“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

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The Coliseum was one of the architectural marvels of ancient Rome.  Today, it is a deteriorating plie of stone and concrete.  Upon it’s completion at the end of the first century, however, it resembled the image above. The structure was covered inside and out with marble and artworks. A vast awning system shielded spectators from the sun. Beneath the wooden floor was a sophisticated complex of passage ways, workshops, holding cells and elevators.

At every level the Coliseum was a testimony to the engineering brilliance of the Romans – and to their unspeakable cruelty.

 The word ‘arena’ is the latin word for the ‘sand’ which covered the vast wooden floor. It’s purpose was to soak up the blood. And there was no shortage. How many people and animals died horrific deaths in this place is staggering to imagine – tens of thousands. And it was all for the sake of entertainment.

 The Coliseum is a reflection of the tragic paradox of human existence. Created for fellowship with the heavens, we grovel in the filth. In this respect, the architectual magnificence of the Coliseum was a beautiful cloak that covered evil. 

 Why does God endure the ongoing tragedy of our existence? Why not simply divert an asteroid in our direction and make an end of all this? After all, the evidence againts us is irrefutable and overwhelming. To seek answers to these questions we must look to the Scriptures. 

 In the week ahead Christians all over the world will be gathering to remember events that occurred at the crossroads of history – what we call Holy Week. Twenty centuries ago the sinful cruelty of man was met by the mercy and grace of God. The promise revealed on the cross and the empty tomb is that God’s love determines the limits of His patience.  Can there be any other worthy explanation than the love of God for the long centuries that have elapsed, or that will yet, as we await the consummation of all things?

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 “May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”

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I had given her a book to read which layed out a Lutheran understanding of the Christian faith. She came from a Christian church which placed much emphasis on works, on gaining spiritual ground in this life which would translate into rewards in the next.  After finishing the book she came back to see me. Her comment? “You Lutherans have it too easy. Everything depends on grace.”

 This young woman is not alone in her assessment. Strange at may seem to those of us who have been nurtured in a church where grace is central, many Christians are suspicious of reliance on grace. One Christian has gone so far as to call the Lutheran Church a “grace cult”.

 When Paul wrote the Christians in Rome, whom he had never met, he anticipated their objections to his message of grace when he wrote, “What shall we say? That we sin all the more so grace will abound all the more”?  Paul must have run into this question a thousand times. 

 Paul knew full well that grace seems easy and bland, a cop out, only to those who do not fully appreciate the gravity of sin, who have not seriously tried to meet the demands of God’s law. God does not grade on the curve. Have you tried, really tried to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and you neighbor as yourself? How about striving for righteousnes, purity of heart?  

 Paul did and so did Martin Luther. And what happened? They pursued a ‘godly life’ with such fervor that it drove them to the wall. They came to see the towering righteousness of God as an impossible mountain to climb. 

 Now, it is “… through Him that we obtain access to this grace in which we stand.” Grace has not come to us at some bargain basement price. It is not a cheap remedy for a bland illness. Grace has come through Him, through the crucified and risen Jesus. Blood was shed. A death occurred. A funeral took place. Wonderul, beautiful Jesus was cast away like so much unwanted trash. That is the cost of grace.  

 Those who object to the sufficiency of grace have yet to appreciate the gravity of their sin and the greatness of Christ. But when these two meet, then we can truly rejoice and  proclaim from the rooftops, “Everything depends on grace!”

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 “May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

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As life moves on we accumulate memories. They are defining of who we are. Some memories remain with us like cherished friends, giving comfort, encouragement and filling the present with an ongoing sense of fulfillment.

 Others may haunt us and tinge our lives with sadness, melancholy and guilt. Of these some are rooted in troublesome or tragic events that were beyond our control. A natural disaster struck. The stock market plunged and assets were wiped out.  A medical condition fundamentally alters the course of life. Events like these may leave us reeling in an effort to regain our balance but we feel no remorse. We did not cause them. 

 Some memories are of wrongs done to you by others. Someone you once loved rejected you for another. A business associate cheated you out of money. Someone close to you violated a confidence.  Rising above the resulting bitterness or anger may be diffcult but the fault, in the end, is not yours. 

