Look at my misery and rescue me; for Your instruction, I do not forget.
Plead my case and redeem me; according to Your spoken word, revive me.
Far off from the wicked–salvation; for Your statutes they do not seek.
Your compassion is great, Yahweh; according to Your judgments, revive
me. Great are my pursuers and my oppressors; from Your warning signs I
do not turn away. I look at the faithless, and I loathe; because Your
spoken word they do not safe-guard. You see that Your appointments, I
love; Yahweh, according to Your loving-kindness, revive me. The
starting-point of Your word is truth; and eternal–all judgments of Your
righteousness.
I'm sure you've all heard the old joke about why Lutherans never hold
revivals...because they're not dead! Yet, purely in the terms of this
world, it surely appears that the methobapticostal church down the
street is more lively than us traditional Lutherans. "Look at all that
they are doing!" is usually the criteria for a church considered to be
alive. But 1 thing is often lacking. He Who gives life, and what *He*
does to revive his dead & decaying church, to bring it to his kind of
life–life eternal with Him!
So we do well this day to consider the message of Jesus for today: the
life-finder loses his life, while the one willing to lose his life for
Jesus, he will find his life revived! How? Well, the psalmist today
gives us not 1, not 2, but three strong clues in his 3-fold call for God
to revive his life. And each time he calls for revival, he reminds us
how it is that God restores life to us dead & decrepit sinners.
First, the psalmist asks God to revive him *according to His spoken
word*. But that seems too simple. We might prefer an emotional
encounter, a huge spectacle, a sign-from-above as our revival. Just the
bible's mere words voiced aloud can't possibly be enough. Doesn't there
need to be more? Pomp & circumstance, ritual & ceremony, Regis & Kelly,
or something else exciting surely ought to be needed. We have trouble
trusting in just the spoken word of scripture to accomplish much, all alone.
But it does! Remember Lazarus in the tomb 4 days? "Surely by now, Lord
he stinketh!" His sisters chastized Jesus for being too late to perform
any flashy miracle. So instead, with a simple "Lazarus, come forth", He
revived him! Jesus does the same for you, dead in your trespasses. The
simple gospel message of Christ's love from the +proclaimed in the
pulpit forgives you, lifting you out of the dead tomb of your sin, to
new, holy life. Your pastor absolves you with that same reviving gospel!
Secondly, the psalmist asks God for revival "according to His
judgments". Now that doesn't sound very good at all. God's judgment once
condemned Sodom & Gomorrah in hell-fire. His judgment also wiped out
almost the entire world with a flood in Noah's day. We don't want much
at all to do with God's judgments which condemn sin so harshly. We
prefer leaving things to our own decisions, with name-it-claim-it
foolishness, striving to declare ourselves *revived* without any power
to make it so.
But God does revive you according to His judgments. He is the Just Judge
Who must be fair, though not as this world would act. For in the
Father's condemnation of all sins in full, He placed the guilty verdict
squarely on His only-begotten Son Jesus. He judged the Christ worthy of
death for your sins, that you be made worthy of life in His
righteousness, in exchange. That righteousness is yours delivered to you
this day by His body given & blood shed for your forgiveness, life &
salvation.
Lastly, the psalmist pleads with God to revive him according to the
LORD's loving-kindness. This is more like it. Here we might expect a
bucolic, butterfly-petting Jesus to save our life with nothing but meek
mildness; a milque-toast Jesus who champions tolerance of our sins, like
the beloved old uncle who winks at our transgression, letting us get
away with it. But such is not the kind of loving-kindness Christ brings.
His is a tough love that deals with the reality of death & need for
revival from it.
The loving-kindness of Jesus begins like that old west gun-slinger who,
when asked why he shot a man, replied, "Well, sheriff; he just needed
killin'". Sinful you needed killing too, so that's just what Jesus did
in Holy baptism. He drowned sinful you at the font, that you would be
crucified with Christ Jesus & buried with Him by baptism into death.
Jesus loved you to death, as it were. But His love didn't end there. He
kept on loving you in new life, raising you up with Him on Easter to
revived life.
So do we Lutherans have revivals? Indeed, it appears that we do, but not
like those man-made events of other churches. Our revivals are those
actions of Christ Jesus which give us real life. His powerful gospel is
a revival which bespeaks you righteous, once dead but now forgiven &
alive in Him. Holy Communion is a revival which judges Jesus worthy of
your death, and you worthy of His everlasting life. Holy Baptism is a
revival which both kills & resurrects you to life in Christ Jesus. Amen.
John C. Drosendahl, Pastor
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