{"id":9516,"date":"2023-11-28T04:42:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T11:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9516"},"modified":"2023-11-28T04:43:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T11:43:51","slug":"christ-is-the-answer-what-is-the-problem-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9516","title":{"rendered":"
Christ is the answer. What is the problem?<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isaiah 64:1-9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a remarkable verse in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians which says: \u201cFor all the promises of God find their Yes in him\u201d (2 Corinthians 1:20). We might paraphrase that by saying: \u201cChrist is the answer: What is the problem?\u201d Christ is the answer. That\u2019s set, but what is the problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the missteps we make is to define away the problem. On this first Sunday of Advent, as we look to the year ahead of us, we ask: Why is it the way it is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem, very simply, is sin. At this answer just image how eyes roll as others say: \u201cThere goes those Lutherans again! Why do they have such a hang-up about sin?\u201d Well, what is the problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people today understand sin sociologically as a kind of groupthink. A group decides that this is the way it should be, and that is the way it shouldn\u2019t be, and we are called upon to conform to the group. The trouble is today that there are all kinds of groups. There are groups in the past, groups elsewhere in the world, and we end up saying: \u201cIt\u2019s all relative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, sociologists have picked up a word \u201canomie,\u201d from a Greek word describing sin, \u201canomia<\/em>,\u201d which means meaninglessness. People end up in meaninglessness because who knows what\u2019s true? If \u201cthe group\u201d says so, maybe it\u2019s better to go along. But where is there any meaning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second way the problem is looked at is by psychology. And psychology says that everything is really a matter of feelings and experience. Sometimes people get caught in thinking \u201cconscience\u201d provides a rudder in life, as in Jiminy Crickett\u2019s advice: \u201cAlways let your conscience be your guide.\u201d But \u201cconscience\u201d in Paul does not mean that we have something built into us by which we know right and wrong. In fact, the idea that we have some built into us also leads to meaninglessness because why would I be the one to determine what is final? It is really playing God. That leads to a kind of relativism and meaninglessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forgetting for a moment about the world out there, and thinking instead about the world we call the church, people say: \u201cWe know what the Bible says.\u201d That commonly means the Ten Commandments and a few more things. But exactly what do they know, or what do they think they know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a Biblical word for sin that means \u201cmissing the mark.\u201d It\u2019s as if you are shooting at a target, and you miss it. Some say that the important thing is to try. Do the best you can. You may not hit a bullseye, but you may get close enough. The other word that comes from this thinking about the Ten Commandments is the word \u201cobedience\u201d and its correlate, \u201cdisobedience.\u201d The idea is that you obey the Commandments, you do good, and that\u2019s good for you. If you break the Commandments, you sin, and that\u2019s bad for you. Of course, if good things happen to you that must mean that you did good things, and if evil things happen, that must mean that you did evil things and were sinful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is one more little bit that people know: There are sins of omission. We struggle with that because we say we can\u2019t be help responsible for things we don\u2019t know. After World War II there were Germans who said that they didn\u2019t know what was being done to the Jewish people. There is a difference between \u201cknow\u201d and \u201cknow.\u201d They didn\u2019t see with their own eyes people being executed. But they knew. Everybody knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have that problem. If we\u2019re not an eyewitness to an evil, we excuse ourselves saying the sins of omission don\u2019t apply to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the Bible say about sin? Luther often quoted Isaiah 64:6: \u201cAll our good (righteous) deeds are filthy rags.\u201d Under this judgment all the ideas we have that there are good deeds and bad deeds are wiped away. Lest we think that this verse is an outlier, that it is only one verse and only in the Old Testament, consider what Paul writes in Romans 3:10 following: \u201c\u2019None is righteous, no not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one.\u2019\u201d He goes on in Romans 3:20: \u201cNo human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know this is true, yet commonly after a funeral someone will say: \u201cHe\u2019s surely in heaven because he was a good man.\u201d As if that had anything to do with it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is we\u2019re all caught. Lest we think in some way it isn\u2019t quite so bad, it is important to remember in the New Testament that sin and death are the same thing. In Romans 6:23: \u201cThe wages of sin is death.\u201d 1 Corinthians 15:56: \u201cThe sting of death is sin.\u201d The word \u201csting\u201d here is referring to the scorpion\u2019s tail. To say \u201cthe sting of death is sin\u201d means the cause of death is sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all are then caught. Anybody who has any illusion that: \u201cWell, I\u2019m not so bad,\u201d faces the fact that death tells us all that we are all equally caught and equally judged sinful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What then do we do? Is it hopeless? That directs us to the message for today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopelessness is itself sin because then we do not trust in the fact that the Lord has acted. He acted in Jesus Christ to solve the problem of sin and death. And that\u2019s what we are celebrating. In Advent we are looking ahead to Christmas and through Christmas to Good Friday and Easter because that\u2019s what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it is about is that God has taken care of it, and he\u2019s taken care of it through his cross. Luther wrote that anyone who diminishes the importance of sin also diminishes the importance of the cross. The cross is the answer because here the holy one took on sin. The cross tells us how bad sin is; it is so bad that God himself came and died on the cross for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anytime we think that the problem isn\u2019t serious we have to think about what God saw as the necessary answer. Thank God that\u2019s what he did so that we have a sure hope<\/strong> as it says in 1 Peter 1:3: \u201cBlessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a<\/strong> living hope<\/strong>through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . . . \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the Gospel message today and throughout the season of Advent is: Wake up and watch. See what the problem is as well as the answer. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent <\/p>\n

Isaiah 64:1-9<\/p>\n

There is a remarkable verse in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians which says: \u201cFor all the promises of God find their Yes in him\u201d (2 Corinthians 1:20). We might paraphrase that by saying: \u201cChrist is the answer: What is the problem?\u201d Christ is the answer. That\u2019s set, but what is the problem? <\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9516"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9523,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions\/9523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}