Sunday, December 20, 2009: "From Unholy to Holy"

4th Sunday of Advent
Community of the Cross Lutheran Church
Hebrews 10:5-10
December 20, 2009

Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, who is the Christ!

On this 4th and final Sunday of Advent, we’re continuing to reflect on our “Rags to Riches” theme. Each of the last 3 weeks we’ve been reminded how = just like a pile of rags can be transformed into a beautiful work of art in the hands of a skilled quilter = our LIVES are transformed from “Rags to Riches” in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior. As our theme verse from 2nd Corinthians explains, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”

For this morning, we’re hearing about how In Christ our lives are transformed from “Unholy to Holy.” As the last verse of our Hebrews passage for this morning declares in the New Century Version, “We are made HOLY through the sacrifice Christ made in his body once and for all time.”

As I was preparing this sermon, I kept remembering a humorous story about a young couple that was preparing for marriage. As their wedding day approached, the young couple grew more and more apprehensive – ya see, each had a problem they’d never shared with anyone before… not even with each other.

The groom-to-be decided to ask his father for advice. “Dad, I’m concerned about the success of my marriage. I love my fiancée very much, but I have smelly feet – I’m afraid that my future wife’ll find ‘em disgusting.”

The dad assured the son that this wouldn’t be a problem, “All ya haffta do is wash your feet as often as possible and always wear socks…even to bed.”

Now around the same time the bride-to-be decided to take her problem to her mom. “Mom, when I wake up in the morning my breath is just awful.”

Her mom quickly advised, “Oh Honey, that’s easy… when you wake up in the morning get straight out of bed, head right for the bathroom, and brush your teeth. Just don’t say a WORD until you’ve brushed ‘em – not a word.”

And so the loving couple was finally married in a particularly beautiful ceremony. Not forgetting the advice each had received about their problem, they managed very well for about six months into the new marriage. Then, one fateful morning…just before dawn…the husband woke up horrified to discover that one of his socks had come off during the night. Fearful of the consequences he franticly started searching the bed. Of course, all the commotion woke his bride and, without thinking, she blurted out, “What’re you DOING!?!”

“Oh NO!” he gasped as he recoiled in shock from her morning breath, “You’ve swallowed my SOCK!”

Many people today, even Lutherans of all people, don’t like to be reminded of their problems or inadequacies…they don’t want to be forced to face a truth about the defectiveness of their lives…they just want to be able to ignore their pains, hide their hurts, justify their mistakes, cover-up their failures, make up for their losses, deny their deaths – Frankly, the unholiness in our lives abounds…but it “feels better” to stay busy with distractions – making a habit of “moving on” as if everything is just fine – rather than to face the hard truths.

It’s unpleasant at the least and terrifying at the most to face the actual truth…deep down we’re not always the pleasant, happy, polite people that we try so hard to project to our families, our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even other church members… Maybe you don’t have stinky feet or awful morning breath, but chances are you have some embarrassing secrets that you hope nobody ever finds out about.

At a conference where he was speaking, well-known preacher and professor Tony Campolo once said, “If I knew everything about you people, I probably wouldn’t have accepted your invitation to speak. But if you knew everything about me, you probably wouldn’t have even invited me in the first place.”

[Personally Speaking] I’m becoming much more aware of how often I put more emphasis on being polite to STRANGERS than to my own family and friends – and it kills me to face those facts but it’s the truth…for years I’ve refused to see this and managed to fool myself about it. Even from just this one example, I know firsthand how much energy and effort we’d rather put into HIDING from things we don’t want to admit than just simply ACCEPTING the truth, letting the Gospel speak a word of forgiveness, and allowing God to take our brokenness away…

Ya see, that’s what makes the Good News of Christ such Good News…The unholiness in our lives abounds, but in Christ we’re transformed “From Unholy to Holy.” As Paul wrote to the Colossians, “And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you HOLY and blameless and irreproachable before him…” As our reading from Hebrews reminds us, “We’re made HOLY through the sacrifice Christ made in his body once and for all time.” In Christ you’re transformed “From Unholy to Holy”...not your actions, not your lifestyle…but YOU! YOU are HOLY in Christ Alone.

I like how one pastor explained in her blog, “God upsets all apple carts: even the lovely well-tended apple carts of our own design. God makes ALL things new, not just SOME things. God is the Other; whenever God breaks into our world we’re shocked and broken and we remain so until we see, FIRST that the shock is the shock of recognition, and SECOND that the breaking is followed by a new and appropriate rebuilding.”

The famous theologian Karl Barth described it like this, “Wherever graves are, there is resurrection. Where the church ends, there is its beginning. Where its unrighteousness is exposed, there its righteousness dawns.”

Now, how ‘bout a nice illustration about a place far away from our Minnesota winter…From what I’ve been told, the islands around Indonesia are among the most beautiful in the world—crystalline tropical water, beautiful reefs with fish colored in every hue of the rainbow, powerful waves, and tranquil bays.

Tourists, surfers, and scuba divers from around the world have discovered these hidden jewels and pay large sums of money to enjoy this unspoiled aquatic playground. While at the same time, many of the locals won’t go swimming at all. Neither will they dive, surf, wade, bathe, or do anything else that places their bodies in the warm, inviting water. Their fear of the water is so powerful that even though they’re surrounded by ocean and must sail out in fishing boats for their daily sustenance, hardly any of the islanders ever learned to swim.

Why do they deny themselves the pleasure of exploring the natural wonders all around ‘em…cause a long time ago, someone told ‘em a lie. Someone told ‘em that the ocean was full of demons and that swimming in it would bring harm to themselves and their families. And many Indonesians islanders still believe it.

This illustration reminds us that many of us are missing out on the joy of the Gospel by ignoring our pains, hiding our hurts, justifying our mistakes, covering up our failures, making up for our losses, and denying our deaths. Like the Indonesian islanders, we’re missing out on the joy of frolicking in the surf and fully enjoying the life that God has given us by instead believing in a lie. We put so much energy and effort into HIDING from things we don’t want to admit than just simply ACCEPTING the truth, letting the Gospel speak a word of forgiveness, and allowing God to take our brokenness away…

That’s what makes the Good News of Christ such Good News…The unholiness in our lives abounds, but in Christ we’re transformed “From Unholy to Holy.”

As we make the final preparations for our Christmas celebration just days away, we’re reminded “that there’s hope for a ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross.”[1] His birth in a manger was the necessary beginning of our faith, where “We’re made HOLY through the sacrifice Christ made in his body once and for all time.”

I’ll leave you with a final word from Martin Luther who said, “The law says ‘do this’ and it’s never done. Grace says ‘believe this’ and everything’s already completed.”[2] AMEN.

And may the Peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Savior. AMEN.

[1] Packer, J.I. “The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations, ed. Mark Water, 2000, Baker, p.159.
[2] Luther, Martin. Thesis 26 of the “Heidelberg Dispution” of 1518.