In Nomine Iesu

Pastor Thomas L. Rank
Ash Wednesday
February 25, 2004

Text: 1 John 1:5-9
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ,

Repentance is not just a Lent-thing. Repentance is what our life is as a child of God. Therefore, in one sense, the beginning of this Lenten season does not bring anything new to us. However, in another sense it does bring something new each year. It gives us time to be renewed by hearing again the history of our Lord’s suffering and death, the Passion History. Lent serves to focus our attention on the destination of Jesus, a destination that was first promised in the Garden of Eden, and which Jesus Himself explained to His disciples. He goes to Jerusalem to suffer, to die, to rise again. Lent teaches us that the cross and suffering of Jesus are the reason for Jesus becoming man. His suffering and crucifixion are the purpose of His life. For He comes to our world to pay the price of our sin. Lent, with its special focus on the Passion History of Jesus, focuses our attention on this, on what we call the atonement.

There is only one way for you to know and love the work of Jesus on the cross: know your sin and believe in your Savior. This is a matter of learning the truth, the truth about ourselves, and the truth about Jesus Christ the Son of God.

We begin with the truth about ourselves. John wrote, "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It is usually easy to admit sin in a general way. Most people will admit that they aren’t perfect. After all, who is? But it gets harder when we try to be more particular about sin. We might admit that we break the first commandment, because we don’t trust God as we should. But it becomes harder when we pinpoint the false gods in our lives. Often these false gods are well-liked by us, we do not feel threatened by them; and we may not even admit that they are false gods. A good way to learn about our false gods is to have someone criticize us for trusting in them. If we find that we get very defensive about them, that is a good sign that we rely on them more than we think.

In fact, if we find ourselves getting defensive in different areas of our lives, that could be a good sign that we are hiding something from ourselves. We do not like to admit specific faults. We prefer to generalize. But it is in the details that sin likes to hide, sinking deep roots into our lives, so deep that it will cause pain when we try to up root them.

Besides becoming defensive about our sins, another sign of sin is when we start to make up words for our sin, words that try to hide the real meaning of what we are doing. Such words are called "euphemisms." And they are very handy.

A most infamous euphemism was used by the Nazi government of Germany to describe their murdering of Jews and others. They called this the "final solution." This term allowed an emotional detachment from the reality of suffering and death that it brought to millions. A euphemism used today is "euthanasia." It doesn’t sound like a bad word. But it means killing old people when they are too much trouble to take care of. Another one is the term "pro-choice." It sounds good. But it is an evil word that hides the deliberate killing of innocent babies by doctors and nurses, by moms and dads.

How about the term, "living together"? That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But what does it mean? It means fornication, that is, sex outside of marriage. How about, "having an affair"? Doesn’t that sound better than: adultery or cheating on one’s husband or wife? Of course, these are just a few examples. There are many, many more. The point is not to single out any one of these. The point is to say: look at yourself. What are you hiding? What sins do you fear to confess? What sins do you deny or hide?

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Not one of us can declare himself to be sin-free. John also teaches us: "If we say that we have fellowship with [God], and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth."

Repentance means admitting our lies, discovering them with the piercing light of God’s Law, and confessing that yes, truly, "I am a sinner." In thought: what thoughts? In word: what words? In deed: What deeds?

Repentance does not end with the admission of sin. Repentance includes knowing and believing that our sin is put on Jesus, and that in Him we receive the forgiveness of our sins. "...the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Our bodies and souls need to be cleaned because sin makes us dirty. But such dirt takes a special cleaning. John says that the cleaning occurs by the blood of Jesus. And when we speak about the blood of Christ we are back at His suffering and death on the cross.

When we learn of the Passion History of Jesus we are not focusing on what others did to Jesus. We are not pre-occupied with whether it was the Romans or the Jews who were responsible. No. What we see is that Jesus was at the cross because of me, because of you. We see the love of God for us despite our sins, despite the dirt of our false gods, despite the shame of our lives twisted by lust, coveting, hating. The blood of Christ cleans you. He shed His blood on the cross so that you receive forgiveness. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Our weak flesh wants no part of admitting sin. The world mocks us for thinking that confessing sin is good; all we see around is hiding it, lying about it, re-defining it so that its not so bad anymore. But no talk of actually admitting it, and receiving forgiveness. And certainly Satan the liar loves this.

When Martin Luther was troubled by his sins, when the devil would bring up a whole list of all the things Martin had done, Martin would reply: "devil, you are right. I am a terrible sinner. But I have a Savior that is greater than my sins, and He is the one I trust."

When your sins trouble you, do not hide them in euphemisms, do not deny them; confess them. Throw them in Satan’s face and say: "look where my sins are: they are on my Savior, and that means they are gone."

This is what the Lenten season brings to us. Confession of sin is not an end in itself; rather, we learn that it is what happened to our sin that brings comfort, assurance, a quieted conscience, forgiveness. Sin was put on Jesus. Therefore the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses you from all sin, from all unrighteousness. Trust that blessed word of God. Amen.