“Before Abraham was…” (John 8:48-59)

For those of you who are old enough to have watched the Seinfeld show on tv, you may recall an episode from twenty-five years ago entitled “The Comeback”. It all revolved around a conversation in the opening scene between George Costanza and a co-worker named Reilly. The two are taking a snack break at a business meeting, when Reilly observes that George is gobbling down considerably more than his fair share of a shrimp cocktail. This prompts Reilly to remark, “Hey George, the ocean called; they’re running out of shrimp.”

The result is that for much of the remaining half hour of the programme we see George making a succession of desperate attempts to come up with an equally witty comeback. But the outcome of all his efforts is a series of rejoinders that range from the pathetic to the positively offensive.

This morning’s verses from John come at the end of a series of exchanges between Jesus and some of the Pharisees. You can detect their hostility right from the very beginning. In verse 12 Jesus has just made one of his seven great amazing “I am” proclamations: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Coming from anyone else, this would seem to be an outrageously egotistical claim to make. And so, understandably, it prompts a contrary response from the Pharisees in the following verse: “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” And so the debate begins, back and forth, going on and on through the following thirty-five verses, and taking us right up to this morning’s passage.

This time it is the Pharisees’ turn to fire the opening volley. And it is a zinger: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

To understand the depth of this insult, take a moment and if you can, think way back to chapter 4, to Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman. You may recall how Jews and Samaritans regarded one another with hostility. In fact they had been engaged in an ongoing feud that had lasted for centuries. The result was that to call another person a Samaritan was to class them with the lowest of the low, someone you would not trust to let out of your sight for even a fraction of a second. Then, as though that insult were not enough, the Pharisees added another: “You have a demon.” It was as if to say that Jesus was not only a sad specimen of humanity, but that he was positively evil.

However, it is already clear that the Pharisees’ argument is weak. As Bishop J.C. Ryle observed 150 years ago, “To lose temper, and call names, is a common sign of a defeated cause.”[1] But once again Jesus was ready with an answer for them: “I do not have a demon, but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me…”

Jesus and the Father (48-51)

Now these words of Jesus may not stand out for us as being especially remarkable. As Christians we are accustomed to addressing God as “our Father”. It’s what Jesus has taught us to do. But I can only imagine that for the Pharisees Jesus’ referring to God as “my Father” would have more than raised a few eyebrows.

In the Old Testament there are fewer than half a dozen passages where God is referred to as “Father”. Yet here was Jesus speaking of the ineffable God, the God who thundered from the top of Mount Sinai, the God who was so holy that his name could never be pronounced by human lips—here was Jesus referring to the all-powerful Lord of all as “my Father”.

One of the images that the gospels give us of Jesus is of his intimate relationship with God the Father. We witness it most especially on the eve of his crucifixion. In what is commonly referred to as his high priestly prayer, John tells us “Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father…, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you…’” (John 17:1). As he kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pleads, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). And hours later, as he hangs from the cross, Jesus cries out on behalf of his executioners, “Father, forgive them…” (Luke 23:34).

Everywhere in the gospels we see that Jesus enjoyed a unique intimacy with the Father. And while this may have angered the Pharisees, the whole purpose of Jesus’ coming was that you and I might share in that relationship through faith.

It would not be going too far to say that this is the whole aim that John had in mind when he took the effort to write his gospel. In the opening verses we find him writing, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…” (John 1:12). Then, in his first epistle he rejoices, “See what glorious love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!” (1 John 3:1).

In Mark’s gospel (14:36) we learn that the expression that Jesus used to address his Father was the intimate word “Abba”. I had a first-hand experience of what that word means when we were renting a lakeside cottage one summer. The family next to us were from Israel and I remember one day hearing their little daughter running up from the beach to her dad, excitedly shouting, “Abba! Abba!”

And this is the relationship with God into which Jesus invites you and me today as we open our lives to him in faith. However, let me make it clear that this is not a relationship of crass familiarity. Rather, it is one of childlike trust, respect and obedience to an all-wise and all-powerful Father—one we know who desires only our good.

