from its bondage to sin and death. Every disease healed, every demon driven away, every leper cleansed was an indication that Jesus had come to destroy sin’s effects forever. But this cleansing and restoration would only come through His rejection, His suffering, through the facing of the rage of this world. Why was He hated by men? So that He could save them, so that He could show them love. Only His death could destroy sin and all of its corruption. Our hymn exclaims, “Sweet injuries!” The injuries of Christ are sweet because through them the disease of sin and death is cast from us, as Isaiah wrote, “With His stripes we are healed.”
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Reflections on 'My Song is Love Unknown'- Stanza 3
We do not honor our love in Lent. Our love is fickle, it is wavering, it is unsteady. Our love is weak, even when turned toward those closest to us, but especially when it is turned toward God. Holy Week isn’t about the love of the people for Christ, because their love failed, and the crowds turned against our Lord. This dramatic shift, this failure of human love, is described in the third stanza of our hymn this week, “My Song is Love Unknown.”
“Sometimes they strew His way and His sweet praises sing; resounding all the day hosannas to their King. Then ‘Crucify!’ is all their breath, and for His death they thirst and cry.” Jerusalem rejoiced to receive her King on Palm Sunday. Jesus even said, “I tell you, if these [people] were silent, the very stones would cry out.” The cries of ‘Hosanna’ rose up to Jesus, cloaks and palm branches covered His path. The people showed Jesus glory, honor, and love. But by Friday that all had changed. The cry was no longer ‘Hosanna!’ but ‘Crucify!’ Man’s love had faltered and failed. The crowds who once had adored Him now cried out for His death.
We do not honor our love in Lent, for we too are like the crowds of Jerusalem. Our love for Christ falters and fails. On some days we cry out ‘Hosanna!’ praising our King for all that He has done for us. On others, we are like the mob on Good Friday, rejecting Christ through our words and actions. Our love is completely corrupted by the sin that fills all of our members. Lent isn’t about our love for Christ, but His love for us. Even you and I, who have love that is so weak, so faltering, so unsteady, are shown love by Jesus, the love that led Him to the cross. His love is shown, as the first stanza declared, to the “loveless that they might lovely be.”
“Sometimes they strew His way and His sweet praises sing; resounding all the day hosannas to their King. Then ‘Crucify!’ is all their breath, and for His death they thirst and cry.” Jerusalem rejoiced to receive her King on Palm Sunday. Jesus even said, “I tell you, if these [people] were silent, the very stones would cry out.” The cries of ‘Hosanna’ rose up to Jesus, cloaks and palm branches covered His path. The people showed Jesus glory, honor, and love. But by Friday that all had changed. The cry was no longer ‘Hosanna!’ but ‘Crucify!’ Man’s love had faltered and failed. The crowds who once had adored Him now cried out for His death.
We do not honor our love in Lent, for we too are like the crowds of Jerusalem. Our love for Christ falters and fails. On some days we cry out ‘Hosanna!’ praising our King for all that He has done for us. On others, we are like the mob on Good Friday, rejecting Christ through our words and actions. Our love is completely corrupted by the sin that fills all of our members. Lent isn’t about our love for Christ, but His love for us. Even you and I, who have love that is so weak, so faltering, so unsteady, are shown love by Jesus, the love that led Him to the cross. His love is shown, as the first stanza declared, to the “loveless that they might lovely be.”
Reflections on 'My Song is Love Unknown'- Stanza 2
On Christmas we see God’s love. The Father shows His love in that He sends His Son into this world; the Son shows His love in that He willingly lays aside the glory that is rightfully His and is born in humility. Saint Paul ponders this mystery in the second chapter of Philippians: “[He] made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” The love of the Son points in two directions: Jesus shows love toward God in that He is born, lives, and dies in obedience to the Father’s will for our salvation; Jesus shows love toward you in that He is born, lives, and dies for your great need of deliverance from sin and death. He had all glory, but He laid it aside in love for His Father and for you.
“He came from His blest throne salvation to bestow; but men made strange, and none the longed-for Christ would know. But, oh, my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need His life did spend!” Because Jesus came in humility, He was rejected. He was long expected, but when He came, He didn’t fulfill expectations, and so men refused to know Him for who He was. He took the form of a servant, Isaiah’s suffering servant. Isaiah chapter fifty-three runs throughout this hymn. The prophet writes: “He had not form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men.” This Jesus, true God from eternity, is born in the likeness of man, born in humility, despised and rejected by all for you. Your need is salvation from sin and from death. It is a desperate need, for you can do nothing to deliver yourself. And as the hymn declares, at your need “His life did spend!"
