1. Peter 1,(13-17) 18-21. Oculi Sunday

In the Name of Jesus

1. Peter 1,(13-17) 18-21 1912

Okuli (3. Sonntag der Passionszeit)  026 „My eyes“

Eulogius, Priest in Cordova, Spain. Martyr 859 

11. March 2012

1.  We beseech You, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of Your humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of Your Majesty, to be our defense against all our enemies (Book of Common Prayer).  Amen. 

2. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written: „You will be holy, for I am holy“ (Leviticus 20,26). And if you call on Him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 

3. Our Gospel pericope for today ends with Jesus saying to those called to follow Him: »No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the reign of God« (Luke 9,62). Jesus applied an old farmer’s proverb to describe the reign of God. Perhaps a 21. century equivalent will make more sense to you: No one who drives a car by looking over his shoulder behind him is fit for the reign of God. Just as driving by looking behind you instead of forward is going to quickly lead to an accident, so also if one constantly looks back to where Jesus has been instead of forward to where He is going will  completely make a wreck of his or her Christianity. 

4. Luke 9,51 is the turning point in Jesus’ ministry: »When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem«. While in Jerusalem, Jesus would be betrayed, arrested, condemned and crucified. The Apostle Peter explains Christ’s passion this way: »you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers«. 

5. Men and women are born into futility. We are born sinners with original sin, and thus our three great sins are: we do not fear, love or trust God. We exchanged God’s holiness for our own. We love and trust ourselves at the expense of our neighbors. We look around at the moral fortitude of our society and lament how did things get so bad in America. „We have met the enemy, and he is us“ Walt Kelly famously punned in his 1970 comic strip Pogo. Kelly  perfectly sums up the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition. The reason our nation lacks moral fortitude, and the world lacks godly virtues, is because we sinners have caused it to be this way; we have allowed evil and immorality to advance. „The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing“ (Edmund Burke). [When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770] 

6. God the Father does not tolerate evil. He will not allow wickedness to triumph. God the Father, therefore, sent a good man to triumph over evil. God sent His very own Son to this earth to overcome evil. Jesus has not eliminated evil nor confined the devil to prison, but Jesus has overcome evil and the devil. Jesus has paid the ransom price to redeem us back to our Heavenly Father. Jesus did not use silver or gold to pay our ransom price. Our sinfulness is so great and our fallenness so devastating that there is not enough money in all the world to pay off the debt of sin we owe before God Almighty. The current American debt is over 15 trillion dollars. That’s an unfathomable, astronomical figure, and each person’s debt of sin is infinitely more than $15 trillion. 

7. An infinite debt requires an infinite credit to pay it off in full. No mere man could carry such a debt, therefore God Himself, in the Person of His Son, came to this earth to shoulder mankind’s infinite debt of sin. Christ, our Lord, did not arrive upon this earth with the full treasury of heaven to buy our redemption. Christ brought to this earth something more precious than all the gold of heaven: Jesus was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary so that He became Man. Jesus’ Divine nature was personally united to His very human body and blood at the incarnation. As Man, Jesus could be the human redeeming sacrifice for all sins, and as God Jesus could pay the enormous debt of sin. You have been  »ransomed with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot«. 

8. Jesus arrived from heaven to fulfill the Law. In Leviticus Yahweh declared: »You will be holy, for I am holy«. Jesus will have nothing but perfection for His creation, and so He Himself ensured that His creation indeed is holy. The shed blood of Jesus has made you holy. 

Luther summarizes this method of holiness in his Small Catechism: „I believe that Jesus Christ, True God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, has purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, so that I may belong to Him, live under Him in His reign and serve Him in eternal righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true“ (BKS 511). 

9. Christ Jesus is your holiness and your righteousness. He gives you all this freely by His grace, and you receive it by faith. The Apostle Paul writes: »The righteous will live by faith« (Romans 1,17). You are holy by faith. This faith clings solely to Christ and His blessed merits. The Apostle Peter is talking about this very faith alone in his epistle. He tells us that only Christ has redeemed us. And Christ hasn’t redeemed you with gold or silver, but He has redeemed you with His very own precious blood. Christ offered up His own life as the redemption price to set you free. Since you are justified by faith alone and you are made righteous on account of Christ’s vicarious atonement on the cross, therefore you are fit for the reign of God. 

10. We are halfway through Lent, and Jesus is methodically journeying up to Jerusalem where His cross awaits Him. He has set His hands upon the plow, does not look back, but keeps His eyes forward toward the goal of redeeming men and women. Christ is the Light of the world, and He is therefore your light, so that in Him you may also walk as children of the glorious light of God. Yahweh promises in His word: »I forgive your iniquity and I remember your sin no more« (Jeremiah 31,34), for »as far as the east is from the west so far have I removed your transgressions from you« (Psalm 103,12). Truly His merciful eyes are upon each and every day.  Amen. 

11. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, who stretched out Your hands to be nailed to the cross, guide our hands and order our steps as we live in Your glorious reign so that we may be able to tell of Your wondrous love and gracious forgiveness to our neighbors.  Amen. 

One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4^th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27^th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttigen. 

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.