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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.
We have come to our fifth and final Midweek Lenten Vespers Service, but, in our sermon series considering the parts of the Lord’s Prayer in light of the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus’s ministry, especially those words and deeds during His passion and resurrection, we have come only to the Fifth Petition. Lest you worry, we will consider the Sixth and Seventh Petitions on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, respectively, and we will consider the Conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer during our Easter “Sonrise” Matins Service. So, tonight we consider our Lord Jesus’s teaching us to pray our Father in Heaven to “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.
Of course, the forgiveness of trespasses, or “debts” or “sins”, is really the whole purpose of Jesus’s ministry, especially His passion and resurrection, and so we naturally find Him both teaching about forgiveness of sins and Himself actually forgiving sins throughout His ministry, though perhaps most notably from the cross, both praying for others to be forgiven and actually forgiving. Similarly, there is no surprise that both the model prayer as recorded by St. Matthew and the model prayer as recorded by St. Luke include this petition to be forgiven as we forgive. Although they use different Greek words for what we ask God to forgive (Matthew the former tax collector apparently preferred “debts”), the two accounts use the same Greek word for what we forgive one another, and, while there may be some different nuances to each word, the words generally mean the same thing: sins.
With the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, we believe, teach, and confess that when we pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” we pray “that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins or deny our prayer because of them”. So, praying the Fifth Petition admits at least that we sin. In fact, we admit, as the Small Catechism continues, that “we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.” (SC III:16) Sin determines our whole being! Some of our sin is against our fellow human beings, but all of our sin is against God—Jesus taught that, for example, in the Parable of the Prodigal Son we heard two Sundays ago (Luke 15:18, 21). And, as Jesus taught in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, the sum total of our sin against our fellow human beings is but a small fraction of the sum total of our sin against God (Matthew 18:23-35; confer Luke 17:3-4). Our great debt to God is amassed by our thinking, saying, and doing what we should not and by our not thinking, saying, and doing what we should. Our ever paying off this ever-increasing debt by ourselves is impossible! Instead of paying off the debt ourselves, like the tax collector in our Lord Jesus’s Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:10-14).
To be sure, as we believe, teach, and confess with Dr. Luther in the Large Catechism, God forgives our sins even without and before our prayer (LC III:88), but He nevertheless commands and invites us to pray the Fifth Petition with heart and lips as a part of our repentance and faith. Praying the Fifth Petition is an example of two different kinds of confession, to God and to our neighbor, and both must take place as long as we live (“Brief Exhortation to Confession”, ¶8-9). Praying the Fifth Petition we affirm that God is our Judge and that His judgment on us is just. Praying the Fifth Petition we also affirm that we are sorry for our sins and believe that God will forgive our sins for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. The Large Catechism even says that in the Fifth Petition we have a “twofold absolution” (“Brief Exhortation to Confession”, ¶:12), though not the same “absolution” as that we receive individually from a pastor.
I mentioned earlier that Jesus perhaps most notably from the cross prayed for others to be forgiven and actually absolved someone (Luke 23:33-34, 39-43). Imagine your praying for the very people who are putting you to death! Imagine your forgiving someone who moments earlier was reviling you (Matthew 27:44; Mark 15:32)! So great is our Savior’s love for each and every sinner, including us. His very name “Jesus” refers to His victory over sin and saving us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). John the Baptizer identified Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The three synoptic Gospel accounts all tell of Jesus exercising God’s authority to forgive sins and proving that He was God with a miraculous healing (Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:3-12; Luke 5:18-26). Truly Jesus came to call sinners (Matthew 9:13), and those who do not believe in Him die in their sins (John 8:24). Even believers only receive forgiveness; we do nothing in any way to earn it. Again with the Small Catechism we believe, teach, and confess that “We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that [our Father in heaven] would give them all to us by grace” (SC III:16).
Our Father in heaven gives us the forgiveness of sins—and all that goes with it—through His Means of Grace, that is, through His Word and Sacraments. Jesus instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry for the preaching of the Gospel not just to inform about the forgiveness of sins but also to effect the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47; John 20:23). Tonight’s Opening Hymn called us “Sinners, ruined by the fall” to “Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain” to find “free remission”. In a figurative sense we can go to Calvary, but we can literally come here to the Baptismal Font and to the Altar Rail and receive in concrete ways the forgiveness Jesus earned for us with His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave. John the Baptizer came baptizing for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; confer Luke 1:77), and the Lord’s Prayer closely connects the petition for daily bread “and” that for the forgiveness of sins, recognizing that earlier in the Divine Service sinners were reconciled with one another and that in the Sacrament of the Altar bread that is Christ’s body gives God’s forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28), so that at this Altar Rail Jesus eats with us sinners in the closest of fellowship. Through these Means of Grace the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church, in which Church He daily and richly forgives our sins. To reject the Means of Grace is to reject and sin against the Holy Spirit Himself and to leave oneself without any forgiveness (Matthew 12:31-32; Mark 3:28-29; confer Hebrews 10:26-27).
When, through His Means of Grace, we receive God’s forgiveness of our great debt, we, in response, love much, as did the sinful woman who wet Jesus’s dirty feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair (Luke 7:36-50). We love God, but we love God especially in the persons of our fellow human beings, even those who sin against us. As the Small Catechism says, we sincerely forgive them and gladly do other good to them. Our forgiving those who sin against us is not the reason or condition why God forgives us, but our forgiving those who sin against us is the response to God’s forgiving us (compare LC III:93-96). We forgive those who sin against us not because we have to but because we want to, even when the sin might be so heinous that others apart from Christ could never forgive it. To not forgive our fellow human beings is to face losing grace and being returned to justice, to face God’s not forgiving us, for we pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. In St. Matthew’s account, the Fifth Petition gets special commentary from our Lord immediately after He gives the Lord’s Prayer, and its content is also taught elsewhere in St. Matthew’s account (Matthew 6:14-15; confer Matthew 5:23-26; 18:15-35). Jesus’s teaching about our forgiving one another before we seek God our Father in heaven’s forgiveness is also recorded by St. Mark in his account’s statement of our Lord closest to anything like the Lord’s Prayer (Mark 11:25-26).
We who repent and believe receive God’s forgiveness through His Means of Grace, His Word and Sacraments, and we are supported by them. Yet, the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh (about which we will hear more next week) are constantly in conflict with us, and, even though we are supported by God’s gift and blessing, we do not go without sin. As we pray the Fifth Petition we confess our sin and receive God’s forgiveness; may God grant that we ever so confess and receive until we are finally and full freed from this conflict in the life to come.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +