Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the eighth chapter:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit… if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Are you having a good Lent? Are you appropriately penitent? Have you given your alms? Have you prayed more? Have you served your neighbor? Have you turned your hearts toward God? Have you done all the things that are expected of you in this season of repentance as we follow Jesus to the cross?
Or are you like me? Do you turn your heart to the things of the flesh? Have you, instead of repenting, become more entrenched in your own sin? Have you, like me, focused more on your own desires and wants and needs than the need of your neighbors? Have you lived according to the flesh and not the Spirit?
You see, when I read this Romans 8 passage, I can’t just focus on the first verse, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” I keep reading until I get to, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh… for to set the mind on the flesh is death…” Oh, man. I’m in trouble.
You see, I know where my heart wants to go. When Lent gets busy, when ANYTHING gets busy, it’s so much easier for my heart to be inclined towards sin than anything else. I don’t want to focus on God. I don’t want to set my heart on the things of the Spirit. I don’t want to think about Christ’s Church. I don’t want to think about reading the Word of God. I don’t want to think about baptism. I don’t want to think about the Lord’s Supper. I don’t want to think of anything about the Spirit. I get tired, I get worn out, I get sinful. I set my heart and my mind instead on sin. I let that be my first reaction. I let sloth and gluttony and pride rule.
That’s the work of the flesh. And I set my mind on the flesh. And Paul tells me that when I set my mind on the flesh, I’m living according to the flesh, I’m living as a dead man. And perhaps you are, too.
But God can do something with a dead man. In fact, it’s the only way He chooses to work in this sinful world. We are dead men and women. And we should be. We have chosen death over life. We have chosen slavery over freedom. We have chosen sin over righteousness.
And yet, God is not done with us. The Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel. How long do you think those old bones were there? 10 years? A hundred? A thousand? Regardless, can a man dead one day get himself up out of his coffin? Can a man whose corpse has been decimated by the wind and animals and heat put his own bones back together? Can a man or woman, dead in sin, absolutely dead, all dead, not just mostly dead, do anything? As a great man once said, “Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do… Go through his clothes and look for loose change.”
With mostly dead, there’s still hope for you in your self-righteousness. With mostly dead, you’ve still got flesh on your bones, and you’ll live according to that flesh. If you’re mostly dead, you don’t need God; you need your own bootstraps. But if you’re dead, completely dead, absolutely dead, all dead, then there’s real hope for you. God works with dead people. He prefers dead people, so to speak. He works there.
After all, God put back together the bones of dead men. They heard the Word of the Lord and the bones came back together, then they grew sinews, then muscle, then skin. And then, and then, breath. The breath of life. They stood up, a great army. God made men rise from the dead, fully formed, fully alive, fully His people.
And look at Lazarus today. A man dead four days, in the hot sun of Israel, shut up in a cave. Have you ever opened up a refrigerator that’s gone out days, weeks in the past, and you had left meat in there? Remember what that smelled like?
When we were looking for houses in Bemidji, there was one house where the owner had left town months ago. When he left, he turned off all the electricity and didn’t think about anything. What he forgot was that, in the freezer, he had left the deer that he hunted the prior fall. Eventually, he was told by his real estate agent, and they worked to get it taken care of, but it wasn’t enough. When we walked into that home, the stench was overpowering. Had it been the first day, it might’ve been enough to make you sick. As it was, it was pretty bad.
But you have Lazarus, dead four days, shut up in a cave with a stone, no wind, no fans. Normally, they’d leave it there for a year so his flesh would decompose and the smell would be fine and they’d gather his bones together and put them in a small coffin. But this is four days, not a year. The smell won’t be fine. No wonder they didn’t want to open the tomb when Jesus told them to. Lazarus was dead, and if they rolled the stone away, the stench of the decomposing human flesh of their beloved brother would be too much to bear.
Yet, Jesus doesn’t let that stop Him. You see, God works with dead people. He can do something with them. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, He has the power of the keys of death and hades. And when Jesus says to Lazarus, “Come forth,” don’t you think that Lazarus, all dead as He was, could do so? After all, Jesus is the Word of God who made all things. He spoke the universe into existence. When He speaks, the universe obeys. It would be a small thing for Jesus to say to Lazarus, Come, and his bones are strengthened, his sinews are healed, his muscles restored, his skin rebuilt, and his body resurrected from the grave.
