1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our
Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The message from God’s Word is taken from the 7th Commandment
as we continue our sermon series on the 10 Commandments during this Lenten
season. Dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2.
A Bethany dinner party. Jesus is the guest of
honor. After all, he’s the Savior. Martha dishes up the mashed potatoes and
prime rib. Pours the wine. Recently-raised-from-the-dead-by-Jesus Lazarus is at
the table. All of a sudden, Mary breaks out the most expensive of her ointments
imported from the East. A whole pound full! Its extravagant fragrance fills the
entire house. You know the verse in
Psalm 23: “You anoint my head with oil.”
But Mary pours it all over Jesus’ feet and wipes it off with her hair. Mary isn’t stingy. She doesn’t hold back. She
generously anoints Jesus with her precious,
high-priced anointing oil. It’s what you’d normally put on a dead body right
before you bury it. To honor the deceased.
3.
The deceased? The buried? What’s with that? Is Mary
crazy? No. She gives one of her most precious possessions to honor Jesus! For
who he is and what he’s come to do for her, you, the entire world, and me!
Jesus is going to do a Good Friday to give his divine body into death as the
atoning sacrifice for all sin and every sinner. Soon, his divine body will be
dead and buried! So she lovingly anoints it because soon his body will
be given into death for her salvation—and yours. She knows just how precious
sinners are to the Lord Jesus, who has come to die for her. No wonder her faith
in him is shown through such love and thanksgiving as she anoints his feet with
the pricey ointment and then wipes it from his feet with her hair.
4.
Then there’s Judas. Judas Iscariot. The total
opposite of Mary. He lets her have it. But in a very pious way, of course. “Oh, Mary! You poor, poor dear! What a waste!
As Chief Financial Officer in charge of Jesus Ministry Inc., I know a thing or
two about fiscal responsibility. What you’ve just done is such a shame! A
monetary calamity! You meant well, but you should have donated that high-priced
oil to Jesus Ministry Inc. I would have sold it to the highest bidder and given
the hefty proceeds to Bethany’s street people, the homeless, the battered, the
abused, the orphaned, and the unemployed. You could have been part of something
greater! Community building! Community transformation! With all that cash, we
could make Bethany a better place to live. And just imagine how much street
cred and props Jesus Ministry Inc. would get!”
5.
Sounds really good, doesn’t it? But, behind all the
pious talk, Judas doesn’t give a rip about the poor. Or about Jesus. He’s all
about helping himself. Enriching himself at Mary’s expense. He’s been at it for some time. Embezzling.
Misappropriating funds. Stealing from Jesus Ministry Inc. John, as he writes
our text, sees through it for us: “Having
charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put in it” (v
6). Less for Jesus Ministry Inc. and the disciples who followed Jesus meant
more for him. Judas was a thief! His pious talk was all nonsense as he quietly
padded his Swiss and Mediterranean offshore bank accounts.
6.
In fact, CFO Judas will soon make a shameful deal
for cash to betray Jesus into the hands of his enemies that leads directly to
Jesus’ death. What a fraud! What a big time Seventh Commandment breaker! He
couldn’t care less how much his robbery hurt people—Mary, his fellow disciples,
or even Jesus! You know what God forbids
in the Seventh Commandment—and also what he commands. (Recite the Seventh
Commandment and its explanation together from page 321 in your hymnal)…
7.
Yes, with the Seventh Commandment, God wants you to
help people. To serve them. To improve and protect your neighbor’s possessions
and income instead of stealing, burglarizing, or thieving them. In the Seventh
Commandment, God wants you to love your neighbor. Stealing harms, hurts, and
injures your neighbor. Again, take the example of Judas. More for you at the
painful expense of your neighbor is a sin—not only against the one from whom
you steal, but it’s rebellion against God himself.
8.
After all, when you steal you not only break the Seventh
Commandment; you also break the First Commandment. You steal because you
do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things. You steal because you do
not believe that God is for you. You steal because you do not trust that
God will provide for you. So, you take matters into your own hands and
take from others.
9.
