Truce with the Enemy

Text:  Romans 5:1-5

            Dusting the frame of the painting leads to an irrepressible sneeze.  It’s an “Oh no!” moment.  Mr. Bean goes to Hollywood posing as a Professor of art.  He is accompanying “Whister’s Mother.”  Left on his own with the precious artwork he wipes off the dust, then sneezes, and wipes away the spray with his hankie.  He does not realise that his pen has leaked and that he is smearing ink all over the face of “Whistler’s Mother”.  He attempts to rectify his mistake by using paint thinner to remove the ink.  The paint bubbles and, attempting to remove the paint thinner decapitates “Whister’s Mother”.   In place of her head he draws are cartoon head on the canvas.  The sneeze compounds from one bumbling error to another which eventually cannot be rectified.  There is nothing that Bean or anyone else can do to fix the problem.

            Briony Tallis is the central character in Ian McEwan’s book Atonement.  She is a young girl of 13 years and is obsessed with everything in her life being in good order.  Her room is meticulously tidy.  Her passion for writing plays and stories is governed by the need for love to prevail.  Briony misinterprets something she sees which leads her to tell a vicious lie about a young man named Robbie.  She accuses him of raping her cousin when she knows full well he hasn’t.  Robbie is sent to jail and, after three years is released on the condition that he serves in the army during World War II.  Briony grows up and realises extent of the damage her lie caused not only to Robbie but to others.  She takes a number of decisions in her life to right her wrong.  One of the key ways that she tries to atone for her sin is to write her story.  We come to realise that the book we are reading is her working and reworking of the story.  It is a combination of fact and fiction.  One of her key fictions is that she meets her sister who has been reunited with Robbie and apologises to them.  She promises to tell the truth.  Through her writing she does not forgive herself and yet tries to make up for her lie by telling another lie of a happy ending.  We’re left with the realisation that somehow the unravelling of lives through Briony’s lie cannot be put right no matter how hard she tries.

            The mistake has been made.  The lie has been told.  The friendship betrayed.  Carelessness leads to serious injury.  The law has been broken and the crime committed.  It’s the oil well belching its toxic contents into the Gulf of Mexico.  All attempts to stoop the flow futile.  Can we undo it?  Can we fix it?  Can we put it right?

            “It’s a shambles,” Paul might have said.  Everyone has sinned.  All have turned their backs on God.  Whether a person is a Gentile without the Law or a Jew with the Law there’s no escaping reality.  There’s no way that we can patch up our relationship with God.  There’s nothing we can do that will paper over the cracks.  In fact the situation is so bad that humans are hostile enemies of God.  There is a war being waged between those who are ‘in Adam’ and those who are ‘in Christ’; between those who live according to the flesh, living to suit themselves in their own wisdom and strength, and those who live according to the Spirit, honouring God and giving thanks to him (1:21).  Later in his letter Paul admits, “The war is so intense that even when I want to change sides and do what God wants me to do I find I can’t (7).  But it’s not all bad news.  The running battles between my way and God’s way is not a war without end.”

            A truce has been made.  We don’t have to be enemies of God anymore.  Hostilities may cease.  Though we can’t make up for our sins, God can.  Though we can’t wrestle free from the grip of sin and death, God can set us free.  The faith that Abraham had before he was circumcised is the same faith that puts things right.

            Paul calls this putting things right ‘justification’.  What does this strange sounding word mean?  Justification is God putting things to rights, right-wising us in our relationship to him and others.  It is about God being embracing his enemies in love when they were hostile.  God sent Jesus to die for us whilst we were still sinners (5:8).  God gathered his opponents in the arms of the crucified Christ.  Through Jesus, God has made it possible for us to lay down our weapons; to cross sides; to be at peace with him.

            Mr. Bean couldn’t fix “Whistler’s Mother”.  His attempts made things worse.  Briony couldn’t make amends for what she had done to Robbie and her sister.  Her attempts were futile fabrications.  Similarly, we cannot do anything to sort out our relationship with God.  God has acted towards us.  He has proved his love for us through Jesus’ death.  The only way for us to experience being right-wised is to have faith in God’s promise just like Abraham.  Faith trusts that God will do what he says he will do.  Our peace with God – our right relationship with him - is through Jesus Christ.

