Lenten Midweek I
March 8, 2017
“Dear Christians,
One and All Rejoice: Possessed by Sin and Bound by Death”[1]
Text: John 8:31-38; LSB 556:2-3
“We are offspring of Abraham and have never
been enslaved to anyone” (John 8:33; ESV). It is laughable on the face
of it. The Jews, the Israelites, have
never been enslaved? Anyone with a
casual familiarity with the story of the Old Testament knows this is patently
false. The book of Exodus is all about
how God rescued the Israelites from slavery
in Egypt. Judges is all about how
time and time again the Israelites turned away from God and were enslaved by the heathen nations occupying
the Promised Land. When they
repented, when they turned back to God, He would send a deliverer. The books of Kings and Chronicles and the
books of the prophets are all about the slow decline of the Kingdom of Israel
into idolatry and rebellion, her civil war and separation into Northern and
Southern Kingdoms, and her humiliation and defeat as she is carried off into captivity; the Northern
Kingdom, Israel, to captivity in Assyria in 722 BC; the Southern Kingdom,
Judah, the Jews, to captivity in Babylon in 586 BC. And now even at this moment in our Holy
Gospel, as the Jews are asserting their freedom over against our Lord’s
preaching, the Romans patrol the streets of Jerusalem, keeping their Jewish
subjects in line. Never been enslaved to anyone?
Why, that’s the whole story of the Jews!
But
you and I are Americans! We are
offspring of the founding fathers and have never been enslaved to anyone! We live in “the land of the free,” and
liberty is an unalienable right with which we are endowed by our Creator. Now, it is true that since the Revolution,
the United States has maintained her freedom as a sovereign nation. But what have we done with that freedom? What once was understood to be freedom from
tyranny, we have distorted into personal autonomy, law unto self, the freedom
to do whatever we want. It’s like the
days of the Judges in Israel: “In those days there was
no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6;
21:25). What do we get when we do
whatever is right in our own eyes?
Abortion, euthanasia, sexual permissiveness and perversion come to mind. Note the common theme in all of these: Death
and the distortion of marital relations from which God gives life.
But
it’s not just them. It’s not just those people who do those
things. You think you are free. You believe you have never been enslaved by
anyone. To you Jesus says, “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin”
(John 8:34), and St. Paul and King David agree: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for
God. All have turned aside; together
they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12;
Cf. Ps. 14:1-3). These words are about
us. We talk a big talk about free will,
but it’s utterly foolish. Adam and Eve
were created with free will, but they screwed it up in the Garden. Remember?
“(I)n the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17).
Our first parents died spiritually as their teeth sank into the
fruit. And their children have been born
in death ever since, dead in your trespasses and sins. What freedom does a dead man have? A dead man is only free to be dead. A sinner is only free to sin. An unbeliever is only free not to
believe. What kind of freedom is
that? It’s no freedom at all! “Fast bound in Satan’s chains I lay; Death
brooded darkly o’er me. Sin was my
torment night and day; In sin my mother bore me.” And it’s not just an inherited condition,
although that is our greatest problem, original sin, as we heard on
Sunday. But we act accordingly: “But
daily deeper still I fell; My life became a living hell, So firmly sin
possessed me” (LSB 556:2).
We
are good at keeping up the illusion that we are free, in and of ourselves,
apart from Christ. As if being a
Christian is a matter of decision and earning God’s favor. When someone dies, we say of him, “He was a
good man. He is in a better place.” As though heaven is for good people, or at
least people not as bad as the bad people.
What we’re really saying is, “I hope I’m good enough to get to
heaven.” Well... you’re not. No matter how good you are, you are not good
enough. And I hate to burst your bubble,
but you really aren’t good at all.
Remember what St. Paul says in our Epistle: “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does
good, not even one.” That means
you. It is true, what we sang with Dr.
Luther: “My own good works all came to naught, No grace or merit gaining.” And what about free will? “Free will against God’s judgment fought,
Dead to all good remaining” (LSB 556:3).
There is no freedom of the will for sinners. There is only bondage of the will.
So
if there is to be freedom, if there is to be life, if there is to be rescue
from slavery to sin and death, it must come from outside of you. “(I)f
the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Jesus came for this very reason, to liberate
you from bondage. His blood and death
are the price of your ransom. The cross
of Christ unlocks the chains in which Satan has bound you. His death destroys death. His resurrection puts death to open
shame. And now Jesus gives you His
freedom and life by the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments. “If
you abide in my word,” He says, “you
are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you
free” (vv. 31-32). What truth is it
that you will know, that will liberate you?
You will know the truth of your sinful condition, and you will know the
truth of the forgiveness of sins and salvation that come alone by the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ for you. In
other words, to know the truth is to receive the saving gifts of Christ by
faith. The purpose of Christian
preaching is to shatter your faith in anyone or anything that is not our God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The
purpose of Christian preaching is to shatter your illusions of autonomy and
freedom and the ability to work your way out of your slavery to sin and
death. The purpose of preaching is to
give you the true freedom that comes only by the Gospel as the living voice of
Christ forgives your sins and breathes the Spirit of life into your dry bones.
And
what is this freedom which you have come to possess by your knowledge of the
truth, by Jesus’ Word, by faith? It is
not the freedom to do whatever you want.
That is the old bondage of the flesh to sin and death. No, when Jesus frees a man, he is for the
first time free to love God and love his neighbor. He is freed from the tyranny of the
self. He is freed from the slavish
subjection to the Law to the freedom of the doing of God’s will. He is freed from the condemnation of death
and hell for the life God always intended for man. In his classic treatise, The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther shows us that the life of
the Christian is lived in this paradox: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord
of all, subject to none. A Christian is
a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”[2] You are free from the doing of good works in
order to earn God’s favor and salvation.
In that way, you are perfectly free, a lord of all, subject to
none. But you are also free for love and
service and self-sacrifice for the sake of your neighbor. In that way, you are a perfectly dutiful servant
of all, subject to all. In Christ, you
are freed from yourself to do this very thing, not for the sake of earning
anything, but for the sake of love. God
does not need your good works, but your neighbor does. Freed from sin, freed from death, freed from
slavery to Satan, you are free to do what love demands, what your neighbor
needs you to do for him. This freedom is
yours in Christ alone.
The
great paradox that runs so counter to our fallen human reason is this: In
freedom from God, you are enslaved by sin, death, and the devil. As God’s slave, you are truly free. Redeemed by Christ, your sins are
forgiven. You are free to love. You are free to live. You are free to be the child of God He has
called you to be in Baptism. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free
indeed.” The Son has set you free. You are
free indeed. In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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