You believe the lie that robbery or theft is no big
deal. You believe the propaganda that there’s no harm when you cheat or defraud
your neighbor at school, in your family, or in your community. You play the
video game Grand Theft Auto on your gaming system. I know some of you confirmands do! You’ve
become numb to the horrific nature of stealing as well as other wicked sins
that usually go with it. (Remember the story of King Ahab and the sins that
went into his taking of Naboth’s vineyard?) Husbands steal from their wives
when they withhold love from their wives, and wives steal from their husbands
when they do the same. Kids steal from their parents when they don’t honor
them. When you don’t give what you should give to one another—yes, also things
like love, honor, or respect—that, too, is robbery!
10.
Stealing is so common among you that you don’t even
think twice about it. You lose no sleep. You don’t even blink an eye. No pangs
of conscience when you steal in whatever way. It’s just a matter of fact.
Expected. A way of life. It’s what people do. So what’s the big deal? I’ll tell you what the big deal is! Your
stealing, the hurtful harming of your neighbor, reveals a much bigger dilemma.
What is that? It’s this: you do not fear, love, and trust in God above all
things. The First Commandment
again. You do not believe that God is for you to take care of you
in everything, and so you callously steal with your heart, your mouth, and your
hands. I’m here to tell you that is disastrous.
11.
And you’d better repent of such unbelief and the
stealing that flows from your breaking of the First Commandment. Confess your
sin. Admit it. Take responsibility. Don’t deny it. Quit blaming others. Knock it off.
And most especially, believe that God is for you in Jesus, the
Savior of Seventh and First Commandment sinners. So Much Is God for You in Jesus That
Jesus Becomes the Identity “Thief.”
Yes, that’s right, I said it. The identity “thief” of all
identity thieves!
12.
What do I mean? Here’s what I mean. I’m not saying
that Jesus sinned. He never sinned. But what I am saying is that for you
and for your salvation, Jesus intentionally took your identity. He broke
through all your security measures and identity-theft protection, and he
“stole” your identity from you. That is to say, as Jesus was hung on the cross
by the Roman soldiers, he “was numbered
with the transgressors” (Is 53:12) and he [Jesus] was made “to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21)
because he was truly carrying all your sin in his divine, sinless body. He flat
out took all your sin away from you! Graciously “stole” it all from you!
Wrapped himself in the totality of all your sin! Robbed every bit of it from
your body and then bore it in his!
13.
Why? So that God the Father would treat him, not
you, as the sinner who deserves all of God’s divine wrath and eternal
damnation. This is what it takes to save you, the sinner! Listen carefully.
Jesus becomes the sinner and gets treated as the sinner with the
world’s sin and yours that he’s taken from you!
Identity-thief Jesus! Redeeming you from the curse of the Law by “becoming a curse for” you (Gal 3:13) on
his Good Friday cross. Identity-thief
Jesus! Therefore, he is, “numbered with
the transgressors” and “he who knew
no sin was made to be sin.” And so he cries out with a loud voice with all
the sin and its damning consequences that he took from you: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
(Mt 27:46).
14.
Well, since identity-thief Jesus has taken all your
sin, your sin, remarkably doesn’t belong to you anymore! Seriously! It’s all
forgiven. Not counted against you. Salvation is yours! And now, because of Jesus, you have a new
identity. You are a new creation spelled F-A-I-T-H! A believer. Or that new
creation that comes from Jesus’ forgiveness is spelled S-A-I-N-T! A holy one!
Not your holiness. But the holiness and perfection of Jesus given in his
forgiveness.
15.
Now, brothers and sisters, as you have good use of
the Lord’s forgiveness, he has first-class use for you, his saints, in the
world as his own hands and mouth. To deny yourself in order to help people—to
love people without counting the cost. To improve and protect your neighbor’s
money and possessions. Not to pull a Judas Iscariot but rather to give
self-sacrificially and abundantly like Mary. You’re free to do that because
salvation is yours in Jesus! And the Lord Jesus will provide you with tons of
opportunities to love and help many people in the way of the Seventh
Commandment. Happy doing just that! In the
name of Jesus. Amen. Let’s pray: God of grace, You provide for all of our needs with
blessings we do not deserve. Help us to find contentment with all we have been
given, especially the new identity we have in You through Baptism. Help us to
reflect Your generosity, sharing with those in need. O God, from whom come all holy desires, all
good counsels, and all just works, give to us, Your servants, that peace which
the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey Your commandments.
Work in us to improve and protect the possessions and income of others that we
may live in peace and harmony; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who
lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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