"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Monday, 13 April 2009 | |||
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An Advocate | |||
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O.K., I told a lawyer joke in a sermon earlier this year.
It's easy to join in the general spirit of lawyer bashing that seems so
prevalent in the popular mind. Although these days Wall Street executives
might make attorneys appear as paragons of virtue, relatively speaking.
In any case, I need to admit that, when you need one, a good lawyer is a
blessing. When it comes time to thread through web of the legal system,
you want someone both empathetic and competent on your side. You want an
attorney who shows some human concern and sympathy for your plight and
you also want someone who has the legal ability to help you. A lawyer is
sometimes called an "advocate." "Advocate" in our text for this week ( I John 1:1 - 2:2) chapter 2, verse 1 is the Greek word paraclete. The most familiar use of that word is in the Gospel of John, chapter 15, where it is used of the Holy Spirit and often translated, "Comforter." But here in I John the Advocate is Jesus. He is our Advocate when we sin. You might say that the whole prologue to I John is meant as an assurance that Jesus is truly able to help us in the role of advocate. Verses 1-4 of chapter 1 are John's eyewitness testimony to having heard, seen and touched the living Word who came down to die and to rise again and offer eternal life. What John is proclaiming is the Easter faith that Christ is risen, in the body, a tangible and visible declaration of eternal life. As verse 4 says, this what makes our joy complete. To accept that truth of the risen Jesus and life in Him is to be brought into fellowship with all who accept it. Yet verses 6-10 of I John 1 recognize that there is a hindrance to the completeness of our joy in this fellowship we have with each other in the truth of Christ. We sin. God is light, says John, and we are struggling with the darkness we bring into our fellowship with each other in God. So we are assured first that Jesus Christ is who He must be in order to help us, a human being with a body that could seen, heard and touched, but also the divine Word of life who was with the Father before He appeared on earth. In the traditional formula, he is truly human and truly God. As such, He is the perfect Advocate for sinners. As a human he understands and sympathizes with our weaknesses, as Hebrews 4:15 says. As God he is competent to do something about our sin. He can forgive us and free us from its grip. The Greek word translated "atoning sacrifice" in the NIV/TNIV is hilasmos. It can either mean "propitiation" or "expiation." A propitiation is an appeasement of someone who is angry. There is a theological tradition which sees Christ's sacrifice as a propitiation of God's wrath on our behalf. But translated "expiation," the word can also mean the removal of that which is offensive, the removal of sin. I, and our whole Covenant theological tradition, tend toward this latter understanding. It fits with chapter 1, verses 7 and 9. It's not just that Christ propitiates an angry God and frees sinners from the penalty of their sins. It's that His dying and rising actually free us from sin, purify us. Which all creates the tension we feel here as John talks about these things. On the one hand, there is a strong call and expectation in 1:6 that true Christians will not sin, "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth." On the other hand, there is a clear recognition that Christians will continue to sin and will continue to need an Advocate who forgives and purifies us. So we have 1:9 and 2:2. That tension between an ideal holiness which we seek and a realistic recognition of sinfulness with which we struggle seems to ring exactly true with my experience. | |||
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I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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