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"Ash Wednesday"
Pr. David Hewitt - February 6, 2008
The 65-year old man was feeling old and vulnerable – very, very vulnerable. A few years earlier he had been told that he had a benign tumor in his upper jaw. They removed his upper jaw in surgery. For many months now, he has not been able to eat or speak without wearing a ‘fake’ upper jaw – what they called “a removable prosthesis.” For now, he felt depleted, less than whole. This man from Finland worried that others would note this ‘malformation’ of his, and he would have to endure that feeling of embarrassment, that tinge of rejection.
You know, we all are tempted to feel more of a concern for ourselves than for others – we don’t like to have to endure situations fraught with rejection and embarrassment; we especially feel that way when it comes to our bodies; we don’t want to be rejected, most of all, by the one who created us – by God Himself. St. Paul talked with the Romans about the struggles we all have within us – between the sinner and the saint – deep inside of us. Now, in the lesson for tonight, we hear St. Paul describe how each of us GROAN under the burden of this interior struggle, every day of our lives. He writes, “In this tent [this body] we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling [our new heavenly body] ….We groan,” he says, “under our burden.” We want, he says, “what is mortal” within us, what is sinful within us, to be “swallowed up by LIFE” – swallowed up by eternal life.” [see 1 Corinthians 5:1 to 6:10 for the whole lesson] Paul says that we know that there is a better body and soul that is promised for our future – why? Because God has given us His Spirit, and that Spirit, Paul says, tells us so!
Now, this man, who is from Finland, this jawless man, was looking for a better body in this life, a better jaw. Scientists in Finland decided to help him in his search. They would experiment on him. They just might find a new way to create for him a real upper jaw – an upper jaw that would – though a NEW CREATION, still be his.
St. Paul talked about “new creations,” too. “From now on,” proclaimed Paul, “we regard NO ONE from a human point of view” because of what Christ has done! “So,” he concluded, “if anyone – ANYONE! – is in Christ, he or she is a NEW CREATION; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
So Paul proclaims – but how can this be? When we look into a mirror, we see our old bodies; when we look into our memories, we see our old mistakes, our old sins; when we see into the distant future, we see injury, sickness, and death ahead! So, how can this be?
That’s what the man from Finland was thinking. The scientists told him that they were going to take some cells from his stomach and remake his jaw. “How can this be?” He thought. They told him that within his stomach they now know where they can find stem cells, which can now be made into many kinds of cells in the laboratory, including bone and blood vessel cells that can become your new jaw, they said. These stem cells are what we call “the master cells” of the body, and these master cells can do anything, they said. “Master cells?” he asked. “Master cells,” they repeated.
You know, Paul told us that the grace of God will sway us to do two things that will move us from death to new life: “Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead” was one; “Confess with your lips that Jesus is your MASTER” was the other. (Rom. 10:9) And when we confess that Jesus is our Lord and Master, the Master’s cells are injected into us, to do their holy work. For when we confess, every day, that Jesus is Master, we kill that selfish sinful self, and the new creation comes to life! Paul put it this way today: “Jesus died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Jesus [their Master], who died and was raised for them” – raised for US. (2 Cor. 5:15)
How does God pull off this miracle? How does He give us new life? Well, He orchestrates what Luther later called “the blessed exchange” – Jesus takes on our sin, and WE take on Jesus’ righteousness! “For our sake,” says Paul, “God made Jesus to be sin even though Jesus knew no sin, so that IN JESUS we might become” –now get this – “the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21) Did you catch that? –That seemingly absurd statement from God – that we – we sinners – can somehow become the perfect righteousness of God? Hah!
Well, that fellow from Finland at first said “Hah!” too, when he heard what the scientists were going to do next to him – for after taking his Master stem cells and, for 2 weeks, growing them in a specially formulated nutritious soup that included the patient’s own blood serum, the scientists then attached these developed cells to a scaffold made of a special biomaterial and put it in this Finn’s abdomen again – to grow for a certain number of months. Do you know how many months? You guessed it – nine months pregnant! And then he gave birth, so to speak, they then removed a bit of skeleton (with attached blood vessels to boot!) that later became this man’s new upper JAW!
