Cancellation at the Cross

Pastor Emile J. Burgess Sermon—Colossians 2:13b-14

Midweek Lent Triumph of the Cross

I don’t watch the show, though I hear it’s popular. If I’ve ever caught a snippet of it here or there, the humor seemed such to only appeal to our worldly nature. But for whatever reason, last week public radio aired a clip of dialogue from this TV show. The scene is this:  the pretty girl who lives across the hall has just given the nerdy guy a gift for some occasion. “You got me a gift? Why did you do that?” “Because it’s a nice thing to do,” she says. “No! You didn’t give me a gift! You gave me an obligation! Now I have to do something for you!” Do you know any people like that, people who have a hard time accepting a gift, who feel like they have to somehow repay you for it by giving something back to you? Where does that come from? Is it a fear that at some later time the gift will be held against them? “You owe me!” Is it a compulsion to always have the charity ledger balanced and all accounts reconciled on the friendship front? Do some people perhaps just feel totally unworthy of receiving a gift from someone else? I suppose there’s sometimes a fine line between this and the genuine gratitude a person feels for a gift that they want to show their thanks by giving back in kind.

How about the person on the other end of the spectrum? I’m talking about the person who constantly expects charity from you but feels no obligation to ever return it. In my ministry and in my extended family, I’ve had to tell people, “You have to stop helping this person. You’ve become their enabler. You have to cut them off.” On the far end of this spectrum are the blatant manipulators who have made it a way of life to feed on the generosity of others. A milder example of this, I think, are those who are constantly expecting the rest of the world to make exceptions for them, to bend the rules for them. And they are appalled when they are required to abide by the rules everyone else does. Often this might be the chronically disorganized person who has an excuse for everything. They have learned to compensate for their disorganization by expecting others to bail them out last minute.

Whether it’s the one who has a hard time accepting gifts or the one who has come to expect it, perhaps you’re considering where you fall on that spectrum. Are you closer to the actuarial accepter of gifts or closer to the acute expecter of them. It’s not a bad thing to ponder this in the hopes of finding that middle road of gratitude without expectation.

Have you thought about where you might be on that spectrum spiritually? In your relationship with God, do you have a hard time accepting his full forgiveness in Christ? Are the the one who feels the need to pay some kind penance for your sins? Or in your relationship with God, have you allowed yourself to become spoiled to the point that you sin carelessly because you know God will always bail you out? Truth be told, most of us

probably flit between the two extremes throughout our spiritual walk with God.

On Ash Wednesday we heard about the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple. How accurately the tax collector recognized his great debt of sins before God! He knew he could never come close to repaying God for those sins, but had to rely solely on God’s mercy. “God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” The Pharisee saw no debt of sins on his part. Rather, it almost seemed as if he thought God owed him for all his good deeds.

Isn’t the Pharisee’s attitude like so much of what we hear in today’s sinful world? The world is appalled that they would owe God anything, that they have accumulated any kind of debt of sins that needs paying. No, the message we hear in the world is, “You deserve whatever your heart desires. You don’t owe anyone anything.” Though their conscience deep down convicts them of the sin in their hearts, if they declare there is no God, then to them, there is no debt to have to pay God. The only other option is to turn God into the permissive grandpa figure who just wants to see you happy and only sees the good in you. He is the world’s spoiler version of God who pretends the debt never existed. If the unbelieving world has a version of God, this is it. But to be sure, ignoring debt is not the same as forgiving debt.

If the rest of the religious world has a version of God, often it is the god of guilt, who demands that you repay all of his goodness to you, no matter how long it takes. Every non-Christian religion demands some sort of works-righteous repayment of your debt to their god.

Here’s what the one true God says about himself and your debt to him, “He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13b-14). The new NIV translation brings out another shade of meaning with this translation, “He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness...” (NIV2011). Either translation comes down to the same basic point. God’s law is that written code. God’s law is that charge of indebtedness that stood against us—opposed to us—condemned us! Whether it’s a code of laws we cannot keep or an invoice of sins we cannot repay, the point remains the same: we cannot fix it. But here’s the kicker: God fixed it. God has cancelled it. He has destroyed it. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. Paul puts it this way to the Ephesians, that Jesus “[abolished] in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations” (2:15). When Jesus lived in such a way that he never sinned once, it is as if God’s law became part of him, as if he and God’s law became inseparably joined together. Because Jesus perfectly loved God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, because he perfectly loved his neighbor as himself, he was the perfect encapsulation and manifestation of God’s divine demands for humankind. When Jesus perfectly obeyed the law handed down Moses, he was the perfect law-abiding Israelite that no one else ever was. He was the only human to ever accumulate zero debt before God. He owed God nothing because he loved God with everything. And so, when Jesus was nailed to that cross, God’s law was nailed to it with him.

When Jesus died, the law’s demands on us died with him as well. This is the cancellation at the cross. Jesus paid the full debt of our sins.

Here at Epiphany, you have a tradition that beautifully symbolizes this nailing of your sins’ debt to the cross. You wear these little nail pins throughout the Lenten season to symbolize that debt of your sins. Lent reminds us that we once carried those sins with us, but now, as Isaiah foretold, “the Lord has laid on Jesus the sins of us all” (53:6 paraphrased). On Good Friday, each of you will visually demonstrate the nailing of your debt of sins to the cross by pushing one of these nail-pins into a cross.

God’s law is not against us any longer. It no more stands opposed to us. It is unable to condemn us. So when the law comes accusing, we simply say, “Law, you’re dead to me. You died with my Lord on Calvary. I owe you nothing. My Jesus has paid that debt.” And when the sinful nature in me comes alluring, telling me that since my debt is paid, I have a blank check to sin all I want, then I need a different reminder. Because my Jesus is once again alive in the flesh, so the law, in a sense, has become alive in a new and fresh way to me. It no longer accuses and demands and condemns. No, God’s law now invites and informs and enlightens the path before me. It teaches me how to show my genuine gratitude to my gracious God. Now I too, can love God with my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now I too, can love my neighbor as myself. While the debt of my sins is completely paid for, this doesn’t stop God and his holy writers from teaching us about a new kind of debt of love. Paul writes to the Romans, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law” (13:8 emphasis added).

Like the repentant tax collector in the temple, we recognize our infinite debt of sins before our God. But we also recognize God’s great mercy to provide a perfect payer of that debt. Through Jesus life and death, there is cancellation at the cross. Amen.