"Move to the Gospel" - Sermon for Easter 3

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who moves us to the Gospel.

            I don’t know how many of you watched the Cosby Show when it was on TV, I never really did, we tended to watch PBS growing up. But, there was one episode I saw once that focused on one of the daughters and her dad. She did something he had told her not to do. I don’t remember what it was, but he had very specifically told her to not do it. And when he found out she was terrified that he was going to punish her, taking away something, or grounding her. But, instead all he does is sit her down and tell her that he is very disappointed in what she did. In return she finds that she is very, very sorry for what she did, and she asks for forgiveness.

            We have a concept central to Lutheran Theology called Law and Gospel that in many ways can be summarized in that episode. We do things, we get ourselves in trouble, we let other people down, disappoint them, and then we see the error of our way and ask for forgiveness and receive it tenfold. That's the law, the rules, the things that point out to us where we’ve made mistakes, the things that show us where sin has invaded our lives. But, then when we see this, when the Law drives us to ask for forgiveness God gives it. Our punishment for sin is not from God, but from ourselves, dealing with the consequences of what sin has done to us and the guilt that it imparts, but God gives life through the Gospel, the good news that Christ has died, and was raised.

We find a powerful sermon from Peter on this in our lesson from Acts for today. His main topic, who was responsible for the death of Christ? Peter speaks in the temple grounds on a Saturday morning, the Sabbath for the Jews, after worshiping alongside them in the temple. In fact he refers to himself as one of these people, not distinguishing himself as non-Jewish. He begins, You Israelites, but the when looking at the Greek he includes himself in that same group. Fellow Israelites, or my brothers, might be more accurate. So, right from the start we have to acknowledge that he lumps himself into this group he is preaching to.

                        And Peter’s not easy on them. He had just healed a man in the temple grounds and the man leaped up and started to jump and praise God after not being able to walk his whole life. Peter asks those gathered, what are you looking at? How do you not know how this happened. Have you forgotten about the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob? The God of our ancestors, yours and mine, who has glorified Jesus, Who you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. 

            Here’s the important part of this text, and the important part of Law and Gospel. We can’t stop here. If we stop here we let Law rule, and that doesn't lead to life, but instead leads to more death. When we bring accusations against others, we cannot stop there. This text, stopping here, was a text that was used to give justification for the holocaust. They did this, so we can do what we want. But, we cannot stop here, we cannot stop with Law. We have to move to Gospel. We can’t stop at Good Friday, we have to move to Easter.

            And here is the Gospel. “And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. 19 Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.

            When we declare that the Jews, even those of today, killed Jesus, we stop at the Law and do not let the Gospel, the good news of Christ, work. When we accuse others of sin, and do not allow for forgiveness, we do not let the Gospel, the good news of Christ, work. But, when we let the Gospel work, all our sins are forgiven.

Or in the words of our text, they are wiped out, removed, extinguished, eradicated, they no longer exist, they’ve kicked the bucket, they are ex-sins. This is not “oh, I forgive you until later when I'm going to drag it back to get you", this is real forgiveness here. That’s what God offers when we come back asking for forgiveness. Each and every time.

           

            We must move to the Gospel. It is the Gospel that gives life. The Law is important, but it only leads to death. We live instead in the Gospel, the good news of Christ, that he was raised, and we with him.

            The Gospel, the good news, is that Christ was raised from the dead. Not as some spirit, but real flesh and bone, he shows them the scars he still carries on his hands, feet, and side. And he eats with them, he eats with us.

We move to the Gospel in holy communion, here at this table, we eat again and again with our risen Lord Jesus Christ who gives us life, mercy, and forgiveness.

            We move to the Gospel when we hear the words of our neighbors for forgiveness and truly extend that forgiveness like Christ forgave us.

We move to the Gospel when we come here to worship in the confession and forgiveness, where we see our sins and hear the Gospel that we are forgiven.

            We move to the Gospel when we realize the message of our song of the day, that Every Morning is Easter, every morning Christ is raised from the dead for us, every morning the Law of Good Friday is opened and the Gospel of Easter bursts forth for our salvation.

            This week, go out and move to the Gospel.