Tag: Wrath

Holy Week Sorrow and Celebration

Right now in my personal devotions, I am reading through the book of Lamentations, a sorrowful song written by the prophet Jeremiah, which describes Israel’s defeat and exile at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BC.  Some of the language Jeremiah uses to describe Israel’s demise is grotesque and gut wrenching:

  • The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst. (Lamentations 4:4)
  • Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become dry as wood. (Lamentations 4:8)
  • The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people. (Lamentations 4:10)

Clearly, this is a tragic, despairing time.  Indeed, even for a professional prophet such as Jeremiah, who has seen much sin and tragedy, the despair of the exile seems overwhelming.  And Jeremiah places the blame for this despair squarely at the feet of God.

In chapter 3, Jeremiah laments his plight:

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of His wrath; He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me He turns His hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; He has broken my bones; He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; He has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, He shuts out my prayer; He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; He has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; He has made me desolate; He bent His bow and set me as a target for His arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes. (Lamentations 3:1-16)

Notice the pronoun Jeremiah employs again and again to describe who is responsible for his misery: “He.”  “He” has brought Jeremiah misery, trouble, pain, and despair.  It’s “His” fault that Jeremiah’s plight is what it is.  Who is this “He”?  None other than God, of course.  God has afflicted Jeremiah in the most miserable of ways.

And yet, even in his misery, Jeremiah has not lost all hope: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:21-23).  Jeremiah believes that finally, ultimately, God’s steadfast love will prevail.  Indeed, it’s interesting the way Jeremiah describes this steadfast love just verses later:  “Though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:32-33).  Though God does afflict and grieve people because of their sin, Jeremiah says, He does not willingly do so.  God’s will is not to pour out His hot wrath, but His steadfast love.  The Hebrew word for “willingly” is milibo, a word meaning, “from His heart.”  Thus, Jeremiah is saying that from God’s heart does not come affliction.  Rather, from God’s heart comes His steadfast love.  God’s will is wrapped in love.

Luther describes God’s wrath at sin and God’s will of love by making a distinction between the “alien” and the “proper” work of God:

We must know what is meant by the work of God. It is nothing else but to create righteousness, peace, mercy, truth, patience, kindness, joy, and health, inasmuch as the righteous, truthful, peaceful, kind, joyful, healthy, patient, merciful cannot do otherwise than act according to His nature. Therefore God creates righteous, peaceful, patient, merciful, truthful, kind, joyful, wise, healthy men…But He cannot come to this His proper work unless He undertakes a work that is alien and contrary to Himself…Therefore, since He can make just only those who are not just, He is compelled to perform an alien work in order to make them sinners, before He performs His proper work of justification. Thus He says, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.” (AE 51:18-19)

God must judge us before He can justify us, Luther says.  His alien and His proper work go hand in hand.  Thus, both God’s alien work of judgment and God’s proper work of love are needed in Jeremiah’s life.  And both God’s alien work of judgment and God’s proper work of love are needed in our lives too.  But lest we forget, through faith in Christ, God’s proper work prevails!

The alien and the proper work of God meet most clearly in the death and resurrection of Christ, which we remember during this Holy Week.  Luther explains:

God’s alien work is the suffering of Christ and sufferings in Christ, the crucifixion of the old man and the mortification of Adam. God’s proper work, however, is the resurrection of Christ, justification in the Spirit, and the vivification of the new man, as Romans 4:25 says: “Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification.” (AE 51:19)

God judges His Son on the cross, killing Him for the sins of the world.  This was not something He delighted in doing – it was alien to Him – but it was necessary.  For Christ’s crucifixion satisfied God’s righteous wrath at sinners…sinners like you and me (cf. Romans 3:25-26).  And with God’s wrath satisfied through Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, God could now move to His proper work:  Giving to His children His steadfast love which never ceases.

This Holy Week, spend some time meditating on both the alien and the proper work of God.  For both are needed.  But finally, one prevails!  For God’s work does not end in an alien way.  Rather, it ends in its proper way.  It ends in our salvation through faith in Christ.  Praise be to God!

ABC Extra – You’re Inadequate

This weekend in worship and ABC we talked about the stain of inadequacy.  We’ve all grappled with inadequacy, of course.   A project we’ve been working on isn’t up to snuff according to the boss.  And we feel inadequate.  The money we make isn’t enough to keep up with our next-door neighbors.  And we feel inadequate.

I always enjoy watching the opening outtakes on the hit FOX TV show, “American Idol.”  Some of the auditions are atrocious.  What is really fascinating to me, however, is that some of these contestants, who couldn’t carry a tune if their lives depended on it, believe that they are truly good singers.  When they find out that they are not, they are crushed.  And they feel inadequate.

I suspect that Peter must have felt much like an “American Idol” contestant feels after Simon Cowell announces, “That was atrocious.”  As Luke 5 opens, we find Peter, a professional fisherman, casting his nets into the Sea of Galilee.  And Peter was no poor fisherman.  To the contrary, he was one of the best.  But even one of the best gets skunked from time to time.  And this was the case with Peter.  He had been fishing all night and had not caught a thing.  But not to worry, for a carpenter from Nazareth named Jesus is on the case.  “Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch,” Jesus says (verse 4).  A carpenter giving advice to a seasoned fisherman on fishing?  That’s rich.  But Peter trusts and obeys the Lord.  And the results are nothing short of miraculous: “When [Peter and his companions] had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break“ (verse 6).  Apparently, this carpenter knows a thing or two about fishing.  And all of a sudden, Peter is struck with an acute bout of inadequacy.  He says to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man” (verse 8)!  Jesus, in turn, responds to Peter’s declaration with a promise of hope in the midst of inadequacy: “Don’t be afraid” (verse 10).

Sadly, many people have twisted this precious promise of Jesus.  In the sixteenth century, a young monk named Martin Luther twisted this promise by refusing to believe it.  He refused to hearken unto God’s call to “be not afraid.”  Instead, in his younger years, he saw God only as a cruel taskmaster who would surely damn all mankind for their inadequacies.  Blessedly, he later came to understand the wonderful compassion of our God, expressed in Jesus Christ.  In the twenty-first century, many people twist this promise by turning God into a wrathless deity who overlooks, rather than forgives, sins.  The promise, “Do not be afraid,” is conceived as an admission that God does not really care about, much less gets angry over, sin.  Indeed, a popular preacher recently toured the country with the message, “The gods aren’t angry.”  His point was this:  God is not angry with you or at your sin.  But this is not true.  God is angry.  And He’s angry at your sin.  As the apostle Paul writes, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men” (Romans 1:18).  God has wrath at sin.  Jesus says, “Do not fear,” not because God doesn’t get angry with sin and sinners, but because His wrath is taken by Jesus Christ in our place for our sins on the cross.  It is by Jesus’ work on the cross that our sins are forgiven.

When Jesus tells Peter, “Do not be afraid,” it isn’t because Peter is really a good guy.  No, Peter’s statement, “I am a sinful man,” is perfectly true.  He is inadequate.  But through Christ’s atoning work, Peter’s sin is taken away and he has nothing to fear.  The answer to inadequacy is not to pretend you’re adequate.  You’re not.  The answer to inadequacy is to trust in Jesus because He is more than adequate.  He is perfect.  And His perfection covers all of our inadequate sins.  Find your adequacy in Christ.

Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!