Thought for Today
Psalm 25:17 Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. 18 Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.
Psalm 130:3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
Mattthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Colossians 1:13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The theme for our These Days devotional guide this week is “On This Side of Easter.” While our liturgical calendar begins on the first Sunday of Advent, in an important sense, our spiritual lives pivot on Easter. Christians are called to always live on both sides of Easter.
Easter is God’s demonstrative affirmation of Jesus’ Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection. Could there be a louder shout of God’s “AMEN!” than the Empty Tomb of Easter Morning? My lexicon tells me, “ἀμήν transliterated from the Hebrew amen; . . . (1) liturgically, used as a particle of strong affirmation and assent at the end of a doxology this is indeed true (RO 11.36) or a prayer of thanksgiving that is the way it should be (1C 14.16); (2) used with λέγω to emphasize that what is being said is a solemn declaration of what is true (JN 1.51); (3) figuratively and substantivally ὁ ᾽Α the Amen, used by Christ of himself as the one speaking what is true (RV 3.14)”
The Empty Tomb is the truth of Jesus’ own words, of all his teaching and preaching. It is the truth of his miracles and the truth of his sacrifice of himself. Jesus told us, “John 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Today, on this side of Easter, we know the truth of the Empty Tomb and we are truly free.
On the other side of Easter, however, we also learned and are reminded of other truths. The author of today’s devotional in These Days writes about forgiveness. The language of forgiving and forgiveness is common in the Bible. Whether you ‘debt,’ ‘trespass,’ or ‘sin,’ the prayer Jesus taught us to pray begins that sentence in the Lord’s Prayer with “forgive us.”
“Mark 1:4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John did not initiate the idea of linking repentance with forgiveness. There are many verses in the Old Testament about repentance and forgiveness. Our repentance; God’s forgiveness.
My Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms has about 1½ pages of discussion about grace and various categories of grace. I am particularly fond of the very first words in its definition of grace, “Unmerited favor.” Paul wrote, and I frequently cite, “Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—”
Easter, on both sides, is the celebration of God’s grace in Jesus, the Christ. The faith Paul wrote about is our faith in Jesus. For Christians, that faith is our sole salvific mechanism, our only means of salvation. God graciously extends salvation because of our faith. We sin; we will continue to sin. “Romans 3:22 . . . For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Through our faith, our public confession of our faith and our commitment to follow Jesus, we are forgiven by God for our sin. Each Sunday, during our time for prayer in our congregation, we recite the Lord’s Prayer in unison. Our congregation “debts.” Together we remind ourselves and each other, in the words of those often-seen tee shirts, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.” And, we are also reminded “as we forgive our debtors.” We petition God to forgive us just as we forgive each other. We just need to make it so.
Stay safe, forgive yourselves and each other, trust God,
Pastor Ray