C, Midweek Lent 5 - Luke 23:48 "Beating the Breast"

Luke 23:48 (ESV) And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.

To beat one’s breast is an interesting term not commonly used today.  We might thing of Tarzan’s action, making his telltale call to bring together the primates of the jungle as he beats his breast with macho monkey zeal, then swings through the trees to face his foe.

But in reality, beating one’s breast is not so much an action, rather it’s a symbolic expression, for a person who is downcast in spirit, angry, or expressing woe and distress.  

In the bible we hear of beating one’s breast apart from being beaten by someone else.  Saint Paul speaks figuratively of pummelling his body, so he does not lose the eternal prize saying, “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified”. (1 Corinthians 9:26–27 ESV)

Back in Luke’s Gospel, chapter eighteen, we hear of the judge, in the parable of the persistent widow, who says to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.” (Luke 18:4–5 ESV)

Further on in chapter eighteen, Luke focuses in on the reason for beating one’s breast in the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector where we hear of the tax collector who did not trust in himself, nor his righteousness.  Jesus says, “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:13–14 ESV)

Beating one’s breast, biblically speaking, is not an act of psyching up the inner spirit, rather it’s an act of humility where one realises the truth of the situation, or they see the spiritual reality within themselves.

The crowd who had gathered for the Passover feast at Jerusalem welcomed Jesus as the Messiah. They saw him as the king whom they hoped would restore the rule of David.  They hoped Jesus would have freed them from Roman rule.  Yet instead of turning and tossing Pilate out of the palace, Jesus turned towards the temple and tossed out those he accused of making God’s house a den of robbers.  

It took only a week for the mob, who welcomed Jesus, to turn and crucify him.  The crowd was easily agitated by a few who made false allegations against Jesus.  They were whipped into a frenzy by activists to act in one accord. These were those who behaved more like Tarzan, moving the mob, stirring individual spirits in uncompromising confusion, moved by the desire to deal out death and destruction on the holy innocence of God’s own Son.  With one accord evil justice was dealt out upon the “Good One” given by God, Jesus Christ, who was sent to serve humanity.

Once the mob’s collective behaviour moved those with authority to sinfully act in fear, the crowd watched the spectacle unfold on that Passover Friday, on the way of suffering, via dolorosa, the way of the cross.

In Lent we are called to understand,  that the passions of our flesh, meet the paschal passion of Christ on the cross.  This is the place where our defiling desires meet the purifying suffering of the Holy Sinless One.  We are reminded of our part in the passion of Jesus Christ, where our sinfulness is easily whipped up into a frenzy because of the fears of losing our idols – our pride, popularity, pleasures, and possessions.

On the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, we hear what the crowd received as the product of their passions fallen on Jesus Christ. “And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.” (Luke 23:48 ESV) In one accord the crowd began the day calling for the crucifixion of Christ.  At the end of the day they went away with one accord convicted for crucifying Christ.

On the cross the Holy Spirit caused them to see themselves, the crassness of their passion for popularity, pleasure, and possessions.  They walked away beating their breasts knowing that if the Holy One of God can die, what chance have they got of avoiding death when he who is good, received evil from their evil collaboration?

Your sinful passions are put before you to ponder at Lent.  To see the spectacle of Christ on the cross, crucified unjustly for the desires of your humanity that joins in sinful accord with all people of all time.

But right at the place where our passions point us out as guilty, God points out our Paschal Passover.  The Paschal Lamb has taken away our sin.  We beat our breasts for what we’ve done, what we’ve done to him in our sinful human nature!  He was beaten, bruised and hung, in the spectacle where we once crowded around the cross of his crucifixion.  The cross where you and I rightly should have been crucified!

So, the Holy Spirit moves us with one accord to beat our breast.  But also let the Holy Spirit daily raise you to life anew in Jesus Christ, the Sinless One crucified for you!    Jesus did not stay dead.  Yet the death he died has defeated the defiling desires of your heart, that should have meant our death.  Now after Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit wills you to live each day in the hope of our resurrection, to live in his Word, as he continues to move us to put off and pass over our defiling passions as we walk the way of the cross, with Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Heavenly Father, help us to resolutely set out faces towards our heavenly goal in Jesus Christ.  As the Holy Spirit moves us to pass over and put off our pride, pleasures, possessions, and popularity, as we suffer in giving up these things and are persecuted by others for doing so, let the Spirit remind us that the night of suffering and death is passing away and the dawning eternal light of love awaits those trust in Jesus Christ and not themselves.  Amen.  

C, Midweek Lent 5 - The Lord's Prayer #6 - Matthew 6:10b,12 "Forgiving them on Earth"

Your will be done on earth – as we forgive those who sin against us.

Part two of God’s will is for his will to be done on earth.  This is his horizontal will.  We covered his vertical will, in part one last week.

God’s vertical will, is done in heaven when he forgives us our sin.  Put another way, God the Father makes himself responsible to humanity, by finding a way that all might be restored to a right relationship with him.  This is God and humanity, coexisting in peace with each other, in a community of tranquillity and peace, as there was before the fall in the Garden of Eden.

For God’s will to be fulfilled in heaven he sent Jesus Christ to live the perfect life as a human being.  Despite bearing the nature of God the Son, he put his rights aside as the Son of God, and faithfully lived under the responsibility of God the Father as a created Son of Man.  He was faithful to the Father, even unto death.  Never losing faith, never losing hope in God who would redeem him.

