The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
February 23, 2014 - Pastor Adam Moline
Leviticus
19:1-2, 9-18 1 Corinthians 3:10-23 Matthew 5:38-48
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is from the Old Testament Lesson just read, especially
these words, “Be holy, as I the Lord your God am holy.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. Be holy, God says. How holy?
As Holy as the Lord your God is holy.
In other words, you are to be perfectly holy, without any spot, or
stain, or shortcoming of failure at all.
You are to be Holy in the way you interact with God, and as God explains
in detail, you are to be holy in regards to all your neighbors as well.
God explains how
in our lesson. Be kind to the sojourner
and traveler. Provide food for the
needy. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t
deal falsely. Don’t pay people what you
owe them late, don’t slander, and protect the life of your neighbor. Finally, God says, don’t hate your brother,
but love him as yourself.
If you do these
things, and if you do them perfectly, then you will fulfill God’s command and
be holy as God himself commands in our text.
But as you well know, there’s a problem with this. You aren’t perfect, and you aren’t holy. You fall short time and again. You don’t, and I don’t, care about our
neighbors perfectly the way we ought to.
We do lie. We do steal and
more. We aren’t holy, and no matter how
hard we try, we cannot make ourselves holy enough to please God. Even if we were to be perfect each and every
day for the rest of our lives, we still couldn’t make up for the places that we
have already fallen short. You are not
Holy, unlike the Lord your God who is holy.
But that’s part of
the message of our text today as well.
That the Lord God is Holy, that he is the very definition of Holy. He has always been holy, and will always be
holy. He even was holy when he took on
our human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus fulfilled that entire list of things that God wanted humans to
do. Jesus was the only person who truly
was holy as the Lord God is holy, because he was the Lord God hidden in human
flesh.
He was so holy,
that he cared about his neighbors – you and me – enough that he went to the
cross, to suffer, to die, and to rise again, so that sin might be
forgiven.
And he shares that
holiness with you dear friends. You who
could not be holy, Jesus makes holy.
How? In baptismal waters, he
washes you with the washing of rebirth and renewal poured out on us generously
through the Holy Spirit. In baptism, the
sin of you have committed is washed away with the blood of Christ. To put it clearly, in Baptism, your
unholiness is covered up by Christ’s holiness – his righteousness becomes your
righteousness.
Now when God looks
at you, he doesn’t see your failures, or your weaknesses, or your shortcomings,
instead, he sees Jesus, crucified and risen for the sins of the world, covering
your sin specifically.
Be Holy as I the
Lord your God am holy. How holy? Jesus covering your sin holy. Jesus died for your sins holy. Holy, just as Jesus, the Lord your God in
human flesh, is holy. And dear friends,
you are, holy washed in the water and word of baptism. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
