Judica 2023

John 8:42-59

March 26, 2023

The University of Helsinki announced this week they are awarding Greta Thunberg with an honorary doctorate in, of all things, theology. It’s fitting, I suppose, since climate activism has become a religion in its own right.

The sort of theology we subscribe to as confessional Lutherans is seen as positively antiquated by the enlightened Finns and others who try to keep the moral force of religion while ditching the supernatural. Both of these theologies or worldviews have a clear sense of evil. In Christianity, evil entered the world through the deception of the evil one and then the rebellious will of mankind in relation to God’s Law. In Progressivism, the source of evil is in political or cultural opponents.

Everyone believes in evil. But what God’s Word teaches about evil is very different from popular belief.

Evil is not a force or power, like the dark side in Star Wars.

God does not create evil.

God creates persons – beings with wills. When God created spirits, and men, He gave them freedom, freedom to choose the good, or not; freedom to listen to His Word, or not. Their actions could not be good if they were not freely chosen, freely thought, freely done.

But when someone is granted freedom, there is the possibility that they will not choose the good. Thus the spirit called Lucifer, “Light-bearer,” turned himself away from the light and chose darkness.

Evil is not merely a force or a power; rather, this personal being whom we now call the “evil one” turned the hearts of our first parents away from their Creator.

His central method is the lie. Jesus says, “He is a liar and the father of it.” The devil is a liar. That’s John 8. Now remember the opening sentence of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word.” God spoke, and creation sprang into being. God creates by His Word. The devil destroys by corrupting, perverting the Word. His central goal is murder, the murder of man. He hates man, for man is the crown of God’s creation. The glory of God is a living man; the glory of the devil is a dead man. The Word of God creates. The lie of the devil destroys.

In the beginning was the Word … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He faced the lie. Today, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, accelerates what we heard in the first three. There, we saw saw the battle between Jesus and the devil: in the wilderness, Jesus rejects his lies; with the Canaanite woman, Jesus reverses the corruption the devil has brought upon the woman’s daughter; and in the parable of the strong man, Jesus announces He has come to strip the strong man, the devil, of his possessions, which are people, the people whom the devil holds in bondage.

You know that bondage. It’s the wasting away of body and possessions. But there is a worse kind of bondage, the bondage of fear and rage, resentment and desire, greed and envy. You will not speak with your enemy, you will not forgive, you complain and you boast and you moan. And then quickly, so quickly, days become years become decades and you draw near to death, facing the final bondage of mortality in the dissolution of your remains, back to the dust from which our first father was formed.

The devil need not speak to you directly to tell you the lie. The lie is written everywhere. The lie is embedded in the messages that ping, ping, ping you; the songs enticing you like sirens, the texts ever scrolling across screens. The lie is whispered in dark corners, massaged on soft couches, jammed into eyes and ears wherever your vulnerable skull goes. The lies bombard you so constantly you no longer know what truth is.

The liar says to you:

• Look out for yourself above all.

• Seize pleasure.

• You are a good person.

• Your body is your own.

• Your body is just a shell.

• Your body arose from the sludge.

• Children are a disease. We should terminate them.

• Imagine there’s no god, no truth, no meaning at all.

• Just take the Soma and don’t ask questions.

Into the world captivated by the lie comes the Word, to speak the Truth, to open the Way that leads to Life.

It is a hard truth. The truth demands you confess: confess you have been entranced by the lie; confess it still beckons you, lurks within you, urges you to hate your neighbor and serve yourself.

Today’s Gospel comes the week before Palm Sunday to show us why the Jewish leaders sought to kill Jesus. He declared that He is God in the flesh, I AM, and those who keep His Word will be freed from death. That is at the heart of the Truth Jesus preaches, the Truth Jesus lives, the Truth Jesus is.

Summarized, that Truth is this: God made the world. He made the world from nothing. He made the world out of love. He gave good gifts to man.

But man believed the lie. He hearkened to the demonic word, denying God’s goodness. Our first father believed he could become as god.

He fell. He died. All of his children have died.

But Christ the new Adam came. He too, died, but not as the rest. He died without sin. He rose.

That resurrection is what Jesus means in today’s Gospel when He says, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day.”

Most of you believe this. Yet the lie has pull over you. You are drawn to the delusion, the delirium and the depression, as the lie bombards you day after day.

Live not by lies! Cling to the truth. In every dark moment, in every temptation, in every bit of anger and sorrow, melancholy and madness, gaze on the crucifix. Take up your cross and follow Him. In a world of lies, Jesus is the Truth. In a world of sideshows, Jesus is the Way; in a world of death, Jesus is the Life. Easter is coming, and resurrection. Spurn the lie. Confess the Truth.