Meditation for Holy Monday

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Jesu Juva

“Holy Moley!”

Text: 1 Peter 2:21-24

 

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.

Today is Holy Monday, but I say holy moley! Because of the Scripture we just heard. That Christ is our example, and we are called to follow in His steps. And then Peter listed some of those steps . . .

He committed no sin. 

No deceit was found in His mouth. 

When He was reviled, He did not revile in return.

When He suffered, He did not threaten. 

As we enter into Holy Week, it’s a good thing for us to first examine ourselves and see our sin. How we have not followed Jesus’ example. How we have not followed in His steps. How more often than not I go my own way. 

This teaching, of Jesus as our example, the ancient theologians called Christus exemplar. How Jesus lived is how sons and daughters of God should live. 

But the ancients didn’t stop there, with that teaching. They also taught Christus victor - Christ as the one who has gained the victory. The victory over sin and the devil. He did what we do not. Indeed, what we cannot. He committed no sin. No sins of thought, word, deed, or desire in Him. No sins of omission or commission. Nothing done wrong; nothing left undone. He was perfect in every way. Where sin and death defeats us, He defeats it! He is the victor. 

But that would not be good news for us, were it not for the third teaching of the ancients, Christus redemptor - that Christ is our redeemer. That the victory He won, He won for us and gives to us. This is what Peter went on to say in the verses we heard tonight. That He himself bore our sins - your sins and my sins, because He had no sin of His own! But as the perfect Lamb of God, He bore the sin of the world in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

That is to say, by Jesus’ wounds, by His death and resurrection, you have been restored to a full and healthy life again in the forgiveness of your sins. Restored not to a life marked and marred by sin, but a life that looks like Christ’s life. Jesus has redeemed you from sin, so that you can follow His example, and walk and live in His victory over sin. And that’s a good holy moley! That Jesus has done all that for me, and given that to me. Done for me on the tree, the cross, and given to me in His Word and Sacraments. 

So we start this Holy Week by examining ourselves and seeing our sin, but we end this Holy Week by seeing that sin not on ourselves but on Jesus on the cross, where He is atoning for it, redeeming us, and gaining the victory for us. 

And we leave Holy Week not unchanged, but hearing the Word, remembering our Baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, and being fed by His Body and Blood, we are being healed, restored, raised, and conformed into the image of Jesus, that we might follow His example and follow in His steps. 

This is the life to which we have been called, Peter says. It won’t be easy. And you might even suffer for it. But don’t let that stop you! Our heavenly Father is able to use suffering for His good, as He did with the cross of Jesus. So this example of Jesus we’ll follow, too, when Jesus said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. So we pray: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit and all my life. For there is no better place for my life to be than in Your hands. Your loving, merciful, gracious, and life-giving hands. Help me follow where you lead.

In the (+) Name of Jesus. Amen.