Memorial Moment: Through Our Tears

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

(ESV)

Through Our Tears

Friday After All Saints

2 November 2012

The Bible's doctrine of grace makes Christianity harder and not easier. While working through Romans 5 in Bible class the other night I was struck by the depth of the teaching of the Apostle Paul in that text. There is nothing Pollyanna about the apostolic teaching. Paul takes into account, not only the beautiful divine verdict of not guilty pronounced over sinners by the divine Word for the sake of Christ. He also expresses the reality of the justified life in the world in the in-between time while the believer is waiting for the final consummation of the age. Justification does not mean that suffering is avoided. On the contrary, it means that there will be great trials in our lives. "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rm 5:3-5). As the class considered the chain of faith that arises from justification through suffering, it was clear that biblical Christianity is not susceptible to "just so" answers or explanations. Neither do we arrive at Christian maturity by way of a weekend seminar. Christianity is a life; something entered into with abandon and radical commitment. Everything is seen through the prism of its theology. Through this, and in this process, every day are we always becoming Christians ever and again. We suffer, endure, character is built, and hope grows. This happens throughout the Christian life and all under the canopy of the cross.

Part of this process of growth is the very real way in which, through our suffering, God destroys our pride by confronting us with our weakness with His law. Sometimes we feel like Hagar of the Old Testament. We feel like an outcast. When God speaks to us we cannot find a way to reply through our tears and sorrow. Our pride has been humbled, sometimes even by those who are intending the very best for us, sometimes by random occurrences as small and insignificant as burning the toast at breakfast. Luther says that he was filled with terror about his own mortality by watching a leaf flutter to the ground. He knew that he too would die and face divine judgment. God uses these terrifying expressions of His law applied in our lives to push us out into the wilderness, where we have no choice but to await His salvation at the right time. He humbles our pride and shows us our status in His sight according to the law. Only then are we ready, through such sufferings, to endure and grow in grace. Only then do we know what the gospel is really all about. Only then does the verdict of "not guilty" resound with life in our ears.

Martin Luther

"If you are a creature, you are nothing over against the Creator. You set before Him in vain your merits and works. Do you not see that Ishmael, who is proud of his physical birth, is cast out of the house and nearly killed in the desert? But this is useful for him, for in this way he is freed from presumption and receives grace.

"The psalm says: 'The Lord made us, and not we ourselves' (Ps 100:3 KJV). Why does the Holy Spirit admonish us this way, as though no one actually knew it? Truly, the entire world has need of this teaching. For all who presume upon their own works do not know that they were made by the Lord; and they need the admonition that they were made by the Lord. Otherwise they would humble themselves in the presence of their Creator and not be presumptuous about their own powers, because whatever they have, they have from God. So ignorance of creation and God's great friendliness to us makes us presumptuous.

"Therefore it is necessary for God to put a lawgiver over us, as Ps 9:20 expresses it, and to kill us along with Ishmael, in order that Paul's statement may stand firm: 'Through faith and not by works, through grace' (Eph 2:8-9) and not through our merits we are what we are, even naturally and according to the body and the flesh, and to a far greater extent supernaturally and according to the spirit, so that we should simply say: 'O God, have mercy on me!' This is what Ishmael and Hagar learned in the desert.

"Ishmael's expulsion from the house teaches how intensely God hates pride and presumption. On the other hand, however, learn here how God deals with those who have been humbled. Hagar is sitting there weeping very bitterly and in utter despair. For she sees that she has been cast out together with her son and has been excommunicated by Abraham, the father of the church. This is certainly the most dreadful situation. For the Law does not jest. No, it truly humbles hearts, in order that they may realize that with all their powers and works they have merited nothing but eternal damnation.

"Therefore the angel comes as a comforter and brings nothing but solace from God Himself."

Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, 21.17

Prayer

O Lord, You have made us, and not we ourselves. Humble us in Your presence and keep us from being presumptuous about our own powers, because whatever we have, we have from You. Keep us from taking for granted Your great friendliness toward us. Turn us back to Your law that we might lament our sin and presumption, that Your gospel would again become sweet to the taste. Amen.

For all those who labor in the building trades, that the Creator of all would bless their labor of construction with success and keep them safe

For Celeste Clark, who is gravely ill, that the Lord Jesus would grant her strength and healing in accordance with His good and gracious will

For all those who have had their homes damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, especially Pastor Alan Steinke, that places of abiding would be granted to them again

Art: DÜRER, Albrecht The Adoration of the Trinity (1511)