Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Have
you been watching the Olympics? There
are several events in both the Winter and Summer Olympics that I watch and find
myself thinking, “What was that like doing that for the first time?” For example, the ski jump. Can you imagine sitting on the platform at
the top of the hill, looking down the ski ramp made of snow designed to throw
you off a mountain to see just how far you can fly through the air before you,
hopefully, land upright on your skis? Not
exactly on my bucket list.
Moving
to the Summer Olympics, the same is true for the pole vault. I was never in track and field in high
school, but some of my friends competed in this event. This is another thing where I can’t imagine
doing for the first time: taking a pole, running as fast as you can toward an
elevated bar, sticking the pole in the ground and shooting up with your feet
over your head, trying to make it over the bar.
It sends chills down my spine.
I’m
sure when you’re learning the bar is set low, low enough for a rookie to even
make it. However, in the Olympics, the
bar is first set at a moderate level, to weed out all the non-contenders. The bar is then raised a bit until, finally,
nobody’s able to pole vault over it. So,
in the end, it’s possible that no one clears the final height that the bar is
set to. The winner is the best loser, so
to speak.
In
a sense, that’s what Jesus is doing in our Gospel text for this morning. He’s setting the bar on the holy Commandments
of God.
Listen
to what Jesus says, “You have heard that
it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be
liable to judgment.’ But I say to you
that everyone who is angry wit his brother will be liable to judgment… Whoever
says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire… You have herd that it was
said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
The
bar is set. So the question is now what
does God expect from us? How well does
He really expect us to keep His commandments?
Have you been angry? Jesus says
you’re a murderer. Have you ever looked
at someone who wasn’t your husband or wife with a lustful heart? Jesus says you’re an adulterer. How does God expect us to keep His
Commandments? He leaves no wiggle room,
no way to work our way off the hook.
And next week
we’re going to hear Jesus say, “Be
perfect as My Father in heaven is perfect.”
What does God expect from us? How well does He expect us to keep His
commandments? He doesn’t expect us to do
the best we can. He doesn’t expect us to
try our hardest. God expects His
Commandments to be kept perfectly – from the time we’re conceived to the time
we die. And anything less is eternal
punishment.
Now, try to imagine how the people listening to Jesus would have heard
these teachings; and we can identify. They had thought that they were
doing fairly well keeping the Commands of God. After all, most of them
hadn’t physically murdered anyone or committed adultery as it was narrowly
defined. Those who were divorced found some rabbi who approved of their
actions and they made sure they did the required paperwork. Regarding the
oath taking, they played according to the rules of what they were taught and no
one ever failed to perform an oath taken in the Lord’s name because they were
smart enough to leave the Lord’s name out of it. They thought they were
good. It took some effort to keep their noses clean; but they cleared the
bar – they’re winners in their own minds. God must be happy with them. But they had lowered the bar so low that they
could just step over it. And here’s
Jesus telling them that they weren’t even in the competition. They lost
before they started. The bar of the Law is impossibly high and they can’t
even get their feet off the ground.
And don’t we do the same? When faced with an impossibly high bar, we
lower it – make God’s Law something that we can attain. “Of course I’ve never murdered anyone. As far as the 5th Commandment is
concerned, I can just check that one right off.” “I’ve never been intimate with someone other
than my spouse sure my eyes wander from time to time, but as long as I look but
don’t touch – that’s the main thing. The
6th Commandment isn’t all that hard to keep.”
Just when we’ve
got the bar lowered to a manageable height, something that we can handle, got
it set to a level where we can just step over it and assume that’s good enough
for God, Jesus says otherwise and raises it to where it should be - so high that
we can plainly see that we, too, have already lost before we’ve even started.
Have you reached
the bar that God has set in His Law? Are
you perfect? Well, my friends… Yeah. In Christ, and only in Christ, you most certainly
are. Here’s the Good News for us who
have no hope of keeping God’s perfect Law – Jesus is your perfection. In Christ, you’ve kept the Law
perfectly. God has set the bar where we
poor miserable sinners are unable to reach, so Christ, the truly Perfect One,
keeps every jot and tittle of the Law for you.
This is the
scandal of the cross: that we who are blatantly guilty are declared innocent
and He who was perfectly innocent is declared guilty of our murderous hearts,
adulterous minds, and lying mouths. On
the cross Jesus, who met the Law’s demands, who hopped right over that bar of
God’s, is the biggest sinner that ever was.
On the cross, He has our sin and the sins of the whole world. On the cross, He is the murderer, the
adulterer, the liar, as He pays for all your sins with His precious blood and
innocent suffering and death for you. On
the cross, He has your sin, He becomes your sin.
This is the
blessed exchange: Jesus takes your sin and in return He gives you His
righteousness, His perfect keeping of the Law.
The gold medal that He won by keeping the Law He gives to you. His perfect obedience to the Law He applies
to you. Be perfect as My Father in
heaven is perfect? You bet because in
Christ, that’s how God sees you – arrayed in His perfect righteousness, His
perfection.
When
it comes to God’s Law, we keep the bar where it belongs. We recognize how we fall short; we confess
our failings, our sin. We repent, but
never in despair – all the more relying
on Jesus who is your Savior and your righteousness before God. Who has
kept the Law perfectly for you; who gives to you His righteousness so that when
you stand before the judgment seat of God, He sees you covered in the blood of
Christ, robed in His righteousness and perfection that He gives to you out of
His love, grace, and mercy.
Jesus takes you and your sins upon His
shoulders and clears the bar for you.
The death that He dies, the sacrifice that He makes for you is your
salvation. The Law of God is perfect,
righteous, and holy and, in the crucified and risen Jesus, so are you. Amen.