Jesus and Abraham (52-56)

But back to the dispute between Jesus and his detractors. It was time for them to launch another volley. “Are you greater than our father Abraham?” they ask. Their challenge was an accusation that Jesus either suffered from a delusional sense of grandeur or that he was deliberately lying. And I cannot imagine that they were ready for his reply: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.”

What was Jesus talking about when he made this claim? There are at least three possible answers. And for each of them we need to go all the way back to the Book of Genesis. The first comes in chapter 12. Abraham was still living in the city of Ur at the time, in what is now modern-day Iraq. It was there that the Lord met with him and told him to go to a land that he would reveal to him. “I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Now the first half of that promise had long been fulfilled. The nation of Israel had existed in one form or another for more than a thousand years. But it was in Jesus that the second half of that promise would become a reality, that not just a single nation, but all the families of the earth would be blessed—and you and I this morning are the fruit of that. And there are peoples we have never heard of in in every corner of the world who are still finding that blessing that God promised to Abraham and that comes to us through Jesus.

The second incident that Jesus may have been referring to comes in Genesis 17. By this time Abraham had reached the ripe old age of ninety-nine and his wife Sarai was not far behind him. They had long given up on any hope of having a child. Yet God promised once again that he would give them a son. These were his words in reference to Sarah: “I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” (Genesis 17:16). Abraham’s response was to fall facedown with laughter. And I can only imagine that tears of wonderment and joy must have streamed down into his beard, as he contemplated the God of wonders who is always faithful to his promises. And once again that promise found its fulfilment in Jesus.

The third incident comes in the chapter that follows, in the dramatic account of the near sacrifice of the son whom Sarah had borne. God comes to him once again and commands him, “Abraham! Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you”. I’m sure we’re all familiar with how the story proceeds. At the last minute, with his knife raised, Abraham hears a voice telling him to stop. As he looks up he glimpses a ram caught in a thicket and he knows that the Lord has provided a sacrifice. And Abraham called the place where it all happened, “The Lord will provide.” (Genesis 22:1-14)

More than a thousand years later another sacrifice would take place on that same mountain and it would be another Lamb of God’s providing, another substitute, who with outstretched arms would offer life, and salvation for all people. “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

Jesus the I AM (57-59)

Now you might think that this would have stopped the Pharisees. But they were determined to win the debate. “You are not yet fifty years old,” they retorted, “and have you seen Abraham?” To which Jesus replied with what has to be one of the most astounding claims in all of Scripture: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Now I suspect that most of you are familiar with what are called the seven “I am” sayings of Jesus that are all found in John’s gospel:

•  “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

•  “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

•  “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9)

•  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I know my own and my own know me…” (John 10:11,14)

•  “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26)

•  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

•  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Each one is in itself a remarkable statement. And we have encountered a couple of them already as we have been making our way through the Gospel of John. But in this morning’s reading we come across an eighth: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

To my mind this is the most astounding of Jesus’ claims in all the gospel. Notice that Jesus does not say, “Before Abraham was, I was,” but, “Before Abraham was, I am.” To understand this fully we need to go back to the Old Testament again, this time to the story of Moses in Exodus 3. Moses was tending his father-in-law’s sheep far out in the wilderness when he spotted a bush in flames (something that should send chills down our spines in Nova Scotia right now!). But when he looked, he could see that although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed. Then, as he got closer, he could hear a voice calling to him out of the flames: “Moses, Moses…”

We don’t have time to go through the whole story right now, but the upshot was that Moses was hearing none other than the voice of God. This was the almighty creator of heaven and earth, calling him to lead his people out of their centuries-long slavery in Egypt. When Moses asked how he was to explain this to them, he was told, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ … This is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:15).

The Pharisees caught the allusion in a snap. No more clever comebacks now! The time for civilized debate was over. And they began to pick up rocks to stone Jesus to death.

But there is another reaction they could have had. It is the reaction of Thomas seeing Jesus after his resurrection and exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” And it will be the chorus of thousands upon ten thousands who will gather around his throne and cry aloud,

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing! (Revelation 5:12)

And by God’s grace you and I will be among them.

