Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost - Proper 21
September 30, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
Numbers
11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 James
5:1-20 Mark
9:38-50
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is from our Gospel lesson, especially these words, “And
if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ, if you take Jesus’ words at face value today, it leaves us in a pretty
sticky situation to say the least. “If
your hand causes you to sin,” Jesus says, “cut it off.” Suddenly, every person here is undeserving of
their sinful hands – hands that have hit, punched, stolen, flipped the bird,
touched people inappropriately and more.
We have hands that type and text vicious lies and gossip about our
neighbors. Hands that have sinned in
many and various ways. “Cut them off,”
Jesus says, “better to be in heaven without hands, than in hell.”
And Jesus doesn’t
stop there. If your feet cause you to
sin as well, cut them off too. And the
bad news is, our feet have been sinful as well.
They have taken us to places we ought not be, our feet have taken us to
bars where we have gotten too drunk to even stand on our feet. They have pressed the gas pedal as we went
“Just a few miles an hour” over the speed limit. They have taken us to the houses and
apartments of casual acquaintances at times when our feet should have been
safely tucked in the sheets of our own
bed. “Cut them off,” Jesus says, “better
to be in heaven without feet, than in hell.”
And he continues
with our eyes. Those eyes that have
looked at people of the opposite sex on TV or in magazines, or for most of us,
even in person, and ogled them and their bodies. Our eyes which have read the lies and slander
and slutty jokes sent to us in emails.
Eyes that have given looks that could kill to those people we don’t
like. Eyes that sin every day of our
lives. “Cut them off,” Jesus says,
“better to be in heaven without eyes, than in hell.”
By the end of the
text, we imagine ourselves sitting in heaven, without hands or feet, and blind
to the beautiful scenery of paradise.
But the problem is, dear friends, that we can’t stop there. The logic of Jesus goes on, even with the
things he doesn’t speak himself. What
about your legs, that run your sinful feet all over town? What about your arms? What about your body and all of its parts
with the sin they have committed? Cut
those off as well! Soon all that’s left
is our head, with our minds that have thought all sorts of depraved thoughts
and dreams, and have schemed all the sin that ruined our poor bodies.
If we’re honest,
dear friends, we have had to cut off our whole bodies, from head to toe. For our sin is so great, so large, so
massive, that there is no easy way to solve it.
It must be cut off. That sin must
be removed from you as far as the east is from the west. That is the only way, the only way that you
can be saved from the fires of hell, “where their worm does not die and
the fire is not quenched.” But if we
start cutting, where do we stop? The
whole body is sinful, because the whole soul within that body is sinful.
Now, please don’t
go home and cut off your arms and legs and heads. Don’t get out a knife or saw at all. But instead listen to what this text is
really saying. Don’t you see? There is not one ounce of you that is
holy. There is not one good thing in
God’s eyes, if you trust in your own devices.
If you turn inwards on yourself, you are already cut off, you are
already separated from God. God can’t
stand sin, it must be cut off from before his presence. And if you are in sin, that includes
you.
That’s why bad
things happen in this world. Because sin
cuts us off from God. That’s why there’s
cancer, Alzheimer’s. That’s why there’s
alcoholism, and pornography. That’s why
there’s war, and pain, and suffering.
Because in our sin we have cut ourselves off from the good and gracious
holy God of all things. And there is
nothing you can do about it. Nothing you
can do to take away your sin. Don’t cut
off your arm, because that won’t solve it at all. No matter how much you remove, that sin will still be there.
There must be another
solution if you desire to be saved.
There must be another way for you to get into heaven, for you to make it
out of the fires that don’t go out, and the worms that don’t stop eating your
bodies. There must be a way to be
rescued.
And there is. That way is Jesus Christ. That rescue is the Son of God. The Holy One of Israel. He’s the only one who deserves heaven, who
deserves peace, and comfort. He’s the
only one who doesn’t deserve the consequence of sin – death – eternal death and
damnation. He’s the only one who doesn’t
need to be cut off, and the only one who can help with our own dire
situation.
And that’s what he
does. The sinless, perfect, wonderful,
only begotten Son of God offers himself in your place. He says to God, “Take me, and punish me for
their sin. Take me and cut me off from
the land of the living, that they might never die. Take me, take my hands, my feet, my legs, my
eyes, take every part of me, and cut it off from your sight, that you might
have for yourself a holy people.”
So in place of
your hands being cut off and thrown in to the fires of hell, Jesus’ hands were
nailed to a cross. In place of your
feet, Jesus’ feet pierced in your place.
In place of your eyes being dug out the eyes of the Sinless Son of God
looked out upon his creation as they beat him, spit on him, mocked him, and
killed him. He watched as our sin, and
its punishment came down all upon him.
And not only does
Jesus suffer physically on the cross, but he is also cut off from His
father. He suffers the fullness of hell
in your place. He feels the heat of the
fire, he feels the worm that does not die.
He is cut off from his Father, and suffers hell in your place, for you,
its on your behalf he suffers.
And because of it,
you are set free. Because of Jesus, you
can be assured that you belong, not in hell, but in heaven. At peace forever. Jesus takes your place. He’s your substitute in death, and when death
finds it cannot hold him, he raises again, and takes you with himself to be in
heaven forever.
So dear friends,
you no longer are guilty. You no longer
have sinful hands, or sinful feet or sinful anything. Instead you have redemption, a redeemed body,
a redeemed soul, a redeemed life. In
Christ you are made well. To put it
plainly, in Christ, and in the gifts that he gives here in this building to
you, you are no longer cut off. But now
you belong to Christ. Amen.
