All Saints Day vs. All Sinners Day

Disclaimer: At Concordia University Saint Paul, in celebration of All Saints Day, we decorate the chapel with thousands of stars, many with names of those who have died in the faith from our community and throughout history. When I reference stars, that is what I'm referring to.

It is a very comforting thing, to think that every single person, whose name is written on one of these stars around us was a believer in Jesus Christ, that they lived their lives of faith and were granted eternal life. As Revelation 2:10 says:

“Be Faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

It however may not a very comforting thing to know that all of these people who have their names written on a star were sinners. As Romans 3:23 says

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

We don’t like to think about that do we? How those who have passed on were sinners. We focus so much more on how great they were, how much we’ll miss them and rightly so I believe. Because we know that they were unconditionally loved by God, even if we were not able to love them unconditionally while they were here on earth. As Romans 8:38-39 says.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

While we hear that passage in life, it is a great comfort to us, but it is also a great comfort as we think about those who have died in the faith, knowing that death cannot separate our loved ones from God’s love. Death is a hindrance to our loving and being loved by those who have passed on, but it is not a hindrance for our Heavenly Father, who conquered death by sending His Son Jesus to die for the sins of the whole world and then raised him to life again.

All of us undoubtedly have friends or family who have been called from this earth to their heavenly home with God. While we miss them, we take comfort in the fact that they are in Good Hands.

But what about us? We are saints too are we not? If we died today we’d be assured of our resurrection from the dead to eternal life with our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, right? But yet we still sin. We still suffer. We still struggle. We still cry. We still hurt. How can we be forgiven and still hurt?

As Romans 7:15-20 says

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

That passage reminds me of this clip from The Fellowship of the Ring...

Watch Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition disc 2) from 21:14-23:47.

Gandalf’s words about Gollum are very relatable to us here on earth. “He hates and loves the Ring, much as he hates and loves himself.” Gollum has forgotten who he is. He is not Gollum, he is Smeagol, a gentle creature who loved to fish and relax on the water. But the ring poisoned his mind and turned him into something else, it turned him into Gollum. And throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy he struggles to understand who he is, what he is.

It is just as we struggle with who we are. Am I (insert your name here) the Sinner or am I (insert your name here) the Saint? We hate the sinner inside of us and love the saint inside of us. We wish we could be only saint, but we can’t. As Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 26:41 as they struggle to stay awake in Gethsemane.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

We desire nothing more than to be rid of our flesh and its weakness. And we struggle with the fact that this will not occur on this side of heaven.

As the scene from the clip you’ve just seen continues, Gandalf lectures Frodo on his immediate judgment of Gollum. As he says, “Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them Frodo?”

In our world, that line would be tweaked to say “All that live deserve death, and the ONE deserved life, died.” That One is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who took what we deserved and gave us what only He deserved: eternal life with our Heavenly Father in Paradise.

May we find peace in that our God loved us with that deep of a love, to make us His children. As 1 John 3:1-3 says:

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."

Amen.

How Can We Live?

Reference Ezekiel 33:7-11

Particularly focus on these words "Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How can we live?"

The short answer to that question is, we can’t. Sin destroys us. Sin kills us. As Paul writes in Romans 3 the wages of sin is death and this is true for all who have sinned. It was true for Adam and Eve in Eden. It was true for Moses in Egypt and the wilderness. It was true for David and Solomon. It was true for Jesus disciples. It was true for Augustine, it was true for Thomas Aquinas, it was true for Luther, it was true for Bonhoeffer and it is true for us. Sin causes death.

But the long answer to the question how can we live is we can, and we see a hint of it in the imagery created by Ezekiel. It gives us a beautiful connection point to how we will not rot away from our sin being upon us. How is that? It exists as Jesus Christ, true God and true man comes into our world and takes our sin, that sin which is causing us to rot away and puts it on himself and allows it to rot him away, allows it to kill him. How then can we live? If this sin was taken from us and it killed our God, how can we hope to survive? How can we live? Because he didn’t stay dead. He conquered death. He rose from death to life and not just another mortal life where he would die again, no. An eternal life. A life he gives to you and to me freely.

What amazing news this is, but this text keeps going to speak of how the Lord does not take pleasure in the death of wicked people. He wishes that they would turn from their ways that will cause death and live. We as humans are not as generous as God. After all, when we’re watching a movie and the good side defeats the bad side, by killing them, we rejoice. We cheer that once again good conquered evil. But when we see an evil character turn into a good character, we’re confused, and mistrust them. We refuse to believe it is possible and we’re still hoping in the back of our mind that they perhaps die. Sure there are times when we rejoice in the turning, when we know it is genuine. The best example is from Star Wars Episode VI, Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader throws the Emperor into the giant space hole, but what are we rejoicing in, that Vader has turned or that the Emperor is dead, probably a bit of both.

For a more modern and bit more complicated example. I'll refer you to two scenes from the first of the Lord of the Rings movies, the Fellowship of the ring.

In the first scene you’ll see Boromir, the character in question, and Frodo one of the “good guys.” Frodo has this powerful weapon, the One Ring and Boromir has sworn to protect Frodo as he seeks to destroy this ring. The first scene is an altercation between them regarding the ring.

