Lenten Midweek III:
“Jesus: God’s Son and Your Servant”[1]
March 23, 2022
Text: John 13:1-20; LSB 556:5-6
Every
world religion apart from Christianity devises some way for its adherents to work
their way up to God. All-too-often,
Christians themselves fall into this trap.
As though we have to climb a ladder into heaven. “Step by step, rung by rung,” as the hymnist,
Huey Lewis, sings in his song, “Jacob’s Ladder.” In other words, work by work, merit by merit,
better and better all the time, or you’re lost.
This is Islam. This is
Judaism. This is Mormonism. And this is where so many of our own
Christian brothers and sisters go off the rails. It is even officially taught by a number of
Christian denominations. Salvation by
works, whether in whole or in part. This
is what we call moralism.
Or
there is the idea of salvation by knowledge. “Trust the science,” we say, by which we
really mean “trust the scientists and experts I agree with, and if you don’t
agree with them, you’re obviously a Luddite.”
It is the idea that we can know how to save ourselves… from
plague and pandemic, from climate change, from war and bloodshed, from the
transgressions of all previous generations, from nuclear disaster… and that our generation is the quintessence,
the pinnacle of all human knowledge. We
can even save ourselves from death, we think, if we just know a
little more, do a little more medical research, and/or advance our technological
knowledge such that we can download our consciousness into everlasting
machines. This is what we call rationalism.
Or
there is the idea of salvation by religious experience or enlightenment. Here I have a direct and unmediated encounter
with the divine, or with an angel, or with some saint, like the Virgin Mary. Here belong religious pilgrimages, relics,
apparitions, strange phenomena like the stigmata (where the wounds of Jesus
supposedly show up on your own body).
Here belong also the so-called charismatic gifts, speaking in tongues
(which is not the tongues speaking of the Bible, by the way), prophesying by
direct revelation, having the Holy Spirit speak directly into your mind or
heart, ecstatic emotional worship experiences, and the like. Encounters with God apart from His Word. Here also belong the Eastern religions,
heightened consciousness, mindfulness, reincarnation until one reaches nirvana,
occultism, wicca, and classic paganism.
This is what we call mysticism.
But
in all three cases, moralism, rationalism, mysticism, the idea is that
we work our way up to God. So there are
really only two religions in the world.
There the religion of merit, whereby salvation is earned. You climb the ladder to God. It all depends, at least to some degree, on
you. And there is Christianity, whereby
salvation is by grace alone, a gift of God given freely in Christ. God comes down to you. It all depends entirely on Him.
Now,
the more you try to climb the ladder, the more you realize the futility of your
own efforts. No matter how high you progress
up the rungs, God is forever infinitely higher.
And, of course, you don’t get very many rungs off the ground before you
fall off and have to start all over again.
But the great Good News of the Gospel is that your salvation does not
depend on your climbing. It does not
depend on your ability to keep the Law.
Or your knowledge. Or some direct
mystical experience of the divine. It
depends entirely and alone on God who comes down. He comes down all the way. Into His creation. Into your flesh. Into your sin and misery. Into your death and your tomb. This is the joy of Christmas! The eternally begotten Son of the Father is
conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. For you!
To redeem you from all that enslaves you. From Satan’s fast-binding chains. From death’s dark brooding. From possession by sin that makes your life a
living hell. By your experience, you
actually know the very opposite of salvation.
Your own good works all come to naught.
Your will fights against God’s judgment.
Your fears increase. Sheer
despair leaves only death to be your share.
Well… thank God, Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came down to redeem you from
all of it.
The
Father “said to His beloved Son: ‘It’s time to have compassion. Then go, bright jewel of My crown,” go down,
“And bring to all salvation. From sin
and sorrow set them free; Slay bitter death for them that they May live with
You forever” (LSB 556:5). “They can’t do
it. So You must, My dear Son.”
So
the Son obeys His Father’s will. He is
born of virgin mother. And God’s good
pleasure to fulfill, He comes… comes down… to be our Brother. He unites Himself to us. He bears His royal power disguised under our
flesh. He puts on a servant’s form, just
like ours (LSB 556:6). He even comes to
the waters of the Jordan where John is baptizing sinners. And he goes down into the water… Not
because He needs Baptism. He has
no sin. He is the perfectly obedient Son
of God. But to be baptized into us. To soak up our sins, and the sins of the
whole world, into Himself. To bear
them. And in this way, to fulfill all
righteousness. He is baptized into us,
that we may be baptized into Him.
Baptized
into His perfect obedience. Baptized
into His sin-atoning death. Baptized
into His resurrection life. We do not
climb the ladder to God. He comes down
to us in the Person of his Son. Becoming
one with us, He loves us to the end (John 13:1)… even to His death on the
cross. And His cross now becomes the
bridge between heaven and earth. The
cross is Jacob’s Ladder. Or better, Jesus
is Jacob’s Ladder. He comes down and
embraces us, and carries us up to God, through death and the grave, to heaven
and to bodily resurrection.
In
His great compassion, He came down to us, not to be served, but to serve, and
to give His life as a ransom (Mark 10:45).
We see this as He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind and hearing
to the deaf, casts out demons, and raises the dead. We see this as He eats and drinks with
tax-collectors and sinners and restores them to God by forgiving their sins. We see this as He calls one and all to
repentance and faith, to take up the cross and follow Him.
And
tonight, we see it as He lays aside His outer garments, wraps a towel around
His waist, and stoops down to wash His disciples’ feet. This is the work of the lowest slave, the
most despised, the Gentile salve. The
higher slaves wouldn’t touch it. The
dirt and grime of the road. The filth
left behind by donkeys and beasts of burden.
Disgusting. Unclean. No disciple would ever be asked to do this
menial task for his rabbi. Here the
Rabbi does it for His disciples.
And
what He does for them in the Upper Room, He does for us as he
forgives our sins. Having washed us
clean to the core in the bath of Holy Baptism, He now continually stoops down
to wash our feet in the Absolution, cleansing away the disgusting filth and
uncleanness we accumulate along the way by our sin. This is not something any disciple could
possibly do for this Master. If we are
to be clean, He must do it, for He alone is clean. And then He arises and sets the Table before
us and eats with us. He, the Master,
becomes our Waiter. He hand-feeds us. He gives us to eat and drink. He serves us in His great compassion. Isn’t that astounding? But isn’t that just like our God? We cannot climb up to Him. So He comes down. He stoops.
He gets down in the dirt and filth.
To bring us up.
Grace. That is what this is. God’s unmerited favor on account of
Christ. Or as you may have learned it in
Catechism, G.R.A.C.E.: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. There are only two religions in the world. There are the man-devised religions whereby
you climb up to God on ladders of moralism, rationalism, or mysticism. And then there is Christ. His is the religion of grace. He does it all. He comes down. He brings us up. He is crucified, dead, and buried. He is risen, ascended, and reigns. Baptized into us, He makes the sacrifice of
atonement for our sins. Baptized into
Him, God declares us righteous and makes us His own children. This is His compassion. At just the right time, “when the fulness
of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to
redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons”
(Gal. 4:4-5; ESV). It is time to have
compassion, God said. So Jesus came down….
and raised us up! 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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