Lenten Midweek I:
“Possessed by Sin and Bound by Death”[1]
March 9, 2022
Text: John 8:31-38; LSB 556:2-3
We
are Americans, and have never been enslaved to anyone. Listen, I love America. I would die for America. And I thank God for the unprecedented liberties
we have enjoyed in this nation for just shy of two and a half centuries. I grieve the erosion of that liberty, and
pray we can restore it. But that isn’t
the kind of freedom Jesus is speaking of in our text. And political tyranny is but one symptom of
the slavery He has in mind. In fact, the
abuse of our personal liberty, ironically, indicates a much deeper tyranny, the
true slavery. That is the slavery to
sin. It is the slavery to self. “I can do whatever I want. I answer to no man, and I answer to no god.” Self-rule.
Autonomy, we call it; literally, “a law unto oneself.” And so, “my body, my choice.” Sexual permissiveness, promiscuity, and
perversion. Abortion on demand. Euthanasia.
Substance abuse. Who are you to
object? I rule myself. As long as I’m not hurting anybody else
(which is, of course, patently false and a self-delusion… Abortion, for
example, is, by definition, the killing of a baby, the mutilation of a body which
is not yours). As long as I’m not infringing
on your liberty (which is, again, patently false and a self-delusion… Just ask
the Lutheran Member of Parliament in Finland and her Lutheran Bishop who are on
trial for believing and expressing biblical views on marriage and
sexuality). Even if I am destroying
myself… even if I am destroying us… at least I’m free. But it is all a delusion. It is the tyranny of me, myself, and I. It is the tyranny of enmity against God. Or, as Jesus says it this evening, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John
8:34; ESV). By nature, we are blind to
our sin, and so to our slavery. And so
we are enslaved to our own blindness.
The
Jews in our Holy Gospel miss this, too, and in a rather ridiculous fashion. “We are offspring of Abraham and have
never been enslaved to anyone” (v. 33).
Oh, really? Historical
ignorance has a long and sick pedigree. What about all those years down in Egypt? What about all the nations and peoples who
continually assaulted you and enslaved you in the time of the judges? What about Assyria? What about the Exile in Babylon? What about the Roman soldiers patrolling the
streets of Jerusalem, what about the tax booths, what about Pontius Pilate who
is this very minute seated in the Praetorium, reminding you that you are slaves
of the Empire, and that Caesar is your lord?
Never enslaved to anyone? Even politically, the assertion is laughable.
But
again, Jesus is speaking of the deeper tyranny.
Spiritual tyranny. The tyranny of
sin, death, and the devil. The
enslavement of your own sinful flesh. If
you start with the assumption that you are free… that you aren’t actually in
bondage to sin… “I’m not that bad. I have
my faults. I have my weaknesses. Don’t we all?
But I’m basically a good person”… that you aren’t actually in bondage to
death (and that, we maintain by our obsession with health and wellness and
personal safety, and/or our denial of death by hiding it away, never acknowledging
it, shielding our children from the grim reality, and speaking of it in
ridiculous euphemisms)… that you aren’t actually in bondage to the devil… Oh,
we’re really good at this one. Remember
what C. S. Lewis said about the devil convincing enlightened modern Westerners
that he doesn’t exist. Now he can assault
us, and we’ll deny the assault even happened, because we don’t believe in him!...
If you start with the assumption that you are free, you end up in the very
bondage you deny. It is a servitude from
which you cannot liberate yourself. You
are a blind and deaf captive.
As
a young man, Luther thought he could free himself by joining a monastery. Actually, his eyes were half opened by the
Law of God. He saw the chains of sin,
the captivity of death, and the tyranny of the devil. “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” (LSB 556:2). But he thought he could work his way out of
these by following the rules and prescriptions of the Augustinian order. Works of penance and humiliation. Poverty.
Discipline of the body. Beating
himself. Starving himself. Depriving his body of sleep. Acts of piety. The seven canonical hours. Relics.
Alms. Obedience. Confession so obsessive/compulsive he wore
his confessor to exhaustion. By all of
this, he hoped to free himself from bondage and work his way into God’s grace
and favor. But what happened? “(D)aily deeper still I fell; My life became
a living hell, So firmly sin possessed me” (v. 2). Our hymn is autobiographical.
No
matter what Luther did, he knew it would never be good enough. It would never make up for his sins. It would never reach the holy standard demanded
by a righteous God. “My own good works
all came to naught, No grace or merit gaining” (v. 3). The Law of God tormented his conscience with
its accusations. Luther confesses that
he came to hate God and His divine righteousness; that he came to fight
and struggle against God in spite of himself.
“Free will against God’s judgment fought, Dead to all good remaining.” God was, in Luther’s mind, a terrifying Judge
who was out to get him, out to damn all sinners. “My fears increased till sheer despair Left
only death to be my share; The pangs of hell I suffered.” It was all a failure, this effort to free
himself and earn God’s favor. You can’t work
your way out of sin and into God’s good graces.
The Law will show you that every time.
But in doing this, the Law does you a faovr. The Law will bring you to an awareness of
your slavery. And so it will expose your
self-deception.
This
is actually good news. Because now, realizing
and acknowledging how helpless you are before the Law of God, confessing your bondage
under the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil, you know that you cannot save
yourself. You know that salvation must
come from outside of you, from One who is free. And there is such a One. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.
Jesus
proclaims to you this evening the joyous Good News that “if the Son sets you
free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
It is the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, who storms the walls of your
captivity, riding in on your flesh and blood.
In His perfect freedom, it is His good will to save you. Again, He is the Stronger Man who plunders
the strong man’s house (Matt. 12:29). He
rides in freely to live in perfect obedience to His Father, in your place, and
to credit His righteousness to your account.
He rides in freely to bear your disobedience, your sin and rebellion,
your very enmity against God, and to put it to death in His body on the cross,
to make atonement for it all by His blood and death. He rides in freely knowing that He will blow
a hole through the walls that now hold you in, the very walls of death and the
grave, by His bodily resurrection from the dead. And in so doing, He leads captivity captive,
a host of captives in His train (Psalm 68:18; Eph. 4:8). And there you are among them, led by Christ
into freedom, life, and light.
You
can deny your slavery apart from Christ.
You can insist that you are free.
But you know you are lying to yourself.
What about all the guilt and shame you know all-too-well, the tape of
your failures that plays on repeat in your head at night, testifying of your
bondage to sin? What about the fact that
you know you will die? No matter your
efforts to delay it and deny it, the open tomb stares each one of us in the
face. What about the great evil in the
world, hatred, war, famine, plague… evidence of the reality of the evil one and
his power? To deny all this simply plunges
you further into slavery.
Don’t
deny it. Confess it. Here is Jesus this evening to open your eyes
to the reality of the situation, and your lips to speak the truth of it. And here is Jesus this evening to unlock the
chains of your captivity with the key of His holy cross. “I forgive you all your sins,” He proclaims. “You are clean,” He declares. “You are free,” He announces. “You are My possession now. I unbind you from your chains. Be healed.
Be whole. Arise from death. And come, follow Me.” For “If you abide in my word,” which
is what it means to follow Jesus, “you are truly my disciples, and you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). And so it is, for Jesus has spoken. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] This year’s theme, much of the
material, and the outline for this sermon are taken from John T. Pless, “Dear
Christians, One and All, Rejoice!” https://www.1517.org/articles/dear-christians-one-and-all-rejoice-lent-series-introduction
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