Dear Friends in Christ,
Today we have reached the mid-point of our summer sermon series on “Windows to the Word.” Five windows have gone before us, and five will follow. I believe there is some significance to this as it relates to the window we’ll be examining this morning, which I’ll share with you in just a moment. But let’s begin by reviewing where we’ve been…
Our first week we considered the
Week two we considered the St. Matthew window. The symbol for the Gospel writer Matthew is a man. Reason: his gospel stresses the human nature of Jesus Christ, who, as the almighty Son of God, took on our flesh and blood so we might be saved.
Week three we considered the St. Luke window. The symbol for the Gospel writer Luke is an ox. Reason: the ox was an animal of sacrifice, and Luke’s gospel stresses the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross to redeem us.
Week four we considered the St. Mark window. The symbol for the Gospel writer Mark is a lion. Reason: as a lion suggests power and strength, so in Mark’s gospel we see Jesus as the powerful and strong Son of God, mighty in word and deed.
Last week we moved into a new type of window. If we call the first four as a group the “Gospel writer” windows, we could refer to the rest as “doctrine” or teaching windows. Each symbol visually calls to mind some great Biblical truth or teaching. The first of these was the Law window, with its centerpiece being the two tables of the Law. Inscribed on them by nothing less than the finger of God are the Ten Commandments.
This window sets the stage for today’s window. Because of this, let’s spend a moment or two reviewing it as well.
We were reminded that the Ten Commandments are God’s will for all people of all times. They tell us what to do and what not to do; what pleases God and what displeases God. Do this, says God, and you will be acceptable in my sight. Don’t do this, and, well, the Bible fills us in on the consequences. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul tells us in the Book of Romans. And the death he is talking about is eternal death in a very real hell.
Which puts us in a quite a fix. Because try as we might, we can’t keep those Ten Commandments as God desires. We’re sinful human beings. We carry the inherited sinfulness of our great ancestors Adam and Eve. And it’s not as if sin is a recessive gene, present but not seen. We give ample evidence of our condition each and every day. Anger, lust, impatience with loved ones, greed and selfishness are not strangers to our lives. They’re more like regular visitors. They may be unwanted and uninvited, but they show up anyway. We know this about ourselves.
Nevertheless, God doesn’t budge. When it comes to the Ten Commandments as a path to salvation, God isn’t like the high school coach who simply wants our best efforts. Nor is He the doting father who lowers the bar of His expectations when His children don’t perform as originally asked because He feels sorry for them.
No. God expects and
demands perfection. Be perfect as I am
perfect, He tells us. So, as far as
heaven is concerned via the route of keeping the Ten Commandments, we’re sunk. God may as well ask us to outrun a bullet or
jump across the
But happily, the story doesn’t end there. The Law is a stern word. It is a damning word. And it is a necessary word for us to see ourselves as we really are. But it is not the final word. This is symbolized by the lily (think Easter lily) that is visible behind the Ten Commandments. There is something more than just the Law. And that something more is the Gospel.
The message of the Gospel is simply this: what we couldn’t do for ourselves, God did
for us. And He never lowered His
expectations or lessened His demands.
What He did do was send His Son to provide us with “salvation,” which,
in the original sense of the word, means rescue from a desperate circumstance;
one we could never get out of ourselves.
“The wages of sin is death,” indeed. However, the passage continues: “But the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is the sweet message of the Gospel. This is the teaching that is at the center of the entire Bible, just as this Window to the Word is at the center of this series. Let’s take a look a closer look at today’s Window to the Word and what we can learn and apply to our lives from the symbols found on
THE GOSPEL WINDOW
In the middle of the window is a picture of a lamb holding a victory banner. On either side of the window are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet: the alpha and the omega. Let’s consider them first.
These two Greek letters are actually recurring symbols in many of the windows. They remind us of statements Jesus makes about Himself both at the beginning and the end of the Book of Revelation. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’” The idea of the beginning and end speak of Jesus’ eternal nature. There is never a time when Jesus, true God, was not. Which is a reassuring thought, because it means there is and never will be a time when He is not watching over us, His beloved.
