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Good Grief |
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Jackson Snyder, February 9, 1997 |
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Text: 2 Cor 7:1-4,8-13 The film "The Mission," featuring Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons, is set in 16th century Peru. Deniro plays Rodrigo, a despicable mercenary and slave trader. Rodrigo has made his fortune in procuring slave labor from the local Indian tribes. Rodrigo returns from an expedition to find that his wife has fallen in love with his brother. In uncontrollable rage, Rodrigo outmatches his brother at swords, and kills him in the street, before the whole town. When his rage subsides, guilt over the loss of his brother and his degrading lifestyle overcome him. He takes a cell in a monastery where he languishes for six months without speaking. A missionary priest visits him and tries to convince him that not only God can forgive him, but through penance, he can forgive himself. After many fruitless visits, Rodrigo is at last convinced to at least try repentance and the prescribed penance. His penance is to climb the shear mountain-side to the village of the Indian tribe he has molested for so long to seek their forgiveness. But he is to carry all his weapons of war - his swords, his heavy armor, his tools of slavery - in a net suspended behind him by a heavy rope. The climb seems impossible with such a burden. Rodrigo struggles to climb the mountain. He uses every ounce of his strength - his burden of sin is as heavy as his burden of metal. At last he makes it nearly to the top. The missionary who is climbing with him feels so sorry for him that he cuts the rope and the armor falls back 100 feet to the ground. But Rodrigo's sins are not yet atoned for. There is no relief -- the mission had not been perfectly accomplished due to the interference of one who had mercy. Rodrigo climbs back to the bottom of the mountain face, and ties the burden back on his shoulders, where he begins his arduous journey once more. Finally, after incredible struggle, Rodrigo makes it over the precipice to the top. The Indians, so impressed by his willingness to atone, use their knives not to cut his throat (as we suppose they will), but to cut the burden from his back once and for all. The Indians care for him in his weakness; and Rodrigo, now bereft of the burden of armor and guilt, has fulfilled his mission of penance, is cleansed of his sin, and becomes a man of God who, in the end, gives his life to help save the Indian village that forgave him. For us lent should be just such an encounter with our sins - Lent is a journey up the mountain of struggle to the village of forgiveness. And Lent begins today, with Ash Wednesday. "Ash Wednesday emphasizes a dual encounter: we confront our own mortality and confess our sin before God within the community of faith. ... The use of ashes as a sign of mortality and repentance has a long history in Jewish and Christian worship, and the Imposition of Ashes can be a powerful nonverbal and experiential way of participating in the call to repentance and reconciliation. This practice is the historic focus of Ash Wednesday observance and gave the day its name." Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. 'Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which ... ends on Holy Saturday. Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'spring.' This season is a preparation for celebrating [Resurrection Sunday]. Historically, Lent began as a period of fasting and preparation for baptism by converts and then became a time for penance by all Christians. ... Because Sundays are [types of the resurrection], the penitential spirit of Lent should be tempered with joyful expectation of the Resurrection." Ash Wednesday is a reminder of our sinfulness and mortality. Repentance and regeneration is a very important factor in our longevity of life, not only eternally, but also earthly. The burden of sin and lack of holiness in our lives and witness excludes us from immortality and shortens our lives as flesh and blood. These 40 days of Lenten repentance are part of a process of grieving. It spells the painful death of the old and the advent of the new life. It means that we must be a factor in our own change - change for the better - change godward - toward holiness and perfection; for we serve a perfect God and none can approach him except she be holy, adorned with God's justifying power. Let us learn true repentance from a man who knew the meaning of the word, and let us learn what God expects of us as we enter the door of lent through repentance and ashes this evening.
1. The promises referred to here include unobstructed opportunity for salvation, to be worked out with "fear and trembling." 2. That "working out" means eliminating defiling practices in our lives - those pertaining to the flesh as well as those pertaining to the spirit. 3. This cleansing, or katharsis (as psychologists call it), leads to holiness ("god-likeness"), and holiness is a condition for ultimate salvation. Holiness is a self-reworking with the aid of the Holy Spirit - it is a discipline - a systematic self-improvement course. It takes constant effort, training, practice. Holiness is a life-long endeavor. The saying, "Cleanliness is next to godliness" takes on a whole new meaning here. If you want to be saved and saved to the fullest extent, you must repent fully and be cleansed.
