7/1/12 GRACE, MERCY, AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR HEAVENLY FATHER AND FROM OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. The text is from Is 26:10-11 10] THOUGH GRACE IS SHOWN TO THE WICKED, THEY DO NOT LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS; EVEN IN A LAND OF UPRIGHTNESS THEY GO ON DOING EVIL AND DO NOT REGARD THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD. 11] O LORD, YOUR HAND IS LIFTED HIGH, BUT THEY DO NOT SEE IT. We ought to love America, and in at least three ways. First, we ought to love the good things we get here: The economy may be iffy, but Americans are still buying pizza and watching cable, and people still come here from all over for a chance to get ahead, because wealth beats poverty twelve ways from Sunday. And people still come here from all over for some political liberty, which is way better than political slavery. So first, loving America means being grateful for having enough instead of starving and for having some political freedom instead of just tyranny. If we don t love those things, we re nuts. They re gifts from God, and instead of complaining about where He s got us for the moment, we ought to give thanks for what s here. But you ll notice that loving America for what we get here is actually loving ourselves, which isn t necessarily evil, just not really virtuous. The second way of loving America has, at least, the virtue of humility. I mean sentimental love for America just because it s ours, the way the kids don t want a new couch, cause the old couch is our couch. It s what made Russians love Russia in spite of Communism, and makes Norwegians love Norway in spite of 1
lutefisk. This sentimental love explains why, even if the Hanlons would rather play foreign sports like soccer, and even if the Emrichs would rather eat swank foods like crème brulee, and even if Pastor Don actually prefers opera, they ve all still got a soft spot for ballparks and apple pie and the Beach Boys. Cause it s American. Honest, humble people have that sentimental love for their country. But in about two beats of a drum sentimental love can turn into nothing but sentimentality. Till I can think about New England villages or Iowa farms and get this warm glow, or get a lump in my throat when I hear the national anthem, which I always do, and think that I ve loved America, when I haven t even started to love America in the third way, the big way. And that means loving the Americans that Christ has got us in America for. And why has He got us in America? Because He knows that NO American can COME TO THE FATHER EXCEPT BY Him. This big love is not being grateful for what we get from America; it s being grateful for what we can give America, namely, innocence and immortality. And this big love is not sentimental love that comes easy. It s love that hurts, because it means looking at what we don t want to see. It means facing straight on that God s grace in Christ has been shown to America and shown and shown, and yet, V. 10] THOUGH GRACE IS SHOWN TO THE WICKED, THEY DO NOT LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS. THEY DO NOT LEARN for instance, contentment, faithfulness, or purity. No. For millions of 2
Americans, contentment just means lack of ambition. And faithfulness means being true to myself. And purity? Is comical. EVEN IN A LAND OF UPRIGHTNESS, Isaiah says EVEN IN A LAND that has always wanted to be the good country, the kind country, and in so many ways still is. Look at the Americans: If you lose a war to them, they rebuild your country. And they ve still got a heart for the underdog, still welcome refugees usually. Look at their charities! Look at their outrage at certain kinds of sins. At certain kinds of sin. Whereas for other kinds of sin, as Isaiah says, EVEN IN A LAND OF UPRIGHTNESS, THEY GO ON DOING EVIL. Why? Because, though almost all of them have some kind of God-idea, same verse: THEY DO NOT REGARD THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD, the living God. So they believe in theory that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator and at the same time that we re somehow all just the accidental products of evolution, whose bodies might as well get handled by whomever if it feels right, even if it just feels good. Is intimacy with them really that cheap? V. 11] O LORD, YOUR HAND IS LIFTED HIGH BUT THEY DO NOT SEE IT the same HAND that crushed Isaiah s country. Oh, we can tell ourselves, Come on, they re okay. Right. And if somebody s got some terrible disease, we can tell ourselves, Come on, they re okay. Either way, we get to save ourselves some heartache. But where there s any real love, it just breaks your heart. The way, after 9/11, there was that beautiful outpouring of compassion all across the country, also from people 3
4 who are fine with killing Americans as long as you catch them young enough. On 9/11, while the heroes were working where those 4000 Americans died, on the same day, the abortion mills were busy killing thousands of Americans on 9/11, till now the country s covered with the blood of millions. And THEY DO NOT SEE THE HAND that IS LIFTED above them. While in the Land of Opportunity thousands are getting ahead on the backs of their workers, and millions of workers are blowing off the only Savior they ve got, cause they re busy in schools and shops and offices, working hard to get ahead on their way to what? Can we ever forget the Americans who made it to the top... of the Trade Center or the ones who were flying first class on those jets? Americans are still the richest people in history. But most of them can t afford to die. Who s going to love them? I know it s what we re here for. In the Land of the Free, they are taught to be slaves to their own appetites If you want it, then you got to have it, right? They ve gotten lost in what should have been blessings, like their own independence, which, if it only meant freedom from the whims of other sinners, would be great. But when THEY DO NOT REGARD THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD, then independence means, Not even God can tell me what to think or what to do; not even God can judge me, but He can and He will, and their independence is a blindfold they wear so they don t have to see the stop light: It s independence from reality.
And it s here now, to the point where millions of Americans talk about choosing their own truth and don t know that they re talking gibberish. Nothing ever turned real just because I chose it. The earth is round or it s not; racism is evil or it s not; Jesus is risen or He s not. What s real is real, including above all THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD and the only choosing anybody does is choosing whether they ll face reality or not. And if not, then, O LORD, YOUR HAND IS LIFTED HIGH, BUT THEY DO NOT SEE IT. It s the very same HAND that crushed Isaiah s country explicitly for idolatry, greed, child-murder, sexual immorality, and arrogance and that HAND IS LIFTED HIGH right now. Because the word to America is not, Be yourself! The word is YOU SHALL NOT COVET, or LIE, or STEAL, or COMMIT ADULTERY, or KILL. YOU SHALL HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER, YOU SHALL REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY, YOU SHALL NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD YOUR GOD IN VAIN, and YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS but God, whose HAND IS LIFTED HIGH and how long before it falls? I d rather talk about baseball and amber waves of grain. I like to feel good. But I ve got to talk about the love that hurts, because it s the only hope for our neighbors or for ourselves. Or for ourselves. Because there are Christians in America who are tired of the craziness, tired of getting slandered, tired of the pro-life battle, tired of upholding purity and getting mocked 5
when they do Christians who are tired of giving and giving when we could be getting and keeping, tired and ready to quit ready to quit really loving the people here with words and deeds, when instead, we could be liked by the people here, if only we d say, Fine, I d never kill a baby myself but I respect your right to kill yours. If only we d say, Fine, live together; who am I to tell you who to love? If only we d say, Fine, hey, all roads lead to God; Jesus isn t the only WAY or TRUTH or LIFE. If only we d just let them go. How they would tell you they wish all Christians were like you, if you d just let em go. Or go with them. Because there are somewhat Christians in America who DO NOT SEE why they can t just live like the people they re supposed to be here for, independent, choosing for themselves which parts of God s Word they re really going to believe, and choosing for themselves which of His commands they re really going to obey. God s talking about them, too, when He says, GRACE IS SHOWN TO them BUT THEY DO NOT LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS; THEY DO NOT REGARD THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD. And it sounds too much like me. Does it sound like you? Guys, the HAND that s LIFTED HIGH over the people around us, that HAND is LIFTED HIGH over us, too. But the HAND that s LIFTED HIGH over all America is scarred with a nail hole that says, All is forgiven! Come Home! It s the HAND of THE LORD who s already carried all of America s diseases and ours IN HIS OWN BODY and all the sins of all the people here, including us. THE MAJESTY OF His GRACE is over us, enough to make the whole country clean as 6
7 snow and alive as newborn babies, including you and me. The LOVE who never closed His eyes, who never spared Himself the heartache the LOVE who cried and gave and got tired and got hurt and got dead before He d let us go CHRIST IS RISEN. He s here with ALL AUTHORITY IN HEAVEN AND in America, divine AUTHORITY to SHOW saving GRACE TO THE WICKED before they LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS and you re with Him. To SHOW GRACE to those who DO NOT REGARD His MAJESTY and you re with Him, with GRACE for people who DO NOT SEE that until the very second that His HAND falls, that wounded HAND is LIFTED HIGH to bless all takers. Because of Him, churches are open in every town in this country. Because of Him, there s Bibles all over the place. And because of Him, Americans are repenting and being saved every single day, just the way we were and still are. Because of Him, we re still His, and still here with His Word and Sacraments in our hands and wealth and freedom to love America, to SHOW them the GRACE that He s giving us right now, to teach them the RIGHTEOUSNESS that He ll teach us. Forgive them anything, and LIVE SUCH GOOD LIVES AMONG them THAT THOUGH THEY ACCUSE YOU OF DOING WRONG, nevertheless, THEY MAY yet SEE YOUR GOOD DEEDS AND GLORIFY GOD with us ON THE DAY HE COMES, when that UPLIFTED HAND will fall to judge the planet and to gather tenderly every believer in America and lift them and us UP HIGH into ANOTHER COUNTRY, into the country He PREPARED on Calvary for every poor sinner who says yes to being loved.
While we re still in this country, you might want to go to the fireworks with Americans who just came from the cookout, the ballgame, the parade, all sitting on the grass together with us, most of them not knowing their right hand from their left and all of them so dear while they go ooh at the colors in the sky like little kids, like children who ve learned terrible things and don t remember the way home. And thank God that there is a WAY and it s wide open. Thank God for His wounded HAND HIGH over the fireworks and us and these people that we do love. And thank God for THE MAJESTY OF THE LORD and of His GRACE. And as long as we re being grateful, thank God for summer in New England, and for the Constitution and for the armed forces and for town bands and hot dogs and rock and roll: our native land. Amen. 8