Homily for Trinity 14

"Lepers Cleansed"

Luke 17:11-19

The ten lepers are us, and we are the ten lepers. They suffered from physical leprosy that ravaged their bodies. We and all people suffer from spiritual leprosy that ravages both body and soul. These ten lepers give us a picture of the human race infected with the leprosy of sin.

When we hear the term “leprosy,” we usually think of Hansen’s disease—a bacterial infection that can affect nerves, skin, and eyes and then lead to a loss of feeling and even paralysis. In the Bible, leprosy certainly included that, but it probably also included illnesses such as eczema—a skin rash—and dermatitis—scaly, flaking skin and itchiness.

Our sin is like leprosy in several respects:

• Leprosy affects and destroys the whole body. Sin totally infects, affects and destroys our strength in both body and soul—nothing sound from head to toe.
• Leprosy is a disease that spreads. So does sin, coming into the world through one man and spreading to us all. St. Paul calls it “the works of the flesh”—with all those nasty symptoms of “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger” and so on—all those symptoms that even present themselves in us.
• Leprosy cannot be healed by man’s efforts. Today, treatments may prevent the disease from getting worse, but they cannot reverse the  damage. And remember the story of Naaman. He sought healing from the King of Israel, but the King of Israel cried out, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive?” (2 Kgs. 5:7). Sin absolutely cannot be healed by human means—not by doctors, paramedics, or politicians. After all, those “desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.”
• Leprosy is a viral disease that spreads to others who are healthy. Modern medicine may quibble with just how it spreads. Sin itself does spread its contamination. Consider the many ways our fallen world infects us all in thought, word and deed to think, speak and act in ways that go against God’s Word, ways that lead us to distrust God and be unloving to our neighbor—“rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.”
• And leprosy, once it takes hold, eats its way more and more through the body. Likewise, sin. Because of this infection we all have, one sin leads to another, and that one easily to yet another. First, the desire; then the misdeed; then the excuse; then the cover-up; then the lie; and so on.

If it weren’t for our leprosy of sin, we would not need police officers, laws, penalties or rulings of law courts. If it weren’t for our leprosy of sin, we would not have to endure racial tensions, injustices, pandemics or destructive rioting.

In the Old Testament, God instructed His people on how to deal with lepers. Lepers had to separate themselves from everyone else because their diseases of infected, decaying, rotting flesh could infect others. When healthy people walked by, the lepers were supposed to warn them by crying out “Unclean!” When a person was infected with leprosy, he had to show himself to the priest. The priest would pronounce him unclean, and the person would have to quarantine in the leper colony outside the city. Social distancing, Bible-style!

When a leper was healed of his leprosy, he would again show himself to the priest, the priest would offer the appropriate sacrifices, and then pronounce him “clean.” In Leviticus 14, cleansing of lepers happened, first, by killing a bird in an earthen vessel over fresh, living water. Next, a live bird, a piece of cedarwood, and a scarlet yarn were dipped in that water mixed with blood. Then the priest, using the live bird wet with blood and water, would “sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease” (Lev. 14:7). As God said, “Thus the priest shall make atonement for [the leper], and he shall be clean” (Lev. 14:20).

So, let’s imitate the ten lepers as Jesus comes passing along between the Samaria and Galilee of our lives. Let’s lift up our voices and cry out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” And let’s listen to and heed Him when He bids us to show ourselves to the priest. No, not those priests at the Jerusalem temple, but Jesus, our great High Priest who has passed through the heavens (Heb. 2:14). “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 2:15).

How can we be healed and saved from our spiritual leprosy? Only by finding our way to Jesus, the sole physician for the soul. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 2:16). “Offered was He for greatest and for least, / Himself the victim and Himself the priest” (LSB 637:1). Not only is Jesus both victim and priest for you, He is also the dead bird and the living bird for you. He is the One who cleanses you “by the washing of water with [His] word, so that He might present [you] to Himself in splendor” (Eph. 5:26-27), cleansed of your leprosy of sin.