“He came from His blest throne salvation to bestow; but men made strange, and none the longed-for Christ would know. But, oh, my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need His life did spend!” Because Jesus came in humility, He was rejected. He was long expected, but when He came, He didn’t fulfill expectations, and so men refused to know Him for who He was. He took the form of a servant, Isaiah’s suffering servant. Isaiah chapter fifty-three runs throughout this hymn. The prophet writes: “He had not form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men.” This Jesus, true God from eternity, is born in the likeness of man, born in humility, despised and rejected by all for you. Your need is salvation from sin and from death. It is a desperate need, for you can do nothing to deliver yourself. And as the hymn declares, at your need “His life did spend!"
Monday, March 12, 2012
Reflections on 'My Song is Love Unknown'- Stanza 1
God is love. That fundamental character of our Creator is
declared emphatically by Saint John in his first letter. Love isn’t just a characteristic of God or
something He does, it is His identity.
God is love. In this world we
have poor analogies to understand God’s love.
We love baseball, we love ice cream, we love television. Our love for our family- our spouse, our
parents, our children and grandchildren- comes close, but it remains imperfect,
tainted by sin. To understand how God is
love, we cannot rely on human illustrations, but must turn somewhere else. We must turn to the cross.
“My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me, love to the
loveless shown that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh and die?”
God is love, love unknown. His love isn’t unknown in the sense that we
cannot see it or hear of it. It isn’t
love that is hidden or secret. His love
is unknown because we cannot comprehend it, we cannot understand it. We cannot imagine why Christ would die for
someone like us. We know our sin, our
guilt, our shame better than anyone else.
We know that there is little in us that deserves salvation. But God is love. Saint Paul writes in Romans chapter five: “God
shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.” This statement is the essence of
what the Gospel is: love shown to the loveless that they might lovely be. Our hymn immerses us in that mystery. “Oh, who am I that for my sake my Lord should
take frail flesh and die?” This hymn
isn’t about our love, which fails and falters, but about the Savior’s love for
us, shown to us on Calvary’s cross. This
love is shown despite our sin, and it is shown to destroy our sin, so that we
might be made lovely in the Father’s eyes forever.
Lent 3 of Series B (John 2:13-22)
“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. Dear friends in Christ: the third commandment is God’s gift to His people. Listen again to the words of our Old Testament lesson: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God blessed the Sabbath day and gave it as a gift to His creation. Man was given the gift of rest, but not simply rest for the sake of rest. The Sabbath rest is the gift of worship. We are privileged to interact with our God, the One who created us and acted to redeem us. God bends over backward to give us His gifts. He condescends to come to us today in humble words, water, bread and wine. For God’s Old Testament people, He established an elaborate system of sacrifices, all designed to convey His grace to His people. He dwelt among them in the tabernacle, and later in the temple; He came to His people so that they could receive His great gifts and respond in prayer and praise. The Sabbath is truly a gift; the gift of a compassionate God to His beloved creation.
But humanity rejected this gift; we rebelled against the loving compassion of our Creator and Redeemer. In our text for today, Jesus goes to the temple, the place where God promised to meet with His people in mercy, the place that the Father had so graciously provided for His people to worship Him. On that day the Scripture is fulfilled, the word spoken by the prophet Malachi: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple.” God in the flesh suddenly came into His temple, and He expected to find His people reveling in the gift of the Sabbath, receiving His great gifts and giving Him thanks and praise. Instead, He found quite the opposite. “In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, with the money-changers sitting there.” The temple was supposed to be a place of prayer, a place of sacrifice, the place where God had promised to come to His people, but now it was a shopping mall. The religious leadership would rather reap the profits of turning the temple mount into a marketplace than encourage true piety and respect for the worship of God. The Sabbath was being desecrated in the courtyards that surrounded God’s most Holy Place; that is what the Lord found when He suddenly came into the temple.