Contemplating Jesus’ eternity reminds us that we also will
enjoy eternity because of Him. As
Christians we often talk about how we will
have “eternal life.” And that is
true. But the Bible tells us that
eternal life is not just a future hope, but a present reality. Listen to these words of Jesus in John
5: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word
and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has
crossed over from death to life.” Notice
the present tense? Jesus says those who
believe in Him have eternal life now.
This is helpful because it is comforting. From time to time circumstances cause us to consider the brevity of life. As we grow older, we may find ourselves thinking more and more about our own mortality. And as time marches on and loved ones die, we find ourselves reflecting upon our loss.
But herein is our comfort. For the Christian death really is nothing more than a “passing” from one kind of existence to another. The type of life may change, but life itself remains constant. And so we are consoled once again by the fact that Christians never really say goodbye. They only say “see you later.”
The reason why we can speak like this is all wrapped around the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. That message is the focal point of today’s window. In the center panel Jesus is pictured as a lamb holding a victory banner. The imagery of Jesus as a lamb is rich throughout the Bible. Let me cite just a few examples.
The centerpiece of the Old Testament Passover was the
slaughter of a perfect male lamb, without blemish or defect. The blood of this lamb was to be painted on
the doorframes of the houses. On the
original Passover, when the Angel of Death (recall that this was the tenth and
final plague on the Egyptians; the one that finally convinced
It is not at all surprising, then, that in First Corinthians, Paul refers to Jesus as our Passover Lamb. But the blood shed by this Lamb saves us from something far greater than temporal death. We are saved from the eternal death we deserve because of our sins. Our sins are covered by the blood of Christ.
The perfection of the Passover lamb also deserves comment. In our second reading for today Peter talks about Jesus as the Lamb without blemish or defect. In what we refer to as the “active obedience of Christ,” Jesus perfectly carried out all of God’s laws in our place and as our substitute. Never sinned. Never messed up. Completely perfect.
Then, after 33 years of perfect life, in what we refer to as the “passive obedience of Christ,” Jesus willingly sacrificed Himself as the sin offering for the world. In the Old Testament, lambs were often sacrificed as a visible reminder of the seriousness of sin; so serious, declared God, that there could be no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. Every lamb pointed to the ultimate once-and-for-all sacrifice that was to come. And that, of course, was Jesus Christ – in the words of John the Baptist: “The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The altar this time was a cross.
But He didn’t stay on the cross. On the third day He rose victorious from the grave. And that’s the picture we have here. The victorious Lamb. The Lamb of God who conquered sin and death for us. The Lamb who, in the words of John in Revelation, was slain but is now alive. And because He lives, we will live.
And here is the best news yet. His perfect life and sacrificial death is transferred to all who trust in Him as their Savior. Now God sees us through Him. Meaning all who call Him Savior and Lord are perfect in the eyes of God. And we someday will join the saints and angels who praise the Lamb of God in heaven.
This is the Gospel message: we are saved. We will go to heaven. And the reason we can say that with confidence is because our salvation does not depend upon our own performance, but solely on the performance of Christ which is transferred to those who trust in Him. We may not always know what each chapter in the book of our life will bring, but we know for sure how the story ends. Thanks to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, we will “live happily ever after.”
And because of that, we also live confidently in the present. The Gospel message tells us that we are valued, cherished and loved by God. The Gospel message means that our greatest need has been met – the forgiveness of our sins. And if God has met that greatest need, we can be sure He’ll meet every other need as well. So we go forward into life with confidence, not fear. Trust, not worry. Assurance, not anxiety.
Let me conclude with a story you may have heard before. An American Protestant preacher of the 19th century is said to have ended one of his sermons by methodically using every word and calling to mind every phrase he could think of that states the certainty of our salvation. He thundered we are redeemed, restored, forgiven, justified, saved, snatched from the fire, etc.
Sitting by himself in the balcony but listening to his every word was a young boy. With each word and each pronouncement he leaned a little closer. Finally the preacher said amen, the service ended and he went to shake hands with the congregation.
When it came time for the boy to come through the line, the young man had a comment for his pastor. “Hey preacher,” he said, “I heard what you said. We sure are sitting pretty, ain’t we?”
In a perhaps less-than-articulate but certainly
understandable way, that boy was describing the Gospel. Because at its bottom line and as applied to
each of us, the Gospel message of Jesus Christ simply means we’re sitting
pretty – now and forever. Amen.