Lent Five

Lent Five THE FORGIVEN FORGIVE 3/21 & 3/25/07

Jesus hung there, pinioned to the cross, looking down upon the world that rejected Him and the people who crucified Him. From the cross, He shouted to the heavens---

“Father, curse these enemies of mine, these people who have nailed me to this cross, for they know full well what a brutal, hideous atrocity they have performed and they must pay four times over!”

This is not what Jesus said from the cross…these words sound so unlike Jesus, but perhaps a bit more like David as recorded in our OT lesson. Yet, Jesus had every right to curse His captors! We might understand if Jesus had spoken these unforgiving words as He hung dying on that cross. But, what excuse do we offer for the hurtful language hurled from our lips…inappropriate language we hear and, perhaps, say at social events, public gatherings, and school hallways? Lord knows, and so do we, that there are more than enough thoughtless, hurtful remarks to go around!

We pray in The Lord’s Prayer that God would “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. The first part of this petition we pray with eagerness, yet praying the second part with anxiety. We’re all in favor of forgiveness, so long as we are the ones being forgiven! Forgiving one another? You bring someone to mind…Well, that’s quite a different story! We fully expect God, through Jesus, to forgive us even if we offer little more than a “nod” to acknowledge our “bondage to sin”. But, we bristle at the mere suggestion that we are to forgive others for wrongful words or deeds! We say “We can’t”, when we really mean “We won’t!” We know and trust that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive our sins, but we act as though it might “kill” us to forgive others of sins far less significant!

Raise your hand if you’ve never been in need of forgiveness. As I thought! Our need to be forgiven is as basic to “this day” as is our prior petition for “daily bread”. Every person who dares pray for “daily bread” needs also to pray for daily forgiveness. So vitally connected are the need for daily bread and daily forgiveness that in most translations Matthew(6:12) and Luke (11:4) connect these petitions : “Give us this day our daily bread AND forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Call them “debts”, as does Matthew, describing something we “owe” to another; call them “sins”, as does Luke, describing the ways and places we have missed the mark; or call them “trespasses”, describing missteps, going where we shouldn’t, stepping out of bounds…they are really the same thing. Jesus wraps them all into the single term “trespasses” with His own personal footnote following the gift of this prayer: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Mt. 6:14-15) Whether “sins” or “debts” or “trespasses,” they all cry out for full payment, for forgiveness and reconciliation…in our relationship w/God and our relationship w/one another!

This congregation and world stand clearly in need of forgiveness and forgiving! The Church has grown “luke warm” in fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission, in accepting “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18) God has given us. We do not preach, teach, live, and give the Gospel as effectively or enthusiastically as we should and can, yet God “has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”(2 Cor. 5:19) We over-feed our faces, aware of world and local hunger. We know people who have not accepted Christ, but appease our consciences with such anesthetizing terms as “unchurched” or “inactives” or tolerance. We are more likely to discuss the daily weather than the divine Word. Like the “religious people” in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we see the needs of others and, often, choose to “pass by on the other side.” (Lk. 10:31-32) We live in a sin-full and, for the most part, unforgiven and unforgiving world.

We need forgiveness as individuals, for our relationship with God is still a matter of one person at a time. It does us no good to complain about how sinful this world is, how immoral and unethical leadership seems to be in most any venue, while we fail to

“ notice the log in your own eye.”(Lk. 6: 41) We need to hear the same words of indictment Nathan spoke to King David: “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7) Our debts divide us from the divine, as Isaiah pronounced: “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear.”(59:2)

Without Jesus, we remain separated from “Our Father”. But, as the Temple curtain was torn in half on Good Friday, so Jesus tears down all that separates us from the Father! As Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church: “He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21) In Christ we have forgiveness and, through Christ, we are expected and empowered to forgive. Forgiven children will forgive their sisters and brothers, by God! AMEN.