The Third Sunday of Easter Purity Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) God the Holy Spirit speaks about your risen Christ in today’s Epistle. The Spirit says to you and to me and to all Christians, “Everyone who hopes in Him purifies himself, as He is pure.” That is to say, everyone who hopes in Christ purifies himself, as Christ is pure.
Dear Christian friends, If you have ever had the urge to wash your hands before eating a meal or after handling money, then purity might be a topic of interest for you. If you would just as soon have your open-heart surgery performed in a sterilized operating room, rather than in your garage, then purity might interest you. You wash your fresh fruits and vegetables before you eat them; you spray Lysol® on the bathroom fixtures; you boil tap water while the town’s fire hydrants get flushed; you use the little wet rag they give you at the Walmart to wash off the handle of your shopping cart: these are common, everyday steps you can take to avoid contamination; to avoid impurity. Stated another way, these are things you can do to work toward—and perhaps achieve—some aspect of purity in your life. What are you going to do with your brain? How do you plan to cleanse and purify that thing? For example: • What kind of soap will help you rub out the stain of your regrets? Think about some of those things in your past that you wish had never been. Once you gain experiences, you never lose them again. You can hide them under the rug of your memory, but you still know where to find them. You also know how black and contagious and guilt-ridden they are. Naiveté is like a fine wine glass or Christmas ornament: once it is shattered, it will never go back together again. • How will you erase from your mind those things you wish your eyes had never seen? Certain images have been painted and engraved onto the walls of your mind and they cannot be whitewashed away. Mental pictures last for decades, and they can re-stab you with sorrow and remorse every time you see them. • God says in His Bible that your tongue is a wild, unmanageable beast (James 3:7-8). Even if you should manage tame your tongue—as if that were at all possible—how can you stop the tidal wave of thought that your tongue rides upon? Telling your neighbor what you think of him is only half of the guilt; the other half of the guilt is that you ever thought it in the first place (Matthew 5:22, 28). When it comes to sin, your “brain bone” is connected to your “heart bone,” so to speak, and Jesus has clearly declared, What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person [and makes him impure]. For out of the heart [YOUR HEART] come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person (Matthew 15:18-20) Suppose Jesus is right (He is). Suppose that your greatest impurities are those things that are already inside you, bottled up like magma inside a volcano and just looking for its chance to spew. If your greatest impurities—if my greatest impurities—are those things inside of us, then we have very few options for purifying ourselves: • Some Christians hope to purify themselves by making a personal commitment. No longer will they sin! No longer will they dishonor God! No longer will they live impurely. But you know as well as I that people who make such claims deceive themselves and us “and the truth is not in [them]” (1 John 1:8). As you probably already know by personal experience, commitments to stop sinning are about as effective as New Year’s resolutions. As you already know from the Scriptures, your ACTIONS of sin are the least of your problems, because of the impurity of sin that burns and stinks inside of you. You might commit yourself to stop eating cookies, but you cannot commit to no longer being a glutton; you might commit yourself to not showing your temper, but you cannot avoid the murderous dimensions of your anger; you might commit yourself to greater acts of generosity, but greed and self-service always watch and wait and seize their opportunity. Purity cannot be achieved through commitment. • Because it is what lives inside a person that makes him or her impure, you will never be able purify yourself by staying away from impure people, either. Many Christians think that, if they intend to maintain purity in their lives, then sinful people should be avoided. Monks and Mennonites are somewhat similar in that line of thinking. God’s apostle Paul says it is hogwash. “You would need to get out of the world,” Paul declares (1 Corinthians 5:10). There is one—ONLY ONE—way for us purify our heart and cleans our minds. Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) God the Holy Spirit wants you to know that, in His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ your Lord has fully accomplished for you everything needful for your purification and cleanliness. • “The blood of Jesus [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7); • Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29); • In Jesus, God has fulfilled and completed the ancient promise He spoke through the prophet Isaiah, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Finally—magnificently—the Spirit also says to you and to me and to all Christians in today’s Epistle, “Everyone who hopes in Him [in Christ] purifies himself, as He [Christ] is pure.” Christians, Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) In His death, Christ bore the stain of our sins, but in His resurrection the stain of sin was washed completely away. Jesus is spotless and pure and holy-white. And Jesus belongs to you! In Baptism He wrapped Himself around you (Galatians 3:27). In Holy Communion He enters into you (Matthew 26:26. 28). In speaking His Words to you, Jesus miraculously gives you hope (Colossians 1:5). “Everyone who hopes in Him [in Christ] purifies himself, as He [Christ] is pure.” So what should you do with that impure, dirty brain of yours? Hope in Christ! How can you go about cleansing and your heart? You cannot, but Christ already has! Those regrets you feel? Those memories that are painted on the walls? Those thoughts that trigger the tongue? None of these things will go away, it is true. None of these things will condemn you, either. Your memories and your regrets are now mouths without teeth, bows without arrows, and traps that have already been sprung. • It is eternally written, “There is… now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1). • It is eternally written, “[God the Father] has caused us to be born again to a living hop through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). • It is eternally written, “Everyone who hopes in Him [in Christ] purifies himself, as He [Christ] is pure.” • It is eternally written, “Blessed are the pure… for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
