Dear
Sibblings in Christ,
I hear that some of you wonder at the
Grace you’ve received from God through Jesus Christ. But, you wonder in a
strange direction, perhaps even you wander, more than wonder—it
is as if you are children seeking boundaries,
participants in a new game wondering about breaking
the rules, or explorers looking for the edge
of the map, instead of paying attention to your footing.
You ask of this Grace, if it is a great
thing, because it overcomes Sin, how much greater would it be if we sinned a
whole bunch more, so that it could overcome more Sin still?
You may not
ask the question exactly like that of course, but you do ask questions like:
-If we’re
saved by grace, what’s the point of doing good things?
-If God
saves us despite ourselves, why does any of this matter?
-If it’s all
about the love of God, why even talk about Sin?
And when I hear these questions, I
wonder at you all. It’s like you’ve waited your whole life for the woman of
your dreams, you meet her, and the first question out of your mouth is, “I can cheat on her, right?”
Dear Lord, what’s wrong with you
people?
Don’t you know you’ve been fused to Jesus?
It’s like a marriage, all his stuff is
yours and all your stuff is his.
It’s like that famous exchange between
Ruth and Naomi, where Ruth refuses to abandon Naomi, but instead says, “Where
you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my
people, and your God my God.”
It’s like the poor disciples in
Matthew’s Gospel, “the disciple is like the teacher”... when they say he’s of
the Devil, they’ll say that about you too—guilt by association—in this case
association with Jesus.
You’ve been buried with him, you share
a grave. His resurrection is your new life, you share life!
Don’t you get it?
-Sin and Death made you their slave.
-You were indebted to Sin and Death.
… okay, maybe those metaphors don’t
work with you all… a couple millennia have passed since I wrote Romans, after
all…
Let’s try this one, I’ve watched your “TV” and have seen
those ads that make cell phone plans out to be the worst thing ever to happen
to humanity… You are so put upon by a wireless contract that you just don’t
know what to do with yourself.
Well, you have just such a contract with Sin and Death, there
is no way out!
Yet, such contracts only work if you’re alive,
-dead people don’t have cell phone plans
—the contract is considered terminated, when you are.
For that matter, going back to my original metaphors…
-Debts can’t
be collected from the dead.
-Slaves can’t
be ordered around, if they’ve slipped this mortal coil…
Still not getting it? Need me to
connect the dots for you… okay.
Have you heard of Jujitsu?
It is a
Japanese martial art started during the Samurai era—there was no way for a
common person to defeat a heavily armored Samurai by force—the armored
combatant always had the advantage as long as it was a question of force.
—but counterforce easily disables the much
heavier opponent.
Jujitsu uses an opponent’s momentum and weight against them.
Why rush at an opponent rushing at you, when you can simply
step out of the way and they fall down a hole or trip into a wall?
So too, Jesus uses that inevitable crushing
weight and momentum of Death, to nullify this contract Sin and Death has on
you!
In Christ’s death, Death kills all who
are found on the side of Christ. And in so doing, they are all freed from the
clutches of Sin and Death—the contract
is null and void.
Yes, we lose our life through this
baptism into Christ, yet we find it in his resurrection. He has died to sin and
now lives to God—and so do you.
So, to answer your question, “Why not
sin more so that there is more grace?”
I say: It is
the same reason you don’t talk on the MaBell network, you don’t have a contract
with MaBell anymore!
You don’t go
around sinning, because you’ve been freed from that relationship with Sin—you
are Christ’s disciple now, not a Disciple of Sin!
Q: If it’s all about the love of God,
why even talk about Sin?
A: We talk
about Sin, because it is worth remembering what you are freed from… just as we Jews,
remember I Paul am a Jew among Jews, recount the Passover—we’ve been freed from
slavery in Egypt—so too do we Christians tell our story of captivity and
liberation.
Q: If God saves us despite ourselves,
why does any of this matter?
A: It all
matters deeply, because you live in the deep life of God, now. We’re infused
with the unending love of God–and it means everything!
Q: If we’re saved by grace, what’s
the point of doing good things?
A: You do
good because you’re freed for that very task. We have to be slaves to
something, let’s be slaves to doing good… It’s in our contract.
Therefore, siblings in the faith,
consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Amen!