 But then there are the memories that haunt you. Try as you will they will not be put to rest. You may go months, even years, without giving them much thought. But sooner or later they creep in to your consciousness. These are the memories of the wrongs you have done. They demand you deal with them. They are on your hands.

 We have all left a debris field of wrongs in the wake of our lives.  And try as we might, we will never clear the wreckage of our past, however great or small. These deeds, done or things left undone, follow us and accuse us. They are the evidence life uses against us. What will we do?

 St. Paul urges us to forget it all. But, you may object, surely this is too simplistic. Paul was obviously no psychologist! Memories are not that easy to put away. This is true. Our memories, all our memories, will remain with us to one degree or another through life. But Paul dares to invite us to forget because those haunting memories now belong to Christ Jesus. He paid for them on His cross.

 Giving your sins to Christ Jesus will not remove the scars. To one degree or another you will live with them until you die. But the open wounds of guilt and remorse will be closed and healed. This is power of the Lord’s forgiveness. For once Christ Jesus took your sins upon Himself He stripped them of all the accusation they contained. It is as if those things of which you are ashamed never happened. Now you are free – free to bask in the good memories of your past even as you press on toward the glorious future God has prepared for His people.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“By works of the law will no one be justified.”

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Many Christians make a fundamental error by drawing the conclusion that the proper response to an awareness of our estrangement from God is to adopt ‘godly’ principles in an effort to get right with God (as the saying goes), and then equating faith with the keeping and doing of those principles. The Bible is commonly used this way.

 For St. Paul, however, this way of thinking is an illusion. Now that humanity is no longer able to live in perfect reverence, thankfulness and love before God there is no hope of ‘getting right with God’  by anything we think, say or do. We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. A righteous life of our own making is impossible. Paul lays this out with sobering clarity in Roman 1:18-3:20, ending this section with the verse for today. 

 The Church has struggled with the absoluteness of Paul’s assessment from the very beginning. He leaves no place for our deeds, our works, our best intentions. He took Isaiah’s words to heart; “Even our righteous deeds are filthy rags.”

 Sadly, many Christians fail to see that by placing ANY sort of emphasis on what we do in matters of faith in relation to God undercuts the very essence of the Gospel. Deeds account for nothing. And if we look to them to justify or prove anything before God, even to demonstrate how sincere we think our faith is, they are worse than nothing. They condemn us (see Paul’s letter to the Galatians).

 The works, the deeds, in which Christians are called to rejoice will be celebrated by the vast majority of Christians in the week to come, the week we call ‘Holy Week’.  Two thousand years ago our Lord Jesus Christ embraced suffering and death at our hands. And He willingly, humbly submitted to this humiliation because it was God’s will that He do so – for us!  His glorious deeds are the works with which Christians should be preoccupied, even possessed!

 No doubt some will read this and say, “Yes but we have to do SOMETHING, don’t we?” To which I say, ‘And just what do you have in mind?’

 There is nothing, I repeat, nothing that you can do or have to do in order to get right with God. Your sin is forgiven FOR JESUS SAKE and not because of works.  God has done it all! As Paul said, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord!” 

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 “May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.  Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

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Toleration is an important word in our culture. It may be important to you. In a “live and let live” society such as ours a certain amount of toleration is expected and necessary. But tolerance is not the same as indifference. A person may appear to be tolerant simply because he or she carries no convictions. This is not tolerance. It is indifference rooted in a practical nihilism, and it is all around us. Is it also a part of us?

 The indifference toward belief which often accompanies the absence of authentic faith is one thing. Such unbelief can easily lead someone to conclude that there really is nothing to believe in beyond the self. Indifference on the part of those who have come to know Christ is something else again.

 We Christians dare not worship at the American cultural altar of toleration if it leads to this damning indifference. The Christian cannot be neutral or indifferent about belief, not without denying the Lord of the Church. This we simply cannot tolerate. For the fact is that if we have truly been grasped by the Gospel of Christ we will not be indifferent about the matter of beliefs.

