The world cup is on in Brazil at the moment… and because of
that I have to admit I’ve been into the office a little late a few times this
week, and I’m giving you advance warning I will be late on the odd occasion for
the next few I might as well… Like a lot of New Zealanders I become a dedicated
soccer/football fan for a short period of time once every four years… and Thank
you TVNZ for showing games free to air.
And because of the world cup this is the image that came to
mind as I reflected on the opening verse of Isaiah 59. It’s the Mexican goalie Ochoa
making what has been describes as one of the greatest saves in
World Cup Final history. Without any thought of his personal safety he dived
towards the goal post and just gets enough of his figures on the ball at the
last possible moment to push it wide of the goal. He ended up wrapped round the
post but after making the save and a raft of other almost equally amazing
saves, the sting of leather ball ricocheting off finger and palm and the bumps
and bruises of colliding with ground and post were forgotten as Mexico kept
Brazil to a goalless draw. And he has become a national hero. I don’t want to
sound flippant but… His arm was definitely not too short to save.
The Image that is on the cover of our news sheet and on the
screen through our service this morning is one that normally comes to mind for
me when we contemplate the first phrase in our reading this morning ‘Surely the
Arm of the LORD is not too short to save’. The arms of Jesus nailed to a cross…
Jesus: the saviour of the world. While saving a goal at the world cup is
serious we are are talking of someone who saved us from something a lot more
serious…
As a church we are doing the E100 essential Jesus Bible reading
challenge, a series of daily bible readings focusing on Jesus. Each week we are
looking at one of the readings from the coming week in our services. Last week welooked at Hebrews 1;1-4, One of five passages from the New Testament the
Essential Jesus challenge starts with; where the author gives some insight into
the question ‘who is Jesus?’ and this week we turn to start to look at how
Jesus fits into the wider narrative of the scriptures… In particular ‘the need
for a savior’, why did Jesus come into the world and what does it mean that
Jesus is the savior of the World? Isaiah 59 sets out the problem very
eloquently and God’s promise that he will provide a solution, a savior very
well. The big complex and difficult theological word and at the same time the
short answer for the need of a savior is ‘sin’.
The book of Isaiah readily falls into at least two parts, it
starts with what is called by many a book of Judgement, showing all the things
that Israel has done in terms of breaking the covenant relationship it has with
God, its sins, and as a result of that it predicts that Israel will be taken
into exile in Babylon. There is a change of emphasis in Chapter 40 and the book
becomes one of comfort for Israel in exile, with the promise of restoration. While
Isaiah 59 may not seem that comforting it again points out that the problem is
that Israel has broken her covenant relationship with God the hope is that God
is going to do something to fix that problem permanently. In the scheme of
scripture this is part of a bigger story as our reading in Romans 3 says it’s
the reality that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. .
The Greek word Sin in Romans has a sporting connotation. Again
one of the things that has struck me in the world cup has been the wild shots
that players will take at goal. They focus on the goal and then kick the ball
sometimes from great distances and other
times with the goal mouth open and there just being no chance that they will
miss and the ball goes flying up over the bar into the crowd or off to the left
or the right. That is sort of what the word translated sin means.
It comes from the world of archery and means an arrow not
hitting the bullseye. Often when we speak of falling short we have this idea of
not living up to a list of impossibly high moral absolutes but when we speak of
falling short of the glory of God, it is that we have fallen short of the
glorious ideal of peace and wholeness and life that God has for us as human
beings and of his very character which is whole, so much so that we call God
pure and holy. Like in the image here
Sin is serious because of the disastrous impact missing that mark has on us.
Isaiah 59 gives us insights into why God is against sin, and why he takes it seriously.
The first thing that Isaiah 59 tells us about sin is that God
takes it seriously because it breaks our relationship and communication with
God. The story does not start with sin, but rather with God, and God creating
humanity for a loving relationship with him. The Genesis narrative tells us
that God made us in his own image, that when God made us he saw it as very good.
The shorter Westminster catechism, part of the subordinate standards of our
Presbyterian Church puts it like this… what is the chief end of Humanity? To
know and enjoy God always. One of the readings for this week is from genesis
three which is the narrative of Adam and Eve, doing what God has told them not
to and breaking that relationship. In fact the rest of the scriptures could be
said to be the narrative of God working to restore that relationship. The big
theological word for that is the idea of Heilsgeschichte or the
scriptures as the record of God’s salvation history.
