One of the joys of ministry is watching the word of God bring about wonderful victories. One of those victories happened with a couple who were not only members of my congregation, but good friends as well. The husband - sadly - found another woman and divorced his wife. He fled the help of my congregation, and she moved out of town. About a year and a half later, they stopped by my office. With faces beaming, the husband told me how he couldn’t live with himself for what he did to his wife. He left the other woman, sought repentance and returned to his wife. They reconciled their marriage.
You heard the word reconcile five times in our sermon text. The word at one time was used in the market place to mean squaring up a business deal - making change so that you paid the fair price for something you bought. But later on it meant squaring up relationships - making a hostile relationship into a peaceful one. My friends fixed their relationship with the help of spiritual counseling. Often times two parties have to sit across a table in an arbitration hearing, or a courtroom, to try to come to an agreement. It can be a conflict between nations, or between employer and employee, or a man and wife. When both sides can reach an agreement, we say that there is reconciliation.
St. Paul wants us to understand this concept in our relationship with our God. And in so doing, we will understand better how to use the keys in what he calls the message of reconciliation.
In all negotiations that require reconciliation, both parties come with some burden of guilt for the relationship gone bad. Whether it’s a squabble among nations or a broken marriage in need of fixing, no one is totally innocent.
But can we say that about our relationship with God? He is holy and perfect. Has he ever done anything wrong to his “crown of creation”? Does he need to accept blame for the fractured relationship that took place in the Garden of Eden, or for the separation that exists with humanity? With you?
The Bible says that the heart is more deceitful than anything. It is beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9) Isaiah reminds us: We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way (53:5). Paul says: There is no one who is righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who searches for God. They all turned away; together they became useless. There is no one who does what is good; there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They kept deceiving with their tongues. The poison of asps is on their lips. Their mouth is filled with cursing and bitterness. Their feet are quick to shed blood. They leave a trail of destruction and suffering wherever they go. The way of peace they did not know. There is no fear of God in front of their eyes (Romans 3:10-18). Can any of these things be said about God? Moses knew better. He reminds us: Perfect is his work. Indeed all of his ways are justice. He is a faithful God. He does no wrong. Righteous and upright is he (Deuteronomy 32:4).
God simply said that the soul that sins is the one who will die. He will not tolerate competition from those who want to be God. We can try our hardest to eradicate death, but in the end, a piece of plaque in the artery, a virus, or a moment of forgetfulness while driving can bring quick and sudden death. But our holy God lives on. He is independent of us. He doesn’t need us to exist or be happy.
Yet, who is the one who wants to fix the relationship, to bring peace? Who is the one who wants reconciliation? God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. He does that because - as he says - I have loved you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). And he shows that love in Christ. God made him, who did not know sin, to be sin for us. Jesus did not know sin like we know sin. He was tempted in every way, just as we are, but he never gave into it. Yet God covered him with all the filth and stench and corruption of sin, the sin he hates. He made him sin. And then he unleashed the fury of his wrath on Jesus. And he said, You are sin...Die! Jesus, true Man, faced the penalty of our sin for us. Jesus, true God, could carry that weight of sin in our place.
The result? so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The one thing we need to get to heaven is perfection, holiness, or righteousness. This is what Jesus earned for us and gave us when he died and rose. So, if God would ask you on the day you stand before him, Are you perfect?, we can say, Yes, in Christ.
One other truth we dare not overlook: he did this for the world. God didn’t say, I reconciled 99% of you. If he did, how could we be sure he did it for us? If the Bible said, God reconciled only certain, chosen people, how could I ever be sure I was one of the chosen ones? Friends, reread this passage, God was reconciling the world and put your name in it. This is why, when we struggle with those sins that vex us and trap us and we keep repeating them and feel guilty about it, and wonder if God can really love us, we know there is peace with God. This is why we have hope. God came to the negotiating table and did all the work. He brought us into a right relationship with him. He reconciled us. And with all the love and compassion he can muster, he says, Be reconciled to God. All I’ve done for you, it’s yours.
This is where the Ministry of the Keys - the keys of heaven and hell - comes into play, that special power and right which Christ gave to the Church on earth, to forgive the sins of the penitent and refuse forgiveness to those who do not repent. And all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
I remember standing in line to go to the statue of liberty many years ago. There were countless thousands of people standing in line with me. God reconciled everyone of them in Christ. Go to a Brewer game or a Packer game (if you must) and look at all those people in the stands. Jesus made peace with every one of them.
How will they know that unless we tell them? God loves you. He has forgiven you all of your sins. That’s the message of reconciliation. No need for “if you do this.” No need for “follow these steps, say these prayers, and God will enter your heart.”
But God will not force his grace on anyone. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned the Bible says. There are those who will refuse the gift of reconciliation by their own self-righteousness. There are those who will turn away from God and return to their own life of sin. There are those who will find it offensive to believe that Jesus is their Savior. One day they will stand before God, having rejected his reconciliation, and experience only his wrath and punishment. And the keys say, if you want to live without God, you are forfeiting his gift of forgiveness...you are not forgiven. You want to live without God, then we use the key to shackle your sins to you. Better yet, you shackle them on yourselves.
But there are those who hear that message of reconciliation in Word and Sacrament and are warmed by the love of their Savior. The words before our text says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. Jesus your blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress. Midst flaming world in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head.
How badly we need to hear over and over again that message of reconciliation. We recall it when we splash water on our face and remember how the Holy Spirit renewed us in baptism. We cherish it when we come into the presence of God, knowing our sins and unworthiness to be in his presence, and we hear his servant say, I forgive you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We feel a sense of calm when we receive his body and blood in the sacrament and are reminded that all our sins are washed away.
We are his ambassadors. When we teach our children how to say I’m sorry and God forgives you, we are using that key to unlock their sins. When we have a fractured marriage or relationship with a friend, and we seek to make amends, we can be God’s ambassador by fixing what is broken. Not so easy - we all know that - but oh so important. When we are dealing with someone who is lost, or who has no where to turn, and we show them Jesus, we are truly being God’s ambassador. We are simply saying to them what God wants us to say to them.
In this way, we see victories brought about by the gospel. Some may be as big as a broken marriage being restored. Some may be as simple as fixing an argument with an apology, and knowing that peace is restored. All this is from God, who fixed our relationship with him and brought us peace. Now be his ambassador. Use the keys he has given to you. Let them know the peace that God has given them. Amen.