Fifth Sunday of Lent
With
John 17 and 2 Corinthians 5-6
• One time on a college choir trip, stayed at hotel, rooms with
connecting doors. Cool! But each room had
to open the door to have free access.
• We’ve been examining relationship, started with picture of
unity, harmony, agreed-upon plan. Then deviation.
After sin we took a look at two different perspectives: the
righteous one forgives (regardless of sinner’s actions) and, motivated by
sorrow for sin, the sinner does a few things: stops & confesses, turns
around (repents, aligns with Christ), and offers some kind of meaningful token
or demonstration of sorrow (penance).
A Catholic prayer of confession and repentance:
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I
detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because
they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I
firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the
near occasions of sin.
• So far the actions of the two parties are independent of the
other…
Forgiveness offered freely without any strings attached (by power
of HS), the forgiving party opens the door.
Sinner confesses and repents and offers fruit of repentance (by
power of HS) without any expectation of forgiveness, opens door.
And now that both doors are open we can entertain absolution and
reconciliation, which require the joint effort of both parties… there can be no
absolution or reconciliation without forgiveness, and there can be no
absolution or reconciliation without the sorrow of sin.
Where forgiveness says You don’t owe anything, and
confession/repentance/penance say My sorrow over my sin wants to do something
to cover my sin, Absolution is the joint effort that frees the sinner from
guilt. It’s when the righteous says I accept your apology, I recognize your
penance… don’t worry about it. I can see how your sorrow is motivating you to
remain on our chosen path with me.
And once the relationship is freed from guilt and there is no
barrier between the righteous and the sinner, those hotel doors are open and
it’s party time! For real, think about the reconciliation party at the return
of the Prodigal! Renewed relationship should be celebrated! Harmony and unity
can flower again
• Two things to point out, that it is by the grace of God and the
power of the Holy Spirit that we can truly forgive one another, and it is by
the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that we can confess and
repent and offer penance and be reconciled, that’s the first thing to point
out. The HS is the door opening to reconciliation.
(John 15:5 apart from me you can do nothing)
Second thing to point out is that the relationship after the
reconciliation may be stronger than it was before the sin! When you break a
bone and it heals it’s actually stronger than before because of the scar
tissue. Not like a broken plate glued back together but new bone forms around
the fragments like cement and concrete.
With people, relationships that have gone through difficulties are
stronger than relationships that have not.
2 Corinthians 5
17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, that
person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look,
new things have arrived!
18 All of these new things are from God, who
reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of
reconciliation. 19 In other words, God was
reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins
against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.
Thanks be to Jesus, whose prayer is that we would be one just as
he and the Father are one, thanks be to Jesus that we can be reconciled to God
who does not count our sins against us.
• There’s a door in front of you. Open it! (invitation to life in
Christ)
• Hymn insert “Jesus, United By Thy Grace”