The second thing that Isaiah 59 says about sin is that God is
against it because it breaks down our relationships with each other. The writer
points out that because of humanities fallen-ness the way of peace is not known
that Justice is far from us and there is darkness and shadow. I don’t have to
tell you of the pain and suffering and sorrow that we can inflict upon each
other because we see it round us and we all carry the scars and wounds of it as
well. I’ve mentioned it before that Leonard Sweet talks about the idea of peace
and wholeness being a matrix of right relationships, relationship with God with
each other, with the created order, with our possessions and in the spiritual
realm, even with ourselves and sin has the effect of breaking all those down.
We see within humanity evil and injustice flourishing. You just need to turn on
the TV news to see it every day and every night.
My daughter Bethany has been doing a research topic on Martin
Luther for history, and one of the things she noted was that a lot of the people
writing from a humanist and secular point of view were critical of Luther’s low
opinion of human nature. And I had to think about that for a while and while
its more connected to Calvin I wondered if it was that they had a negative
understanding of the theological idea of ‘total depravity’, People often
believe that means human beings as bad as they can be, but that is not what
Christians believe. The reality is that our understanding of humanity is that
we are made in the image of God and capable of the most amazing acts of
kindness and goodness and justice, but that because of a result of sin that that
image is marred and we are capable of such injustice and downright evil. I
believe it is that we have a realistic view of the human condition. “total
depravity’ means that while capable of good humans are not able to restore that
matrix of right relationships
particularly with God in and of ourselves, in fact we come nowhere near it, those
relationships and the very image of God with us remains broken and we need help
from outside.
The third reason that God treats sin seriously is that it blinds
us to the truth, In Isaiah 59:14-15 it talks of Justice being driven back and
truth not being found. When Jesus healed the blind man, in John chapter 9, it
leads on to a discussion with the Pharisees about being spiritual blind. Jesus
says they are Blind to the truth about God and his love for us, and the person
of Jesus. Often that blindness to the truth is to deny our own sinful nature
and our need for a savior. The kingdom of God says Jesus is for those who are
aware of their spiritual poverty.
These points can be summed up by saying that God takes Sin
seriously because its consequence is death ‘the wages of sin is death’ as it
said in our reading from Romans 3… Jim Wallace explains this by using two Greek
words we translate as life when talking about human beings. We have bios life…
the life share with all creatures that expresses itself in MRS GREN (Movement,
Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, Nutrition), which we
equate with the natural life span of a creature… and like all other creatures
this life comes to an end… the other word is Zoe, again the idea from genesis
that humanity was made in the image of God, that God breathed Spiritual life
into us, sin destroys this second idea of life a life that goes beyond just the
physical, what the scripture calls eternal life. Sin destroys this.
Lastly God takes sin seriously because we know that he was
willing to put himself on the line to provide a way of saving us from sin, and its
effects and consequences. To restore our relationship with God, and with each
other and that whole matrix of relationships that Sweet talks about, to make us
whole and to give us eternal life. Again
the caricature often presented of God is that of judging human beings for our
sin… the focus is on the hellfire and damnation on writing us off… but Isaiah
59 says that while God looks with displeasure on Sin and injustice he acts
towards it in a righteous manner.
The image that is used is that of a redeemer. In Ancient Near
eastern society, if you could not pay back a debt you owed your creditor could
sell you into slavery to recoup his money. The only way to save you from that
slavery was for a kind kinsman to buy you back by paying your debt, and buying
your freedom. It would be a costly endeavour and an act of great love and
commitment to a person, and Isaiah is saying that God is willing to be that
loving kinsman and buy back those who would repent of their sins.
Christians believe that that redeemer and savior is Jesus
Christ. That through his life death and resurrection, Jesus dealt with the sins.
We are invited then to live in a new way
in Gods Kingdom, with the God’s Spirit living in us and with us to enable us to
stop our sinfulness and keep God’s words and ways.
I used the Illustration
of Ochoa, the Mexican goalie this morning to start you thinking about long arms
and it may have been a bit silly… But I want to finish by coming back to
thinking about arms. God is serious about sin because of the disastrous effects
it has on humanity, so we should equally be serious about sin. We often think
of the long arm of the law as being someone coming to get us to punish us when
we do something wrong but the hope comes in that the Long arm of the LORD that
Isaiah talks about is not about punishment, it is about saving us.. I want to encourage all of you this morning to
trust yourself into the arms of the Lord… they are never too short to save.
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