Actually, we don’t have to find our way to Him. He has found His way to us! Just as the ten lepers were cleansed before they found their way to the priests—not by their own reason or strength, nor by their decision or will—we are cleansed in the bath of our Baptism—not by our own reason, strength, decision or will. Our baptismal bath sprinkles us with the very blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ crucified. He is the One who was crucified outside the city. He is the One who comes by water and blood; not by the water only but by the water and the blood (1 Jn. 5:6).

Now let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the one cleansed leper who returned to Jesus. Let’s take our cue from him on how to live all of life in our Baptism. I’m sure the other nine former lepers were generically thankful as civic courtesy and politeness would dictate. But they went on to live their lives apart from Jesus. The Samaritan, however, “turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.” He did more than just give thanks. He gave praise to God. He returned to the Giver of the gift of cleansing. He was not merely content to enjoy the gift; he wanted to enjoy and be with the Giver.

That’s living your baptismal life. Not just a generic thankfulness for a quick healing. Not just a slight nod and a mental note that something special happened a long time ago, but then getting back to “real life.” No, the baptismal life is about living all of life in Jesus, with Jesus, and in the presence of Jesus. Daily contrition and repentance. Drowning that Old Adam in you. Making him die with all sins and evil desires every day. And then—thank the Lord and sing His praise!—emerging and arising every day to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Your one-time baptismal cleansing becomes your daily hygiene routine—not a burdensome routine, but a joyful living in the blood and water that continually heals and cleanses.

We all wrestle with sin every day. That leprous disease keeps flaring up even in us who are cleansed by Jesus’ blood and water. We will keep wrestling with our leprous sin until Jesus returns on the Last Day. It’s not a matter of Jesus’ healing not fully doing its job. It has! It’s a matter of living in faith, continually receiving His cleansing, and thus praising Him as did the Samaritan.

Martin Luther confessed this in the face of those who deny that sin remains after Baptism. The fact that sin remains after Baptism undercuts every notion of perfectionism—that is, thinking you can be free of sin or attain a sin-free life this side of heaven. It also topples any notion of “once-saved-always-saved.” While the healing for that Samaritan and the other nine was instantaneous, Jesus chooses to heal us over the long-haul. The sin is forgiven, to be sure; Jesus’ healing, though, is ongoing. Here’s how Luther expressed it:

“This life…is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.” (“A Defense and Explanation of All Articles” [AE 32:24]).

So we return to Jesus yet again, at His Table. “Draw near and take the body of the Lord, / And drink the holy blood for you outpoured” (LSB 637:1). We return to receive the healing He gives. We return to give praise to Him.

“Let us praise the Word Incarnate,
Christ, who suffered in our place.
Jesus died and rose victorious
That we may know God by grace.
Let us sing for joy and gladness,
Seeing what our God has done;
Let us praise the true Redeemer,
Praise the One who makes us one” (LSB 849:3).

Amen.

Homily for Trinity 5 - 2017

The Net of the Gospel
1 Kings 19:11-21; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; Luke 5:1-11

Listen here.

Poor Elijah! He thought he was spent. He thought it was time to retire from his prophetic ministry. “Lord, I’ve served you all these years. Look how fruitless it’s all been. Lord, I’m all alone. I’m done.” But God does not play into Elijah’s pity party. “Now, now, Elijah. Just get up and get back to work. Go and anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Then go and anoint Jehu as king over Israel. And then go and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat as your successor.” Then God told despairing Elijah to stop fretting about the Church. After all, it’s the Lord’s Church, and the Lord promises to take care of her as He sees fit. Elijah just needed to stop wallowing in his self-pity and get on with what God had given him to do.

Then there’s Peter. If Elijah was seeking early retirement, Peter was trying to evade the calling altogether. “Lord, we’re the fishermen. We know how to fish, when to fish—at night—and where to fish—in the shallow water. We’ve been working all night and this fishing trip was just a dud.” And then, when the Lord demonstrated that He is the Lord of all creation—that even He can bring a great catch of fish, and in broad daylight and from the deep waters—then Peter slumped into his own pity party. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” This was most certainly true, of course. But still beside the point. Just as beside the point as Elijah thinking he was the only believer left on the face of the planet.

The point is not that Peter is sinful—he is. The point is that Jesus is gracious. The point is that Jesus is Lord of all creation and all of life, and He overflows with gifts for all. He showed this with that boatful of beautiful flopping fish and the torn nets that had been so carefully mended and stowed away earlier that day. No, Jesus was not going away, as Peter requested. Instead, Jesus wanted to take Peter and his fishing buddies away with Him. Now Jesus would take Peter on a fishing trip—not for fish, but for people. “From now on,” Jesus tells Peter, “you will be catching men.” Literally, it says, “you will catch people alive.”

So, with hearts uplifted and sins forgiven, Peter, Andrew, James and John, got up, walked away from their past, their careers, their incomes, even their families. “They left everything and followed Him.” They put one foot in front of the other and walked behind Jesus. And Jesus began their three-year intensive teaching. What was He teaching them? All about the net that they would toss into the sea of humanity to bring up a catch for God Himself. Let’s call it the net of the Gospel.

In our second reading today, St. Paul does some pondering on this net. Folks have always looked at the message of the Gospel with a good dose of skepticism. They wonder, “You really think you can do something with that—a message about a guy dying on a cross and somehow making you right with God?” “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

The Word of the Cross. That’s the net that our Lord Jesus put into the hands of Peter, Andrew, James and John. It’s the net He’s put into the hands of His preachers and pastors in all the years and centuries since. It’s a net of words—nothing but words—cast into a world drowning in words. But these words are different from all the rest. These words—the net of the Gospel—actually have a divine power in them, a power to grab hold of people’s hearts and haul them out of the sea of sin in which they live and bring them into the boat of the Church. And once in the Church, people learn to live from those words and from them alone. “For [the Gospel] is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).

This net, though, is an affront to those who think themselves “wise” in this world. God would actually choose to save people through “the folly of what we preach”? Now, this folly does not refer to the men who are preachers making fools of themselves in the pulpit (They might very well do that from time to time.). No, the folly refers to the content of the Church’s message. That God would choose to send His Son into the world and take on our human flesh and blood? That God would have His Son suffer and die on a cross? That He would actually rise again on the third day? That’s precisely the net of the Gospel—the content of the Church’s message. That’s precisely how God catches people alive and saves those who believe.

“Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.” And we? “We preach Christ crucified.” And, by the way, the message of the cross is not about any empty cross, no matter what some well-intentioned but misguided preacher may have tried telling you. Not only were empty crosses a dime a dozen, but also empty crosses catch no one for God’s kingdom. Empty crosses can mean only one thing: that the person once nailed to it was taken away. We do not preach an empty cross. We preach a cross on which hangs the Crucified One. He, not the cross itself, makes the cross full of power and salvation. WHO is hanging on that cross and WHY He is hanging there—that’s the net, the story, we cast out into the world to haul people in for the Kingdom of God.

He who is on that Cross is “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). The Lord of glory confesses that He who is on the Cross is the One who created us at the beginning, the One through whom all things were made. “He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross. He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.” So the Church sings in an ancient hymn for Good Friday.

It is God-in-the-Flesh, the Eternal Son, our Maker, who hangs on that tree. That should lead each of us and all of us to wonder indeed. But the message of the Cross goes beyond the Who to the Why. “Lord, WHY are You hanging there? Why do You permit this outrage? Why did You come into our flesh in the first place? Why, O Lord?”

Are you ready for His answer? He says, “I came to be the Lamb of God who would take away your sin and the sin of the world. I had no sin, but I came to bear your sin and sins in My body on the tree. I came so that you might die to sin and live for righteousness. I, who had no sin, came that I may be made sin for you, that in Me you might become the righteousness of God. I came to pour out My blood and thus blot out the handwriting of the Law that was against you. I came to be wounded for your transgressions, crushed for your iniquities, that upon Me would rest the chastisement that brings you peace, and that by My stripes you may be healed. I came because you—every one of you—like sheep have gone astray, turning to your own way. So the Lord has laid on Me the iniquity of you all. Since you were under the curse—remember, cursed in the person who does not continue in all the things written in the Law—I came to become a curse for you, for cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree. Thus I would free you from your curse by means of My own.”

So we cry out: “But why, O Lord? Why would you do this for us? Why would you embrace this suffering and death, this terror and darkness, to free us from what we clearly deserved?” And again comes His answer, both sweet and profound: “Because I love you. Because I want you to share with Me the joys of a life that never ends. Because I did not make you to live for a few measly years and then suffer and die. I made you to live in the joy of My Father’s house forever. And I am utterly committed to doing whatever it takes to bring you there. You matter to me, and I hold you precious.”

That’s the net! That’s the story—not a fiction, but it is a narrative—that He gives us to cast into the world. And is it ever one powerful net, one powerful story! We know its power first hand. After all, it has plucked us up out of the sea of this world and landed us in the boat of the Church. And we have come to believe this story and are even now being saved by the power of this story.

But once in the boat, He bids all of us also to join in casting this net of the Gospel, to bring yet more and more to know this story, to love this Savior, and to find through faith in Him that life that never ends. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching [people alive].” Armed only with this, our holy net, we go forth from this place to cast it with joy. After all, it is the power of God for salvation! Amen.

Homily for Lent 3 Evening Prayer

"Redemption--Second Article"
Apostles' Creed, Second Article
(fourth in a catechetical series)

Here we are. The Second Article of the Creed. The heart of the Christian faith. Jesus’ work of redemption for us. Why must Jesus redeem us? Our human sin. Here we deal with human sinners and God the justifier. But notice this: the problem is not that we are creatures. The problem is not that this world is a material world. As we heard last week, these are God’s good works and gifts. In addition, animals did not sin; the physical world did not sin. In a way, they are “innocent” even as they have suffered because of human sin.

No, the problem is us. The problem is that we, God’s prized human creatures, have misused and abused His world. Martin Luther made a very insightful statement in his theses for debate at the town of Heidelberg. He said that “we use the best things in the worst way.” We don’t use bad things in the worst way; we use the best things in the worst way. What do we mean by best things? God’s great gifts to us: our bodies, our lives, our family, our work, our income, and so on. What does it mean to use these things in the worst way? It means we idolize them. We force them to do things for us that they were not created to do. We try to get our security and happiness from them. And when we do that, we further misuse them by keeping them for ourselves rather than for serving our neighbor.

So we become enslaved to and trapped by these best things. Or, better, our desires for them entrap us. Then we become disappointed. You see, these best things cannot give us what we seek from them. Satan has lured us, God’s beloved human creatures, into captivity. We have become POWs behind enemy lines.

But here’s the wonderful and remarkable thing about this Second Article. Since God has created this world, He refuses to let go of His creation. He made it good. He loves it. The world is not the problem. So God does not scrap His creation and start over. No, He sets out to reclaim and restore His creation—beginning with us, because the problem began with us. Just as God made room in His creation for us creatures, now He makes room for us sinful creatures who rebelled against Him. He who created us is He who redeems us—true God and true Man.

How does God redeem us? First, God dives down into the depths of His creation, to take up residence in it and fix it for good. But He does this in a completely unexpected way. Ponder this: God has always been present and active in His creation. The universe cannot contain Him, but, as Luther noted, God is still present and active in the smallest flower petal. It’s how He keeps His creation going. Also ponder this: God revealed Himself in many ways in the Old Testament—the angel to Abraham, the burning bush to Moses, the pillar of cloud and fire to the Israelites.

But now in Jesus Christ, God reveals Himself and intervenes in His creation in a most personal and intimate way. He takes a created body into Himself and He lives a creaturely life. He makes room in His life to take on a human body and all that entails—a human mind, a human history, and human DNA that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. He is “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary”; Creator of the universe and a creature within that creation, all at the same time. Who would have imagined this?

Jesus’ incarnation affirms the goodness of creation like nothing else. God is saying His creation is good and important to Him. And Jesus does more than just take on a human body to live in the midst of sin and evil. He becomes human in order to do away with, to destroy, and to overcome sin and evil and everything that pollutes and disfigures His beautiful world.

What does this mean for the art of living by faith? First, it means that we cannot and should not look for God anywhere else than in this Man, Jesus Christ. Faith does not look to some spiritual, ethereal realm. It does not look to some impersonal “force” on the outer fringes of the galaxy. No, faith looks to this one Man, our brother, as God Himself. Where Jesus is, there is God. This Man is God; God is this Man. As Jesus said, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9). So, whoever rejects Jesus also rejects their Creator God. It’s personal—a personal rejection.

Second, Jesus’ incarnation also means that God’s work of redemption does not devalue the physical creation nor our physical bodies. They are just as important as our souls. They are so important that God Himself has embraced them by becoming part of His own creation. He comes to redeem both body and soul.

Not only does God redeem us by taking on a physical, creaturely, human body, but He also works through that creaturely body to accomplish our redemption. You see, our sin and rebellion were deeply personal. They offended God because they showed our rejection of Him and His good purposes for us. They showed our betrayal of God. And yet God in the most personal way enters His creation, personally takes our sin and rebellion upon Himself, personally does away with it, and personally conquers it.

Our loving God works through His creation—His human body—to accomplish the redemption of all human bodies and all of creation itself. How so? As Luther wrote, “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” The Creed itself hammers it home. In His very body Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” And He rose again in that same body.

C. S. Lewis spoke of Jesus as a pearl diver who strips himself, then dives into the murky depths in order to reclaim a priceless pearl, and then bursts back up through the surface with that pearl firmly in his grasp. The entire Christian story turns on this point. As Lewis said: “God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders [emphasis added]. The miracles that have already happened are, of course…the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.”

In the First Article, we cannot deal with God apart from His creation. Now in the Second Article, we cannot deal with God’s graciousness in redeeming us from sin apart from the creaturely human body of Jesus. Through this physical human body of a Jewish man we encounter our Redeemer and Lord!

What does this mean for the art of living by faith? It means that we seek God’s gifts only in Jesus Christ, only because of Jesus Christ. Only in the body of Christ does God reveal His attitude and His intentions toward us. Like a devoted parent, God will stop at nothing to reclaim and restore His creation. That includes taking upon Himself a frail human body—a body that He keeps into all eternity. It also includes suffering and dying in that human body at the hands of His rebellious, lost human creatures. All this He does for us—creatures made in His image, creatures made to manage all creation, creatures who rejected Him and tried to usurp His glory. All this He does to restore us and adopt us as His children and heirs of His kingdom.

This changes everything for us. It means that when things happen—things we cannot understand, tragic things that defy explanation, things we cannot make sense of—faith turns to the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

This is what Luther gets at when he speaks of the “hidden God” and the “proclaimed God.” When we look for answers in places other than Jesus, we often get lost, frustrated, and angry. When we look elsewhere, we encounter the silence of God. He doesn’t always give us the answers we want, because, after all, He is not answerable or accountable to us. But in the flesh and blood of Jesus, in His life, and especially in His death and resurrection, we encounter God speaking to us. And what does He say? He speaks His word of love. As Paul said in Romans 5[:8], “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So, when I cannot answer a question, when I have no explanations, I can say, “I don’t know why this happened. I don’t know what this means. But I do know this: nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord.”

C. S. Lewis once said that Jesus is the missing chapter to our lives, the missing chapter that makes sense of our lives. In Jesus, our stories now make sense. You see, in Jesus, we see our true story, the entire story of our lives. We see in Him our past and our present—He created us and He preserves us. We see in Him our present and our future—He redeems  us and will raise us from the dead. Since He is our Creator and Redeemer, our past, present, and future are all found and united in Him. Amen.

