Grace Across The Span Of Your Life

October 30, 2022 - Reformation Sunday

Hope Lutheran Church

Rev. Mary Erickson

John 8:31-36

Grace across the Span of Your Life

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

“If you REMAIN in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Jesus encourages us to remain in the word, to stay anchored in it. When we stay connected to the word of God in the Bible, something happens to us. Each day we feed on its message for us. We read and ponder its words. And little by little, day after day, it transforms us. Our lives gradually become aligned to its message, its truths. And as that happens, we step into the expansive freedom and grace of God.

God’s word was central to Martin Luther. It was one of his three grounding principles. You see them on the front of our bulletin: scriptures alone, grace alone, faith alone. And that order is important. First comes the scriptures. It’s through the words of the Bible that we come to hear the message of God’s grace. The scriptures sing the song of God’s loving grace. And when we’ve heard this message of grace, then faith is born within. Scriptures, grace, faith, in that order. The scriptures come first, they MUST come first.

Jesus said, “If you REMAIN in my word, you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

We REMAIN in the word. It’s a long-term thing. The Bible isn’t something we read just once, like the Sunday comics, and then toss it aside. We stay connected to it over the span of our lives. The psalmist said that when we remain in God’s word, we’re like a tree planted by the water. It feeds and nourishes us. And like the successive rings of growth on a tree, our lifetime connection to God’s word matures with us.

The giant tap root of our faith and assurance is the abundant grace of God. It became clear to us in the most striking way through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus, the God we cannot see became visible. In Jesus, the transcendent and holy divine source of all life drew near to us in a way we could see and hear and feel.

His life and actions have been captured for us through the witness of those who knew him. They tell his story so that we might also know.

In the gospels we read about Jesus’ actions. The love of God sent him to us. He became a flesh and blood human, born to his parents, Mary and Joseph. He was as human as you and I. He ate and slept and got sick. He experienced the joy of family and friendship. He felt all of the emotions we do, he was tempted in every way we are.

In his ministry, he reflected the broad compassion and mercy of God’s love. He welcomed even the scorned and unlovely. He brought healing and wholeness to lepers and those tortured with mental illness, to the sick and dying. He challenged the rigid and self-righteous beliefs of those who had forgotten the central characteristic of God’s abiding love. His teachings and acts of mercy sparked new hope and inspiration among those who encountered him.

But these were just the first act. His final act came with his death and what followed. In his dying on the cross he has shown us that divine love is willing to go the distance to restore what human sin has broken. From the cross he went to the grave. And from the grave he descended even to the depths of hell. There was no place so remote and desolate where he was not willing to go. No matter the depths of your despair or brokenness, he was willing, is willing, to go there for you. As the song says: ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough. There is no place where he will not go to deliver and restore you into the bosom of divine love!

And in his resurrection, he has shown us that there is no power on this earth that he has not overcome. The brokenness of sin is no match for his healing forgiveness. Even the finality of death has ended. Death has been defeated by unquenchable light and life of the divine.

All of these good gifts! In his life, the words of liberation and grace; in his death, the height and depth and breadth of God’s love to restore and reunite; and in his resurrection, the knowledge that there is nothing, nothing in heaven and earth and under the earth that can overcome the eternal life and love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.