What would Jesus find if He walked into our sanctuaries? What would He find if He walked into our lives? Would He find that we too have despised the Sabbath like His people of old? Martin Luther gives us the Christian application of the Sabbath command in his Small Catechism: “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” The Sabbath isn’t about a specific day, it isn’t even about not doing work; it’s about the proper worship of God. This worship has two parts: we receive God’s gifts, and then we give Him thanks and praise. Do we hold God’s Word sacred, and gladly hear and learn it, or do we despise preaching and His Word by placing other things above it? Do we hear God’s Word and receive His great gifts with thanksgiving, or grudgingly, looking for an excuse to avoid them? What takes priority in your life over prayer, devotion, and worship of God? Is it work, school, sports, recreation, your social life? So many other activities are encroaching on the time set aside for worship, and Christians have often allowed the sports tournaments and social gatherings to replace weekly worship. But I’m not just talking about Sunday mornings. The Sabbath is not restricted to one day of the week. Luther calls on us to “gladly hear and learn” the Word throughout our lives. Do we spend time in prayer, studying and meditating on God’s Word during the week? Do we take advantage of opportunities to receive God’s Word in bible class or special services? Do our Lord’s gifts receive priority, or does everything else crowd them out?
Jesus responds to violations of the Third Commandment in a way that we wouldn’t have expected. “Making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’” The only thing to do when the things of this world encroach on the Sabbath is to drive them away. In holy anger, Jesus cast the merchants out, He drove away their animals, overturned their tables. They felt the bite of his whip, they cowered before the righteous wrath of almighty God. When the Sabbath is desecrated, it must be made clean again. This isn’t easy, it isn’t without pain; it is the work of God’s holy Law. Sin must be driven out. Our sins don’t want to leave, the Old Adam’s hold on us is tight; Satan knows that if He can keep us away from God’s gifts, we are well on our way to joining Him forever. The whip is necessary, no matter how painful it is. You and I must feel the bite of the Law, we need to have our sins attacked and driven away; the Old Adam must be put to death. This is the task of the Law: to expose sin and drive it away in repentance.
The disciples watched Jesus’s whip cleanse the temple, they observed the operation of the Law upon sin, and they remembered a phrase from Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus had zeal for His Father’s house that day; He wouldn’t let it be desecrated before His very eyes. His zeal, His passion led Him to use the whip of the Law to drive out sin, to declare God’s just judgment upon it. But if that was all that Jesus had come to do, we would still be lost. The Law exposes sin, it cannot destroy it or deliver you from its penalty. Jesus came to bring sin to light and destroy it. His zeal led to the proclamation of the Law, but more importantly, it led to the accomplishment of the Gospel. His zeal for His Father’s house would lead Him into conflict with the religious leaders, conflict that would begin here at the start of His ministry. This zeal would literally consume Him, it would lead to His death. He suffers because He loves His Father; He dies as a criminal because He is passionate for the holiness of the temple. “Zeal for your house will consume me.” His crime? Love for God and His house. Jesus has zeal for the things of His Father. That is why He suffers, that is why He dies.
But while Jesus suffers innocently, He doesn’t suffer unwillingly. His zeal for His Father’s will consumes Him. The Father wills that Jesus offer up His life as the sacrifice for your sin, in answer to the Law’s sting. Jesus has zeal for the things of His Father, and so He goes boldly to the cross. His Father’s will is His desire, and that desire, that passion, that zeal, will consume Him. He will be devoured upon that cross, consumed by the righteous wrath of God over our sin. He will feel the bite of the whip, the Law’s just judgment. Jesus endures that suffering and humiliation not only because of His zeal for His Father’s house and His Father’s will; He endures the cross because of His zeal for you. His zeal for your salvation will consume Him. He will not let you die in your sin, He will not see you dwell in hell forever, and so He gave up His life in your place. His love for you was so strong that He was willing to endure hell itself for you.
This zeal leads Jesus to challenge His opponents in the temple that day. “So the Jews said to Him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” He commands His enemies to put Him to death, with the promise that He will rise again on the third day. They are tearing down the temple, the location of God’s gracious presence, by turning it into a marketplace; now Jesus dares them to tear down the true temple, the new location of God’s gracious presence: His very own body. He will show His authority as the Son of God and His identity as the new temple by raising up His body on the third day, never to be torn down again. For Jesus has come to fulfill the temple and all of its sacrifices with His own death and resurrection. In our text, He drives out all the animals for sacrifice, and the temple courtyard is left empty- except for Jesus Himself, Jesus only. Jesus alone is the sacrifice for our sin, the answer to the Law’s bite. That building He so vehemently defended will become obsolete on Good Friday with His own sacrifice. The dwelling place of God with men is now Jesus Himself, the sacrifice for our sin.