Homily at Concordia Seminary Chapel

"Real Sin"
John 7:53-8:11
(Delivered on Thursday of Lent 1 - March 9, 2017)

Jesus has a nasty habit of hanging out with real sinners!  And defending them! And letting them off the hook! What in the world is He thinking? How can there be any good order in society? And what of God’s Law?

I thought that would get your attention. I also thought about telling that classic joke on this text. You know the one. Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.” Then silence. All of a sudden, Jesus feels the whoosh of a stone whizzing past Him, from behind Him, and, smack, it hits the woman right between the eyes. Jesus turns to see who threw the stone…and says, “Aw, Mom!”

What do we do with actual, real sin? The scribes and Pharisees surely did not know. They thought it was a trivial matter to be used to entrap Jesus, not a matter of eternal life and death for this woman. Or for the man involved. Have you ever wondered how they caught her in the act? I mean, which of them…was…with her? Or which of them was the peeping Tom? So often we play fast and loose with the seriousness of sin.

But Jesus senses the coming trap. Would He be the fulfiller of the Law or the forgiver of sins? If He said, “Yes, stone her,” they could counter punch with, “But what about that forgiveness You keep preaching? Hmm?” And if He said, “No, don’t stone her,” then they could push back with, “Aha, so You did not come to fulfill the Law after all, but rather destroy it.”

Without saying a word, Jesus bends down. He writes in the dirt. What He wrote, we don’t know. Was it the applicable statute from the Levitical law code? Was it the woman’s crime against God and humanity? Who knows? But it is a good rabbinic tactic to imitate at a contentious voters or elders meeting. A little purposeful pause—always lessens the tension.

Then Jesus says the famous words: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Sounds a bit like, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Perhaps it’s closer to: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matt. 7:3). Then bending down again and more writing in the dirt. Would-be accusers end up leaving. They too are real sinners with real sins after all.

What do we do with actual, real sin? It’s one thing to confess our sins in a general way at the beginning of the Divine Service. It’s quite another thing to go to the pastor, kneel at the rail, bare your soul, and admit the very real details of those specific sins that you have done. It’s one thing to talk and sing about Jesus’ wonderful forgiveness of sins won on the cross—especially during Lent—in a general, I-have-my-theological-terms-down-pat sort of way. It’s quite another thing to have that healing forgiveness spoken and applied directly to you. “Yes, that very real sin that you did, that you just confessed—that horrible thought, that mean-spirited word, that hurtful deed—that has been forgiven, put away from you as far as the east is from the west.” Sometimes we’re not so sure God could forgive that real sin.

But He can, and He does! Just ask the adulterous woman. Oh, she knew she had sinned. We all do, really. She knew she deserved the stones hurled at her. We all do. But notice her faith and her confession. Jesus speaks to her in a one-on-one pastoral care session: “Has no one condemned you?” She does not excuse herself. She simply confesses: “No one, Lord.” It’s a confession of sins and a confession of faith wrapped up in three little words—or two in the Greek.

St. Augustine said it this way: “‘No one’—that is confession of sins. ‘Lord’—that is pardon of what she deserved. ‘No one, Lord. I acknowledge both things. I know who you are; I know who I am. It is to you I am confessing. You see, I have heard the words, “Confess to the Lord, for he is good.” I know my confession, I know your mercy.’” (ACCS, IVa, 277).

You see, this Jesus is both just and merciful. He condemns the real sin, though not the sinner. He is “Good and upright” and “therefore he instructs sinners in the way” (Ps. 25:8). He suffers your sins—yes, your very real sins—for you, thus fulfilling God’s Law. He is also “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ps. 86:15).

So rejoice—yes, even during Lent. Rejoice that Jesus hangs out with real sinners. Rejoice that He is both the fulfiller of the Law and the forgiver of sins. Rejoice that He tells you what He told the adulteress: “Neither do I condemn you; now go, and sin no more.” Amen.