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The ongoing saga in the Gulf of Mexico of the great oil leak continues. It seems that this is a nearly hopeless problem, and solutions are few and far between. It is too late. The sea is contaminated, and so will be more and more of our shoreline. The oil company, the government, so many are out there, even now, are trying anything to shut off that flow of oil. But, so far, nothing works.
You have a contamination problem yourself. And nothing you can do will be of any help. You've already admitted to it this morning: you are by nature sinful and unclean, in thought, word, and deed, by what you have done and by what you have left undone. Since the well blew up when Adam and Eve fell and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this world has been contaminated and corrupted by sin, and that includes you.
Therefore, when things are not right, will you turn inwardly, to your own reasoning and willpower? Who will you turn to in order to solve the problems of this life? Let's go back to the oil leak in the Gulf. BP is spending untold money and man hours trying to fix an almost unfixable oil leak five thousand feet below the surface of the sea. “We will fix it, I guarantee it,” the Chief Executive Officer of BP said this week. Sounds like some famous last words, although we hope not.
Sinners listen to their sinful flesh and put their trust and hope in their own ability to fix problems — to their reasoning, experience, and judgment — even though these are corrupted by the sinful flesh. It is so very easy when confronted by hard times and unforeseen problems to “go to ground”, “hole up”, “bunker in”, “circle the wagons”. Our culture tells you to look inward: “He who helps best helps himself.” You've got to “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”. I'm sure exuding self–confidence is what every modern American wants to hear from the BP executive. Expressing defeat, seeking help from others, hoping for divine intervention, tends to be frowned upon. “We'll fix it,” the man says.
But God's Word says differently. You cannot fix things. You are unclean. You have profaned God's holy name, the prophet Ezekiel warns. While God and His Name are holy and righteous, your actions on a daily basis — your inability to fear, love, and trust in God above all things, your corrupt, sinful flesh — make you unholy, unrighteous. You have a heart of stone in you, from out of which comes every evil thought, every evil desire, everything that is contrary to the righteous and holy will of God.
Therefore, you cannot by your own reason or strength believe or trust in God, nor come to Him in any way on your own. You cannot do one single thing on your own power to earn God's forgiveness, to appease God's righteous wrath and condemnation for your sin. You are lacking something. You need help. You need divine intervention.
So were the disciples after Jesus' Ascension. One would have thought that the eleven would have been ready to go, ready to begin building the Church, preaching and teaching. They had known and sat at the feet of Jesus and lived with Him for three years. They witnessed His death and resurrection. He had opened the Scriptures up for their understanding. They knew more about Jesus than any other people have ever known.
Yet, Christianity is not simply a matter of knowing the teaching of Jesus and living by it. It is not simply knowing about Jesus and following Him. If it is, then we are back to depending upon our own actions, our own abilities, our own power to fix our problems. And we have spent plenty of time documenting what Scripture says about those corrupted by sin.
The disciples waited patiently in Jerusalem, as Jesus instructed, in prayer. They worshipped Jesus, even in the Temple. What were they waiting for? What were they lacking?
They had an awesome task ahead of them, and yet, they had the same inherent problem, the corrupted sinful nature that you have. They were waiting for God's promise to send help, and not just any help, the Helper.
There were real obstacles to the task of preaching and teaching and building the Church. The Apostles would be bearing witness to a Jewish man crucified as a blasphemer (to the Jews) and a troublemaker (to Caesar and the Gentiles). The message of the Apostles would be met with violent resistance and persecution. They called Jesus, who is Lord and Master, a servant of “Beelzebub”. What would they call His servants? “They will put you out of the synagogues,” Jesus warns, “indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”
They would be calling a people to repentance for crucifying God's own Messiah, God's own Son, calling on impenitent people who “have not known the Father, nor” Jesus, to repent for something they had not understood themselves to have done. Add to this, they were to preach and teach in unity, to stick to the same message, to not add anything or take anything away, to point only to Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected for the life of the world, even though Jesus was no longer physically, visually present with them for direct counsel and correction.
The sinful nature in us would construct our own solutions faced with such a dilemma. We would try to come up with a “fix” for such problems. And people still do — even many who call themselves Christians — usually by compromising the exclusivity of the Gospel, that Jesus is the only Way to eternal salvation. But nothing the Apostles would do on their own would overcome these obstacles to the spreading of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. If they went off and depended upon their own wisdom and efforts, the enterprise would be doomed to failure.
But Jesus does not expect the Apostles — nor does He expect you — to live this life, to fulfill your vocations, to attempt to lead a God–pleasing life, to confess His Gospel rightly before men, to do anything at all, without His Helper, His divine intervention on your behalf.
Jesus took on your flesh and bore your sins to His tree and became heavenly intervention for the problem of your sinful nature. He defeated for you, in your place, your sinful flesh; and the punishment that was due for that sin was suffered in your place, and you have been redeemed. God provides solutions to our problems. He knows us well, and He knows we cannot save ourselves. So He expresses in your lives, in real time and space, who He is for you — that He is love incarnate and provides love for the loveless, grace for those who are impure, mercy for those who cannot show it themselves.
It is not enough, not the end of the story, to leave things at the victory of Good Friday and Easter. The victory and redemption of Jesus Christ must be applied to each of you. God must overcome the barriers that remain between you and Him, so that you know you are His child and receive that saving faith in Him. God must apply His salvation to each of you. He must call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify you, because only He can.
“When the Helper shall come,” Jesus says, “whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, the one who from the Father comes forth, that one will testify concerning me.” (John 15:26, my translation).
And the Apostles, full of that Spirit of Truth, will also bear witness to Jesus, will also testify to Jesus, building the Church with the Gospel by the power of the Spirit, even to the point of being martyred. The Holy Spirit would clothe the Apostles with power from on high. He would open the way for the Gospel by convicting men of sin and of righteousness. He would give His messengers a power and a wisdom that would overcome the enemies of God. The Spirit would speak through the tongues and words of the Apostles. He would lead them, and all Christians to come after on the foundation of their preaching, into all the truth. He would preserve the Gospel and the Church, living and pure.
Even as God had saved you and all His people from their sins by Cross and Empty Tomb, so God would and still does provide the means by which you are given that redemption and love and grace and mercy of God given in the blood of Christ, by which you apprehend it as your own salvation through the Holy Spirit, in His Church, using His means of grace in Word and Sacrament. God the Father and His Son send forth the Holy Spirit, the Helper, to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify the whole Christian Church on earth, including each of you, and to keep her with Jesus Christ in the one true faith, come what may, no matter what devil and hell may throw against her, whatever they may throw against you.
When the problems and heartaches and anxieties and obstacles of this life come, when temptation and sin and shame come knocking at the door, when the hour for these things come, remember that Jesus has told you that He holds and gives the solution for you. He has redeemed you from these with His own blood. Even more, He has sent His Helper, His Holy Spirit, to be at work in your life for your good, calling you to repentance and faith in Christ.
Even now, God is at work. His Holy Spirit is present, breathing faith and life in your ear in this Gospel proclamation, keeping you in your baptismal faith and gathering you with your fellow baptized and drawing you to the Body and Blood of God's Son given and shed for your forgiveness, strengthening, and peace.
So we pray:
Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and make our hearts your place of rest;
Come with Your grace and heavenly aid, and fill the hearts which You have made.
Drive far away our wily foe, and your abiding peace bestow;
With You as our protecting guide, no evil can with us abide.
Teach us to know the Father, Son, and You, from both, as Three in One.
That we Your name may ever bless, and in our lives the truth confess.
Praise we the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, with them One,
And may the Son on us bestow the gifts that from the Spirit flow! Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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