The power and the will to forgive sins

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 19

Isaiah 44:21-23  +  John 1:35-51

“Who can forgive sins but God alone?” That’s what the scribes wondered in the account from Sunday’s Gospel, when Jesus dared to forgive the sins of the paralytic who was brought to Him in faith. Who can forgive sins but God alone? They were right, of course. God is the One who has been sinned against by the creatures who owed Him our obedience and our love. God is the One who holds the keys of heaven and of hell. Only God can forgive sins.

Of course, first people have to be convinced that they have sins on their record, and that their sins are against God, and that those sins are deathly serious and need forgiving. Most of the time, people go around justifying themselves, thinking that they’re doing all right, that they’re doing their best, and that their best must be good enough, that their beliefs must be right, their opinions must be correct. Even God must agree with them and accept them, in spite of any flaws they may have.

Such were the people of Israel in the Old Testament, most of the time. And so God kept sending His prophets to show them the truth about themselves, that they were sinners, to show them the truth, that God was displeased with them, angry with them, and to warn them about the very real consequences of rebelling against the only true God. Isaiah was one of those prophets, and he spent most of chapter 44 berating the idolaters in Israel, showing them the folly of taking a piece of wood, for example, chopping it up, burning half of it, and then carving the other half into a god for them to pray to and show reverence to.

But then, to the penitent among His people, to those in whom the Law had awakened fear and even panic, God speaks sweetly. Remember these things, O Jacob, He says. Remember your idolatries, remember how foolish it is to worship anything or anyone but God, to fear, love or trust in anyone more than God. Remember these things! Why? For you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant. Now there’s both a warning and comfort in there, isn’t there? The warning: I formed you. I am your Creator. You are My servant. You’re supposed to be serving Me, not any other God. You owe me your obedience, your worship, your love. But there’s comfort, too: I haven’t tossed you away with the trash, even though you’ve treated Me, your God, like trash. I created you, and therefore I do care about you. And I still call you My servant, not My enemy.

O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! An alternate translation, actually, the one that Luther follows, would be, You must not forget Me! You must not forget your Creator. You must not forget the One whose servant you are, to whom you owe obedience.

But look! This is the main reason why you must not forget your God. I have blotted out your transgressions, like a thick cloud; I have blown away your sins like mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

Hear God’s invitation to His people to return to Him. Hear how earnest He is! And why should anyone return to Him? Because He is the God who redeems and forgives.

So when Jesus boldly and publicly forgave the sins of the paralytic in Sunday’s Gospel, the scribes were offended, first, because they didn’t recognize Jesus as the One whose right alone it is to redeem and to forgive, as the God who was sinned against and who, therefore, had the right to forgive—or not forgive.

But remember, as we discussed on Sunday, they also must have thought Jesus’ actions were blasphemous because God’s pattern of forgiving sins, plastered throughout the Old Testament, required a sacrifice to redeem or to buy back the life of the sinner. And where was that sacrifice?

John the Baptist pointed to it in the second lesson you heard this evening. As he pointed some of his own disciples over to the recently baptized Jesus, he points and says to Andrew and (probably) John, “Look! The Lamb of God!” By calling Him “the Lamb of God,” John was affirming that Jesus was the sacrifice by which the sins of the world would be paid for, that He Himself would be the redemption price. So, yes, as the Redeemer, who would give His life as that redemption price, Jesus had the power to forgive.

But that’s not all we learn about Jesus in that reading. Jesus demonstrated to Nathanael that He had divine knowledge—in this case, knowledge of who Nathanael was on the inside, an Israelite in whom is no deceit, and even where he was sitting when Philip called him. Yes, Jesus was the Son of God, as Nathanael confessed, so He is the One who was offended by our sins, and yet came to earth to save us from them, to forgive us for them.

But I want you to catch one more thing in that lesson before we close this evening. Remember what we said on Sunday that God required in order to forgive someone, based on what He taught in the Old Testament? You needed a life for a life, a sacrifice for sin. But you also needed a Mediator—the priest—to go between God and man, to offer the sacrifice. What was it Jesus promised Nathanael that he would see before it was all done? Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

Angels ascending and descending. Where have we seen that before? Oh, that’s right. Jacob’s dream of the ladder or the staircase with one end touching the earth and the other reaching up to heaven. Except here, Jesus identifies Himself as the ladder, as the staircase going between earth and heaven. True God and true man and the one Mediator between God and Man.

So, again, there it is, everything needed for God to forgive sinners. He gave His Son to be the redeeming Sacrifice, His life for the lives of all men. And Christ is also the High Priest who offers this sacrifice as the Mediator. So He truly has the power to forgive sins. But just as importantly, or maybe most important of all, God has the desire to forgive sinners. He invites all sinners, He invites you, to use Jesus continually as your Mediator, that is, to have faith in Him for the forgiveness of sins, to approach God the Father holding up Jesus as the reason—the only reason—why He should accept you, and He will. In fact, He rejoices to receive you and calls upon all creation to rejoice with Him: Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and glorified Himself in Israel. Amen.