As a child, growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan, the water we drank did not come from the tap. It was good enough for washing and cleaning, but not clean enough to drink. We got our drinking water from an underground spring, drawn from a well. The well was about a hundred yards north of the house, and usually once a day, Mom or Dad or one of us as me and my sisters grew older and stronger, carried an empty water pail to the well, pumped it full from an old iron pump, and carried the clear, fresh water back to the house for the family to drink.
It was a trip made almost every day. So often that there was a dirt path to the well pounded nearly as hard as concrete. Because every day, one, two or three sets of feet pounded over it.
One spring, my second and younger sister, a little girl at the time, was given some sunflower seeds which she was determined to plant. You know where she planted them. She planted them where we told her they had no chance of growing. She planted them where we told her that work boots, rubber boots, and running shoes would trample them every day. She planted them in ground we told her was too hard and too packed to be of any use. She planted them on the path from the house to the well. And about three weeks later, you know what the rest of us did for the rest of that spring, summer and fall. We walked around her confounded sunflower which grew up strong and tall right in the middle of that rock hard path to the drinking water well.
Bishop Tom Wright says that listening to the New Testament is like listening to the harmony of a song. He uses an interesting example. Have you ever played the game where you hum the melody of a song, and a friend tries to guess the name of the song? Or have you ever tried humming - not the melody - but the bass part, or the tenor’s part, or the alto’s part, and tried to guess the name of the song?
The good news of Jesus Christ is like the melody of the song we sing, but there are several parts that we must hear, before we can hear it fully and understand it well.
For Christians, the melody line is Jesus Christ - his life, teaching, healing, suffering, death and resurrection. And even on its own, it is pretty good music. The sweet song of God’s Son, who lived simply without even a pillow for his head. Who taught the word of the Lord to common people. Who gave sight back to the blind. Who offered friendship and mercy to the used and abused.
It is a pretty sweet song.
But like a great church bell, tolling in the background, this glorious song has ever so much more to offer when we listen to its bass part in the Old Testament.
This is what Bishop Wright emphasizes as we read this passage from Romans, chapter five. But let me tease you now. He ends by reminding us of a surprising part in the middle this song is intended to sound.
This passage describes two imbalances. First, and as it is put in verse 15, grace is not like sin. Sin brings death. There’s no surprise. That’s what sin does.
But grace brings life, and it does so even in those circumstances where death appears to reign.
When a ninety-nine year old man and a hundred year old woman - tired out, worn out and barren - are given the promise of a child through whom the mercy of God will wash over the world - what chance is there?
When a beaten up band of slaves are chased by the best army in Egypt to the edge of a broiling sea - and promised to get through that Red Sea and turned into God’s people out in a desolate wilderness - what chance is there?
When a people are crushed and humiliated and taken from the promised land into exile in a foreign land, with the promise that they will be restored, and God will keep the promises he makes - what chance is there?
And when the Messiah promises to lead his followers to glory, over the trampled path that heads straight to the cross on Golgotha - what chance is there?
But grace brings life. And it brings it where all hope seems lost. It brings it where death reigns.
The grace of God, says Bishop Wright, “is nothing short of new creation, creation not merely out of nothing but out of . . . death itself.” ("Romans", Interpreter’s Bible, 2002, p. 528).
Which is related to the second imbalance Paul describes.
That is, plainly and explicitly, grace does what it does after many trespasses. Adam’s sin, and the human rebellion and strife which followed, has been with us since the beginning of time. But the grace of God, revealed to us uniquely in Jesus Christ, came after many trespasses, after the soil of the human heart had been trampled on and beaten down many times, over countless generations. But just as the hand of God can put dead Lazarus back on his feet, the grace of God in Jesus Christ can put a new heart in our chests.
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Co 5:17)
Hopelessness is a terrible thing. And there are times when we become hopeless. When we have been hurt, betrayed and disappointed. When we have hurt, betrayed and disappointed - and done it more than once - to ourselves, our loved ones, our Creator. And the question sneaks in. What hope is there for me? No doubt there’s hope for the good ones, the strong ones and the brave ones. But what hope is there for me?
But Jesus Christ loved the trampled ones, like the woman who bathed his feet in luxurious oil. Jesus Christ loved the weak ones, like the sick man lowered from the roof by his desperate friends. Jesus Christ loved the crooked ones, like Peter who broke his solemn vow.
This is the grace that enters the scene and does its work after many trespasses. This is the grace that bursts through the hard and trampled terrain of our hearts and of our world.
And finally, let me note for you one unexpected contrast.
In verse 17, Paul describes the reign of sin, the power of death in our world caused by human sinfulness and rebellion. And he begins there in order to point to the new thing that has come into being which outweighs and overpowers sin and death. What do you think that new thing is? What do you think that new power is?
The obvious answer would be the power of God and the reign of Christ. That, we would guess, is what offsets the power and reign of sin. But if you can hear the tolling of the Old Testament, you might guess what Paul actually says. The new thing God has created is the new thing God has been intent on from the time he made a promise to Abraham. ‘I will make you a holy people a nation of priests and you shall be a blessing to all nations.”
As Paul puts it here, how “much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace [reign] in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” (Ro 5:17) God’s solution is a people.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pe 2:9)
And that part, says Bishop Wright, is our part in the sweet song of grace. Our part here in the worship of God, joined with brothers and sisters by grace, experiencing God’s peace now, looking forward to God’s peace in all the world, receiving by word and sacrament the nourishment we need and the hope that God offers to break through trampled ground.
Our part in the serious study of the Scriptures and the faith passed down to us. God is renewing the world. God is restoring all creation. And it is in the whole counsel of Scripture that we hear all of the sweet song of grace.
And our part in service with the mighty and surprising power at work in Jesus Christ, which lifted him out of the grave and vindicated him before all the world - the power at our disposal - to serve, to heal, to bring peace and to restore.
Do you want to sing your part?
Of the one who favored a beaten people, who took them from slavery, and in the purifying
wilderness made them to stand erect (Lev. 26.13).
Do you want to sing your part?
Of the one who reached out - to the woman with the issue of blood, to the lepers outside the city gates, to the dying criminal pleading at his side.
Do you want to sing your part?
Of the new creation God is making out of old souls, and trampled hearts and dry bones.
For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— (Eph 5:8)
This is the sweet song of grace:
. . . the melody of Jesus Christ that reached out and touched us;
. . . the bass line of God’s purposes from the time of creation, intent on the redemption of the world through the creation of a redeemed people;
. . . and our part, new creatures by God’s grace, given the strength of Jesus Christ himself to heal, to serve and to restore, and the hopeful song of all creation’s redemption on our lips.
Do you want to sing your part in the sweet song of grace? As we begin our Lenten journey, let us offer our hearts and lives for that very thing. Amen.