Having accomplished salvation, Christ’s zeal is turned toward distributing the fruits of salvation. His passion and desire is to bring forgiveness to you and to me. Yes, we need to feel the bite of the whip, the sting of the Law. Our sin needs to be attacked and driven away, but then we need the healing balm of the Gospel. The Third Commandment now describes the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. The Sabbath is now the opportunity to receive Christ Himself as He comes to us in Word, water, Body and Blood. We take time out of our lives and gather in this place because here Christ fulfills our greatest needs, the only needs that truly matter for eternity. Here Jesus gives us rest, not just the opportunity to take a break from this world, but eternal rest. Through the shed blood of Christ, we have eternal rest, the Sabbath rest of heaven. There all the distractions and other priorities will be no more; there will simply be Christ, the temple, the location of God’s presence with His people forever. We read in Revelation chapter twenty-one, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” In the Name of the new temple, the one whose zeal for His Father and for us led Him to the cross, Amen.
But humanity rejected this gift; we rebelled against the loving compassion of our Creator and Redeemer. In our text for today, Jesus goes to the temple, the place where God promised to meet with His people in mercy, the place that the Father had so graciously provided for His people to worship Him. On that day the Scripture is fulfilled, the word spoken by the prophet Malachi: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple.” God in the flesh suddenly came into His temple, and He expected to find His people reveling in the gift of the Sabbath, receiving His great gifts and giving Him thanks and praise. Instead, He found quite the opposite. “In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, with the money-changers sitting there.” The temple was supposed to be a place of prayer, a place of sacrifice, the place where God had promised to come to His people, but now it was a shopping mall. The religious leadership would rather reap the profits of turning the temple mount into a marketplace than encourage true piety and respect for the worship of God. The Sabbath was being desecrated in the courtyards that surrounded God’s most Holy Place; that is what the Lord found when He suddenly came into the temple.
What would Jesus find if He walked into our sanctuaries? What would He find if He walked into our lives? Would He find that we too have despised the Sabbath like His people of old? Martin Luther gives us the Christian application of the Sabbath command in his Small Catechism: “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” The Sabbath isn’t about a specific day, it isn’t even about not doing work; it’s about the proper worship of God. This worship has two parts: we receive God’s gifts, and then we give Him thanks and praise. Do we hold God’s Word sacred, and gladly hear and learn it, or do we despise preaching and His Word by placing other things above it? Do we hear God’s Word and receive His great gifts with thanksgiving, or grudgingly, looking for an excuse to avoid them? What takes priority in your life over prayer, devotion, and worship of God? Is it work, school, sports, recreation, your social life? So many other activities are encroaching on the time set aside for worship, and Christians have often allowed the sports tournaments and social gatherings to replace weekly worship. But I’m not just talking about Sunday mornings. The Sabbath is not restricted to one day of the week. Luther calls on us to “gladly hear and learn” the Word throughout our lives. Do we spend time in prayer, studying and meditating on God’s Word during the week? Do we take advantage of opportunities to receive God’s Word in bible class or special services? Do our Lord’s gifts receive priority, or does everything else crowd them out?
Jesus responds to violations of the Third Commandment in a way that we wouldn’t have expected. “Making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’” The only thing to do when the things of this world encroach on the Sabbath is to drive them away. In holy anger, Jesus cast the merchants out, He drove away their animals, overturned their tables. They felt the bite of his whip, they cowered before the righteous wrath of almighty God. When the Sabbath is desecrated, it must be made clean again. This isn’t easy, it isn’t without pain; it is the work of God’s holy Law. Sin must be driven out. Our sins don’t want to leave, the Old Adam’s hold on us is tight; Satan knows that if He can keep us away from God’s gifts, we are well on our way to joining Him forever. The whip is necessary, no matter how painful it is. You and I must feel the bite of the Law, we need to have our sins attacked and driven away; the Old Adam must be put to death. This is the task of the Law: to expose sin and drive it away in repentance.
The disciples watched Jesus’s whip cleanse the temple, they observed the operation of the Law upon sin, and they remembered a phrase from Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus had zeal for His Father’s house that day; He wouldn’t let it be desecrated before His very eyes. His zeal, His passion led Him to use the whip of the Law to drive out sin, to declare God’s just judgment upon it. But if that was all that Jesus had come to do, we would still be lost. The Law exposes sin, it cannot destroy it or deliver you from its penalty. Jesus came to bring sin to light and destroy it. His zeal led to the proclamation of the Law, but more importantly, it led to the accomplishment of the Gospel. His zeal for His Father’s house would lead Him into conflict with the religious leaders, conflict that would begin here at the start of His ministry. This zeal would literally consume Him, it would lead to His death. He suffers because He loves His Father; He dies as a criminal because He is passionate for the holiness of the temple. “Zeal for your house will consume me.” His crime? Love for God and His house. Jesus has zeal for the things of His Father. That is why He suffers, that is why He dies.
