Trinity 3
Mic.
7:18-20
6/16/13
If you wanted to put something in
the least accessible place on earth, you couldn’t find a better spot than
Challenger Deep. Challenger Deep is the
deepest place on our planet. It is
located in the Pacific Ocean, at the lowest point in Mariana Trench, southwest
of the island of Guam. Challenger Deep
is almost 36,000 feet below sea level.
For the sake of comparison, consider the fact that the top of Mt.
Everest, the highest place on earth, is only 29,000 feet above sea level.
Challenger Deep is inaccessible, not
just because you have to travel so far underwater to get there. It is inaccessible because at that depth
underwater, there is a thousand times the normal atmospheric pressure. It takes a specially designed submersible to
get there and it has only been reached four times – twice by manned craft and
twice by unmanned ones. Getting to Challenger Deep is a major undertaking, not
unlike going to the moon. In fact, more
people have landed on the moon than have reached Challenger Deep. Twelve men have landed on the moon, but only
four have been to this spot at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
In our Old Testament lesson for
today we hear the end of the book of Micah.
As Micah concludes his prophecy he speaks about God’s loving and
forgiving character. He says, “You will
cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
Micah describes sins as being removed from God’s people and cast in a
place where they can never trouble us again – in a place like Challenger Deep. He
speaks words of comfort that assure us of God’s continuing love.
You probably haven’t heard all that
much about Micah – and that’s really quite unfair. Micah is rather like any great basketball
player who played in the 1990’s. No
matter how good they were, they probably didn’t get all of the attention they
could have because they happened to play at the same time that the greatest
basketball player in history was playing - Michael Jordan. Micah lived and wrote in the eighth century
B.C. This means that he is from the same time period as the greatest writing
prophet in the Old Testament, Isaiah.
Isaiah is such a giant in his writing, that Micah has been completely
overshadowed. And that is unfortunate
because in his brief seven chapters Micah has some truly amazing stuff.
Micah lived after the nation of
Israel had divided into two nations – the southern kingdom of Judah and the
northern one of Israel. He is unique in
that he speaks to both nations and not just one. Micah lived at the end
of a time when the surrounding Near eastern powers in Egypt and Mesopotamia had
been divided, weakened and distracted.
The power vacuum had allowed the northern and southern kingdoms to
flourish – at least economically.
But while everything seemed to be
going well – all was not well. God had rescued Israel in the exodus and entered
into a covenant with them. He had taken them to be his people – his own
treasured possession. He had given them
the promised land and had blessed them. And yet, the nation had been unfaithful
to God. In spite of God’s warnings, they
had become involved with worshipping the false gods of the surrounding peoples.
Everything about life in the
covenant with Yahweh began with fearing, loving and trusting in him above all
things. When Israel turned toward false gods, everything else about life in the
covenant was corrupted. The rich took
advantage of the poor and stole from them.
People cheated in business transactions.
Justice was perverted as leaders took bribes.
Now perhaps that sounds like
something far removed from your own personal life. Sure, you hear and read about things like
this in the news, but it is not something that you personally encounter. Yet
listen to what Micah says about those engaged in this kind of behavior: “Its
heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets
practice divination for money; yet they lean on the LORD and say, ‘Is not the
LORD in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.”’”
Those in Judah were doing things
that broke the covenant. Yet they
weren’t really concerned because Yahweh’s temple was there in Jerusalem. They
said, “Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.” The temple of God had become like a magic
charm that they believed was a guarantee of safety – a guarantee that no longer
involved truth faith.
How often does that describe us as
we think about salvation? Do you think,
“Jesus died for my sins. I’m saved” – and
then go out and harm your neighbor’s reputation by passing on information that
puts them in the worst possible light? Do you think, “Jesus died for my
sins. I’m saved” – and then go online
and look at that pornography? Do you
think, “Jesus died for my sins. I’m
saved” – and then think nothing of skipping the Divine Service because you have
something else you want to do on Sunday morning?
Micah’s prophecy leaves no doubt
about the connection between the faith we profess and the life we live. Where that life has involved sin, God’s word
calls us to confess. It tells us to
admit our wrongdoing before God. It
tells us to repent with a contrite heart – one that confesses the sin and looks
to God for forgiveness.
And when we do this, at the end of his
prophecy Micah tells us exactly what we find.
Micah writes in our text, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and
passing over transgression for the remnant
of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights
in steadfast love.”
Micah returns us to the character of
God that he has revealed about himself. God had declared to Moses, “Yahweh,
Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin.”
God wants us to know that this is
what he is like. He wants to be
gracious and merciful. He wants to
pardon iniquity and pass over sin. He
wants to deal with us according to his steadfast love. And this is exactly how he deals with all who
confess sin before him. This is how he deals with all who return to him,
recognizing their need to fear, love and trust in God above all things.
God has not only told us about this
in words. He has revealed it in actions.
At the end of our text Micah writes, “You will show faithfulness to
Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the
days of old.” God had sworn by
himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that in their offspring all nations would be
blessed. He had promised King David that
he would establish his throne forever.
Through Micah in a previous chapter
God said, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the
clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in
Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”
God promised a descendant of David
who would be born in Bethlehem. Micah
said of him, “And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the
LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell
secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be
their peace.”
Some seven hundred years later God
kept this promise as Jesus the Christ was born in Bethlehem. He, the incarnate
Son of God and the descendant of Abraham and David, came to the world to reveal
God’s steadfast love and his desire to forgive.
He did this by fulfilling God the Father’s will as he died on the cross
for the sins of all humanity – for your sins.
And then on the third day God raised him up as he began the resurrection
of the Last Day.
Because of the sacrificial death of
Christ, God forgives sin. He gives
forgiveness and he has done this for you personally in a way that leaves no
doubt. He has done it in a way that assures
repentant sinners, that yes, in Christ they are forgiven.
In our text Micah writes, “He will
again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will
cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” God has removed you sins and
cast them into a place even more remote than the waters of Challenger
Deep. In the waters of your baptism he
cast your sins into the depths of Jesus’ death on the cross. There in the judgment of God against sin in
his own Son your sin has been removed.
And because you have been baptized – because you are baptized –
it is still removed. When you repent and
turn to our gracious and loving God he greets you with the good news that your
sins have been cast into the depths of Jesus’ saving death on the cross. They
are gone forever through the waters of your baptism.
Yet more happened in your baptism
the mere removal of sin. Through baptism
you shared in Jesus death. And through baptism Jesus’ resurrection life has
begun to be at work in you. This has
happened through the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit is the One raised Christ from the dead.
The same Spirit has given you rebirth.
The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is at work in you – leading
you to live more and more in the ways of our Lord.
Yes, God has saved you from
sin. But this doesn’t mean that he has
freed you to serve yourself and do as you please. This is not what it means to be born again of
water and the Spirit.
In the previous chapter, Micah
asked: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on
high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be
pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I
give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul?”
Micah said that God didn’t need any of these
things. After all, he is the one who
pardons iniquity and passes over transgression.
He is the one who has cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Instead, God wanted his people to walk in
faith as his people. Micah went
on to say: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD
require of you
but to do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
God wanted his people to live in the
covenant. He wanted them to live in the
ways that the Torah described. The same
thing is true for you, people who have been made part of the new covenant. And in fact, at its heart, this life of faith
is one and the same. When asked about
the greatest commandment in the Torah, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall
love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law
and the Prophets.”
In the vocations of our life we are
called to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We are called to treat our husband or wife, son or daughter, father or
mother, employer or employee with love, patience, kindness and faithfulness. We
are called to place their needs ahead of our own, because that is what Jesus
Christ has done for us. We are called to
forgive them because that is what God has done for us in Christ. He has cast all our sins into the depths of
the water of our baptism. He has cast
them into the death of Jesus Christ for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment