The Way of the Cross or the Way of Yourself? What Motivates Your Lenten Disciplines?

Sermon delivered on the third Sunday of Lent, March 11, 2012, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

Lectionary texts: Exodus 20.1-17; Psalm 19.1-14; 1 Corinthians 1.18-25; John 2.13-22.

 

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week we looked at how evil uses human sin to propagate itself and why, in part, God allows that to happen. We saw that while humans were created good (along with all of God’s creation) we have used our God-given freedom to reflect our own disordered image and glory out into the world instead of God’s. This is a real problem because typically God chooses to use humans to rule his creation and when we refuse to cooperate, evil uses our sin to spread itself. That is one reason why God became human so that in Jesus he could bring in his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven through his life, death, and resurrection. As God’s Messiah, Jesus became for Israel what Israel could not be for herself—God’s faithful representative through whom God would bring about healing and reconciliation to the world and it’s people. Thus, while none of us can do what Jesus did on the cross, he still calls his followers to help bring in his kingdom to his broken and hurting world by imitating him. Consequently, the essence of Christian discipleship is to follow Jesus by denying ourselves and taking up our cross each day so that we are equipped by the power of the Spirit to fulfill Jesus’ call to us. And as we noted last week, this is quite consistent with the primary way God has chosen to interact with his creatures and creation.

Of course, this is what the season of Lent is primarily about. It is a time when we look intentionally and critically at our discipleship, at how well we are following our Lord and helping him in his work. And so this morning as we approach the midpoint of this Lenten season, I think it is appropriate for each of us to stop and ask ourselves this question. Are we following the way of the cross or are we simply trying to earn God’s favor or put him in our debt by what we do? (The question assumes that each of us is engaged in some form of self-denial and Lenten discipline. If you are not, well, you already have your answer to the question.) We need to ask this question because we are so profoundly broken that there is always a danger that even our best intentions can get distorted (cf. Psalm 19.11-12). Today’s lessons provide us with a useful framework to help us with this task by reminding us of God’s intentions for us and all that he has done for us in Christ.

In today’s OT lesson, we read a passage with which we are all familiar—the Ten Words (or Commandments) of God. Because we are so familiar with them, there is always a danger that we will read them as simply being a set of rules we must follow to find favor in God’s sight. But that is a limited way to look at what’s going on here because the Ten Words are really God’s framework to help us be the kind of people he created and called us to be in the first place. One of the drawbacks of the Lectionary is that we don’t always get the full context of the story in the assigned lesson. Today’s lesson is an example of this and I want to read a couple of verses from before and after our lesson so that we can have the proper perspective and context for reading the Commandments (read Exodus 19.3-6, 10-12, 16-19; 20.18-21).

Do you see what’s going on here? God is preparing his people to be agents of his healing and redemption, i.e., his holy or called-out people. This is much more than just “following the rules.” In our expanded lesson we see the proper human reaction when entering the presence of God. When that happens we immediately become aware of our sinfulness in the presence of Perfection (cf. Peter’s reaction to Jesus in Luke 5.8) and how difficult it is for us to be the holy people God calls us to be, precisely because we are so profoundly inward focused. We notice at once that humility is a prerequisite attitude needed to hear and obey God’s commandments and we observe God’s passion for stability, order, and justice. The commandments remind us that we cannot turn inward on ourselves and focus exclusively on our own desires. We are to stay focused first and foremost on God because we become what we worship. Having a big enough perception of God and his holiness will also help us be the people God calls us to be. That, in turn, will affect the way we interact with other people. Simply put, if we are able to develop the character needed to obey God’s Words, we will be able to reflect his glory out into the world and be wise stewards of it (cf. Psalm 19.1-14). When that happens, God can use us to bring his healing love to others who, like ourselves, desperately need it.