But while Jesus suffers innocently, He doesn’t suffer unwillingly. His zeal for His Father’s will consumes Him. The Father wills that Jesus offer up His life as the sacrifice for your sin, in answer to the Law’s sting. Jesus has zeal for the things of His Father, and so He goes boldly to the cross. His Father’s will is His desire, and that desire, that passion, that zeal, will consume Him. He will be devoured upon that cross, consumed by the righteous wrath of God over our sin. He will feel the bite of the whip, the Law’s just judgment. Jesus endures that suffering and humiliation not only because of His zeal for His Father’s house and His Father’s will; He endures the cross because of His zeal for you. His zeal for your salvation will consume Him. He will not let you die in your sin, He will not see you dwell in hell forever, and so He gave up His life in your place. His love for you was so strong that He was willing to endure hell itself for you.
This zeal leads Jesus to challenge His opponents in the temple that day. “So the Jews said to Him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” He commands His enemies to put Him to death, with the promise that He will rise again on the third day. They are tearing down the temple, the location of God’s gracious presence, by turning it into a marketplace; now Jesus dares them to tear down the true temple, the new location of God’s gracious presence: His very own body. He will show His authority as the Son of God and His identity as the new temple by raising up His body on the third day, never to be torn down again. For Jesus has come to fulfill the temple and all of its sacrifices with His own death and resurrection. In our text, He drives out all the animals for sacrifice, and the temple courtyard is left empty- except for Jesus Himself, Jesus only. Jesus alone is the sacrifice for our sin, the answer to the Law’s bite. That building He so vehemently defended will become obsolete on Good Friday with His own sacrifice. The dwelling place of God with men is now Jesus Himself, the sacrifice for our sin.
Having accomplished salvation, Christ’s zeal is turned toward distributing the fruits of salvation. His passion and desire is to bring forgiveness to you and to me. Yes, we need to feel the bite of the whip, the sting of the Law. Our sin needs to be attacked and driven away, but then we need the healing balm of the Gospel. The Third Commandment now describes the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. The Sabbath is now the opportunity to receive Christ Himself as He comes to us in Word, water, Body and Blood. We take time out of our lives and gather in this place because here Christ fulfills our greatest needs, the only needs that truly matter for eternity. Here Jesus gives us rest, not just the opportunity to take a break from this world, but eternal rest. Through the shed blood of Christ, we have eternal rest, the Sabbath rest of heaven. There all the distractions and other priorities will be no more; there will simply be Christ, the temple, the location of God’s presence with His people forever. We read in Revelation chapter twenty-one, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” In the Name of the new temple, the one whose zeal for His Father and for us led Him to the cross, Amen.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Star Wars and the simul
It is easy to identify good and evil in Star Wars: A New Hope. On one side is the good guys: the idealistic farm boy Luke Skywalker, the beautiful princess Leia. They are appropriately dressed in white, providing a sharp contrast with their antagonist Darth Vader. He is clad in black, more machine than man, in the words of Ben Kanobi, “twisted and evil.” But at the end, Luke triumphs, Vader is defeated, and Leia is there in beautiful white to hand out the medals. It’s easy to see the contrast between good and evil as the Star Wars saga begins.
But the picture quickly becomes complicated. Good doesn’t triumph in The Empire Strikes Back. It is battered and bloodied. Against the white background of Hoth, Vader smashes the Rebellion’s hidden base; he relentlessly pursues our heroes to the Cloud City. C-3PO is blown to pieces, Han is frozen in carbonite and handed over to the bounty hunter, Luke is drawn into a trap. There good and evil square off—and evil wins. Luke loses his hand in the stuggle; good is vanquished.
Luke loses more than his hand; he loses the illusion that he is somehow disconnected from evil. Vader is his father, and so like Frodo Baggins carrying the ring, or Harry Potter’s link to Voldemort, Luke has an intimate connection with evil. Good and evil was once black and white; simple and easy. But now good and evil both co-exist within him. Luke looks at himself differently, especially when he is fitted with a mechanical hand to match his father. He cannot imagine that he is clean and pure; the white garments he once wore were an illusion, now, in The Return of the Jedi, he is dressed in black. Even Leia is tainted; she too is a child of Vader. But this knowledge causes him to see his father differently, too. Luke claims that there is good left in Vader, that there is a conflict within him. He knows this because he has the same conflict within himself.
