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᛭ INI ᛭
Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Do you need a pastor to forgive your sins? How would you answer? The majority answer, if I’d fathom a guess, would be, “Uh, no, obviously!” Problem with that is, Jesus seems to think you do!
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you” After He had said this, [the Lord Jesus] breathed on His disciples and said to them, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgiven them, they are not forgiven.”
Pesky Jesus always defying our expectations and pushing past our limitations. Jesus is “Lord and God” and this, one of the very first thing He says to His ministers after coming back to life is “As the Father sent Me, so I’m sending you…If you forgive anyone his sins, they’re forgiven.” Our answer to questions should always line up with what Jesus says… If you didn’t need a minister to forgive your sins, then Jesus wouldn’t have instituted the office of the keys in John 20.
First, to say that you need a pastor to forgive your sins doesn’t negate what you pray in the 5th Petition. In fact, Holy Absolution, instituted by Jesus Easter Evening, is one way the Father answers your prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses.” So is Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and Preaching!
Second, this isn’t some self-serving topic. It doesn’t benefit or magnify me personally.
When one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Cor 3:4–9)
Cult of personality is a common sin in the church. Pastors are loved on the basis of who they are personally, rather than what the Spirt says through Paul “Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.” (1 Thess 5)
So, it’s inevitable that I’ll be misunderstood today. But you might think today turns into finger wagging Sunday. Where I get off scot-free. I don’t. It’s just that Jesus words get ignored in different ways depending on which side of the pulpit you’re on. Instead of magnifying the Office and the Keys, pastors magnify themselves. Pastors are very replaceable. One of the reason we retain vestments in the Lutheran Church. Not only following in the footsteps of the Old Testament: “for beauty and for glory” (Ex 28) But because they hide the man.
Do you need a pastor to forgive your sins? “No,” is often an answer to the question also because Christianity has been morphed into some sort of self-help religion, rooted in emotions. We web-MD our spiritual condition. We tell ourselves all the time that we’re forgiven, or at least we’ve got good reasons for why we’ve sinned. We’re good at excuses, so how do you know you’re not just forgiving yourself? Is Jesus even in that equation? Or does God forgive because well it’s you? The Scripture is true: “Our heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?” David slept just fine and was on the fast track to hell apart from the Prophet Nathan being sent by the LORD to convict and absolve David. The bones of Israel lay dead without the Prophet Ezekiel to speak to them.
Many don’t actually feel all that bad for what they’ve done, don’t feel they need to admit anything to anyone, and certainly not a pastor for that. But then you’ve got those pesky words of Jesus. He establishes absolution, “If you forgive any his sins, they’re forgiven.” He establishes excommunication, too: “If you don’t forgive them, they’re not forgiven.” He sends His men to do it: “As the Father sent Me, even so I am sending you…Receive the Holy Spirit.” It isn’t just Jesus who thinks people need a pastor to forgive sins…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do! The Holy Trinity would never institute or establish something you didn’t desperately need!
We all know it’s bad to webMD our physical symptoms. It’s always like bubonic plague or worse, right? That’s what doctors are for. When we follow the lie to self-help our spiritual condition, our sinful condition makes to read our symptoms to always say we’re better off than we actually are! We’re far worse than we’d ever suspect. So, Jesus establishes all the ways He delivers the forgiveness of sins. Again, if we didn’t need it that much, would God really be giving out so frequently? We judge our need for forgiveness not by our emotional sate but by the amount of His giving! Unless, we’re completely dead to all spiritual sense and devoid of the Spirit…
Each one of what we call the Means of Grace, were instituted by Jesus at the most poignant moments of His earthly ministry. The Lord’s Supper was given as His Last Will and Testament “on the night He was betrayed.” Holy Absolution given to ministers that first Easter night. Preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name, right before His ascension in Luke. Holy Baptism and teaching His Word are His very last words recorded by Matthew and in Mark. (He also taught about these things beforehand, too.)
Do you need a pastor to forgive your sins? We say, “No.” Jesus says, “Yes.” We want peace without forgiveness, salvation without crucifixion, God’s Word without a Bible, sermons without a preacher, children of God without Baptism, Communion with Jesus without Communion, forgiveness without absolution. And so you can sadly find far more common than should be: Christianity and Christians without Christ.
So, Christ does what He does. He sends out preachers, absolvers. He take these guys and use their mouths so that when they forgive anyone his sins, they’re forgiven, and when they don’t forgive sins, when they withhold forgiveness, then it’s withheld. Don’t like it? Take it up with Jesus! He said it.
You can lead a horse to water, but can’t force them to drink. Those who actually believe Jesus and listen to His Words should be different. Worship different. Live different. Behave different. Maybe be radical: instead of your personal experiences of Jesus mattering, however you define them, let instead what Jesus actually says and gives be the be all, end all! With His Words driving everything, then what I’ve preached today won’t bother you.
In fact, it might bring you more than a modicum of comfort. Because then you don’t have to fight to pit His gifts against each other. Like the 5th Petition against Absolution. You can rejoice in each’s uniqueness! Maybe see the Means of Grace as the Father’s answer to “Forgive us.” Old Adam always pits the gifts of Jesus against each other as an excuse to avoid or reject or not take advantage of their blessings. “Do not disbelieve, but believe!”
Christ does all that He does so that you’d have comfort and forgiveness. I’ve been a pastor a while now, and if there’s something that’s actually rare among the Christians I’ve encountered, it’s this: an actual boldness and confidence that says, “Yes, I’m a wretched sinner, but one that Christ has forgiven.” We believe it’s true, but we’re not too confident about it… Otherwise we wouldn’t be so concerned about our past sins or stuck in present ones!
So, see, maybe Jesus is on to something… And besides, a pastor’s an absolver, saying right to you, at least if it’s private absolution, “I forgive you all your sins.” I’m no private eye, no spiritual detective. I don’t go looking for sins. What’s presented, how little, how much, would be “forgiven for anyone who repents of his sins and wants to do better.” After all, this is what the resurrected Jesus wants for you. He died and rose for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Now, He wants you to hear it, the very way Jesus has chosen to bring His peace right to you. Like He did for Thomas.
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