[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon Fifth Midweek Lenten Vespers 28 March 2007 "A New Thing" LSB Series C Vicar Hans W. Fiene Soli Deo Gloria!

During the past several Sunday evenings, the college students and I have been doing a unit on the topic of sanctification. As a guide for this discussion, I've been using a book called The Quest for Holiness, which written by a Lutheran theologian and professor named Adolph Koeberle. Now, this book is pretty rich and dense. There are plenty of sentences you'll have to read five or six times before you really get the idea. But there are also a number of very simple, approachable statements made by Koeberle that are still dripping with theological brilliance. One of those sentences came to my mind while I considering this week's text from Isaiah.

In the beginning of the book's fourth chapter, Koeberle describes what's essentially the spiritual wasteland of the fallen world. Because of its separation from God, this world fails to understand that there is nothing man can do to remove his sin, nothing man can do will make him acceptable before God. And because of this, when Christ enters into the flesh, he enters into a world where everybody has buried themselves in their own attempts to become holy in the sight of a God that they themselves can't see. So in a perfect explanation of who Christ is and what Christ has come to do for this world, Koeberle makes this statement: "From the manger to the Cross, Christ's life is a holy protest against the fashion of the world in which he finds it." Koeberle then goes on to say, "In His words and deeds with masterful anticipation He testifies to the new reality, which cannot be actually realized till the victory has been determined and assured by His death and resurrection." This quote from Koeberle is strongly reminiscent of these words from Isaiah's 43rd chapter: "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing." You see, Christ's death and resurrection don't just accomplish the death of the old, sinful things. They also accomplish an ushering in of a new, holy thing.

When Isaiah speaks of the chariots and the horses, the army and the reinforcements being extinguished in the mighty waters in today's text, this is a reference to the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. Because Isaiah labels this as among the "former things", the implication is that slavery under Pharaoh represents the old, sinful age. Just as the Israelites were enslaved by the power of Pharaoh and just as God liberated his people by destroying the slave master, so God is going to liberate his people who are enslaved by sin by destroying Satan.

But just as God didn't remove his hand from guiding the Israelites once their enemies were drowned, so God doesn't break Satan's chains from around our necks and leave us free to roam this barren wasteland that is the destroyed old world. No, God does as He declares through Isaiah, "a new thing," or as Koeberle puts it, He testifies to the new reality. He gives water in the wilderness. He pours His streams into the wasteland. In other words, what happens in Christ's death and resurrection is two fold. Not only does he make the old unholiness within you dead. He also makes a new holiness live within you. But despite the fact that both parts are accomplished solely be Christ, we don't always see it this way.

Let's look at what happens in the Cross from the angle of Luther's explanation of the second article of the Creed. "I believe in Jesus Christ…who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil." We generally have no trouble believing that this part is accomplished solely by Christ-that not an ounce of that redemption depends on us. So, when Christ kills the old things within us, that's all His accomplishment.

But when Luther continues with these words: "that I may be his own and live under Him in his kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness,"-well, we tend to think of this as being our responsibility. Essentially, the view is that Christ frees us from sin and then opens the door to the new life that comes in being His own-but it's ultimately our responsibility to walk into that new life and then make ourselves as holy as possible.

But not only does this view sin against Christ by denying His work. It also can be a great danger to our faith. How can we ever know that we've done as much as we can and followed God's will to the best of our ability? There's a scene in the movie Schindler's List when Oscar Schindler is surrounded by the countless Jews he was able to save from the death camps through his considerable wealth. And in that moment, Schindler breaks down in tears, completely unsatisfied with what he's done. He keeps saying to himself, "I could have saved one more."

So it is with us. How have we, in any real way, filled ourselves with the new things when we could have done so much more? When we could have prayed more. When we could have given more money to the poor. When we could have talked to more people about our faith. How can God really be pleased with us when we could have been filled with so much more? Shouldn't a true Christian do better? Can we even be sure that we're Christians when we've failed so greatly? Clearly, believing that Jesus alone destroys the former things within us is of no value when we believe that it's up to us to fill that hole with the new, holy things that God wants.

When we despair in such a way, we find ourselves buried in our own attempts to become the people that God wants us to be. And that struggle becomes the fashion of our world. But from the Manger to the Cross, Christ's life is a holy protest against the fashion of the world in which he finds it. Throughout that Holy Protest, all of Christ's words and deeds scream against this losing battle we fight make God love us. And in that holy protest, Christ testifies to the one glorious truth that every unholy sinner needs to here: there is absolutely nothing that God requires of us that Christ doesn't give to us through His Cross and empty tomb. Christ doesn't just remove from you what God hates. He puts into you what God loves. Christ doesn't just open the door to the new life. He wraps his arms around you and carries you into it.

Now, one of the reasons that people often feel as though they're failing to live in that new Christian life is because you can't really see it. So, when you're still engaging in sinful behavior and when your life is still burdened with struggles, it doesn't seem as though you're living in any different kind of life than a non-Christian. But what we see is not always what God sees. And the distinction between the former things and the new thing isn't really about outwardly pure or impure behavior. It's about trust. To forget the former things is to abandon the world that Christ's life protests against. It's ceasing to put your trust in yourself to make your life holy. To perceive the new thing is to trust completely that Christ has accomplished everything for you. It's trusting that Christ can't take the unholy things out of you without also putting the holy things into you. It's trusting that it's never up to you be make yourself any more at peace with God than Christ has already made you.

And even though the new life we receive through Christ's Holy Spirit won't reach it's completion until we are joined with God in Heaven, we're still living in that life and growing in that life at this very moment. And the way we live in that life is very simple. It's not done by running off to a monastery and trying to impress God by praying for 12 hours a day or anything like that. Living in the new life is done when we daily receive the benefits of what Christ won for us upon the Cross. We live in that new life when Christ's Holy Spirit calls us to repentance and strengthens our faith through the Word of forgiveness. And when Christ shows us how he has fulfilled all of God's will for us, He moves us to do God's will not out of compulsion, but out of the gladness. To pray, to help the poor or even to confess our faith because we believe we have to is to live in the old world. But to do these things because the forgiven and free heart delights in doing them is to live in the new life.

As we prepare for the culmination of Christ's holy protest in His passion, may we remember that, just as the Christ's death and resurrection is a two-fold process, so is the season of Lent. Not only are we preparing to turn our eyes away from the former things, from the world that Christ is preparing to destroy with His blood. We are also preparing for Christ to deliver us into the new, holy creation forged from His Cross and empty tomb.