Message Aim: (Fifth Sunday of Lent) God created us to live through the death of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us.
Sermon Title: “Looking into the Face of Love”
Scripture: Romans 8:1-2, 5-11 (NRSV)
1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit[a] of life in Christ Jesus has set you[b]free from the law of sin and of death… 5 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[e] set their minds on the things of the Spirit.[f] 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit[g] is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,[h] since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit[i] is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ[j] from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through[k]his Spirit that dwells in you.
Synopsis:
The movie Dead Man Walking is based on a true story about a nun, Sister Helen, who agrees to become the spiritual counselor to a murderer on death row. Two opposite personalities meet – one deeply compassionate the other unfeeling. Slowly the nun unravels the troubled personality of the man on death row as he opens up about what happened that day. Nothing can stop the walk down the corridors of the prison toward the place where the sentence will be carried out and as the procession moves forward we hear the haunting call, “Dead man walking!” It’s a rather morbid thing to say as a person is walking toward death. Here is a person who is alive as you and I and yet is described as dead.
The concept of “Dead man walking” has a sense of hopelessness about it. There is nothing left to look forward to. There are different ways that a person could be – walking yet dead. A young woman in the grip of depression believes that she will never find joy or peace or love ever again. She is haunted with the fear of suicide. A young man with a broken body, the result of a car accident, will never walk again. He grieves because there is no future. A refugee, who flees a war zone, wanders around the camp and sees so much hopelessness in the people around him. They are all dead men walking. What hope do any of them have of living a normal life or of returning to their homes again or seeing the loved ones they left behind?
These are extreme examples but we don’t have to be in a situation like these people to feel like “dead men walking”. Maybe it’s a relationship that has turned sour, a child that has disappointed you by rejecting the values you had taught him/her. Maybe it’s just feeling run down, tired, depressed, sad, no energy because work and family have sapped all life out of you. Maybe an ongoing illness and injury is just sucking the energy out of you. Some days are worse than others. But there are definitely those days when you feel like a “dead man or woman walking”.
Without wanting to sound like a preacher of gloom and doom we are all dead men and women walking. That’s what Paul is talking about in our reading from Romans today. Listen to what he says, “To be controlled by human nature results in death. People become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature. Those who obey their human nature cannot please God. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Romans 8:6a,7a,8a,9b).
There is no beating about the bush here. He tells it like it is. He is describing dead men walking. Paul is talking about our human nature that is controlled by sin. Sin has such a control of our lives – our thinking, our speaking, and our doing – and it destroys our relationship with God, with the people in our lives and with the environment. It is self-destructive. Sin corrupts our humanity which leads us to an uncaring attitude, denial of God in our lives, and unbelief. Sin tempts us with its own idea of what happiness is but in the end destroys our happiness. It leads us to death. There is nothing more certain – sooner or later, we will die. It’s simply a matter of when. It is sin that has brought so much hopelessness into our world and into our personal lives.
In the movie Dead Man Walking one of the last things the nun tells the convicted man is that she will attend his execution and that he is to look at her. She doesn’t want him to focus on the anger and hatred of the other witnesses as they take pleasure in seeing him die. He is to look at her. She says to him, “I want the last thing you see in this world is the face of love. Look at me.” And that’s what happens – as his eyes slowly close he looks into the eyes of love that this woman has for his very troubled soul. Her love, a love that looks passed all that he has done and sees him as a person, is the last thing he sees.
That’s what Jesus says to us who are dead people walking – people down and out because of the trouble that sin has brought into our lives. He reminds us to “Look into my face, see my love for you regardless of the life you have led; see how much I care for you. I created you and died for you, I will not leave you now.”
Paul says in our reading, “Christ lives in you. So you are alive because God has accepted you”. In Colossians he says, “You were dead, because you were sinful and were not God’s people. But God let Christ make you alive, when he forgave all our sins.” (Colossians 2:13). “God’s mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4).
Being a sinner and being dead go together but Paul is insistent that we are not dead people walking – we are alive. God created us to be more than walking corpses. He created us to be more than people controlled by sin and evil and death. He created us to live through the death of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Every one of us who walked through those church doors today has been given the gift of hope.
Paul writes, “God raised Jesus to life! God’s Spirit now lives in you, and he will raise you to life by his Spirit (Romans 8:11). Remember that Jesus was a “dead man walking” as he carried his instrument of death on his back. To those who called out ‘Crucify him!’ he was a man without hope, without any future, and the world was better off without him. How wrong could they have been? Three days later he walked out of the tomb. Jesus was raised to life by the same Spirit who raises us to life.
When Paul talks about life he doesn’t mean only life after we die, but life with God, eternal life that starts right now. We don’t have to wait until we die to have this new life that the Spirit gives. The Holy Spirit is inviting us to embrace Jesus and return to God. The Spirit lives in us and reminds us every day that because of Christ we are not dead men and women walking even though we might feel like it sometimes and even though others will see us struggling with the difficulties of life like anyone else. We have confidence and hope because we are alive with the life and love of Jesus in us. This is our hope. As we look into the face of love on the cross, we know and believe that there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from that love and that this love will challenge us to believe that we can do all things because of the power of Christ that lives within us.
0 Comments