Now, just as this man had Master cells placed in his body so that they could grow and take over, so also God does this with HIS “Master cells” placed, by faith, within each of us. But, like this guy from Finland, with a growing jawbone hidden in his stomach, our “growth in Christ” seems hidden at first – sometimes even hidden to us! Certainly the change in the early Christians, was often missed by the outside world – hidden from them -- because THE WORLD was not looking the right way. Even though the early Christians sought to be loving, kind and truthful; even though they went through many hardships and calamities, to the pagans of the world these Christians still couldn’t cut it. “We are treated [by the world],” Paul wrote, “as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well-known; as dying, and see – we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” – everything WORTH possessing, I might add. (2 Cor. 6:10)
You see what this world doesn’t see – but what we sometimes see and God ALWAYS sees – is Christ’s righteousness within us, given to us by His Grace. Now, as a parent, I think I get this now. I know that, as a parent, I have been given super-duper eyeglasses to wear – God-glasses, you might say, that I can look through when I look at my children. With my loving, super-duper God-glasses, I see Christ’s righteousness, their potential for good, in each one of them. Even when they mess up and I have to correct them or punish them, I am still, somehow, inspired to encourage them and forgive them; I still see what’s great and godly in them. And kind of in the same way, God uses His “Christ-glasses” and always sees our righteousness, our potential, that we had when He first created us, but now renewed again in His eyes. Paul was right: “So if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
You know, just a few days ago, Friday, February 1st, these scientists from Finland announced their success to the whole world. They told everyone how the lump they had hidden inside in this man’s abdomen had grown to be a perfect-size jawbone, complete with blood vessels to nourish it, and how the surgeons had attached it to everything else – and how this man’s jaw felt as good as new!
Well, God tells us we can be “good as new,” for He has placed a lump of hope, a lump of faith, a lump of pure Christly righteousness within each of us. Now we can have supreme confidence in God and His promises, partly because of our faith in the hidden growth of God’s lump, believing that God is growing a divine love deep inside our hearts and souls. Now we know why St. Paul says things like “Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” because “neither death nor life nor…anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God” –found in whom? “found in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Master.” (Romans 8:39)
You see, we can have confidence that somehow God is doing wonders now through us – in ways we don’t even know – and that we will do even greater wonders for God in the future. We have confidence that, as Jesus said, “our left hand” is doing good deeds “that our right hand does not know about.” (Matthew 6:3) We have confidence in this “life of unrecognized good works” that Paul says we have, “hidden in Christ,” as he told the Colossians (Colossians 3:3). We have confidence that when we come before God’s judgment throne, and we are told what good things we have done, we (the forgiven) will say, as the good say in Jesus’ end-times parable, “Lord, what good have we done? When have we seen you sick or hungry or thirsty or naked or in prison?” And Jesus will respond, “When you helped the least of these, you helped Me.” (Matt. 25) And that confidence in God’s love for us…that confidence in God’s confidence in us…in turn builds up our spirits today, so that we dare to do more for God, and less for us, so that it is no longer you or I who live, but it is Christ who lives in and through you and me. (Galatians 2:20)
You see, these ashes…THESE ASHES symbolize the death of something – the death of our sinful selves. And when we put to death the sinful self, we are not primarily putting to death our sins. What we are putting to death is that devilish, accusing, flawed view of our own selves – that view that defines us by what we can’t do, rather than by what we CAN do, IN Christ Jesus. Christ invites you and me to define ourselves not by our sins and bad habits, but instead He invites you and me to define ourselves by our righteousness – which is ours only as a gift from Jesus Himself; for it is then that we can begin to leave those sins and bad habits behind, because they are not “us” anymore. We are not defined by them. You know all of this righteousness God has given us—it’s like God has given us a million dollars, and then He acts towards us like we somehow have earned it ourselves! And He says, now go and use that million you’ve been given, and see what good you can do with it – for I’ve given you a lot to play with!
And God’s right. “In Christ Jesus” God has given us a lot – a lot of hope, a lot of repentance, a lot of prayer, a lot of patience, a lot of love, a lot of courage, a lot of hidden resources, a lot of God’s Word, and a lot of the Holy Spirit. And when I think about that, and when I believe it, MAN, I have to tell you…I feel like I’m brand new again – I feel like a new creation…and I see all of YOU as new creations, too. Amen!
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