1. The apostle doesn't command, but he commends his message of salvation through holiness to these Christian libertarians. He does so not with harsh words or orders, but with apology, love, and tact. He reasons, "If you are so strongly in my heart, won't you make room in your hearts for me and my message?" As the old hymns sings, "Have you any room for Jesus, he who bore your load of sin?" 2. Usually, the message is distinct from the messenger. But in the case of Jesus Christ and Paul of Tarsus (and in the cases of all true messengers of God), we can't say "Don't kill the messenger," for, "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long...." Because the messenger considers himself already dead to the world, he brightly burns with his unadulterated message -- he is no longer distinct from it, but the message is what he becomes! "Make room for us," Paul cries. He is the message! The message is he! He is the very personification of repentance and restitution! The bloody marks of his message have become the scars of his living flesh. His face is tattooed with it's warning! His feet are blistered with it's labor! He and his words have become molded into one form. The call to repentance is etched painfully in his flesh and manifested by his blood.
1. Paul had written a previous letter to the Corinthians condemning them for their participation in sinful practices - a) there was strife about which Christian celebrity they followed; b) there was outright immorality - a leading man in the congregation and his step-mother were living together openly as though they were married - c) there was spiritual immorality - and many were calling themselves Christians yet partaking in pagan ceremonies, including illicit sexual liaisons committed in the name of some pagan god. d) there was slavery practiced among the members, and racism e) some women were coming to church in order to seduce the men rather than to worship God f) some were getting drunk at the Lord's table, or glutting down the food of the agape meals before others even had a chance to fill their plates g) some were engaged in heresies, including prophetic utterances that did not come from God h) finally others did not believe that Christ was resurrected from the dead or coming again - they believed that Christ was just an angel, and never did really come in the flesh except by illusion. 2. Paul tries to correct these sins within the church through exhortation, through instruction, and through example. The Corinthians thought they had it all together in their uncleanness, but Paul told them they had to repent and clean up their act. The Corinthians did not take kindly to Paul's warning at first. But then, as God began to judge each offender of holiness personally, one-by-one, the church began to rethink their reason to be. 3. God put a spirit of grief upon the whole church. They could no longer revel in their sexual sins, their idolatry, their schism - but waves of godly guilt poured down from heaven upon them like the latter rain of acid, and burnt them one by one. Paul says that he didn't harm them -- it was God that did them harm. And their godly grief over their grave sins began to lead the church into revival; Revival always begins with repentance. 4. Thus Paul contrasts godly grief with grief, and tells us succinctly what doctors have just begun to discover in the latter part of this century - that worldly grief leads to death -- death of the spirit first, then of the body; but godly grief leads to repentance and healing. 5. A Sunday School teacher once asked a class what was meant by the word "repentance." A little boy put up his hand and said, "It is being sorry for your sins." A little girl also raised her hand and said, "It is being sorry enough to change." Indeed, repentance originates in the Greek word metanoia which literally means "afterthought" or "to change one's mind." From the Latin, it means "to pay back." It's more than merely saying "I'm sorry, God" for the umpteenth time. It's ever so much greater and more efficacious. 6. As Methodist theologian William Willimon proposes, perhaps it is time to bring back the confessional and to see the pastor as priest or intermediary between God and humanity if simply for the reason of soliciting full repentance and exacting penance - changing the mind, then repaying, in some mysterious fashion, the debt of sin. As author Gordon MacDonald has written,
Friends, I know grace for forgiveness is free, and free for all; but friends, grace isn't so cheap. It has been paid for by the shedding of the blood of many witnesses, and all so that it might be free to you. No, grace for forgiveness isn't cheap. Let us not make it so. You can afford to pay something; and you may ultimately pay with your life. 7. For Christians, repentance should be an attitude of life. Daily we ask God's Spirit to show us our sin. Then we work on overcoming it. May the ingredient of "godly sorrow" never be missing from our lives! For godly sorrow produces seven "marks," as we see in the next verse.
Godly grief and full, true repentance reestablishes credibility with the world and fellowship with the Lord. These seven "whats" are seven essential marks of true godly sorrow: 1. Earnestness to do right. At every point, all seven, prove yourself guiltless before God and the congregation through repentance. So let me repeat the first verse of Paul's injunction again: He says, "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God." What wall of sin stands between you and your full salvation? What sins beset you? Are you guilty of idolatry? Strife? Contention? Racism? Unloving acts? Seduction? Drunkenness? Unbelief? You know exactly what, for the Holy Spirit is telling you right now. Friend -- repent - for the Kingdom of God is near, even among you! Be earnest to do right! Be eager to apologize! Be outraged against your sin! Fear God! Desire holiness! Have zeal to repay your debts! Be ready to receive chastisement! Accept the ashes of the dead as a reminder of your need of a savior; let this begin your journey for reconciliation and toward perfection. Take on the mission of Lent for yourselves. Amen. |