The Mathematics of Sin

I've been substitute teaching math at the Jr. High a couple times this week. That and Todd Wilken's close of the show Thursday got me to thinking.
  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them, saw that it was very good and said so. The man and his wife were the pinnacle of this creation and they had the freedom to do anything they wanted and it was good, except to eat from one single tree out of the whole garden. It wasn't a garden in the sense that is staked out in ones back yard but more of a living grocery and feed store for all living creatures of whom the man and his wife cared for, that is both plant and beast. (Hard for us to imagine but Eve likely thought the spiders were all cute as a bug.) Everything they did was good and right. There was no wrong. But there was one prohibition. "Do not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. For the day you eat of it you shall surely die." -God.
  One thing not allowed. Everything else imaginable was o.k.  I suspect that things we consider off limits in all or limited contexts the two in the garden would have never thought of anyway. But that is besides the point. All things were permitted in the sense that they could do no wrong because they were created good and perfect. The contrast comes in after the temptation and Eve's choosing to listen to the serpent rather than the words of her God and Father. It was not just a single event that she pondered and decided never to do again. One sin leads to another. (Perhaps I should have titled this the "Dominoes of Sin" or "How Lays Potato Chips Got it's Advertising Started" I am a self identified chipoholic) "She gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it." The man chose to follow the example of his wife rather than listen to the Word of his God and Father. Before they could fulfill their blessing to be fruitful and multiply they added one sin to another to equal a less than rich inheritance for all the world's children to follow, death. Not just lack of breathe or rotting, but a separation they and we have consistently blamed the creator for when all the evidence points back to us for fault and blame. It is us who have missed the mark, crossed the out of bounds line, taken rather than given. We blame God for making one food rule when more than we could eat was free just for the picking.  We had true wisdom and traded it for a lie and we keep doing the same thing over and over and for each additional sin we commit we blame God again.
  What was once one prohibition that was easy to honor has now become a life of full death.
Food was to keep us nourished and alive. Now we have limited choices in many places, lack of good food, food borne illness, tooth decay, cholesterol, obesity, anorexia diabetes, hypoglycemia and just plane picky eaters at our tables. But is more than that. We fight over water rights and food laws. Sin is more than just an eating disorder among us. Sin permeates every aspect of our lives because food wasn't the issue in sin. It was whose word we were  listening to, the devil's, our own or our God and Father?
  There is no activity in the world in which we are involved that is not stained and ruined by our sin. Of all the things that we can do with modern technology and careful planning there is nothing we can do that is completely right. At best we are left with the lesser of evils. "There is not one who does good, no, not one."
While this means utter destruction, God the Father isn't about to let his creation destroy itself. He will do that himself. (and creatively at that) Yet He started over without destroying anything. The world was going to go his way even if it killed him.
  Enter the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. That is Jesus enters our equation. The separation of sinful man and God has an new element in the problem. The Son of God has always been active in the world but when he took on human flesh to be borne of the Virgin Mary the multiplication of sin and sinners was about to meet the 'greater than' sign >.  God in the person of Jesus the Christ came into this world of chaos. He did not come as a chaotician. He came as the second Adam. Borne of a virgin conceived by the Holy Spirit he was a flesh and blood human who was not stained by sin and listened to his God and Father instead of a word that would promise him personal glory. "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.'" He did not come to teach us how to add up the good works for God and subtract all the evil deed from our life. He did come to divide the believers from the unbelievers, but that is more of a faith issue rather than a mathematical one. That kind of division is just plain hell.
  Jesus as the second Adam is the first one to live out a perfect life. But perfection alone isn't enough here, because he came not to live perfectly for himself but in place of all. One in place of every single person ever. And this was accomplished by his life being greater than ours. And then being greater than ours> he took our countless sins and infinite guilt to his one death on the cross. He became death for us. His death was not a simple matter of joining us in the life ending process by means of asphyxiation or blood loss or trauma or even the trite, 'It was his time', but having to cry out to his heavenly Father "Why have you forsaken me." and not hearing an answer. I suspect he said these words for our understanding of the atonement full well knowing that his God and Father wasn't listening to this one full of the world's sin. He went from the favored of the Lord to being the disfavored. An eternity of separation from his God and Father with whom he had already spent an eternity was placed into 6 hours of agony before those wonderful words of Jesus, "It is finished."
  Our sin, all our sin is subtracted by Jesus. Yet we are not left with a zero either. All his life, the wholeness of his life, every good work, every good thought, his very perfect person is added to us. In God's accounting ledger we are complete. This the Holy Spirit continues in us through Word and Sacrament all our days in this life until we carried by Christ into the grave and out again into the life in heaven where there is the freedom to do without there being any sin ever.

