SERMON 487

LENT 1, MARCH 4, 5, 2006

GENESIS 9:8-17, PSALM 25:1-9, 2 PETER 3:18-22, MARK 1:9-15

OWNING UP TO OUR MISTAKES

Beloved in the Lord, grace and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.

I ran across this story the other day:

‘Just after mailing some documents to a client, Donald noticed a few typos in the letter. He wondered what to do. If he was lucky, the client might skim right over the misspelled words – hardly noticing them. But soon Donald learned from his colleagues that Mr. Luke was one of the firm’s longest-standing clients and a real stickler for details.

After weighing his options, Donald decided to courier Mr. Luke a note of apology along with the corrected papers.

A short time after that, Donald received a phone call. “Donald, this is Mr. Luke. I want to speak with you about those documents you sent over.”

Donald froze, “Yes?”

“Most people wouldn’t have bothered to do what you did. That shows confidence and character,” Mr. Luke said. “It also shows me that you are concerned with the quality of the work you do. I like that and hope that I will learn to like more things about you as you handle my affairs.”

“Thank you, sir” Donald replied.

“No, thank you,” said Mr. Luke. “It’s always refreshing to know that there are still people out there willing to own up to their mistakes.”’

As we examine our lessons for this first Sunday in Lent we shall do so under the theme, OWNING UP TO OUR MISTAKES.

Our federal election is over and the governing liberals lost that election to the conservative party who now form a minority government. Twelve years in power gives government a lot of time to make mistakes. They did make mistakes as every government will do. But perhaps the main reason they lost this election was the failure to own up to their mistakes. It is so easy to make mistakes. It is very difficult to cover them up and keep them under cover. They will be found out. But it is also so very difficult for people as individuals and organizations to own up to their mistakes, even though, owning up to one’s mistakes is refreshing as Mr. Luke said. It is not only refreshing, owning up to one’s mistakes is life giving. It brings forgiveness. It brings confidence. It brings goodness. It opens up the future.

In our lessons we are confronted with some rather critical and crucial mistakes. We hear both the lesson from Genesis and the lesson from the letter of St. Peter talk about the flood.

Where there mistakes in the time of Noah? There were, and those mistakes were big time. We are told that evil and wickedness were rampant. Not only that, but there also did not appear to be any sense of sorrow over wrong doing. The people of the day did not even try and cover their wrong doing up. They rejoiced in it.

Were they warned about the results of their sin and wickedness? They most certainly were. But they did not heed the warning. Were they warned about the impending flood? They were warned about that too. Can you imagine two bigger mistakes? They followed the path of evil and they did not heed God and Noah’s warning about the impending flood. Amazing is it not?

We find another mistake in the Gospel lesson. Satan appears to tempt the Lord Jesus when Jesus is driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit, after his baptism. Now the biggest mistake that Satan made was to try and rob God of his glory in the first place. God has told us and everyone in the universe that we shall have no other Gods. To take on the living God is certainly not a winner. It is the biggest mistake that Satan or any one else can possibly make.

But Satan continues to make mistakes. This time Satan took on the Son of God and the Son of man, the Lord Jesus, and tempted him. Satan even asked the Lord Jesus to bow down and worship him. We find that story in one of the other gospels. What a mistake that was.

In resisting the evil one our Lord Jesus lived the life we were called to live and thereby ensured that he would indeed be the one, who in the giving of his life, would redeem the world, destroy evil and the evil one and sin and death. It was a big mistake to take on the Lord Jesus and test his obedience, for in so doing Satan ensured that all evil would some day be destroyed, by that very same Jesus.

OWNING UP TO OUR MISTAKES! It certainly does pay to own up to our mistakes for in so doing we pave the way for forgiveness and life and salvation and opportunities for service beyond our imagination.

Our God is really something else, filled with love and compassion which are from everlasting, according to the Psalmist. All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness. God did destroy all human kind, saving only Noah and his family to be sure. But God showed his love and faithfulness even to those who were destroyed by that very same flood. You remember their mistakes that we mentioned before, their evil ways and their failure to heed the warning of the flood. Centuries later, when Jesus rose from the dead, we are told by St. Peter, that Jesus made a proclamation of his victory over sin and death even to those people. Jesus went and visited them and told them of the glory of salvation in his name. Our God not only made a promise that he would never again destroy all those who lived on the earth and gave us the bow in the sky as a sign of that promise, he gave us ever much more. God came in the person of his Son and was put to death for our trespasses. And the news of that great grace and love were shared immediately with those who had walked in paths of wickedness and made the biggest mistakes one can make. Jesus appeared to them even before he appeared to his disciples.

In our teaching session at the first Lenten service this past week we talked about meditation, one of the spiritual disciplines. Something that is really worth meditating on is in fact that this love and compassion of God is from everlasting to everlasting. That love and compassion can bring us to God regardless of the mistakes and transgressions of both our youth and our old age.

God used water to destroy all living creatures on the earth except Noah. But God now uses water to form the rainbow in the sky to remind us of his everlasting promise.

In fact, in the very beginning the Spirit moved over the waters of the earth and life itself came into being.

When Jesus was baptized in the water of the Jordan River, the life giving Holy Spirit came to dwell in him and empower him. When that water was used to baptize Jesus, the voice of the Father was also heard commending his Son and telling the Lord Jesus just how pleased God was with him.

When we were and are now brought to the waters of baptism, we were buried into the death of the Lord Jesus and raised in the power of his resurrection to the newness of life. We received the gift of the Holy Spirit and were adopted as the children of the heavenly Father. We can live in the certainty that our mistakes and our sins our forgiven. We can confess our mistakes and appeal to God for mercy and claim the life giving forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul! What wondrous love is this, O my soul!

OWNING UP TO OUR MISTAKES! While we can be certain of the forgiveness of our sins, we can also be certain of the fact that we, in this life, will never be free of sin and mistakes. Our Lord Jesus, the very son of God was actually tempted by the evil one, not once but many times. That old foe is still walking around. He walks around like a roaring lion seeking some one to devour. He will devour us if we will let him.

But we also face the temptations that come to us from the world around us and our own sinful flesh. So we will sin and we will make mistakes. Of this there is no doubt.

But resist the devil we must. But resist the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, we must.

The season of Lent has been set aside to cast our eyes on Jesus as he walked that lonely path to the cross to deal with our sins. It is a season to face up to our mistakes and move ahead on the path that God has set for us. It is the season for confession and renewal in the faith given to all the saints.

As Jesus walked in the wilderness for forty days perhaps we could do something similar. So as we walk with him let us stop casting our eyes on the mistakes of others. Let us stop pointing our fingers at others and examine ourselves and fearlessly expose our own past mistakes and our present weaknesses.

Let us consider a period or two of fasting.

Let us make two or three times a day for prayer the central focus of these forty days.

Let us meditate on the wondrous love of God for our souls.

Let us take some time for silence and solitude and walk away from the rush of this world.

Let us, in our walk with Jesus, confess our failures and weakness to some one else.

Let us speak in love to those we have offended and make restitution to those whom we have robbed of their rights.

All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness to his children, so let us walk only in those paths.

And let us remember the words of Mr. Luke “It is always refreshing to know that there are people out there willing to own up to their mistakes.”

AMEN!