There was a man named
Adam, who lived in a garden in a place called Eden. He had a wife
named Eve, and together they were the most loved creation of God. God
loved them so much because he created them in his own image. God gave
all kinds of trees and plants for Adam and Eve to eat. He gave them
peace with all of the animals, and put them in charge of caring for
his garden. God would come and walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of
the day. They had a relationship with God, and knew him intimately.
But one day, they broke God's one rule. “You may surely eat of
every tree of the garden,” God had said, “but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you
eat of it you shall surely die.” When Adam and Eve were disobedient
to God and ate of that one tree, the first thing they felt was shame.
And from that shame came fear when God came down to visit those he
loved. Because their shame made them afraid, they hid themselves from
God.
What I find interesting
about this story is that they weren't afraid of God because they were
afraid of punishment. Adam says to God, “I heard the sound of you
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid
myself.” They were afraid of God because they were ashamed. They
recognized about themselves what God already knew, that they weren't
worthy to stand in his presence. They were exposed. They realized
their nakedness and did all that they could to cover their nakedness
from the eyes of God.
When Peter wrote to the
Christians in the first century, he said, “the day of the Lord will
come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar,
and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the
earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
This is a fearsome image.
The God who created the universe and all that is in it will pour out
his wrath on the heavens and burn away all of the heavenly bodies
with a roar. When I lived in Florida, every year, we would have a
season where hurricanes would threaten up the coast. In 1992,
Hurricane Andrew hit the east coast with deadly force, causing 25
billion dollars worth of damage in the state alone. Around 1.2
million people were evacuated from their homes to escape the storm.
The day of the Lord will be like a storm, coming without warning,
like a hurricane of fire, burning and exposing the whole earth.
We cannot respond to such
an event with anything but fear and apprehension. And our first
response to fear is to hide. But there will be nowhere to hide from
God, because the whole earth and all the works done on it will be
exposed. He will not come as he did to Adam and Eve, walking in the
cool of the day. Neither will he come as he did in his incarnation,
as a baby in a manger. God will come to us in the fullness of his
being. He will come to judge both the living and the dead for their
sin. Peter's description of that coming Day forces his readers to
come face to face with the reality of the power of God. He wants to
be sure that we pay attention when he gives the warning, that “since
all of these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people
ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and
hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens
will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt
as they burn.”
The fear that Peter's
descriptions instill is the same fear that captured Adam and Eve when
they sinned in the garden. The fear of God is rooted in our shame.
Our shame comes from knowing that we have failed to meet the standard
set for us. We have a standard of holiness and godliness against
which we have all sinned and fallen short. In our shame we try to
hide our shortcomings from God and those around us. We hide because
we don't want others to see our deeds. We know that our deeds are
evil. We know our greed, our anger, our jealousy; and do everything
we can to keep those things hidden. Even greater than the fear of
fire and destruction, seeing the heavenly bodies burn away and
dissolve, is the fear of being exposed. The fear of standing before
God with everything we have done in the open for all to see.
“And this is the
judgment,” we read in the John's Gospel, “the light has come into
the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light
because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things
hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should
be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that
it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God.”
Peter calls us to live
lives of holiness and godliness, already knowing it is a standard we
are unable to uphold on our own. What we don't want to take away from
his message is that we need to meet that standard if we are to
survive the Day of the Lord. If it were possible, Jesus wouldn't have
died on the Cross to redeem us. We wouldn't need his forgiveness of
our sins. No, we are unable to meet this standard. That is where our
fear is grounded. We hide from God because we know that we can't meet
his standards of perfection. To try overcoming our fears by our
efforts of meeting this standard on our own would only drive us
deeper into the darkness of shame. The more we try, the more we
realize just how far we fall short of that standard. It would place
us under the unbearable pressure of unreachable perfection. It would
trap us in the mire of guilt and force us into disbelief. Pure
moralism, that is, seeking our value through what we do right or
wrong, is what caused the shame of Adam and Eve after their first sin
in the garden. It causes us to measure ourselves against those around
us instead of valuing them as love-infused and image-bearing
creations of God.
We do not strive for the
standards of holiness and godliness because we find our value in
them. We do not strive for the standards of holiness and godliness
because attaining those things will make us feel complete. We do not
strive for the standards of holiness and godliness to prove ourselves
worthy of God. We strive for these things because they reveal the
character and prove the love of God.