But of course none of us on our own can do this because sin is such an integral part of our human nature. The Good News is that God knows this about us and has acted decisively on our behalf to reconcile us to him and thus end our exile from him so that we have a real shot at being his image-bearers. God did this in the cross of Christ. In Jesus, who is our sinless representative, God condemned sin in the flesh so that he would not have to condemn humans. In dying for us, Jesus laid the necessary groundwork and foundation for us to be reconciled to God so that by the power of his Spirit living in us, God could use us to be the people he created and called us to be. This is what Jesus was cryptically telling the Jewish authorities in today’s gospel lesson. By his actions, Jesus was announcing God’s judgment on the Temple and all the broken human systems it had come to represent. No longer would the Temple be the place where God came to live with his people on earth. No, after his death and resurrection, Jesus was telling them (and us) that God would dwell with his people through him, and all because of Jesus’ sin-bearing death, which brought an end to our exile from God forever so that we could once again be God’s loving and wise image-bearers. This gift of life is ours by faith. None of us deserve the gift but God in his outrageous love and mercy offers it to us anyway because he created us to live and enjoy a real relationship with him. And as we saw last week, real faith in Christ always manifests itself in corresponding action. In other words, we do the hard work of following Jesus out of a desire to please him and as a grateful response for what God has done for us through Christ, not to earn favor in God’s sight or put him in our debt. This is why, for example, that we have ordered our mission statement, Changed by God to make a difference for God, the way we have. Our action always stems from our relationship with Jesus and in response to his great love for us. To do otherwise makes us nothing more than busy social activists who will perforce have limited success for the reasons we have just seen.

Yet despite all that God has done for us, as Paul reminds us in today’s epistle lesson, the human condition remains so profoundly broken that many fail to believe or understand God’s great gift to us in Jesus. The cross is foolishness to the wise (not the same as biblical wisdom that begins with the fear of God) because many of the worldly wise do not believe there is a problem with the human condition to begin with (or think they are smart enough to fix it) and therefore look to human systems to make the world or themselves better. This, of course, is simply another manifestation of human pride that steadfastly advocates self-help as the solution to all our problems. And we all understand this dynamic. Who among us has never been caught basking in our own cleverness only to be tripped up in ways we never expected or anticipated?

Likewise, the cross is a stumbling block (skandalon) for the Jews because while most expected the coming of God’s Messiah to deliver them from their enemies, most never expected that the cross would be the way God accomplished this for his people and through them the world. No, every good Jew knew that to be hung on a pole meant that the person was under God’s curse (Deuteronomy 21.23). And so most Jews of Jesus’ day didn’t want or expect a Messiah like Jesus. They expected God to rescue them in a much more spectacular manner. And as we think about these objections to the cross, we see that what they have in common is a hubris that often leads to arrogance or an attempt to pigeonhole God to behave according to our limited and finite expectations. And this blinds those who hold these views to how desperately they need God’s healing love or how God really works to bring that love to bear. That’s why, in part, most enemies of the cross cannot conceive of any need for a cross or a crucified Messiah.

This brings us back to our question about our Lenten disciplines. Are we engaging in them out of a profound and grateful desire to respond to God’s great love for us in Christ or are we doing them as a form of self-help? Ultimately this is a matter of the heart and only God can see the heart. But there are some things we can look at to help us discover our true motives for our Lenten disciplines and more broadly, our Christian discipleship. First, we must look at our views of the cross. Do we look at it in awe and wonder and love or do we see it as foolishness? Our views of the human condition will be very useful in helping us answer this question.

Second, while putting to death our sinful nature is always painful, at least initially, if we are trying to do this out of a genuine desire to please God, we will find that there eventually emerges a newfound joy and energy in us. For example, we will find it easier to forgive people and extend mercy to them, especially those we dislike. We will find ourselves looking out for the needs of others as much (or more so) than we do our own needs without actually feeling put out about it. We will notice that we have an energy and joy in serving others instead of being bur-dened or tired out by our work. We will also notice the fruit of the Spirit manifesting itself in our life more than the fruit of our old self-centered nature. Again, some of this is not always self-evident. That is why we need a trusted Christian friend(s) who will speak to us honestly. And if we bristle at their criticism and/or seek to compare ourselves and our progress with others, that is usually a telltale sign that we are pursuing our disciplines for all the wrong reasons.

Putting to death our fallen nature by the power of the Spirit and our sweat equity is hard work and usually takes a lifetime. But as we have seen, if we really do love the Lord and want to become fully human so that he can use us to bring his healing love and image to bear on others, we have to first be reconciled to him. In other words, we have to go by the way of the cross. We have to understand fully that left to our own devices we will always be hostile to God, and therefore less than fully human, because we are too profoundly broken to fix ourselves. This knowledge, while terribly painful to us, is essential if we ever hope to be a Christian disciple for all the right reasons. When we understand our predicament and by God’s grace learn to accept God’s great love for us in Christ and how God works to bring healing, hope, and restoration to his world, we really can have confidence that we are working not for ourselves but for the one who loves us and gave himself for us in a terrible and costly act. When that happens we will also know that we really do have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.