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[1]     Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, John, vol 2, 122

“It didn’t just ‘happen’” (Isaiah 53)

It was a journey of some two thousand kilometers—from Jerusalem all the way back to what is modern-day Sudan. The lone traveler had come to worship at the Temple. And I can only imagine that it was for him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As his horse plodded along, he occupied his time by reading from a scroll he had no doubt acquired during the course of his stay in Jerusalem—the writings of the prophet Isaiah.

Now you have to realize that in those days no one read silently. Believe it or not, that practice wasn’t to come about for another thousand years. So it was that Philip, a Jesus-follower, who happened to be traveling along the same road, could hear every word that the Ethiopian was reading.

Curious, he asked the traveller, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” To which came the reply, “How can I without someone to explain it to me?” With that he invited Philip to climb up and sit with him in the chariot. And here is what he was reading:

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his descendants?
For his life was taken away from the earth.

“So who was the prophet talking about?” the traveler asked. “Himself or someone else?” And this was all Philip needed to begin to tell him about Jesus.

The passage, of course, was the remarkable fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, from which we have read this evening. It had been written centuries before, but it gives a vivid description of what was to take place at Calvary, as Jesus, the Lamb of God, hung dying on the cross.

Jesus’ crucifixion and the events that led up to it had come as a terrifying shock to the disciples. Even Peter, for all his bravado beforehand, had crumbled when things began to fall apart. And two days later the disciples could be found cowering in a room with its door locked and barred for fear that what had happened to Jesus might happen to them.

Yet it was not as though Jesus had not warned them about what was going to take place. The gospels record three separate occasions on which Jesus plainly told the disciples that he would be betrayed, rejected by the religious authorities and condemned to death. But they were not able to take in his warnings.

In fact, on the eve of his crucifixion, as the disciples were bickering over which of them was the greatest, Jesus quoted directly from this very passage. “For I tell you,” he said to them, “that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfilment.” (Luke 22:37)

Yet it was only after the resurrection that with Jesus’ help they began to be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Luke tells us in his gospel that it was then that Jesus took time with the disciples to open their minds to understand the Scriptures—that all that was written in the Law and the Prophets that would find its fulfilment in him (Luke 24:44-46). And as they began to look through the Scriptures, there it was again and again. Everything began to become clear in a way that it never had been before.

Perhaps you’ve seen this illustration before. At first glance it is a picture of an elderly woman, with a wart on her nose and a kerchief covering her head, looking sadly down, perhaps thinking back to the lost opportunities of the past. But if you look again, you can also see the figure of a young woman, her face turned away from us, perhaps looking ahead to what may await her in the future.

So it was that Jesus enabled the disciples to read the Scriptures in a whole new way. And so it was that on the Day of Pentecost Peter could proclaim to the crowd that had gathered, “Jesus of Nazareth … was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to a cross” (Acts 2:23). And there is no doubt in my mind that one of the passages from the Old Testament that was central in the thoughts of Peter and his fellow disciples was the one we have read this evening.

The events of the cross didn’t just “happen”. They were not a triumph of evil over good, not even for a split second. They were all a part of God’s plan from the beginning of time. And our passage from Isaiah this evening, the passage that the Ethiopian servant was reading on his long homeward journey, opens to us the mind of our gracious and merciful heavenly Father.

The words form the fourth of what are called the “servant songs” of Isaiah. Each one points ahead to the day when God would send his servant, in whom he delights and upon whom his Spirit rests, to bring glory to him and to be a light to the nations. Together they form a progression, reaching their climax in the final song—the passage we have read from this evening.

From the opening verse Isaiah recognizes that God’s plans for us are beyond our understanding. “Who could have believed what we have heard?” he asks. And indeed who would believe that the battered and bloody figure, limp and helpless and hanging from a cross, was the divine Son of God?