Not always as they seem

Things are not always as they seem. From the surprise defeat so early in the madness of KU to the winter storm on the last day of winter/first day of spring across the usually warmer states of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri to Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and then back down to Arkansas to be snuffed out things are not always as they seem. It's thought to be odd to have 70 degrees one day here and then 28 the next with snow accumulating.
It didn't cancel the Divine Service but it did convince sensible people to stay home in the warmth of their central heat and off the maybe icy streets. (They weren't icy but it was pretty white this morning.)  Believing that Christ still reigns/rains I ventured out earlier with family to shovel walks and conduct Bible Class and lead LSB setting three (the old TLH page 15). 21 of the visible Church were in attendance. I couldn't count the others. Not just because I can't make out all the company of heaven with these weak eyes, but because if I could see and hear them it would take longer than we have during the reception of the offerings to get a head count that large so I just don't bother.)
Now YHWH said through Isaiah the prophet recorded in today's OT lesson that he was doing something new and "do you not perceive it?"  Too often I don't. More often the Lord repeats himself for my benefit and the benefit of others, both believers and the rest. A road through the desert I can understand with my 21st century technology and engineering, but what would be the point in going through nothingness. On the other hand, wild beasts (dragons too?) that sit up and pant waiting for a scratch behind the ears, springs and rivers in a desert. These things would be new and near to unbelievable. But these are but illustrations that God uses to get his point across. Water to drink for his people reminds me of Jesus talking about the coming and giving of the Holy Spirit that will become in us a spring welling up to everlasting life.
For His own purpose YHWH takes care of his people. The result is praise, but that's the consequence not the immediate point. We have a god that is bound and determined to take care of us. And not just take care of us. He is bound and determined to save us from ourselves, from sin, death and the devil.
This salvation is not due to some effort on our part. There is no earning favor. Sure there are lots of wonderful, selfless deeds done by honorable men and women across the world. There are even some done that look good but are done by less honorable or dishonorable because they see a temporal reward attached. And they actually accomplish much. But like the pharisees who disfigure their faces when fasting or pray flashy prayers in public they have received their reward.
The real motivation for helping others is in knowing that no reward is needed because we belong to The Reward. And then it is Christ doing his work in and through us as if we were just some old tool or note pad and pencil.
But I move to past the end of the story again. So tempting to do even in Lent.
The new thing is that God incarnate is at work. Jesus was there in the beginning without whom nothing was made that was made. Man in his desire to be more than perfect tried to add the knowledge of evil with the good that he was and corrupted everything including himself in the process. If the Father wasn't working 24/7 to preserve the world (even on the Sabbath Jesus adds) we would have self destructed and rotted a long time ago. The inevitable is just postponed. But then there's this new thing....
Jesus is the Son of God incarnate. Jesus has come to more than set things right but to be the instigator of a new creation. He may be the second Adam, but he's the first one to get life right. He is not starting over with humanity, he is redeeming us.
Redemption is more complicated than buying back. It isn't a cash, check or charge thing. Not even true hard currency like gold or silver will suffice. His life blood is the price. His life is the price. Look more extensively than just the narrow view of Good Friday and Easter Sunday to get the full view Christ's saving Work. The Son of God has been at work here doing his stuff since before the foundation of the world. All that overtime and not one accident or mistake. It is enough to satisfy Wrath when he cashes it in on the cross. Enough to pay for every single human life and their wicked deeds. More than enough to pay for mine even when I humbly think that I've over done my sinning past the limit and safety factor. The dividends go back to the beginning of time and forward past the present through faith apprehended sacrifices, Word and Sacrament ministry. And if you sincerely think you are a bigger sinner than I am, I've got good news for you. You aren't near as big a sinner as Jesus is a Savior.
The new thing is God in Christ is doing everything to declare you as a pure and holy child of the heavenly Father. All we do is live forever in his gracious, glorious presence; grave not withstanding. It didn't hold Jesus in, it won't hold his brothers and sisters either.
There I go skipping to the end of the story again. Or should I say, the eternity of the story.