Sermon for Midweek of Lent 2 THE LOTTERY
Theme: When Jesus was baptized, God identified Him as the Guilty One. Suppose we held a little lottery here amongst ourselves tonight: · We could start our lottery by having the head of each family come forward and draw for his or her entire household. (All the single people in the congregation gather together as a family and one representative could draw for the whole group.) Who knows? Maybe your family would win. · Young or old, everyone in the winning household would then have his or her name placed into a second drawing. Each member of this winning household could then draw to determine who is the individual winner of our lottery. Maybe you win. Maybe your young child wins. · We could all then gather around the individual winner of our lottery and stone that person to death (from Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery,” [1948]). Did you feel a sensation of horror at my last suggestion? How much more horrified or nauseated would you feel if you watched our lottery unfold, knowing from the very beginning that you be the winner? (In this case, we should probably call the winner the loser.) All the sailors gather around Jonah in the storm-tossed boat, all the sailors prepare to cast their lots, but Jonah already knows the outcome of the game. Jonah will win, and having won, Jonah will lose. “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us,’” they said, but Jonah already knows who should be held accountable, who MUST be held accountable. “They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.” Jonah enters the water on account of his sins. Having won the lottery—having been thus identified by God—Jonah will be thrown into the sea; baptized into death. Keep track of Jonah’s three-step sequence of events: First Jonah sleeps in the boat; second, Jonah gets identified by God; third, Jonah enters the water. Keep this three-step sequence in mind while you listen to what John the Baptist says about Jesus. Jesus also won a lottery, knowing from the very beginning the outcome of the game that would identify Him for death: [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! … I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. … Behold, the Lamb of God!” Our Lord Jesus follows the same three-step sequence of events that Jonah followed, except in reverse order. It is almost uncanny: for Jonah it was sleep, identification of guilt, and then entry into the water. For Jesus, it is the direct opposite: · First Jesus enters the water—the water of His Baptism. There He gathers up all Jonah’s guilt along with your guilt and mine, too. · Second, Jesus wins the lottery, so to speak. Jesus gets identified as the Guilty One, “the Lamb of God who is now bearing the sins of the world.” Jesus’ baptism could be compared to the casting of lots in Jonah’s boats because in both cases, God picks the winner. Just as God identified Jonah the culprit through the casting of lots, God likewise identified Jesus the culprit through the descending dove. “This is He.” · Finally, long after His Baptism, Jesus sleeps while His disciples despair (Matthew 8:24-27), just as Jonah’s shipmates despaired. It is almost as if Jesus were walking backward, so to speak, through Jonah’s life. When you look at Jesus in this way, as if He were walking backward through the life of His wayward prophet Jonah, you get more than a picture of the Messiah who does all things well. Jesus does not merely come to cover over our sin or set aside our sin. Jesus comes to reverse the terrible results of our sin. Jesus comes to rewind our lives, so to speak, undoing and erasing all of the disasters we have created in our lives. By going backward through Jonah’s life, Jesus takes us back to the very beginning, prior to Jonah’s rebellion and sin. In so doing, Jesus our Sin-Bearer and our Guilty One and our Lottery Winner allows us to think that His forgiveness of our sins is so perfect and so complete that He is will likewise fix and overcome even the damage that we ourselves have done. ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected] Unsubscribe? 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