Isaiah said he would be despised and rejected. So it was that those who passed by as Jesus hung there laughed at him and mocked him with the taunt, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:39-40)

Yet Isaiah knew that the punishment that the servant would bear was not because of anything he had done, but for you and for me. “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities… The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” “He bore the sin of many,” Isaiah tells us, “and makes intercession for the transgressors.” And so it is that we hear Jesus pray, “Father, forgive them…”

It is a dark and gruesome picture. Yet through it all Isaiah also sees a glimmer of light. “The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand,” he tells us. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous…”

And so beyond the gloom of Good Friday we already are given a glimpse of the joy of that first Easter morning—and indeed of the eternal joy of heaven. We have a foreshadowing of that day when all creation will proclaim, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12)

When Philip left him and the Ethiopian servant went on to resume his southward journey, he was a changed man. He now knew the suffering servant as his Saviour and Lord. My prayer is that the same may be true for you on this Good Friday—that you may look to the cross of Jesus and find in him the one who was pierced for your sins and who was punished to bring you peace.

“Why did Jesus have to be baptized?” (Matthew 3:13-17)

My Oxford Dictionary defines the word “eccentric” as “odd or capricious in behaviour or appearance; whimsical”. I suspect there are a number of us who have had either friends or relatives they might describe as eccentric. I had an uncle who at one time ran a Shell gas station. Whether it was to save money or because he liked the colours, I don’t know, but he painted the exterior of his house in the same yellow and red. The neighbours didn’t like it, but it sure made it easy to find.

I don’t know if the statistics would bear me out, but it seems to me that the greatest concentration of eccentric people is to be found in the British Isles. There was, for instance, an officer of the British army in World War 2 known as “mad Jack Churchill”. He lived by the motto, “Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed”—and the sword he was referring to was the Scottish broadsword. In addition to his sword, he occasionally used a longbow. Early in the war he ambushed a German patrolman, shooting him with a barbed arrow. His shot earned him the title of the only British soldier to have felled an enemy with a longbow during the war.

Delving farther back into history, there was William Buckland. He was a clergyman and a brilliant geologist and palaeontologist, who lived in the early nineteenth century. He was known to have occasionally delivered his lectures on horseback and his obsession with the animal kingdom knew no bounds. The result was that his home was literally a zoo. Besides this, he was famous for eating animals of every species and placing them before his dinner guests. Various people who sat at his table recall being served panther, crocodile and mouse. Among the few creatures that did not suit his taste buds were moles and bluebottle flies.

Perhaps he was not as far along the eccentricity spectrum as William Buckland or Jack Churchill, but I do believe there is an argument that the man we meet with in this morning’s Bible reading falls somewhere into that category. He is John the Baptist (or John the Baptizer). Matthew describes John’s clothes as being made from camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waste, and that he lived on a diet of locusts and wild honey. (As an aside, locust eating probably wasn’t all that eccentric. Locusts were commonly eaten by the poorer people of that region and were an efficient source of protein.)

John’s message was uncompromising. He had no fear about exposing the hypocrisy of religious leaders, the corrupt practices of the tax collectors or the bullying tactics of the Roman soldiers—and ultimately his fearless denunciations would lead to his death. At the same time there were those who found John’s challenging message of repentance deeply attractive. And they came in droves to the grassy banks of the Jordan River.

However, John always recognized that his mission was only an anticipation of something far greater. And he knew its fulfilment was around the corner when one day he spotted Jesus in the crowd. “I baptize with water,” he said, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (John 1:26-27; Matthew 3:11-12). Then something that had never entered John’s mind began to happen. Jesus walked forward and stepped down into the water. John was aghast. “I’m the one who needs to be baptized by you,” he protested. “So what are you doing coming to me?”

And that’s the question I want to ask this morning. Why did Jesus feel the need to be baptized? And what did he mean when he said it was “to fulfil all righteousness”? I think the answer is threefold.

Submission

In the baptism of Jesus the gospels give us a unique picture of the Holy Trinity. As the Son emerges from the water, we see the Holy Spirit coming down as a dove and alighting on him, and we hear the voice of the Father pronouncing, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Before I say anything else, let me state that at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity there will always remain a mystery. We can skirt around the edges of it, but we can never fully penetrate it. Theologians have sought to clarify it, yet sometimes their explanations can leave us more confused than when we began. The most helpful approach I have found is through the picture of a dance. Eugene Peterson put it this way:

Imagine a folk dance, a round dance, with three partners in each set. The music starts up and the partners holding hands begin moving in a circle. On a signal from the caller, they release hands, change partners, and weave in and out, swinging first one and then another. The tempo increases, the partners move more swiftly with and between and among one another, swinging and twirling, embracing and releasing, holding on and letting go. But there is no confusion; every movement is cleanly coordinated in precise rhythms … as each person maintains [their] identity. To the onlooker, the movements are so swift it is impossible at times to distinguish one person from another; the steps are so intricate that it is difficult to anticipate the actual configuration as they appear.[1]

So it is, at the baptism of Jesus, that for a brief moment in time the curtain is lifted and we are given a glimpse of the eternal dance of the Trinity—a still shot, if you will. Here we see the Son empowered by the Spirit in humble and willing submission to the Father. And that is Jesus’ posture not only at his baptism but throughout his ministry, and indeed through eternity.

We hear it repeatedly from his own lips: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told his followers (John 4:34). “I do not seek to please myself but him who sent me” (John 5:30). “I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me” (John 14:31). And we see his unwavering commitment to that purpose most poignantly demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. There we find Jesus falling with his face to the ground as he prays, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

As Jesus stepped down into the Jordan to be submerged under the water, then, it was not as an act of repentance as John supposed, but as a public witness for all to see, to his complete commitment to the Father’s will. As he would later tell his followers, “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).

Solidarity

There is a second purpose that underlies Jesus’ baptism. That is, that it was not only an act of submission to the Father’s will but also an indication of his solidarity with the human race—with you and with me. Jesus was demonstrating in a visible, physical way that he is one with us, one of us.

Some of you may remember when the Queen visited Halifax in 1994. Part of her itinerary was to take her along Barrington Street. At that time Barrington was already well down along its slide from its former glory in the first half of the century. “Seedy” and “run down” would be a kind way to describe the way it looked. So the government spent thousands of dollars on temporary cosmetic improvements to some of the surrounding buildings. The result was that the street took on the appearance more of a movie set than of a real place. For some reason someone among the powers-that-be was of the opinion that the Queen should not be exposed to things as they really were.

Well, not so with the Son of God. When Jesus came to our world, he did not come as a visiting dignitary. The opening verses of John’s gospel emphatically tell us that the eternal Son of God became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14). As preachers such as myself are keen to point out, a literal translation of that verse is that “he pitched his tent among us”. What that means is that Jesus did not just come for an overnight visit—touch down, see a few of the sights and then fly off again. And he did not live in a palace, surrounded by all the luxury that this world is able to provide. No, he came as an ordinary man and over the course of thirty-three or however many years, experienced all that it is to be human.

Being baptized in the muddy waters of the Jordan was for Jesus a concrete way of conveying that this was what he was doing. As he plunged under the water, he was physically identifying with all those who were responding to John’s message—not standing on the bank in silent observation but throwing himself in with our lot, becoming one with us, immersing himself in our condition and all that that entails.

Sacrifice

Jesus’ baptism, then, was an outward and visible sign of his total submission to the Father’s will. And it was a sign of his solidarity with you and me in our human lot. But I believe there was also a third meaning to be found in what he did that day. And it is revealed in a couple of conversations he had with his followers some time later.

The first of them came while Jesus was teaching a large crowd. He had warned them in a parable of how they must be ready for the coming of the Son of Man. At that point Peter came to him privately and asked if the parable was just for them or for everyone. Part of Jesus’ response consisted of these words: “I have a baptism to undergo, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” (Luke 12:50) I can only imagine that Peter must have been mystified by those words. Nevertheless they stuck with him and lodged in his mind.

On another occasion two of Jesus’ followers came to him asking, “Let us sit at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.” To which Jesus replied, “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38) Again Jesus’ words were met with incomprehension.

Yet, while the disciples failed to grasp the implications of what Jesus was saying at the time, it became clear to them later that what he had been referring to was his death. So it was that, even at this beginning point in his ministry, there loomed before him the shadow of the cross. As Jesus descended into the waters of the River Jordan, he was also looking ahead to the day when he would be plunged into the deeper waters of death—when he would willingly offer himself up for you and for me on the cross.