The dead obey Jesus. It’s the living who cause the issues for God. When Lazarus who once was dead came out of the tomb, many went to the Pharisees to tattle on Jesus and they plotted even more strongly to kill Jesus. The living create problems for God. When you think you’re mostly dead, slightly alive, and not fully dead, that’s when you get in the way of God’s work. But the fully dead, the all dead, God speaks and we obey.
That’s what Paul means today. Do you think yourself alive to your flesh or are you dead to sin? When you think that you are doing well on your own, when you think you can fulfill the holy and perfect Law of God by your own work, when you think you can do all the things the Law demands, you are of the flesh.
So, I ask you again, are you having a good Lent? Are you appropriately penitent? Have you given your alms? Have you prayed more? Have you served your neighbor? Have you turned your hearts toward God? Have you done all the things that are expected of you in this season of repentance as we follow Jesus to the cross?
And your answer should be, no. You haven’t, you can’t. And if you can confess that, you are in the right place with the right response. For indeed, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of Christ and by His authority, I forgive you all of your sins. By the virtue of this forgiveness, by Christ’s power, you are raised to new life in Christ, setting your mind on the Spirit. You once were dead. Then you were baptized. You keep trying to be dead, but Christ has raised you to new life. After all, that’s why you’re here this morning, is it not? Are you not here for you know what great sinners you are and why it is you need a greater Savior to bring you to life, to give you what you need to live?
And what more do you need to live than water that refreshes you, washing you clean from all sin? And what more do you need to live than to be satisfied with every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord? And what more do you need to live than true bread and true wine, which the Lord has told us are His flesh and His blood? What more do you need?
For the Word of the Lord, as it came from Ezekiel’s mouth to dry bones, comes from my mouth to dry hearts and minds, and raises you to new life. Not because there’s some power in me, not because there’s some power in Ezekiel, but because there is power in Christ’s Word. He, He has raised you to new life.
Therefore, there is no condemnation for you. If you were living by your work, your effort, then there would be. But when you are raised to new life, there is no condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. What is this law of the Spirit of life? LIVE!!!! He says to you be alive! Never die! For you no longer need fear death. It no longer has power over you! O, Death, where is thy victory, O, Death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and this gone from you, for the power of sin is the Law, and this has been obeyed for you by Jesus!
You are no longer accountable for fulfilling the Law, for this has been done for you by Jesus Christ. Death is swallowed up in this victory over the grave by Jesus Christ. In His perfect life, Jesus won for you all victory over the grave, and even though He died, He is the resurrection and the life, and you can’t keep the resurrection dead! You can’t keep a living man in the ground!
God has done what you could not, condemning sin in the flesh of Jesus Christ. You are freed in the Spirit of God, for He dwells inside of you. This gift was given to you in your baptism. This gift of faith comes right from the Holy Spirit, and this Spirit gives you life and righteousness. But this gift, it is not just for now. You need not ever fear death.
Though, in this life, we shall die because of our sin, unless Christ returns first, you shall not be dead eternally. In fact, though your flesh may die, you shall be with your Lord immediately. You shall close your eyes in this life and when you open them, you shall look upon your Savior, Jesus the Christ, who has brought you to Himself.
But the story doesn’t end there, oh no. If we were just some disembodied spirits in heaven, we would negate the promises of the Scriptures. We shall not just be spirits, but we, as Paul says, shall have Christ give life to our mortal bodies. This isn’t just for now, this is the picture of the dry bones.
You may be in the ground a year, ten years, and million years, and Christ will vivify your bones. He shall bring your bones back together, no matter how scattered they are, he shall make sinews form over them, give you muscle, stretch skin over you, and He shall breathe the breath of your soul back into this body and you shall be made incorruptible, imperishable, eternal into the future.
You have this promise, for the Holy Spirit who has come to you in your baptism, the Holy Spirit who sustains you in this life, this Holy Spirit shall watch over your body until the day of the Lord’s return, the Day of Judgment, the Last Day, the day when all things will be made new, your heart, your mind, this earth, the heavens, and your body. You shall be made new, for you are alive right now, right here, hearing the Word of God, and you shall be sustained unto everlasting life, pleasing to God. For you, who once were dead, now live, for you are in Him who is the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in Him shall never die. You are His. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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