Grace, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Martin was at a loss. You see, Martin was the kind of person that we’d all like to be: a perfect student since kindergarten, he’d received numerous accolades for his academic work: a
And succeed he did. Again, he received rewards and awards for his performance. Promotion followed promotion; he was invited to be guest speaker at his firm’s annual general meeting. He was everything that everybody was told they wanted to be.
More than that, he knew he was. After all, he had the yardstick against which he could measure everybody else. He’d always had one. When he was getting his education, he knew that if he worked hard enough and got good marks, he was better than those around him. When he began working, if he worked hard enough he got the promotions and the glory. It was the way the world worked: you could achieve anything, as long as you worked hard enough for it.
Do you know Martin? Of course, you can’t know the Martin in the story, since he doesn’t really exist. But I’d be willing to be that you know someone like him. Or maybe, you ARE Martin. It’s not a bad thing to be like Martin. The world likes people like Martin: they’re the most successful, in our eyes.
Yet sometimes being like Martin is problematic. You see, Martin had a secret. He had a secret so dark, so deep, that he knew that if it ever got out, it would destroy him and everything he’d worked so hard to achieve.
Martin suffered from depression. A depression sometimes so dark, so debilitating, that some mornings he could not get out of bed. His company offered psychological support and a good benefits package; but Martin chose to pay for a therapist and anti-depressive medication out of his own pocket, because the risk of what he would lose if anyone found out was too great.
He couldn’t understand why he was depressed; he had everything he’d been told was important. But he was also puzzled by the first question his counsellor asked him each day: how do you feel? Martin couldn’t actually answer that. He didn’t have anyone he could compare his feelings to – everyone around him looked just as happy and high-functioning as he was.
In a very real way, our lives are governed by the law that Paul speaks about today, that kept Martin trapped. They are controlled by it; it gauges our actions, lays out our motivations, and judges our worth. It’s a system that we are raised in – we judge ourselves and others by performance, dedication, and adherence to a set of rules. We hold those rules pretty highly; when we know what they are, it seems that we can figure out the secret of life and get on with business.
You know the expression, “wake up and smell the coffee?” it means that we’re supposed to be able to open our sees, and see the reality of how the world works around us. When we ‘wake up,’ life is supposed to be better.
Jesus and those who believe in him stand talking. They know the law; they want to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. Jesus has been talking about love, justice, and God’s idea of fairness, which isn’t the same kind of fairness that the religious leaders of the day want to see. So they’re puzzled, especially when Jesus says, “if you continue in my word…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Because in their minds, they’ve never been slaves to anyone. At least, not where it counts. There’s the slavery of the Egyptian kind that they remember at Passover, but that’s so far ago in the past that it might as well be an empty story. They believe that they are in control of their lives and destinies, what does Jesus mean that they “can be free?”
So Jesus lays it on the line: “anyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household, the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
The people to whom Jesus speaks have received the word; they bear the word to others. But in a way the lack the ability to really know the word, in the way Jeremiah talks about. Jeremiah tells the story of a new covenant, when people will no longer say to each other “know the Lord” (in the same tone my mother used to say “wake up and smell the coffee!”), because they will all know God. Because God will place God’s word directly into their hearts; it will stop being a yardstick to measure themselves against others.
Today is Reformation Sunday, the only Sunday of the church year that is set aside to commemorate a historical event, that began with the nailing of 95 Theses to the door of
Those of us today who believe in Jesus Christ and his saving word are often confronted with the same sense of ‘huh?’ as those early believers. That’s because God’s word and work does not work the same as the culture we grow up in.
How many people here today would agree with the statement “I don’t know the bible very well, so I don’t know if I’m a good Christian – but I do my best to live a good life, so I think that God is happy with me”? You live a good life?
Welcome to the law. Because if it’s up to you, you will never live a life good enough to earn your salvation. You are slaves to an idea that is not your own.
But take confidence in this: you are loved by God because of who you are. Not because of what you’ve done. You are loved because of who you are. That was the original idea of Reformation that set fire to the world. That you do not work for your own salvation.
In our culture, ‘repentance’ is too often poorly understood as a one-shot deal. If that were true, then we should abandon all hope right now – or aim for the ‘deathbed confession’ system of belief. But we are called to live lives of repentance: lives that are marked by the word dwelling within us.
The theme of today is “knowing the word” – and you know the word when you are set free. When someone comes to you with the word ‘if’, then the word they bear is the law. “If you just do _____; then _______ will happen.” Have you ever read a self-help book? That’s a refrain in that kind of literature. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, and make your own way in the world. Then, look behind you at the unfortunate souls who have fallen behind, and grace them with your knowledge.
But you can know the word of God when it comes to you as a statement that sets you free: “because you are loved by God, therefore you live a life that is testimony to your freedom.” For God, there is no ‘if’. There is God speaking, and God acting, not out of sovereignty but out of mercy.
Do you ever feel like you’re on a journey, and you don’t have a map? Have you ever wondered if you can actually make it to your destination? That’s a very real fear, one that is deeply rooted in our culture, one that makes the gospel of Christ into a competition. Yet you shouldn’t worry.
The freedom that comes from knowing the word of God is the freedom to know that the end of the journey is assured; Christ will see you home.
But it also means knowing that, in fact, you may be on the wrong road. It means knowing that all roads may not, in fact, lead to Christ.
It means that there is no road, no trail, no rut, you will travel in this life that Christ will not walk down, to find you.
And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Let the people of God say ‘amen’.
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