God raised Jesus to his right hand in victory over sin and death.  In his faithful death,  he bore our guilt and sin, in his innocent loss of all human rights, when he was nailed to the cross.

It was Jesus’ right to suffer for our sin!  It was his right to be lifted up in love for you.  In doing so he not only gave us the right to become children of God, through the forgiveness of sin, but he died sharing the responsibility of the Father.

God the Father at the fall made himself responsible for the salvation of humankind.  He promised to send a Saviour, who would crush the head of the snake under his heel.  Saint Paul speaks of this verse in Genesis three when he says to the Romans, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”  (Romans 16:20 ESV)

We are children of God because of Jesus’ joy in putting aside his human rights, for yours and my eternal rights as holy adopted Sons of God.  Jesus made himself responsible to you in this life, by also sending the Holy Spirit to walk with you.  He does this to uphold your rights as children, so you and I don’t slip back into demanding the rights of self-righteousness.  But rather as God’s children we carry our crosses, bearing the rights of others, as it was Jesus’ right to die for us.

What are these rights?  These are the rights to forgive others, as we have been forgiven. 

Jesus takes our rights seriously, and we know this because he has given us the Holy Spirit, to be our helper. 

This right to forgive each other, is the will of God on earth.   Our right to forgive, is the responsibility lived and written in the Word of the Gospel, the good news of God’s responsibility, and our rights!

Our right to forgive has got nothing to do with a higher power born of our own doing!  Rather, it is solely based on forgiveness given to us as pure gift.  Likewise, our right to forgive others, has nothing to do with them showing some sort of better inclination towards us, to receive our forgiveness.  Our forgiving others is our right, born in the responsibility, good pleasure, and love of God, flowing through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God knows how to forgive sin!  It’s his will on earth for us to know how and why we forgive sin too!  Jesus joins the vertical with the horizontal, being the Son of God and the Son of Man.  He serves God as his faithful Son, by living as a faithful servant of humanity.

We too, being adopted as Sons of God, now function as types of Jesus Christ.  But you and I do so in a way that is greater than Jesus Christ.  We not only can forgive as he forgives, but we must continue to be forgiven, unless God ceases to function as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Recorded in Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus himself says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”  (John 14:12 ESV)

Here we have the two sides of the coin of being a Christian,  “Confession of Sin, and forgiveness of sin!”  Jesus gives you the right to confess your sin and the right to forgive others their sins!  Or put another way, the Holy Spirit bears the responsibility of working confession within you, and your forgiveness of others.

But, if you are like most other Christians, you struggle with confessing your sin and forgiving others.  For the most, we don’t even see a fraction of what we do as being sinful, let alone confess it.  But when we come to seeing the sin of others, we easily see sin, but find it very difficult to forgive it. 

But our right to forgive, in the horizontal sense, is bound to the vertical direction of God’s love and forgiveness.  God the Father comes down in his providence of humanity, God the Son comes down in his redemption of humanity, and God the Holy Spirit comes down in his help of humanity. 

God comes down and finds us helpless!  But he comes down because he knows we are helpless!  Therefore, he comes down to take you by the hand and help you.

Returning to John 14 again, Jesus tells us how we are able to do greater things once he goes to the Father, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.  If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.”  (John 14:12–19 ESV)

As children of God, we live as Jesus lives, because he lives.  As Jesus forgives, we forgive!  We also confess because Jesus now lives to forgive! 

When Jesus finishes teaching the Lord’s Prayer in his Sermon on the Mount, he goes onto give a footnote regarding forgiveness saying, “if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,  but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14–15 ESV)

Jesus hits home with the full force of the Law here, and it sounds frightening.  What is Jesus saying to us?

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was preached and recorded for the Jews.  Matthew’s Gospel is a catechism for Jewish believers, teaching them that through the Law no one can achieve righteousness.  If one thought they could, here Jesus extends the Law, making it obvious that no one will ever achieve righteousness under the Law.  That is, except him!

Jesus alone fulfilled all righteousness required from the Law, having every right to accuse us, but instead he champions the right to forgive, so we can live.  He neither accuses us or excuses our sin, he binds the sin and sets the sinner free.

You now have that freedom, and with it comes your right to forgive others.  We like Jesus, neither excuse the sin, nor accuse the sinner.  We pray to God the Father, for the Holy Spirit to give us the will on earth, to forgive as we have been forgiven.

After the cross, we, together with believing Jews, look at the Sermon on the Mount and cry out to God, naming his responsibility to help us forgive as we have been forgiven.

Therefore, we pray and demand, with the very demand he has given us to pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” “You have forgiven us Heavenly Father, now give us the will to forgive others!”  

God will give you the will to do so!  Why?  Because he sent Jesus to die for your sin, and the Holy Spirit to make you holy in his forgiveness!  And because he would fail to be God, if he did not fulfil his promises made through sending Jesus and the Holy Spirit!

Let us live in peace, knowing you neither have to accuse others, nor excuse their sin.  It’s God’s good pleasure, that we pray individually, and, as the body of Christ, his church on earth, to bind each other’s sin to the cross and loose the sinner. 

It is God’s responsibility to bind our sin and loose us!  And it is our right to loose other sinners and bind their sin, as Jesus has bound our sin and set us free.  Pray to your Father in heaven to give you and me the will to joyfully do this.  Amen.

On Maundy Thursday we conclude the series on the Lord’s Prayer with the centre kernel of the prayer.  We learn what the Holy Spirit does in us when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread."