Romans 3:19-28 (NRSVue)
19 Now
we know that, whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law,
so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable
to God. 20 For no human will be justified before him by deeds prescribed by the
law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21 But now, apart from the law, the
righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the Law and the
Prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all
who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a
sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to
demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed
over the sins previously committed; 26 it was to demonstrate at the present
time his own righteousness, so that he is righteous and he justifies the one
who has the faith of Jesus.
27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is
excluded. Through what kind of law? That of works? No, rather through the law
of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works
prescribed by the law.
Reflection
In
his book, “When Christ Comes,” Max Lucado
recounts a true story that occurs immediately after a horrific earthquake.
“Moments after the
deadly tremor ceased, a father raced to an elementary school to save his son.
When he arrived, he saw that the building had been leveled. Looking at the mass
of stones and rubble, he remembered a promise he had made to his child: ‘No
matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you.’
Driven by his own
promise, he found the area closest to his son’s room and began to pull back the
rocks. Other parents arrived and began sobbing for their children.
‘It’s too late,’ they
told the man. ‘You know they are dead. You can’t help.’ Even a police officer
encouraged him to give up his task.
But the father refused.
For eight hours, then sixteen, then thirty-two, thirty-six hours he dug. His
hands were raw and his energy gone, but he refused to quit. Finally, after
thirty-eight wrenching hours, he pulled back a boulder and heard his son’s voice.
He called his boy’s name, ‘Arman! Arman!’ And a voice answered him, ‘Dad, it’s
me!’
Then the boy added
these priceless words, ‘I told the other kids not to worry. I told them if you
were alive, you’d save me, and when you saved me, they’d be saved, too. Because
you promised, ‘No matter what, I’ll always be there for you.’”
(https://www.irontontribune.com/2021/05/16/he-has-promised-he-will-always-be-there-for-you/)
This
beautiful story demonstrates one of the primary biblical truths that drove the Protestant
Reformation: we are saved by God’s “grace as a gift” (Romans 3:24). Just as the child had faith that he and his
friends would be rescued because of his father’s love, we also know that we
will not be lost to the rubble of life because we have faith in Jesus’ promise
to rescue us and make us right. We are
in the rubble. We cannot possibly get
ourselves out. Whenever we try, another
piece of rubble falls to pin us under. But,
rather than despair, we trust the promise given to us, “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you.” We urge others in the rubble to trust that
promise as well.
This very biblical truth was a mind-blowing revelation
to the young monk, Martin Luther. His life changed when he cracked open the Bible
and read: “We hold that a person is justified by
faith apart from works prescribed by the law” (Romans 3:28). The idea that a person is made right by
trusting in the saving power of Jesus Christ, rather than trusting in our own
power was something that had never occurred to Luther.
Luther
constantly struggled to be good enough for God.
He tried to be perfect. He really
did, but every single, simple mistake would make him believe that he was
pushing God further and further away. He
would confess again and again and again, hoping to be good enough for a God who
he imagined was constantly upset with him.
He visited the confession booth and spilled his sin so often that the poor
priest became sick of listening to him.
In
his own words, Luther describes this life: “As a monk I led
an irreproachable life. Nevertheless I felt that I was a sinner before God. My
conscience was restless, and I could not depend on God being propitiated by my
satisfactions [he could not trust that he had gained God’s favor by doing all
that God expected]. Not only did I not love, but I actually hated the righteous
God who punishes sinners…Thus a furious battle raged within my perplexed
conscience…” ("Weimarer Ausgabe" 54. 183-185).
There is so much
pressure on us to be a certain type of person; to be a good person. There is so
much pressure to be acceptable and accepted.
I think of the teenage
girl whose face was disfigured by a genetic disorder. She was not pretty by the world’s
standards. In fact, most people averted
their eyes when looking at her for the first time. But videos on YouTube convinced the teen that
if she was just able to perfect her makeup, people would finally love her and
accept her and see her as beautiful.
She watched video after
video, practicing her makeup technique again and again in front of a mirror as
she strove to perfect the law of good looks.
She was obsessed. The obsession
was beginning to affect her homework. Her
parents were worried and did not understand; she just wanted to be loved. She just wanted friends.
So, she trusted in the law
of makeup; the rules that lead to beauty.
Unfortunately, following the rules of beauty had no effect. Sadly, most people did not even notice the
makeup. She tried so hard. But trying hard did not make her life better. It only taught her a hard lesson: she could
not save herself. She could not make
people love her. She could not make
people see her as beautiful.
The apostle Paul teaches
that no one will be made right by trying hard.
“No human will be justified before [God] by deeds prescribed by the
law.” Instead, the law only shows us
how weak and ineffective we are, “for through the law come the knowledge of
sin” (Romans 3:20).
