You may say that Jesus words are over the top. No one can do that. Jesus. That’s ridiculous. The words. The world is full of fools and idiots. Why can’t I just say it? Why can’t I just respond in that way? But you see, Jesus gets at it and he gets at it more than all of us. You see, the Pharisees set the bar low to outward actions. As long as you kept everything in check in the inside and didn’t let it move to the outside. A key passing grade, but not Jesus. He starts right here. Why? Because where does sin get its first step? And how does my hatred in my heart towards another person begin to affect my relationship with them feeling annoyed or angry? I kill them with a thousand deaths. I justify my inaction. I defend my actions. I go through the trial and I erase all the parts where I played a role. I make the case against them look big, and I begin to starve them of the care they need and depend on to live. They must live, but they must do so absent of me or without my full heart. I am done with them. I write them out of my life. I can’t take the pain, the one thing they need that God has put in their life, the one thing they need for me to love, care, and encourage them in this desperate world of pain. And sin becomes for them one more person, that they have to do it alone without I become a hindrance to their human flourishing. A human flourishing where we need each other, where we need you and me in this world of sin, man, God said, should not be alone. So God put man together. God gave me to love my neighbor. And murder is murder in different ways, and it begins all with one errant thought of the heart that says, you are stupid. So I come here standing and Jesus says, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you’ll never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus speaks the rumble and thunder of Sinai’s law. The bar is raised, the guillotine is raised, and the hangman’s noose is raised and my neck, well, it must stand in. God spoke his law to a people at Mount Sinai that he loved. They had just gotten out of slavery to Egypt. Man, it felt good to have those captors gone. No more whips on their back. Look at their enemies now. Nice to see their bodies floating in the Red Sea, receiving the judgment of God. Chariots swept away, strong horses, gasping for breath, drowning and gone. We are victors. No more bitter yolk. But the Lord brought them to Mount Sinai and says in so many words, that was the easy part. Now try living together. How about we put you all in tents? Have you marched through a hot desert for 40 years and see if anyone is there on the other side to enter the promised land? Let’s see how many people are left. They left Egypt, but the greater problem was inside themselves. The most bitter and cruel dictator was not Pharaoh but Satan, sin and death. And they gave way to it all. They threw away their love for God. He gave them the rules. Don’t do this. Here are the ground rules. Here’s what love looks like. Here’s how you serve your neighbor. And yet they went astray. They justified their sin. They did it for survival, or they were taught falsely or didn’t know better or had poor examples or named the reason, but they lived lives of death. If we are basing our life on the Pharisees way of living, working harder, trying better, we’re only fooling ourselves. We’re broken in a far deeper way than effort can fix. Jesus stood in the Sanhedrin for you. What was it like to stand in that council under the judgment of those men? You deserve to go there, but he went there instead for you. And we see what happened. Hell, fire went upon him, but something else takes place. You escaped alive.

God didn’t deal with human sin by starting a franchise of Barnes and Nobles and making sure to have plenty of self-help books there for people to read. God didn’t give hours of podcasts for people to listen to assist them in their daily life. What did God do? You see, Jesus, God’s son. He came down from heaven. He came down to interact with abused people and he interacted with them in a remarkable way. The Lord shows us the places where he was wounded, where others hurt him, where he was subject to the wrath of a world’s hurting people, where those who were abused by others used their pain to lash out at him for whatever reason. And yet he held his peace. He did not strike but commended himself to God. He died for them and he showed them love. In return, he got in the middle of all of that.

Jesus died for the people that have wounded us, which is true help. We need not make them pay for He was wounded for them. We can let vengeance. We can let vengeance be his. We can let him figure out what we cannot. We can reach out in peace because Jesus’ death has paid the price. I have nothing to give, but he gives me himself that I might have something to bring to my neighbor. And further, he says to me, my body and my life are enough for you. You are in a midst of the world of sinful people. You’ve been wounded and you have wounded yourself again. You are all hurt, but my life is enough. My wounds feel yours. My love for you is enough to replace the love that you have not received from them. The Lord says to us this hard lesson today.

Then in the epistle, you must die. You must drown, but you there and those floundering waters of death are wedded with Christ. For Christ joins you there and the waters next to you for he was drowned for your sin and he rises with you and he’s alive, never to die again and you shall live because of him. The judgment has been paid, and Easter is all that is coming for you. He came for you, you alone. If it was only you in all the world, he would’ve done it. And he found a joy to live and interact with all the broken people. He gave them life. He did more than relieve them. He brought them healing forever. The waters of death became a life giving water to save and to restore. But he tells you today, live no longer. He gives you a new life for he gives you his life live no longer in that trash bin. See your brother as I have seen you broken in need of forgiveness. Yes, you may be wounded, but I am enough for you. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

***Please excuse any grammatical or other errors as this was automated transcription of the audio that you can listen to below.