 Jesus calls you to be vigilant about the matter of beliefs, for there is “one name by which we are saved.” Belief in Jesus is the path God has laid down by which human beings come to authentic faith. We believe and confess that in Jesus Christ all truth, meaning and purpose are revealed – for all. This is not a popular idea, nor has it ever been, as the blood of the martyrs will attest. God may have other avenues by which people are saved. We do not know. What we do know is that our Lord, in viewing the human landscape has said, “Go in all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” This is not a formula for toleration as our culture defines it, to be sure. It is something much better.

 These words resonate from the heart of God, who in His love and grace has provided the way of authentic trust and belief through Jesus. When the life-changing truth of the Gospel of this same Jesus Christ is openly and courageously shared, people are freed, by God’s grace, from false belief and no belief. Their lives are set on the hopeful course of a living faith. Someone you know needs to hear this life-changing message. May God grant us the grace and courage to care less about the bland tolerance advocated by the culture and more about the truth that God has revealed in Jesus Christ!

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“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”  So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

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 The belief in free will where God is concerned has become so self-evident that to many it is beyond questioning. The Gospel amounts to an offer that God makes to freely willing consumers. After all, the objection goes, we’re not puppets are we?

It is hard to see the real value of Christ Jesus and His cross under such circumstances. Oh sure, God crossed the eons of eternity, was born in the flesh, lived among us, resisted the Devil, suffered, died and was buried, and on the third day was raised from death , but now I must also do something. In the final analysis it’s up to me. Really? Doesn’t this smell just a little fishy?

What the so-called free will argument is really concerned with is not preserving human freedom where God is concerned – we don’t have any. The real concern is preserving the autonomy of the self; to remain a continously intact self that remains in charge.

It is no wonder that folks who are saddled with this belief are constantly pushed to choose improvement, to become better disciples, to chase the abundant life. The problem with free will Christianity is that you never arrive. The freely willing will must keep willing! There is always more work to do where God is concerned.

But the logic of the Gospel assumes not a free will where God is concerned but a bound will. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” The Bible could not be more clear. The Gospel is not an offer to the free will, “Make your decision for Christ”, it is a proclamtion to the bound will, “Christ has made a decision for you! Your sin is forgiven for Jesus’ sake!” This is the promise of your baptism.

The one message sends the sinner on a hopeless quest of spiritual self-improvement under the illusion of freedom to choose; the other creates freedom in the midst of bondage and brings the sinner to rest in the all-sufficient grace and mercy of the crucified and risen Lord.

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  “May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

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She turned the house upside down.  After weeks of searching, in between the usual routines of living, she finally found it, clutching it againt her breast in tears. No, it wasn’t a nine-carat diamond ring or a winning lottery ticket. It was an old pen, tarnished by time and no longer serviceable. During their college years, her husband wrote her every day they were apart with this pen. The letters, carefully wrapped in a bundle, had been destroyed in a fire years before and not long after her husband’s death. The pen was all she had to remind her of those letters.

 On the surface, of course,  there was no value to be perceived in this old writing instrument. To anyone else it was fit for nothing but to be discarded. But for her it represented the one she had loved and who loved her.

 The story of the Good Shepherd goes even futher.  Unlike the pen in story above, there is nothng intrinsically lovable in us that God should seek us. This can come as something of a shock to a creature that is convinced it is the center of the universe.  The fact is that human beings are expendable assets in this world and not all that lovable. Nevertheless, the Good Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to seek after the one lost sheep. The self-righteous who heard Jesus tell this story had long since convinced themselves that they were better off without those who wandered away from righteousness. Good ridance. They also might have questioned the wisdom of leaving ninety-nine sheep defenseless in order to search for one.  Isn’t a bird in the hand worth more than two in the bush? The math doesn’t work!  Well, maybe not in our calculations but God’s math is different. It is the mathematics of grace.

 The grace of God is extravagant beyond calculation.  The Good Lord does not wait for us to make our way back to Him. Not only can we not do so, we do not want to do so. The Good News is that God seeks us in our bondage to sin, in our lostness. God has taken the initiative not because He has lost something that in and of itself has infinite worth but beacause He chooses to do so, out of sheer grace and mercy.  Thanks be to God!

