Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Kyle
is a murderer. Throughout his entire
life, he’s been in and out of the court system for varying degrees of
misdemeanors and felonies. By the time
he was twelve, he was charged with his first drug crime. By the time he was 16 he was charged with
assault. Now, in his twenties, the
increasingly troubled man, in a fit of rage, gunned down those closest to him:
his wife, son, and daughter. He was
arrested, tried, and convicted of three counts of 1st degree murder
and eventually sentenced to be executed for his crimes. A fitting punishment. He gets what he deserves, right? But the governor shows Kyle grace, undeserved
kindness and love. He grants Kyle a
pardon; he gets off scott-free. He is
released from prison. He did the crime,
but he won’t be doing the time. He’s
been set free from the bondage of his sin.
Shown mercy and grace and forgiveness.
Now the question is what is he free to go and do? How is he to use this grace that he’s now
been given?
Kyle
thinks to himself, “I’m living under the governor’s grace. I can do as I please since I have a kind and
merciful governor who grants to me forgiveness and pardon. He loves to forgive and I love to commit
crimes. It’s a perfect match.” So Kyle continues his life treating the
governor’s pardon as permission to do whatever pleases him. Until, in another fit of rage, he took
another life. But this time the
governor, having shown him mercy and grace once, refused to commute his death
sentence a second time.
This
is a made up story, an illustration, if you will. There are certainly aspects to this little
fable that don’t fit with our Lord.
Don’t misunderstand me; Christ’s mercy is greater. Unlike the governor, who won’t put his
political bacon on the line for another round of Kyle’s sins, Christ has spilt
his blood for all. But the point is this,
that if Kyle misunderstands the governor’s lesser grace, takes it as license to
go on a crime spree, don’t you misunderstood Christ’s greater grace, if you
think it means you can live as you please.
You’ve been baptized, pardoned, released, set free from your rap sheet
of innumerable sins, trespasses, and transgressions. They’ve been wiped off the books. The
Almighty Judge has freed you on account of His Son. You’ve been given grace, mercy, and peace
through Jesus’ death on the cross.
You’ve been baptized… So now
what?
Today’s epistle
text lands us right in the middle of a line of thought in Paul’s letter to the
Church in Rome. He begins by reminding those in this
congregation who they are, “What shall
we say then? Are we to continue in sin
that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in
it? Do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism
into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
You’ve
been buried with Christ in His death and raised with Him in His resurrection,
by faith. In Baptism the Old Adam is
killed, drowned in the water combined with God’s Word and the New Man, the new
creation, has been raised up. You’ve
been brought from death to life. God has
shown you unfathomable grace and mercy through His Son who He gave into death
for you. Now, how do we live in that
grace? How do we live out our baptismal
life? Because apart from faith, baptism
isn’t a “get out of hell free card.”
That’s
today’s epistle reading. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal
bodies, to make you obey their passions.
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,
but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to
life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” Paul is speaking to Christians, confused
Christians who understand the free grace of God to mean that it doesn’t matter
what they do with their bodies, it doesn’t matter how they live their lives;
the doors are wide open to them no matter what they do. But that’s not freedom, that’s running back
to the dungeon and casting themselves back into the chains of sin. That’s being a slave to sin.
Paul is speaking
to us, as well. Christ has freed us from
our sin, not freed us to sin. We’re free
but we’re not free from Jesus, we’ve been freed by Jesus. For who among us hasn’t fallen into sin. Who among us hasn’t had the thought, “My God
is a loving and forgiving God. I can
always just ask for forgiveness.” Let it
not be! You’ve been redeemed by the
blood of Christ, baptized into His death and resurrection, released from sin
and death through the suffering and death of the Son of God. What, now, is it that you want to do. Live as if you haven’t been redeemed, haven’t
been set free? Live like a person of the
world? Live like the tares instead of
the wheat? God forbid it!
As long as we live
on this side of glory we struggle, fight, and war against our old sinful
nature. We fight against our sinful
nature each and every day. It’s a
struggle. What God calls evil, the
sinful nature calls good. Our feelings
and emotions can betray us to this sin or that and you know the sins that you
deal with on a day to day basis. As long
as we live on this side of glory, we’ll be sinners who constantly need the
grace and mercy that comes through Christ.
Paul’s point isn’t that we must rid ourselves of sin, because if we’re
not sinless heaven’s gates are closed to us - that’s not what he’s saying. But neither is he saying that the grace of
God is a license to sin. We are raised
from death not to give in to it again, but to fight. The only weapon we have to fight against it is
God’s Word. The Gospel. Trusting who you are and what Christ has done
for you.
Namely, that our
Lord has freed you from the bondage of sin by Himself being placed into the
bondage of death. He shackled Himself to
your sin and carried them to the cross, where His sacred blood was shed for
them - where His innocent life was laid down for you. Like Kyle, the eternal, fiery death sentence
has been stayed, overturned, commuted, thrown out because Christ has already
bore the punishment your sins deserve.
You’re free. Free from the consequences that your sins
demand. Free from death – the just wages
for your sin. You’re free. Free to use your members for instruments of
righteousness. You’ve been set apart from
the wicked world to live in your baptisms each and every day – crucifying the
Old Adam and remembering who you are.
You’re a child of God. You’re
bought and paid for. Redeemed by the
blood of Jesus. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
However you have
sinned you’re forgiven. Washed clean in
the tide of Jesus blood. Given the free
gift of salvation because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for you. Let us die to sin and live in Christ – in our
baptisms. Let us, as Paul says, “present [our] members as slaves to
righteousness…” trusting in Christ, who has put away your sin and
remembering our baptisms, in which we live each day because we sin each and
every day. For the Lord forgives you
each and every day on account of His Sin.
You’re His Children – the people of God.
Set apart from this wicked world to be His own. You’re His, bought by the blood of His Son,
reborn in baptism. Christ died for
you. Never forget that.
But what about the
Kyles of this world? What about us,
who’ve convinced ourselves so many times that the freedom Christ bought us with
his own blood was instead a license to sin?
What about us, who for the fleeting graces of this world have strayed
from God’s good and enduring graces, God forbid! But we do it.
Lord, have mercy on us!
The governor must
not pardon Kyle, when he sees what a mockery he makes of the governor’s grace,
when he sees the damage Kyle keeps doing.
But for your sake Christ’s blood, however many times we’ve crucified him
over and over again, returning to our former ways like the proverbial dog to
its vomit —Christ’s blood, though we don’t always appreciate it, speaks a
better word: It is finished. If we have
been unfaithful, God is still faithful, to “forgive our sins and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.” And here is the power of God to save us and break
the shackles not only that bind us to death and hell, but to sin itself.
Let us not, then,
think in our hearts to remain ungodly. “For do you not know what all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death”, and
that the one who has died to sin can hardly live in it. But thanks be to God, that his mercy consists
in this: that he justifies the ungodly, that he saves sinners, that he who knew
no sin became sin for us, that he might make even us the righteousness of
God. We’re given to examine ourselves
with diligence and eagerness, for Christ the Holy One has come to take every
sin away, with the death and damnation it would have brought on us. Repent now, ever, always, therefore, with
tears of joy, for He who has promised this is faithful, and He will do it. You’ve been baptized into Christ’s death. And believing that baptism, that Christ the
Son of God has set you free, to be free indeed; and free you are. Amen.
The peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus
unto life everlasting. Amen.
