• Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Luke 1:68-79 • Colossians 1:11-20 • Luke 23:33-43
THE LORD is our Righteousness. If you were asked to explain to someone what is the Gospel, or the Good News of our faith, could you do it?
At the end of our 1st reading we have the name that will be given to the branch that God promises to raise up to save his people. The name is; The Lord is our Righteousness. What exactly does that mean?
The definition of “Righteousness” “is the quality of being morally right or justifiable”. It is almost an old-fashioned word and the only time I have really heard it used, other than at church, would be when someone was cranky with another and describing them as being self-righteous, meaning that they are “right in their own eyes – and not in the eyes of the on-looker. And I find this kind of hilarious, because we are all inclined to self-righteousness. We all want to be morally right or justifiable…. And when we are not morally right we become experts at explaining how we can justify our actions, and therefore reclaim the title of being declared righteous.
The ancient Israelite nation prided themselves on being a righteous nation. They claimed to be God’s own people. Sure, each nation had their own God and worshiped accordingly, but it was Israel who were rescued by the parting of the sea and it was Israel who were fed by manna, bread from heaven, while they wondered about in the desert. It was Israel who possessed the Ark of the Covenant, so holy that those who reached out to touch it, died. And there were many more stories that they knew about God’s supernatural intervention, so they knew themselves to be a special nation and assumed themselves to be just a bit better than the nations around them…. It is what I like to call duck logic; perfectly logical, but wrong.
It would be logical to assume that if God chose you then there was something special about you and logically, if God is good and right, then his chosen nation must also be righteous and his chosen people also must be righteous. It is logical, but it is wrong. Just like duck logic, it is wrong because this logic leaves out other factors, and it leaves out the most important fact about the grace of God who says in Exodus 33:19; And the LORD said, "……. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
Fast forward from our 1st reading to our Gospel reading and we find some very interesting statements in a story we’ve heard so often. This is the story we hear at Easter when Jesus is on the cross. There are two criminals also being crucified and one scoffs at Jesus and the other asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. We know the story… Jesus assures him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
There are some very remarkable things in this reading which we can easily miss. Firstly I have a question; to which criminal did Jesus give this assurance? We assume that it was the one who acknowledged his guilt, but let me point out some parts of the story you might have missed;
Luke 23:34 “Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."…...”
Did the father indeed answer Jesus’ prayer? The one who scoffed at Jesus, was he aware of what he was doing, or was he one of those for whom Jesus was interceding?
“They do not know what they are doing……” What were they doing that they didn’t know? They did know that they were ridiculing a man who claimed to be something special. They knew the claims that Jesus had made during his time of freedom and it is remarkable just how much, and how accurately these things were known in a time that didn’t have radio, television or social media. What they didn’t grasp was that thing that the other criminal somehow did understand.
Imagine the scene; the three of them on their crosses, Jesus in the middle, but all of them about to die. To all intents and purposes this was three mortal men. They were made of flesh and blood and they were most likely looking incredibly mortal with exposed flesh and blood from the whips and nails etc…
The Jewish people were waiting for the Messiah and many had hoped that Jesus might be it….. only a short time ago they welcomed him to the city with palm branches and declared Hosanna to the son of David… They expected that the Messiah would lead an army and establish land and peace and dominion for the people. Here was that man in whom they had hoped, and he was dying on the cross. But the man dying next to him says, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Not even the apostles fully understood the kingdom that Jesus was bringing, but somehow in this pain-filled moment a criminal understood. That criminal was not self-righteous. That criminal declared the justice of his sentence and that he and the other were getting what they deserved, and somehow with divine understanding he reached out to Jesus and the real kingdom. Did he deserve to be in the Kingdom of God? Did he confess his sins? Did he prove that he was changing his ways? There was no time to do so….
What that criminal grasped that the others did not, is something that we find in our 2nd reading from Colossians – and that is the nature of who Jesus really is.
Quite often I find people get confused with God and Jesus…. We have the creed that declares there is one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but we still don’t quite get it. Colossians makes it clear that Jesus is the visible expression of God, and more than just being like a perfect picture of God, we read that the fullness of God dwelt IN HIM. But wait there is more; in him all things in heaven and on earth were created and this includes the creatures of the physical and spiritual realm and dominions, rulers and powers.
The one criminal on the cross somehow was given the understanding of the nature of Christ and responded. Others …. Hmm well, Jesus asked that they be forgiven because they did not understand what they were doing.
But what does this all mean for us?
Recently I was reminded of two theological ways of understanding our faith. One is Original Sin and the other is Original Blessing. These are two important things that are contained in the stories at the beginning of Genesis. Original Sin is that thing that happened in the story of Adam and Eve disobeying God, commonly known as the fall, and it follows that all are fallen because of Adam’s sin. Original blessing is to remember that God made everything, blessed it and said “It is good”.
Throughout history there has been such an emphasis on Original Sin that there seemed to be a great negativity, a whole lot of judgment and not a lot of love. Those who promoted Original blessing reminded all to focus on God as a God of love.
Both Original Sin and Original Blessing are a part of the story of our faith and one without the other is to only tell half the story.
As far as being righteous is concerned, in today’s society, all are striving to declare themselves righteous. We justify all our actions, and we are all right in our own eyes, but if we really are right, why do we not have peace and harmony with each other? We don’t see things the same way. We justify ourselves, but we are not admitting our faults – I believe that we’ve become incredibly self-righteous. There has to be a standard beyond ourselves that is morally right and truly justifiable. There is a standard, but we ALL fall short of this standard.
We don’t need to understand the theology of Original Sin to realize that we all do fall short of perfection. If we think that we are perfect, we are truly deluded and living in a la la land. Look around us… look at the car thefts, the fire lightings…. I’m sure these people can justify their actions, or others will justify for them – a bad up-bringing – the influence of video games etc… but the fact is, they still fall short of perfection. Look at ourselves when we talk about someone behind their back, when we lose our temper, even when we simply fail to reach out to the lonely friend…. We can justify our actions, but those actions still fall short of perfection, and therefore our righteousness falls short.
God is perfect and His standard is perfection. Though we are imperfect, we read that God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.
We are made righteous, and we are justified only through the righteousness of God – His name is Jesus.
The Good News of our faith and the Gospel, is that statement; The LORD is our righteousness.
What this means is that we, like Abraham, are counted as righteous by our faith in God, by our faith in our saviour. The righteousness of Jesus is credited to us.
THIS is how Christianity stands apart from every other religion. This is how it truly is the Good News…. In every other religion its adherents strive to attain perfection… work to be worthy, ie… strive to be righteous and worthy. They justify what it means to be “holy”, or “worthy”. Christians who are humble and honest, acknowledge that our righteousness falls short, but rejoice that we are acceptable and reconciled to our creator by the righteousness of Christ. Through the sacrifice of Christ the original Blessing is set back in place, where God looks at His creation and declares, “It is good.”
It is SUCH Good News to be able to admit that I can’t attain perfection, and it is a great equalizer to know that no other human can reach that standard either, but that we are forgiven and made acceptable by God himself.
The Gospel in a nutshell - The LORD is our righteousness.
No comments:
Post a Comment