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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The numbers are staggering. This year’s U‑S federal budget deficit is now expected to be one‑point‑two trillion dollars, which is up some 93 billion dollars from the Congressional Budget Office estimate just two months ago. This year’s deficit will only further increase the national debt, which has already increased five trillion dollars in the past three years and this year is expected to pass 16 trillion dollars. As if such an accumulated debt were not bad enough, the Senate Budget Committee’s minority staff last week said that unfunded government obligations of the current healthcare law could themselves more than double that national debt. The numbers are so staggering that we can hardly grasp them; they have almost become meaningless, and I wonder if there is anyone who thinks the debt will ever be paid down, let alone paid in full.
“Paid in full” is how some paraphrase the last word tonight’s Third Reading records Jesus speak from the cross. Translated in that Third Reading as it usually is with the words “It is finished”, the original Greek has only one word, tetelestai. The root verb has a number of meanings relevant to the context of Jesus’s hanging on the cross, and He may well have meant all of them, as they all overlap and, especially in this case, run together. The finishing could be ending His work, carrying out His Father’s will, offering a sacrifice, and paying a debt or obligation. Hanging on the cross, His voice strengthened by the sour wine, Jesus joyously cries out in victory: tetelestai, “It is finished!” “My work is done.” “The Father’s will is fulfilled.” “The sacrifice is complete.” “The debt is paid in full.”
A while ago a member of Pilgrim asked why, when we sing the Lord’s Prayer, we use the words “debts” and “debtors”, as opposed to “trespasses” and “those who trespass against us”, as we do when we speak the Lord’s Prayer, or as opposed to simply “sins” and “sin against us”, as in the right‑column option in Lutheran Worship. I imagine the meter of the music dictates the specific choice of the words in that particular musical setting, but the choice is truly a valid one. For, one of the number of ways the Bible refers to our sin against God and to others’ sin against us is as debts owed to God or to us. For example, in Jesus’s “Parable of the Unforgiving Servant”, one servant both owes the king a debt of ten thousand talents and is owed by a fellow servant a debt of one hundred denarii. One commentator says that debt of the ten thousand talents would be roughly one‑billion dollars today—a fraction of the national debt or deficit but, nevertheless, an unpayable debt that no amount of labor could have paid off. The same commentator says further that even selling the man’s family would not have put a dent in the debt, and that no real, earthly creditor would have ever allowed such a debt to accrue.
Yet, God our heavenly creditor does allow us to accrue a staggeringly high debt of sin against him. His patience and mercy put up with our not fearing, loving, and trusting Him above all things. His patience and mercy put up with our cursing and not praying as we should. His patience and mercy put up with our not making use of and supporting His Word and Means of Grace as we should. His patience and mercy put up with our not honoring and obeying our parents and other authorities, with our not leading a chaste and decent life in word and deed, with our not helping our neighbors to improve and protect their property and business, with our not putting the best construction on everything, and with our not being content with the things He has given us. His continued patience and mercy are so that we repent, turn in sorrow from our sins and trust Him to forgive our sins. So, we do repent, we turn in sorrow from all our sins, both those against God and those against one another, and we trust God to forgive our sins. When we so repent, God forgives our sins, He forgives them for the sake of Jesus, Who on the cross finished His work and the Father’s will, completed the sacrifice for us, and paid our spiritual debt in full.
The United States is not the only country with earthly debt problems, as I am sure you know. In Greece this past Wednesday a 77‑year‑old retired pharmacist took his own life outside of that country’s Parliament to protest its debt crisis, which he said was about to make him scrounge for food in the garbage. Death may have been that man’s escape from his earthly debt, but it hardly solved the earthly debt problem for his survivors, nor did it deal with his own spiritual debt. The death of the God-man Jesus Christ is the only solution to our spiritual debt crisis. For us He suffered that very real death, the separation of His human soul from His human body. In control of everything to the very end, Jesus willingly “finished” everything. He finished His work of redemption. He fulfilled what was written by the prophets about the Son of Man. He carried out the Father’s will that we heard of in the First Reading, that of crushing Him, of His soul making an offering for guilt, of His being numbered with the transgressors and bearing the sin of many. As our great High Priest, He sacrificed Himself as the Lamb of God once and for all. He paid our debts in full. He bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, was pierced for our transgressions, was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace; with His wounds we are healed; He makes us to be accounted righteous and for us makes intercession. For our redemption, salvation, forgiveness—whatever you call it—there is nothing left to be done. “It is finished”; we receive it freely by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, Who has done it all, on the cross.
Jesus finished our redemption on the cross, but He does not give it to us from the cross. You cannot literally go back to that time and to that same cross in order to find Him and His forgiveness there. Nor can you somehow “hold onto” His suffering in your mind or heart. Rather, you today come here in order to find Him and His forgiveness where He promises they will be, specifically in His Word in all its forms: preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper. Jesus does not win our forgiveness in preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper, but He does give it to us in these ways.
And, each of these ways is closely connected to His death and resurrection. From the cross, for example, in His loud cry of tetelestai, Jesus Himself is preaching His words, and, both from the cross and three days later behind locked doors, Jesus hands over His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who creates and confirms faith in that proclaimed Word. We heard in the Third Reading how water and blood flowed from Jesus’s pierced side, which water and blood the Church connects with Baptism and the Supper, even as Jesus Himself earlier had referred to His death in the sacramental terms of baptism and a cup to drink. Three days later behind locked doors, Jesus sends His disciples‑turned‑apostles to absolve (or “forgive”) the sins of those who repent and to withhold forgiveness from those who do not. When we know and feel our sins, we come here—we come here not because of water, words, bread or wine, but we come here because through these special forms of water, words, bread and wine Jesus connects us with Himself and gives us the forgiveness of sins and so eternal life. Jesus “finished” our redemption on the cross then, but here and now He continues to give that redemption to you through the ministry of Word and Sacrament that He established.
And, Jesus not only continues to give that redemption to you through Word and Sacrament, but through Word and Sacrament He also continues to make you holy. We who are so being made holy do not easily forget Jesus’s suffering and become ungrateful, for by His suffering we see what our sin deserves and has cost Him. Our whole lives we guard ourselves against sins because the payment for sin was so high, the death of the Son of God! Yet, even though we might guard ourselves, we will continue to slip and to sin, even as our sinful nature continues to cling to us our whole earthly lives. So, we live every day in repentance, until, not just our Lord’s work of redemption is “finished”, but until all of our Lord’s work is “finished”. May God grant to us that ultimate “completion”, for Jesus’s sake.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +