Sermon: You were dead, but now you live

You were dead, but now you live.

You were dead, but now you live.

You were a child of wrath, but through God’s grace you have been connected to Christ.

You were condemned and perishing, but God gave you Jesus that you may have eternal life.

How do you hear this good news today?

I often wonder at what point language breaks down for people—the point where you hear things without hearing things. It becomes blasé or somehow the explosive power of such statements ceases to work? These promises of God become dynamite that was soaked, the powder is wet, the charge dissipated.

I wonder at this, and wonder even more how to recharge these words, refill the powder and dry off the dynamite, that again the Gospel will move you… I wonder this even as I know there is nothing I can do—it is the Spirit’s work alone, I can simply plead to God that the words of scripture and sermon might kill you and make you alive again.

Prayer

You were dead, but now you live.

For those of you here last week, remember my description of breaking and keeping the 10 commandments? I’d imagine at some point you felt convicted—I know I did, and I’m the preacher—felt that there are times when you live your life in a way that honors an idol instead of God—times you don’t love your neighbor in conscious and intentional kind of way.

It is like you are ruled by some combination of selfishness, terror, exhaustion, and boredom, that make you dishonor God and harm your neighbor. Some of it is self-rule, internal rebellion against God, some of it comes from outside yourself, from any number of powers that shape you and your actions… all of it undermining love of God and neighbor.

Well, there is good news, those forces that defy God, are overcome by Jesus Christ, we’re saved by him from them, it is a gift, this new way of life in Christ.

Yes, it still seems that all these other rulers are in control, have won the day, but subtly Christ rules—in kindness, in humility, as an ongoing gift, Christ reigns through the weak power of love—putting all others on notice as to what true power, obedience, and rule looks like, they are all overthrown by the love Jesus Christ has for us.

You were dead, but now you live.

You were dead, but now you live.

It is as if you have went on a long journey—to a new and strange land, where you don’t speak the language, where the culture is foreign, where everyone is a stranger…

And yet, through some alchemy you’ve been given a great gift. Those who were strangers, become neighbors. The land and language and culture, become part of you—a joyful part of you, part of your journey, part of your story. Yes, you left home, but this new place is your home too.

What was this great gift, this magical mystical thing that transformed everything for you? It is the wideness of God’s love—God loves the whole cosmos, the whole world, everyone—and that love sparkles just the same on distant shores, just the same where you are. You were a stranger in a strange land, that land too is loved by God, and that fact transforms all the strangeness—sanctifies it, stirs it up into new life.

You were dead, but now you live.

You were dead, but now you live.

You are like the majority of people in this country—you experience the epidemic of loneliness, of disconnection, even as our technological world as connected us 24/7.

You feel scattered, from yourself and from those you know and love, from even the center of what it means to be alive. You cynically throw off any big question you might have, because you no longer trust that big questions matter.

You’ve been led to believe radical individualism, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps or fail forever, me me me is a correct creed, even as some small Jiminy Cricket conscious inside you shouts in an easily downed out voice, “This doesn’t feel right!”

Well, just know you are not alone, not on your own, your seemingly scattered soul, it is held by God. You are connected to Jesus—Together alive, together raised, together enthroned. Co-living, co-elevated, co-seated—at the table with him, invited and attending the great banquet of God—the feast that Jesus continually tells us about in his stories of the Kingdom of God commonly called parables.

You were dead, but now you live.

You were dead, but now you live.

Like frauds or spies we hide our deeds deep down, because we fear they fall short. And they do.

But be not afraid, for through Jesus Christ our deeds rise up and are revealed, a scary prospect, except that they can be transformed, made into a good and new way of life lived to love God and love neighbor—no longer hidden, but instead shown forth as done in God.

You were dead, but now you live.

How do you hear this good news today?

You were condemned and perishing, but God gave you Jesus that you may have eternal life.

You were a child of wrath, but through God’s grace you have been connected to Christ.

You were dead, but now you live.

Amen.