Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus teaches us to pray, “forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Though
it would be centuries later that Jesus would teach His disciples and His Church
the Lord’s Prayer, Jacob knows this petition intimately. He’s a scoundrel, a cheat, a liar, a
thief. Seeing his brother, Esau weak and
hungry, Jacob sold him a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright. But he didn’t stop there, oh no; with the
assistance of his mother, Rebekah who dressed him up to feel and smell like
Esau, he went before his blind father, Isaac, and stole from Esau the blessing
of the firstborn as well. All the good
things that Esau was to receive was taken from him: his birthright and his
blessing. Jacob sinned plain and
simple. And he didn’t sin against some
unknown person, some anonymous man whom he would never see again, but against
his own brother.
Many years have
passed. The last time Jacob saw his
brother, Esau was breathing out murderous threats, so it appears that the time
of reckoning has finally come to Jacob; the chickens have come home to roost;
Esau is coming right for Jacob with 400 men.
Jacob is outnumbered and he assumes that this is the end. All the sins that he committed against his
brother have now come back to haunt him.
Jacob deserves
nothing from Esau and certainly nothing from God and he knows it. Jacob prays, “I am not
worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness
that you have shown to your servant…” Because of Jacob’s sin and his sinfulness, he deserves nothing from
God; all the sins he committed against Esau, all the trickery, the cheating, and
the stealing were first and foremost sins against God. In his sin, not only has Jacob kindled the
wrath of Esau, but his sin didn’t go unnoticed by God either. He deserves nothing but death and hell. He deserves nothing for which he prays. He deserves Esau to lower the hammer on his
life.
But we’re no different. We sin
against each other, but we’re really sinning against our brother Jesus. A transgression against our neighbor is a
foremost a transgression against God.
Like Jacob we deserve death because of our sins. We deserve to have our sins at the front of
God’s mind. We deserve to have our
prayers denied because of them. We’re not
worthy to ask God for the air we breath let alone for His forgiveness, mercy,
and steadfast love. With Jacob, we
deserve everlasting punishment.
While approaching, Jacob grovels before Esau, bowing to him seven
times. But Esau does an unexpected thing;
he raises his hands toward his brother not to kill him, but to embrace him. Esau’s lips are clenched, not in anger, but
to lay on his sinful brother a kiss of peace.
Jacob deserves death but receives forgiveness. Esau stands in the stead of God, doling out
grace: undeserved kindness and love.
We’ve sinned. We’ve sinned
against God and our neighbor. And we
deserve what Jacob expected – for our brother Jesus to lower the eternal boom
on us, to squash us like bugs, to come with 400 legions of angels and wipe us
out. But our brother Jesus isn’t
interested in doling out comeuppance, His desire is to forgive you.
All the sin, all the evil, all the wrong that we’ve done against our
neighbors and against God, Jesus took away and laid down His life for
them. Even the really bad things that
you’ve done against others and the things that others have done to you. Jesus has been crucified for it all, that
God’s forgiveness flows from Jesus’ cross to you. The sins that you’ve committed against others
and the sins that have been committed against you have been buried with Christ,
but unlike our Lord, they remain in the grave.
Yet, we love to run to the tomb of Jesus, shovel in hand, and dig them
up to wave before those who sin against us.
We act as if Jesus hadn’t taken your sins and died for them. The sins of others are crystal clear, but
we’re blind to our own sin. We plainly
see the splinter in our neighbor’s eye but ignore the log that’s in our
own. If Esau had acted as we do, Jacob
would have been doomed. If Jesus were to
take the same attitude, we’d get the punishment we deserve.
But He doesn’t. The Lord has
forgiven you everything you’ve done against Him that now we can go doling out
that same forgiveness our Lord has graciously given us. Like Esau, we can stand in the stead of God
as forgiven sinners who forgive. The
Lord has given us everything by His grace: He hears our prayers and doesn’t
deny them because of our sin, He gave His Son into death that your sins and the
sins committed against you are dead and buried, so we can do gladly do good and
sincerely forgive those who sins against us.
Jacob deserved death, so do we.
But you’ve been shown undeserved kindness and love from our Lord who was
crucified, died, buried for you – so that all the sins we’ve committed against
God will be remembered no more. You’ve
forgiven, free and clear in Christ. The
ten thousand talents of debt we owe God has been forgiven, crossed out in the
red blood of Jesus.
Jesus teaches us to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us.” What we
deserve we don’t get, that which we’re not worthy of, we receive in
abundance. That’s how God deals with our
sin, not in wrath or anger, but in love and forgiveness. Since we’ve been forgiven much, let us forgive
much. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