God's character is seen
in his response to our inability to meet his standard of perfection.
The way he responds to our inability shows the perfect union of his
justice and mercy. Were God only just, then we would all need to pay
the full penalty of our own sin. There would be no hope for
salvation, because our salvation would be dependent on our ability to
stand perfect and blameless before God. Were God only merciful, then
there would be no cure for sin. Our fallen world would continue in
its path to destruction. No penalty would ever be dealt for the
injustices of humanity against one another. Instead, God does the
unthinkable. To fully satisfy his justice, and fully reveal his
mercy, God came to us as one of us. He came to us, Jesus Christ, born
of the virgin Mary. He fulfilled his own law, meeting the standard of
holiness and godliness we never could. He then offered his own
perfect and divine life to pay the penalty of our sin. Because of
this, our sins are not only forgiven, but their penalty is paid in
full.
Now that the penalty for
sin has been paid, we can pursue his standard of holiness and
godliness freely and without fear. But we still run into the same
problem. Even if we are forgiven for our failures, we are still
unable to meet his standard. God still calls us to holiness and
godliness. But we have proven time and again that these are
unattainable by our own efforts. This is why we must remember that he
not only died to paid the penalty for our sins, but that he rose
again from the grave. The only way to live a holy and godly life is
to be holy and godly. The only one who fulfills this requirement is
God himself. Jesus rose again from the grave through the gift of new
life that is in him. This same life, by the Holy Spirit, is then
given to those who put their faith in his sacrifice. We can pursue
holiness and godliness because God is not only with us, but in us and
through us. His grace is sufficient for us. As he revealed to Paul,
his grace is made perfect in weakness. So, Paul declared to the
Corinthians, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
That which drew us to
fear is now our source of power. Our weaknesses and shortcomings were
our shame. But when we recognize our weakness, God gives us grace.
When a child is first attempting to walk, its mother will reach out a
hand to help. If the child stubbornly refuses the mother's hand, then
it will continue to struggle. The child will not even be able to
stand on its own. To walk, the child must submit to the mother's
power and take her hand. The child must stop struggling and allow its
mother to take control and lift it to its feet. This is the mother's
power revealed in the weakness of her child.
When we stubbornly refuse
God's grace, we run from his presence out of shame. Our situation is
no different than that of Adam and Eve. We are also hiding from God.
If the child gives in to its shame of being unable to stand, it will
never learn to walk. The child needs to accept its weaknesses and
accept the mother's offer to help. We hide because we rightly
recognize that we are unworthy to stand in God's presence. We hide
because we know that we can never live up to the standard set before
us. We hide because we are afraid of the consequences of not living
up to that standard. But because the God who holds us to that
standard is the same God who died for us, we can trust when he offers
his Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. We can trust that if we
acknowledge our weakness, he will not condemn us, but give us his
grace.
Let's remember the words
of John's Gospel, that “whoever does what is true comes to the
light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been
carried out by God.” It is not we who work, but Christ in us. And
we wait patiently until the completion of that work he has called us
to do. We step into the light and bear witness that it is God who has
redeemed us. It is not by my own efforts that I stand before you. It
is not by my own will that I share this Good News. It is the grace of
God, revealed to me as it was to Peter and Paul and all of the
saints. It's the same grace that is offered to you.
Let's not forget that
while we face a fearsome Day that will come like a thief, it is not a
day we need to fear if we put our trust in Jesus Christ. If we admit
to our weakness and our inability to meet God's standard, then we
wait on and even hasten the coming of that Day. We look for it with
longing because on that Day all that we have worked for will be
completed. Only it is not we who work, but God in us. If we trust in
his work, we will find ourselves growing into the full stature of
Christ; mature in faith and prepared for his eternal kingdom. Until
that Day, we must continue to trust in God to work in us. We must
maintain faith in his strong hand to guide us and build us up in
holiness and godliness. We do this by turning to him in our weakness
so that his power may rest upon us.
If there is one thing I
can ask you to remember it's this: that you do not need to be ashamed
because of your sin. Instead, come and receive God's grace which
washes away all sin. As we receive his Sacrament at his Table, we do
so in humility. We receive him knowing that we are not worthy even to
gather up the crumbs from under his table. He also knows this. We
aren't revealing anything new to God when we confess our sins. We are
just accepting the reality of who we are and who he is. We are
sinners. He is the redeemer. He is the sanctifier. And he is Savior.
