Lenten Midweek IV
Christian
Questions with Their Answers: Why Christ Died and Why We Go to the Sacrament[1]
March 22, 2023
Text: Christian Questions 17-18
I
invite the congregation to turn to page 330 in your hymnal as we examine
Questions 17-18 of “Christian Questions with Their Answers”…
What could possibly motivate the sinless Son
of God to take on human flesh, suffer, and die for poor, miserable sinners, who
rejected Him, and murdered Him?
Love. Love for His Father. Love for you and me.
“Greater
love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”
(John 15:13; ESV). We know this. It is a rare and precious thing when a person
makes such a sacrifice. “For one will
scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would
dare even to die” (Rom. 5:7). We
rightly honor those who put their lives on the line for our safety and freedom,
and especially those who make the ultimate sacrifice. Our military.
Police officers. Fire
fighters. The occasional ordinary
citizen becomes a hero in a time of crisis.
When a person risks, or gives, his life for another, he hopes that it
will be worth it in the grand scheme of things.
That the person he saves is righteous and good. That saving that person will be for the
greater good of society. Perhaps you
remember the scene from the movie, Saving Private Ryan, as Captain
Miller lay dying, whispering into the Private’s ear (whom he’d now given his
life to save): “Earn this. Earn
it.” It’s a noble death. A tremendous sacrifice. A life given, the Captain hopes, for a man
who will be good, and do good. We get
it. We understand the motivation for
such a death. And we honor it.
But
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us” (Rom. 5:8). Think about
that. As great as the sacrifices are of
our heroes, our Lord’s sacrifice is unimaginably greater. For with Him, there is no “earn this.” There is no worthiness on our part, for whom
the Lord Jesus gives Himself into death.
He is not motivated by any hope that we will make His death “worth it”
by being good and doing good. His sole
motivation is love. Love for God. Love for us.
While
we were still sinners. While we were
still at enmity with Him. In a state of
rebellion. Rejecting Him. Clothing ourselves in our own fig leaves. Exiled from Paradise, East of Eden. For us, who still, even though we are now
clothed with Him, believe in Him, and love Him, must constantly be
called back from turning away from Him.
And for many who will never receive Him.
For the Church. For the
unbelieving world. That is God’s
love. That is His sacrifice. While were still sinners, Christ died
for us.
The
closest we come to such utterly selfless love in ordinary human experience, is
the parent who would give anything and everything in love for their child… the
husband who would die for his wife… the wife who would sacrifice herself for
her husband. Teachers often have similar
instincts toward their students, pastors for their parishioners… any
relationship modeled upon the prodigal love of God for His rebellious
children. But all of these are imperfect
examples, because they involve sinners, and insofar as they do serve as
examples, that is because they flow from God’s love. “We love because he first loved us” (1
John 4:19).
But
God’s love is perfect, and it flows from the love generated within the
Communion of the Holy Trinity. The Son
saves us because He loves His Father, as he says in our Holy Gospel this
evening, “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know
that I love the Father” (John 14:31).
It is the Father’s will to save us, and so the Son obeys, for He wills
what the Father wills. And so, the Son
Himself loves us, as St. Paul writes in Galatians 2, “the life I now live in
the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me” (v. 20). And again, Ephesians 5,
“Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and
sacrifice to God” (v. 1). “Husbands,
love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”
(v. 25).
The
Scriptures bear incalculable testimony to God’s great love for us in sending
His Son, and Christ’s own self-sacrificial love for us. “God so loved the world, that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”
(John 3:16). Abraham’s willingness to
sacrifice his own beloved son, Isaac, is but a picture of this love. God gives His only-begotten Son, Jesus, into
death, in order to rescue us from eternal death, and make us His sons who call
upon Him as “Our Father.”
But
it is hard for us to believe this love.
After all, we know how undeserving we are. We know what rebels we are. We know our own hearts and minds, our sins of
thought, word, and deed. And if ever we
forget, Satan is right there to remind us.
And so often our brothers and sisters are there to remind us, too.
That
I may know and believe “that Christ, out of great love, died for my sin”
(Question 18), God has given me the Sacrament of our Lord’s true body and
blood. In this world, where my eyes see
all that is contrary to God’s Kingdom and my redemption in Christ… where I
cannot see Jesus and His victory over sin, death, and the devil… where it
appears to my eyes as though the forces of evil have won… where I must live by
faith, and not by sight… here, God has given me something tangible. God’s sure Word becomes accessible to all my
senses. Even as my ears hear the Promise
as it comes to pass when His Words are spoken over bread and wine, that these are
His very body and blood, given and shed for me, for the forgiveness of my sins…
so my eyes behold the elements, and I bow in adoration to His presence. His body is placed on my tongue, His blood
poured out upon my sin-parched lips (LSB 624:6). I smell the tokens of His grace, taste them,
touch them, as I eat and drink them.
Christ comes into me, and becomes one with me in a Holy Communion. And I literally taste and see that the Lord
is good (Psalm 34:8; 1 Peter 2:3).
And
so, His love becomes mine. Love for
God. Love for my neighbor. Love for those with whom I am one in
this same Holy Communion. Love
for those who are not in this Communion, but for whom I long that they
would come into it, into Communion with Jesus Christ, and with us, and so be
saved. And I know, because I’ve tasted
it, and I’ve seen it, under bread and wine, that we all live under the grace
and mercy of Jesus Christ, who forgives us all our sins. For He has died for us. And He is risen. He lives and He reigns. And here are the fruits of His cross. Take, eat.
Take, drink. God’s great love for
sinners in Christ Jesus, given and poured out for you.
That
is why we desire to go to the Sacrament.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] This year’s Lenten Midweek
meditations make use of the resources at https://resources.lcms.org/worship-planning/worship-suggestions-for-2023-midweek-lenten-services/
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