Sermon - 2015-03-22

The death of Jesus Christ is something that we as Christians often focus upon.  However, most people are fearful of death.  Now there are Christians who talk about Jesus being an example of how we should live.   Jesus’ teaching being a guideline for how we should live our life.  Why do we as Christians speak so openly, so often, and so emphatically about the death of our Savior and Lord?  

It is through our Savior’s death that we are made right in our relationship with God.  It is through Jesus’ death and resurrection that Jesus does the work of our salvation.  Jesus’ death makes up for all the wrongdoing that we have done, should have done, and declares to us what God thinks of us.  For this very reason, we gather together at a funeral.  We gather together to share the memories of the loved one; we gather together to comfort one another; but more importantly, we remember and hear the declaration that Jesus Christ has done and overcome death for our loved one who is now in the loving arms of our Savior and Lord.

Even as Jesus is sharing with his own disciples that he will die,  he becomes greatly troubled by it.  However, even in the midst of his troubles, he knows that His Heavenly Father is still with him.  His Heavenly Father is giving him strength, courage, and comfort to go forth to do the work that His Father is calling him to do.  Jesus is confronted by the work that he must do to overcome sin.  Yet, Jesus had no sin.  He had done nothing against His Father in Heaven.  So why did he have to die? He didn’t, instead he chose to die for our sake.  He saw the sin of this world and came to overcome it.

For many of us, we do not think that we are sinners.  Or at the very least, we do not want to admit it.  However, we begin each worship service with a confession and forgiveness. We speak the words that ask for forgiveness of things we have done or the things that we have left undone.  Our sins are upon us.  Like a little boy playing outside and we come in.  Our mother looks at our jeans at the grass stains that are on our knees. Our mother gets mad and we know we are in trouble. Or worse yet, the grass stains are gone and holes are left.  Whether our sins are visible like the grass stains or holes within our life.  The sins are there.  We know it. Others know it.  God knows it. Now with this knowledge, are we called to judge? To condemn? No.

It is the work of Jesus. Through his body and blood, his suffering, his dying and overcoming sin, death, and the power of the devil, that we are able to move out of fear and into the love of Jesus Christ.  All of this is so very important. We are reminded that in our daily life and the way we live our life, God is there also.  It is not only the people that we encounter each day, but in those relationships and in those encounters that God is there also.  God is always in the midst of our life.  

Now, we need to hear this. We need this reminder because so often we forget, we doubt, or we do not want God to be in every aspect of our life.  However, there Christ is, in the midst of our filth, in the midst of our life, and in the midst of the moment, we need God.  In the midst of the moments that we fear, God is there doing the work that we can not do.  Jesus does this work so that we are no longer divided, but now we are united.  Not by our last name, not by our own work, but through the body and blood of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.  This is the work that Jesus does for our sake.