            Not only do we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, we have access to grace.  Access is a word of entry or contact.  Those who have ‘access’ to top secret files have that right by virtue of their position, status and trustworthiness.  Those who have direct access to the Queen, the Prime Minister or President of the United States are close family and friends.  Otherwise access will have to be obtained and is at the discretion of aides who are there to protect these important people.  Few people have direct access to VIPs.  Yet, through Jesus Christ we have access to the grace in which we stand.  God’s demonstration of love through the death of Christ enveloped the whole of the creation with grace.  Through Jesus Christ we enter into this grace filled world.  Standing in grace is an amazing place to be.  Grace is the love of God lavished on us freely.  All there is for us to do is simply receive it.

            The right-wising of God through Jesus Christ leads to boasting.  It is not boasting in ourselves.  It is not boasting in what we have done or achieved.  It is boasting with a difference.  This is not the proud, arrogant, blowing of one’s own trumpet.  It is boasting which has the flavour of ‘joy’ in what God has done..

            Those who stand in grace take joy in the hope that they will participate in God’s glory.  We may think that this is pride slipping through the back door:  having faith in God so that we can get a slice of the action and become important.  But the glory of God we hope to share in is something quite different from being rich and powerful.

            The glory of God is defined by his love.  His love was so vast and great towards us that he chose to suffer for us in Jesus.  So when we boast in the hope that we will share God’s glory we are boasting in sufferings.  The glory we share is with Jesus in his suffering.  He endured such pain and humiliation.  His character as the Son of God was proved in the hope of an empty tomb.  The glory of Jesus came through his obedient suffering. 

            To be right-wised with God...to have our sins forgiven...to be the enemy turned friend...to be people living in the universe of God’s grace, we must enter into the pain and sufferings of Jesus.  Our hope of sharing God’s glory is not a short-cut to avoiding anguish.  Instead, as F. F. Bruce put it so well, “The coming glory was not merely recompense for the suffering of the present; it was the product of that suffering.”[i]

            Rejoicing in sufferings seems weird.  Is this not a kind of masochism?  We live in a social environment where there is a desire to avoid pain at all costs.  Embracing suffering clashes with this worldview.  Yet for early followers of Jesus, suffering was part and parcel of what it meant to belong to him.  Enduring suffering was the chisel that formed the character of Jesus in his followers.  The suffering was not enjoyable but it was hopeful.  Suffering tests our faith in God.  Suffering strips away all the things that make it comfortable to trust God.  The prospect of losing income, social status, or even our lives questions the extent of our faith.  When we lose a close loved one our faith in God to give eternal life is tested.  When our health is reduced to daily pain or the knowledge of impending death, our trust in God is put under the spotlight. 

            The suffering of those who have peace with God and live in a grace filled universe is filled with hope because we know there is no disappointment.  God will not let us down.  His love has been poured into our hearts through “the Holy Spirit that has been to us”.  The Spirit is a witness to God’s love for us.  The Spirit witnesses to our spirit that we are children of God.  The love of God for us is clear:  Jesus died for us whilst we were still enemies and he raised him from the dead to be our intercessor. 

            “In The Grace of Giving, Stephen Olford tells of a Baptist pastor during the American Revolution, Peter Miller, who lived in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, and enjoyed the friendship of George Washington.

            In Ephrata also lived Michael Wittman, an evil-minded sort who did all he could to oppose and humiliate the pastor.

            One day Michael Wittman was arrested for treason and sentenced to die.  Peter Miller traveled (sic) seventy miles on foot to Philadelphi to plead for the life of the traitor.

            ‘No, Peter,’ General Washington said, ‘I cannot grant you the life of your friend.’ 

            ‘My friend!’ exclaimed the old preacher.  ‘He’s the bitterest enemy I have.’

            ‘What?’ cried Washington.  ‘You’ve walked seventy miles to save the life of an enemy?  That puts the matter in a different light.  I’ll grant your pardon.’  And he did.  Peter Miller took Michael Wittman back home to Ephrata – no longer and enemy, but a friend.”[ii]

            God has made us right with him through Jesus.  No longer enemies.  Friends.  At peace and living in joy.  Our purpose is his glory.  His love filling us up through the Holy Spirit.  This is the grace in which we stand.  Will you boast?  Will you rejoice?  Will you sing praise?