The second is self explanatory.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition) disc 2:

1:13:55-1:16:20

1:25:54-1:28:34

Aragorn tells Boromir that he has fought bravely and kept his honor, and perhaps that is true. But Boromir is also right. He has failed. He has failed them all by succumbing to the temptations of the ring and wanting the power for himself, even if it is for the good of his people. He has still failed his friends who he swore to protect. He became enemy to Frodo when he promised to help him.

As Boromir is about to die he loses all hope, believing the world of men will fall, all will come to darkness and his city to ruin. But his hope, his faith is restored in his true king, Aragorn, who promises to not let his city fall or his people fail.

In the first scene, Boromir’s hope was in the ring, powerful indeed, but as Frodo says later to Boromir’s brother Faramir, “The Ring will not save Gondor (his home country) it has only the power to destroy.”

This is the truth of the law for us. The law has power, but for us who are sinners it has only the power to convict us of our sin. It cannot save us. It is beyond our reach.

I think the beginning of one of Aragorn’s lines is the most poignant and best connection to Christ. “I do not know what strength is in my blood…” He’s right to doubt. He is a man, he is mortal. He has limits, he has weaknesses. But for Boromir, in middle earth, there is no-one better to put hope in than Aragorn.

But we on real planet earth do have something better than a mere man. We have Jesus Christ, both man and God. How good it is then that we know the strength that is in our King’s blood. We know that Christ’s blood has the power to forgive sin and grant eternal life. And that blood was spilled on the cross out of love to do just that for us, for all of us, whether wicked or good or any combination of the two. As God lives, He does not delight in our death, whether wicked or good, but that all turn to him for salvation and truly live with him unto eternity. Amen.

Why Would I Want Your Burden Jesus?

Delivered July 2, 2008

Reference Matthew 11:25-30

This text has always been one that is quoted by my friends and family and myself when others around are having a rough time with life. When people are weary, burdened, heavy laden etc. Jesus invites them to come to Him and find rest in Him, because his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Until last week, I found this to be unequivocally true and a very necessary and comforting message to hear, but then I started thinking a bit about Jesus burden and realized something. His burden is absolutely not light. How can a person of the Triune God come to earth, become human, take on the sins of the whole world as a burden, while not sinning himself and still say that His burden is light. It doesn’t make sense. Jesus Christ had the heaviest burden of any person of any time ever. Why in the world would I take his yoke upon myself, his yoke can’t be easy. And so I began for the first time in my life to truly struggle with this text.

And so I began to study a few things, and the understanding I gained was this:
The burden Jesus carries to the cross is not his burden. It is ours. He took it from us and gave us his burden, his yoke; which are easy and light, whereas our burden and yoke are heavy and strenuous due to sin.

Jesus speaks to those who are burdening and wearying themselves by putting demands of the law on themselves because they think that’s what is needed accomplish salvation, and Jesus is speaking to those who are being loaded down by other people telling them what they need to do to gain salvation. He is saying, Come to me to all of you. I have a better solution.

Burden exists because of sin, and constantly striving to be saved by what we do. Jesus says to us, no take my burden. Take my nonexistent burden because I have never sinned, and I’ll take away your burdens. Christ says “I will make my burden heavy so yours can be light.”
And this is all done that we may rest. Christ does not come to give us more commands. He does not come to pile on more burdens. He comes to silence them. He comes to give this all to us as a gift – to give relief and rest – to take away our burdens and weariness.
Earthly life may not be easy, but access to salvation is. It is accomplished in Christ’s death and resurrection.
For a connection to the text, we are going to watch a short clip from the first Lord of the Rings movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring”
The fellowship is in trouble. Gandalf, their leader was recently taken from them. They’re all quite sad and uncertain what to do next. They’ve found their way into the safest place they could find, perhaps the safest place left in Middle Earth, Lothlorien. Where the Lady Galadriel speaks to the 8 remaining members of the fellowship.

Watch Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring extended edition, disk 2, from 48:15-51:30.

It’s always interesting when movies quote Scripture. In this case Galadriel quotes John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” She knows they are weary and burdened. They are burdened with sorrow for losing Gandalf, but moreover, they all feel as though the salvation of Middle Earth depends upon them. And if they fail, it will be to the ruin of all. And they’re right. The pressure comes internally from themselves and externally from all who know of their quest.

And yet she tells them that they will sleep in peace.

All of the members of the Fellowship were feeling the burden and weight of accomplishing deliverance from evil for all people. Their purpose is to destroy the One Ring, but how can they now, without their leader?

If this were a straight allegory, Galadriel would take the ring, destroy it herself and all would live happily ever after, but this is not the case, there is still 8 or 9 hours of movie to watch!

If you continue watching for a few minutes, Galadriel lets Frodo know it’s all on him. He’s carrying the ring. He must find a way to destroy it or no one will.

This just goes to show how our God is so great. How he humbles himself to take our burdens and exchange our heavy burden for his light burden. How he secures salvation for us, instead of giving us advice on how to get the job done ourselves. We can’t get the job done ourselves.
God intersects our lives in the person Jesus Christ to complete salvation for us by dying on the cross and bursting forth from the empty tomb on the third day.
Because of this we know that we can indeed come to our Savior and Lord and truly find rest.