But never underestimate
the power of “Up religion” on our lives.
“Up religion” encourages you to save yourself, make something of
yourself; be a better self. “Up
religion” says that you must climb up to finally catch God’s attention. “Up religion” requires that instructions be
followed precisely and laws be kept.
And the thing that is so
confusing about the laws of “up religion” is that the laws are good. As Paul says, “we know that, whatever
the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may
be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Romans 3:19). Rules are good. There are ways that makeup can be done to make you look
glamorous.
Laws are good. God’s expectations of us are good. Our expectations of one another are also very good.
We should follow good laws because what
we do truly affects other people. Lying
hurst others. Stealing hurts
others. Killing, I hear, hurts
others. Laws against all these things are
good.
But the problem with “up
religion” is that trusting in the rules cannot save us. We trust that the proper makeup will get us
the attention and love that we seek. And
it may get someone to look our way, but it cannot get anyone to love us. Maybe I am speaking for myself, but wearing makeup
has never gotten anyone to love me.
Trying to work our way
to earn God’s love is no different. Have
you ever felt like you have prayed enough to make God like you? How many of you feel as if you have loved
your neighbor enough? Praying and loving
neighbors are really good things to do, do not get me wrong. The law is good. But being reminded of what is expected of us
often causes us to only see how we have fallen short. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God” (Romans 3:23). The law is a mirror, revealing
us to be failures.
This is where the good
news starts to break in. After years of
struggling to keep the law, only to be exposed as weak and a fraud, Luther made
the discovery in God’s Word that changed his life. In his own words, “Then finally God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the
righteousness of God is a gift of God by which a righteous man lives, namely
faith, and that sentence: The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel,
is passive, indicating that the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is
written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ Now I felt as though I had been
reborn altogether and had entered Paradise” (Ibid.
183-185).
Luther
finally discovered the gift that God had hidden in plain sight the entire
time. He discovered the gift of “down
religion.” “Down religion” is God’s
promise to “come down” to us, to heal us, to feed us, and to save us. Like that father who digs down through the
rubble to save his child, Jesus Christ, the very hands and feet of God, comes down
to dig through the rubble of our lives to save us. This grace is God’s gift of love.
Since
we cannot go up, Christ comes down. “Since all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24). We are people of “down religion.” We trust in the one who wants the best for us
and who goes to any length to make things right for us, even all the way to a
cross. In the cross we see that first
and foremost that we are loved by Jesus, and this love is a gift. To earn God’s love and attention, we had to
do nothing.
“Why do you put on so much makeup?” she asked the
teenage girl. It was a girl from her algebra
class.
“I just want to be pretty,” she admitted.
“You are pretty, and smart. That’s why I cheat off
your tests,” she laughed. “Not really, but
I notice everyday just how smart you are, and that is beautiful to me.”
And that was the beginning of a life-long friendship. It was a friendship, coming out of “down
religion,” where no one had to work hard to gain love in the end of the story,
but where the gift of love was the beginning of the story.
Everyone
strives for “up religion.” The dark
corners of this world want to convince us all that it is up to us to do more
and be more and save ourselves. “Look
pretty.” “Be the best.” “Find God.”
But we are people of the reformation.
We are people of “down religion” where we do not go up to save
ourselves, rather God’s gift of grace comes down to save us.
The
gift of “down religion” is the undercurrent of the poem, “Stepdad.” I first presented this poem to you a couple of
years ago, but I want to present it to you again so that you can see the
dynamics of “up religion” and “down religion” in people’s lives.
Stepdad
Everything he does, he
does to make his father proud.
The ceramic volcano
that he made in school,
that he handed over to
his father in pride,
was thrown into the corner
of his Father’s apartment,
collecting piles of dust
inside.
I am his stepdad.
He doesn’t want me,
but I was there to hold
him,
he needed to know someone
was there to see.
The time that he devoted
to the gym,
gaining an impressive,
muscular frame,
was not seen by his
father
who focused on women’s
bodies with his gaze.
I am his stepdad.
He doesn’t want me,
but I was there to spot
him as he lifted those weights.
I will be there,
because that is what he needs.
The touchdowns and the
championship
were done to spark his
father’s pride.
But staring at the
stands, his father was not found,
and his tears he had to
hide.
Instead, his eyes fell
upon his stepdad.
He doesn’t want me,
but I smiled and raised
my thumbs up high anyway,
because the day will
come when he will see,
that while grieving his
father
whose pride he was
never able to find,
he will see the dad
that he had the entire
time.
But, until that day,
I vow to be at his
side,
to show him that he has
always been loved,
and has never needed to
do anything to gain my pride.
Christ
has been there for you the entire time. There
is no need to do more or work your way up.
Christ has come down to you. May
Christ’s very present love for you, blow your mind, and may he continue to reform
your life.
