Episode 31: 3/11/09

Readings:

Psalm 72
Jeremiah 3:6-18
Romans 1:28-2:11
John 5:1-18

Sermon:

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not hold the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
The First Epistle of St. John, Chapter 1, Verses 5 through 7

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

It would be Christ himself who would explain it the best…

Questioned by the Pharisees and the Sadducees about the commandments of God, it would be asked of him which was the greatest of the laws handed down by the Lord. Perhaps they expected a certain answer or a certain response from the Savior. After all, they had spent their entire lives in pursuit of that perfection demanded of them by the Mosaic Covenant handed down to the children of Israel through the prophet at Mount Sinai so many generations before. To them there were varying degrees of condemnation and judgment carried by disobedience, and so fearful were they of it that they would not even speak the proper name of God, referring to Him as Adonai, that they might refrain from even accidentally using His name in vain thus violating the ten commandments.

Perhaps it was that they had expected that he would answer that there was no greatest commandment, there was no greatest of laws. After all the wages of sin are death, a fate none can escape, and each sin is deserving of eternal condemnation and damnation at the hands of a vengeful, wrathful God. There, if the price of our transgressions against God earn the same punishment there can be no greater iniquity than another.

Except though that for Christ, the Lord was not about the law. Yes, He gave the law unto the people to live by, and yet, amidst that there comes the greater spiritual truth. If all sin and fall short of the glory of God, and our flesh is weak, so prone to the temptations of this world, then none can escape God’s justice.

But God… God did not give the law that all may be damned. Rather it was to point to why we needed His love and His mercy, His divine compassion, more than anything else. It was given that it could point to the Gospel message of Salvation, of that coming Redeemer who would rescue the captive people from the powers of sin, death and the Devil.

For Christ the greatest of God’s commandments was love. Love for the Lord, love for your neighbor, love for your fellow man, a love that transcended the nature of our flesh and that sought to draw us closer to the God who loved us first.

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

To walk with God is to abide in His commands, realizing that though we are sinful, though our spirit may be willing, still our flesh is weak; though we transgress against His laws, that through Christ the old man is washed away and we are born again in the water and the word by the power of the Holy Spirit. There each Christian, grafted on to the tree of life is called to be an imitator of Christ, to walk in His footsteps, seeking to be as He was. To walk on that path of righteousness is to walk in the light… the light that has been shined upon us by God as that great pillar of fire that will lead us through the wilderness of this world to the Promised Land of our Salvation.

But none, not one, can walk in the light if there is hatred in their heart, if they show contempt to their fellow man in thought, word or deed, by what they have done or left undone.

Why? Because to love God is to love His creation and to love His Gospel Message given through Christ. That Gospel message is a message for all people in all places, through all things. Each of us, reconciled to the Lord through the blood of the Lamb, is called to spread that message to all the nations. How can we abide in a message of love, how can we spread a message of love if there is hatred or spite in our hearts?

We can’t, because God is love and love is light. There God cannot dwell in those places were evil reigns, where darkness encompasses, and those places in our soul where we find it so easy abide in hatred, to deal in hatred, the Holy Spirit of our Lord cannot find itself.

It isn’t to say that we should not detest sin, we are taught over and over again to throughout the Word of the Lord, to look upon it with a repulsion that rejects its very nature, that rejects it to the very core of our being. But there we cannot mistake the sinner for the sin, choosing instead to hate the person rather than the acts that they do, rejecting there our Christian duty to call all people to a sincere repentance out of a deep sense of compassion and devotion that we feel towards them. The deep sense of compassion and devotion that Christ showed us.

Ours must be to draw closer to God and to our fellow man through a spirit of love and kindness, through a willingness to accept others, while rejecting the evils of this world in all of its forms. This is the message that Christ and the Apostles have taught to us throughout time, that even when it is hard, even when there are those who would seek to do us harm or to cause us grave injury, ours must be to forever deal in love with them. Each of us, are called to be as St. Stephen, never raising harsh words even as the world persecutes and punishes us for our faith, never condemning people for the iniquity of their sins, but always calling on God that through His Holy Spirit they may be convicted and called to a faith of love and charity to their fellow man.

It’s hard, and without a doubt we will stumble even when the path seems paved and without challenge, yet God has, in each of us, through our faith, created a new heart within us if we trust in Him and love Him, understanding He will give us the patience that we perhaps seem to be lacking at times.

As we celebrate this season of Lent, a season where we remember the sacrifice of Christ, we too must remember that it is a season of love, for what was that sacrifice except an undeserved love that sought to reconcile all to God even when we were lost and should have been deemed so unworthy of it?

Love therefore as Christ loved and as God so loves us, showing that divine Spirit unto all people, even when it seems hard or difficult, even when it seems as if it was impossible, knowing that to live in that love is to live in God, and there is no greater commandment than that.

Lord, grant this unto us all.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that peace that transcends all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting, Amen.