Saint Paul knew all about this conflict. He wrote in chapter seven of Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:15-23)
Theologians call this the simul justus et pecattor: we are simultaneously saint and sinner. Good and evil dwell within all of us, and they wage against each other. We have been made holy, saints through the working of God in Holy Baptism, but yet, we can’t escape our sin, we still have the conflict within. How can I be a Christian and still sin? How can I continue to struggle against temptation when I go to church every Sunday? Am I still one of God’s redeemed children? Saint Paul was at the point of despair, despair that every Christian since has felt. Sin is warring against me. “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” You and I are like St. Paul, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or even Darth Vader: divided between saint and sinner. What hope is there for us?
What saved both Vader and Luke was the love of a son for his father. That love led Vader to cast the Emperor, the source of evil, down into the pit. What saves us is the love of a Son for His Father. St. Paul writes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus loved His Father and obeyed His good and gracious will, which demanded that He go to the cross and die for your sin. That is the only deliverance that we have from the tragic reality of the simul; when we fall into sin, we have forgiveness through His shed blood.
Paul concluded: “So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25) Martin Luther put it this way in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] indicates that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die along with all sin and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and holiness forever.” The old Adam is cast into the pit each and every day by returning to the font, by clinging to Christ’s redemption, and there the new man arises, which will stand before God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. There the conflict will cease, there we will be at peace.
But the picture quickly becomes complicated. Good doesn’t triumph in The Empire Strikes Back. It is battered and bloodied. Against the white background of Hoth, Vader smashes the Rebellion’s hidden base; he relentlessly pursues our heroes to the Cloud City. C-3PO is blown to pieces, Han is frozen in carbonite and handed over to the bounty hunter, Luke is drawn into a trap. There good and evil square off—and evil wins. Luke loses his hand in the stuggle; good is vanquished.
Luke loses more than his hand; he loses the illusion that he is somehow disconnected from evil. Vader is his father, and so like Frodo Baggins carrying the ring, or Harry Potter’s link to Voldemort, Luke has an intimate connection with evil. Good and evil was once black and white; simple and easy. But now good and evil both co-exist within him. Luke looks at himself differently, especially when he is fitted with a mechanical hand to match his father. He cannot imagine that he is clean and pure; the white garments he once wore were an illusion, now, in The Return of the Jedi, he is dressed in black. Even Leia is tainted; she too is a child of Vader. But this knowledge causes him to see his father differently, too. Luke claims that there is good left in Vader, that there is a conflict within him. He knows this because he has the same conflict within himself.
Saint Paul knew all about this conflict. He wrote in chapter seven of Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:15-23)
Theologians call this the simul justus et pecattor: we are simultaneously saint and sinner. Good and evil dwell within all of us, and they wage against each other. We have been made holy, saints through the working of God in Holy Baptism, but yet, we can’t escape our sin, we still have the conflict within. How can I be a Christian and still sin? How can I continue to struggle against temptation when I go to church every Sunday? Am I still one of God’s redeemed children? Saint Paul was at the point of despair, despair that every Christian since has felt. Sin is warring against me. “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” You and I are like St. Paul, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or even Darth Vader: divided between saint and sinner. What hope is there for us?
What saved both Vader and Luke was the love of a son for his father. That love led Vader to cast the Emperor, the source of evil, down into the pit. What saves us is the love of a Son for His Father. St. Paul writes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus loved His Father and obeyed His good and gracious will, which demanded that He go to the cross and die for your sin. That is the only deliverance that we have from the tragic reality of the simul; when we fall into sin, we have forgiveness through His shed blood.
Paul concluded: “So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25) Martin Luther put it this way in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] indicates that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die along with all sin and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and holiness forever.” The old Adam is cast into the pit each and every day by returning to the font, by clinging to Christ’s redemption, and there the new man arises, which will stand before God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. There the conflict will cease, there we will be at peace.
Issues etc. blog of the week
Thank you to Issues Etc. for the honor of selecting this blog as one of their 'blogs of the week.' I am a daily listener to the program, and I consider it part of my 'continuing education' here in the parish. Todd, Jeff, and Craig do great work putting on a top-notch program, and I encourage everyone to listen. You will be challenged, informed, and strengthened by this solid, confessionally Lutheran radio program. Thank you to Issues Etc. for all that you do to proclaim the Gospel in the wilderness of American Christianity!
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