There he would take upon himself not only our humanity but our sin. There he would bear the full weight of our waywardness and rebellion. And he did it so that you and I might be freed to be the men and women that God created us to be, to be human in the truest, fullest sense. He did it so that you and I might join in the joyful dance of the Trinity and one day hear our Father’s voice pronouncing, “This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter…”

Today, as we remember the baptism of Jesus, may it help us to recognize him as the one and only Son of God, completely submissive to the Father’s will. May we know his presence, walking alongside us, sharing our joys and our pains, our hopes and our disappointments. And may we live in gratitude that the road that began with his baptism was the road that led him to Calvary—that he was pierced for our transgressions and that by his wounds we have been healed.

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[1]     Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 44-45

Sermon – “No Room for Boasting” (Romans 3:19-28)

If you listened carefully to this morning’s New Testament reading, you may have noticed that there was one word that came up with amazing frequency: six times, in fact, in the first two verses, and then three more times in the last two. It was the word “law”. It is one of the key concepts in this letter to the Romans: key because the Roman church was made up of a mixture of Jews and non-Jews, and for Jews the law was something that was central to their identity as a nation. It marked them off as God’s people. And so the law, and its place within the Christian faith, became a crucial topic. Is it still in effect or do we disregard it altogether? What are we say about Jews who disobey the law, or about Gentiles who keep it?

Lest you think this interest in the law was a bit excessive, let me read you this excerpt from an article in the Wall Street Journal three years ago.

For decades, the task of counting the total number of federal criminal laws has bedeviled lawyers, academics and government officials. “You will have died and [been] resurrected three times,” and still be trying to figure out the answer, said Ronald Gainer, a retired Justice Department official. In 1982, while at the Justice Department, Mr Gainer oversaw what still stands as the most comprehensive attempt to tote up a number. The effort came as part of a long and ultimately failed campaign to persuade Congress to revise the criminal code, which by the 1980s was scattered among 50 titles and 23,000 pages of federal law. The project stretched two years. In the end, it produced only an educated estimate: about 3,000 criminal offenses. Since then, no one has tried anything nearly as extensive.

None of these studies broached the separate—and equally complex—question of crimes that stem from federal regulations, such as, for example, the rules written by a federal agency to enforce a given act of Congress. These rules can carry the force of federal criminal law. Estimates of the number of regulations range from 10,000 to 300,000. None of the legal groups who have studied the code have a firm number. “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime,” said John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor who has also tried counting the number of new federal crimes created in recent years. “That is not an exaggeration.”[1]

By contrast, the number of laws that Paul was referring to in the Old Testament can be counted. According to the rabbis there were 613 in all—365 negative ones and 248 positive. And all of them flowed from just ten commandments, which in turn Jesus summarized in two: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. It seems simple by comparison.

A Silence: The law makes us conscious of our sin (19-20)

Paul’s aim, as this morning’s passage opens, is to help his readers understand the basic purpose of the law itself. Sadly, there were those who saw the law as a kind of stick with which to beat those who lived outside its provisions. They took great pride in their possession of the law and in their knowledge of the law, but they were not necessarily all that careful about keeping the law. Or at best they were selective about it. While they were fastidious about circumcision, they may not have been entirely honest in their financial dealings. While they scrupulously obeyed the dietary laws, their sexual mores may have been questionable.

In this regard they were really no different from anyone else. We are quick to see others’ flaws and foibles. Yet we are blind to our own—or at best we try to minimize them or make excuses for them. Jesus brought that out when he asked, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).

And so, Paul declares, God did not devise the law so that we could point an accusing finger at others. Rather (in the words of the New Living translation), “Its purpose is to keep people from having excuses… The law simply shows us how sinful we are.” The version of this passage in The Message puts it even more clearly:

Whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.

I try to get into the gym a few times each week, and there are a number of us who kvetch from time to time about people who don’t re-rack the weights, who don’t bother to aim when they throw away their paper towels, who don’t flush the toilets … and the list could go on and on. Yet I need to ask myself, what about the times when someone has tried to share something important with me and I haven’t bothered to listen? What about the times when I have promised to do something and promptly forgotten about it? What about the times when I have failed to control my tongue? Suddenly the paper towels seem trivial by comparison.

Paul’s whole purpose up to this point in the letter is to demonstrate beyond any doubt that no one stands outside the condemnation of the law. The law teaches us that we are all without excuse. We have no defense. We can only stand in silence before the Judge of all.

The principal point of the law [wrote Martin Luther] is to make men not better but worse; that is to say, it showeth unto them their sin, that by the knowledge thereof they may be humbled, terrified, bruised and broken, and by this means may be driven to seek comfort and so come to … Christ.”[2]  

A Sacrifice: The cost of reconciliation (21-26)

And this brings us to Paul’s next point. For here we come to one of the most important words in all of Scripture. It is the little word “but”. That little word is the fulcrum on which the whole of the gospel swings. It introduces us to what New Testament scholar C.K. Barrett has described as “perhaps the richest and most important paragraph in the whole letter”.[3]

The law condemns us all. It’s like one of those action-adventure flicks. Our hero is being chased by a band of murderous hooligans. He scrambles over a chain-link fence and into an alleyway. The he realizes that it is a dead end. There is no way out. The thugs move towards him, rolling up their sleeves, drooling at the thought that in a moment they will be beating him to a pulp. Then suddenly you hear the whirring of a helicopter overhead. A rope dangles in front of our hero and he is whisked off into safety as his attackers reach up in a last vain effort to grab him by his boots.

That is the effect of that one word “but”. In the words of the New Living Translation, “The more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it. But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law…”

How has he done this? In three words in verses 24 and 25 Paul gives us three vivid images. The first is “justification” and here Paul brings us into the courtroom. We stand before the judge, guilty as charged. Yet instead of imposing upon us the full force of the law and giving us the sentence we justly deserve, he grants us a pardon.

Paul’s second picture is of the slave market. It comes to us in the word “redemption”. In the ancient world captives of war were often paraded into the marketplace and auctioned off to the highest bidder to become slaves for the rest of their lives. The law teaches us (and rightly so) that we are captivated and enslaved by sin. Yet God has graciously released us and given us a new freedom. “If the Son sets you free,” Jesus promises us, “you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

The third place to which Paul brings us is the altar. Paul tells us of Jesus as being put forward as a “sacrifice of atonement”. In the Old Testament atonement always involves sacrifice. This was to underline the fact that reconciliation—true reconciliation, that is—never comes without a cost. It is not a question of just pretending that nothing is wrong. It is not as though we can just leave our sins behind as though nothing ever happened. “The righteous, loving, faithful God,” writes C.E.B. Cranfield, “does not mock or insult his creature man by pretending that his sin does not matter, but rather himself bears the full cost of forgiving it righteously—lovingly.”[4]

A Standing: Made right with God through faith (27-28)

Whether it is as Protestants or as products of the twenty-first century or a combination of both, we tend to shrink from the often gory depictions of past centuries of Jesus on the cross. We prefer our simple, sanitized versions, that work well as a decoration on a living room wall or on the covers of our prayer books. Someone has observed that Jesus died not on a silver cross between two candlesticks, but on a wooden cross between two thieves. Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ may be criticized at points but it does bring across the sheer brutality of the cross. There Jesus has taken the full brunt of our sin in all its ugliness upon himself.

Yet the point of all this is not to overwhelm us with guilt, but to draw us to faith. For on the cross we are confronted not only with the horror of our sin but even more with the wonder of God’s grace. There is a prayer in our Book of Common Prayer that begins, “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace…” The cross stands as the symbol of God’s condemnation of human sin. Yet it also stands as an invitation, in the words that we heard from Jesus in this morning’s Gospel: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Here is how Eugene Petersen puts the final verses of this morning’s passage in The Message: “What we’ve learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does… Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.” In the cross of Christ God has taken the initiative to deal with sin, yours and mine, once and for all. All that is left for you and for me to do is to trust him.

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[1]     “Many Failed Efforts to Count Nation’s Federal Criminal Laws”, Wall Street Journal, 23 Jul 2011

[2]     Quoted by John Stott in Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 104

[3]     Reading Through Romans, 15

[4]     Romans, A Shorter Commentary, 68