Sermon for Third Lent 2017

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on March 19, 2017
Preaching texts: Genesis 2:4-10, 15-22, Romans 5:1-11, John 14:25-27

We’ve spent the last two weeks looking at Luther’s explanation of the Ten Commandments. We’ve learned that God has given these commandments for our benefit. We’ve remembered that they are a guide for how to live and to get along in this life. If everybody just listened, if everybody just obeyed, then life would be idyllic and perfect.

That thumping sound is the other shoe dropping. Everybody doesn’t listen. Everybody doesn’t obey. Heck, even those of us who try don’t succeed. We try but we always fall short. That, my friends, is sin and it is an unavoidable reality of the human condition. Nobody’s perfect and nobody obeys perfectly.

So what are we going to do about it?

Well, we can’t do a whole lot. Yes, we can try harder next time, but those efforts are a bit like those asymptote equations some of us learned in advanced mathematics. We can get close, but we can never reach it. You can keep pouring more and more energy and effort into improving your moral compass, but you will never reach perfection. The effort reaches futility after a while.

That hasn’t stopped people from trying. That hasn’t stopped people from ruining their lives, their friendships, their families, in a desperate effort to make themselves one micron closer to moral perfection. But it’s all wasted effort in the end. We cannot succeed in this endeavor. Not in any way that truly matters.

So then what?

Here’s the real problem. All this effort, all this energy we so often put towards achieving the unachievable is a form of idolatry in itself. First Commandment, “You shall put no other gods before me,” and yet here we have put our own strength and tenacity as the means of our salvation. Our efforts to defeat sin are, in themselves, a form of sin. Therefore, it cannot be us. We cannot create the means of our own salvation. It must come from outside ourselves. It must come from God.

Which is precisely how it works. And that brings us to the Apostles’ Creed.

The word “creed” comes from the Latin word credo, which translates “to believe.” But this creed is more than just a statement of what we believe. It answers the question “Who is this God that we worship? Who is he? What is he about?”

In that regard, it is a very thorough summary of what the Scriptures teach us about God. That he is Creator of all, and more specifically the creator of you, of me, of all people. He is the one who sends the Christ, the fulfillment of OT prophecy into the world, the only begotten son of the Father. He comes to bring us that salvation we cannot achieve on our own. He buys this salvation with his own life, death, and resurrection, and he will one day return to bring all of God’s promises to their fulfillment. And to keep us in fellowship with a physically absent deity, he sends his spirit to dwell in and among us, to encourage, strengthen, and call us to God’s purposes.

Why does God do all this? Well, it’s the old Sunday School answer. The very first thing any of us should ever learn walking in this place: Love. God loves us. He is a deity of love, his immensity so full of it that he wanted (or perhaps even needed) an outlet for it. It’s like the old 1960s anthem asked, “Don’t you want somebody to love?” Yeah, God did, so he made us.

As to that pesky issue of sin, God provided an answer for that as well. He doesn’t want us to suffer and he doesn’t want us to be separate from him (which is fundamentally what sin is, that which drives us away from God and neighbor). So he sent his Son out of love to this world to destroy sin and death forever.

And then he puts his spirit within us so that if we ever forget how much he loves us, a reminder will be forthcoming. It may come from within you, from the words of Scripture, from a friend or family member, or even a stranger. But God’s spirit will use something to encourage and enlighten you, to keep the connection between you as fresh as it can be. Constant reminders of God’s immense love.

The Christian faith isn’t rocket science. It’s God’s love for you and our trust in that love for this life and the next. That’s it. Period. End of story. Sure, we can go into details of Scripture stories or life experiences that highlight that love, but they all end up in the same place. God’s love and our trust therein. Nothing more is necessary. We struggle to believe that it’s that simple. The history of the Church is filled with our folly and efforts to make sense of what is so simple that a toddler can grasp it, all because “It can’t be that easy.” Yes, IT IS.

It’s about love. God is love. God created us in love. God saved us in love. God dwells with us in love. Love, love, love. That’s the core of it all. It’s who God is. It’s what God does. As Luther says in the Large Catechism, because of love...

God’s love in Christ is what saves us from our sin. It's what he does. It's who God is. Amen.