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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photo from flickr and heavenboundiwillbe

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The following article comes from the CrossAlone website. The author is a good friend but publishes these articles anonymously.

“We are called to discipleship, to follow Jesus, it is said — to a kind of discipline, to walk in his steps, to deny ourselves, take up our cross. What can this mean in concrete terms?

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Sometimes references are made to various Bible verses – to turn the other cheek, to sell all you have and give it to the poor, to visit those in prison, to feed the hungry, and many more.

In a certain sense we depend on our churches to develop programs so that we can get with the program and live the Christian life both at home and at work. Does it really work? Do we really do it? Do we do it with joy?

It turns out to be a struggle and one more thing we have to do in addition to the dishes, the laundry, and getting to work on time. Do we get a “power surge”?1 Purpose in 40 days? A “centered life”?

There has to be a better way. And there is.

It starts with distinguishing between law and gospel, which is basic to our Lutheran heritage. The law shows us our need of a savior, and the gospel shows us the Savior we need.  And the Savior we need is the one who finished salvation on the cross.

Therefore we are free.  Through baptism we have entered into “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).  “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

How does this shape the Christian life? It is neither a discipline, nor discipleship, nor a system of do’s and don’t’s for Christians who are “real” Christians. “The law says ‘do this,’ and it is never done.  Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done” (HeidelbergThesis #26; LW 31:56).

Each one of us is called by law and gospel and therefore given a calling. We are put where we are in this world of space and time to point to Him and to oppose the evil around us in our particular situations. As Luther famously said, “We are perfectly free Lords of all, subject to none, and perfectly dutiful servants of all, subject to all” (Luther’s Works 31:344).

On the one hand, the Lord’s will is done even locally without our prayer. We are free from the burden of having to build the kingdom. On the other hand, because we are free from sin and death and from the worry about past, present, or future (simultaneously and totally justified and sinful), we are free to take care of our neighbor, to fight the powers of evil. As homemakers, factory workers, judges, and engineers, we use our common reason (Rom 13:10).

In the conflicts and ambiguities of life we will at times do the wrong thing, but we are forgiven through the cross.  1) The real temptations are spiritual pride and spiritual despair, thinking that we are building the kingdom (good people doing good), or that everything we do is useless.  2) Because we live by faith alone in the cross alone, the result of what we do is hidden both to others and to us, for we live by faith alone and forgiveness. Luther often cited Isa 64:6: “All our righteous deeds are filthy rags,” as a way of helping us remember that the Lord alone is building his kingdom his way and not our way.

Therefore “not the purpose-driven life, but the forgiveness-given life.”

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‘Let us look to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.‘

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When Linda and I visit Rome we stay at a hotel in the Piazza della Rotunda (location of the famous Pantheon). Just around the corner is the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, built over the site of an ancient temple to the goddess Minerva, thus the name (Saint Mary on Minerva).  The church is distinctive in several ways; it is the only Gothic style church in Rome, contains the burial place of St. Catherine of Siena, Fra Angelico, works by Bernini and the statue pictured above by Michaelangelo, Christ the Redeemer.

 Michaelangelo’s design captures something of what the writer to the Hebrews proclaims. The great sculptor depicts Christ embracing the cross and the other instruments of His passion, yet even here, after the Resurrection, the Lord’s face is turned away from the cross, “despising it’s shame.”  Suffering and death are now subject to Him. The victory has been won and the promise of the new age to come is secure. Now Christ Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, the place of power, language which underscores the certainty that God’s work of Redemption will be carried to completion. 

 It is fitting, it seems to me, that this depiction of the Risen Christ should embrace the cross. For the message of the Gospel – Christ crucified and risen for sinners – is now  the instrument used by the Risen Lord to call, gather, enlighten and sanctify the faithful. Jesus has turned the tables. Now suffering and death, though no less real, have lost their hold, their sting. Although in this old age of sin we must endure suffering and death, the crucified and Risen Lord assures us that the new age has begun. One day, on that great and glorious Day, the work of Redemption will be complete and “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” will lead us into the joys of God’s eternal kingdom.

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 “May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in  Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

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photo by Pastor Mark Anderson

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