James 5:13-20

James seems to give us a sure-fire guaranteed method for health using oil, which was the medicine of the day. Jesus has a radically different solution for our problems, and his solution involves the use of a well-oiled chain saw.

Of course Christ knows exactly what he’s talking about. Sin is not the result of a lack of will power. As long as we are living and breathing we will be sinners. You can have all the will power you want, but still have to confess with Paul in the 7^th chapter of Romans, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” As long as we still have our old bodies, and our old minds, and our old souls, the only way to start to get a handle on sin is to start removing body parts, to start to do away with yourself.

There are many people who claim to believe in God and Jesus Christ, who define faith as something we do, as our decision for Christ, and then they measure faith by obedience to God’s commandments. I’ve met many of these people and seen plenty of them on TV. I don’t know of a single one who has ever gouged out his own eye to stop sinning. Next time someone tells you about their own righteousness ask them if their eyes have ever caused them to sin, and why they haven’t gouged them out. Next time a guy on TV is telling you exactly how Jesus wants you to live your life, look to see if he’s got both hands. If he’s got both hands, you know he isn’t living the way Jesus told him to. He is a hypocrite, just like you and me.

Those who claim to love the commandments and who hope to be saved by their obedience to them, are always trying to tame the commandments. They’ll obey to a point, but won’t take out a hatchet and go to town on themselves. But Christ is not kidding about this stuff. If your body parts cause you to stumble, if they cause you to sin, you will “go to hell, to the unquenchable fire…,” you will “be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.” We in mainstream Protestantism try to pretend hell doesn’t exist. But there’s Jesus talking all about it. “Smile, God loves you, everything goes” doesn’t go very well with this passage of scripture. God’s wrath is awesome. It can’t be comprehended, only experienced and suffered, with fear and trembling.

However, there is one loophole to the commandments and the laws that tell us how to live and what we ought to do. Paul tells us all about the loophole in that very same 7^th chapter of Romans. His argument is based on those famous last words, “till death do us part.” Marriage vows are only binding until your spouse dies. After that you’re free to “see other people” without violating the 6^th commandment. Every other law works the same way. Your boss can’t dock you pay for showing up late to work after you’re dead. Death is the great exception to every commandment including the commandment to lop off body parts.

So put your pocket knives away, I have some good news for you. This loophole in the law applies to you. You’ve already died. Every true sermon is a funeral sermon. Romans 6, “we have been buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.” We HAVE BEEN buried with Christ, it’s all over, the fat lady has sung, we’ve been buried and no amount of oil or prayer can ever change that. And having been buried, the law and the condemning commandments no longer have anything to say to us. Just like they said in Boston two Octobers ago [2004], “the curse is ovah”. Paul put it this way in Galatians, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.”

Paul knows exactly what Christ is talking about and he knows all about our sinful members and says in Romans 7, “while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” As long as we have our old bodies and our old beings we might keep the law on the outside, but the commandments will only inflame our sin. But Paul doesn’t stop by talking about the fruit of death, he goes on, “but now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written law, but in the new life of the Spirit.”

The law no longer has anything to say to you baptized people. Now you are slaves to the Holy Spirit. Of course, the Holy Spirit creates faith in us. It creates faith in the word, in Christ’s promises, in baptism. Faith is not our work, it is the Spirit’s gift, and now you belong to the Spirit and the law and it’s condemnation and it’s orders for mutilation no longer have anything to say to you. Romans 8, “There is therefore NOW no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

 It’s almost too good to be true. It seems like it isn’t true. It looks like we haven’t died yet. It seems like avoiding death is the most important thing we can possibly do. God’s word is hidden in this age. The word must become a great lie before it is true. It calls you who are still breathing dead.

But the problem is not with the word, the problem is with us. We are a bunch of what Luther called Life-deathers, we think that we are alive now and death is something that comes after life. But notice the language that Christ uses when speaking about life. He says “it is better to enter life maimed than have two hands and go to hell…” “it is better to enter life lame…” “it is better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye.” Jesus speaks as if life is in the future. We could sing, “we’ve only just begun,” but it sounds like we haven’t even begun yet.

 Christ is trying to reorient us. He’s taking life-deathers and trying to turn us into death-lifers. He wants us to see life as a thing that follows death. His concern is entering life, entering the kingdom of heaven. But just as you who have been baptized have already been buried, you have already died, so too you are in a different situation than those to whom Jesus was preaching that fine day.

 Since Christ gave his sermon on self-mutilation something very important has happened. It hadn’t happened yet when he preached this sermon, but now in the year of our Lord 20 ought 6 it’s over and done with. Christ fulfilled his words all by himself. Though he was without sin, he became sin itself on the cross for us. His hands and feet were pierced in place of your sinful hands and feet. His side was pierced in our place. Our only role in this salvation was to do the hammering and the running through.

But put your pew pencils away. Don’t gouge your eyes out. In death on the cross CHRIST’S EYES, became useless. The very curse he preached against us in the 9^th chapter of Mark, no longer belongs to us, because Christ has taken it upon himself.

Christ has fulfilled all his sermons and accomplished what he came to do. Now the story of his cross goes out as good news to us. He brings himself, given into death for our sin, and raised to life for our life, he brings himself to us in his word and sacraments. So you baptized children are not only already dead, but already risen from the dead. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So not only do you get eternal life, but you even get all your sinful body parts back, for a while. The curse of the law no longer applies to your consciences. Many of you even get two hands to serve your neighbors with, to give them a glass of water. Of course, we can even pray for health. God doesn’t stop at giving us eternal life, he gives more than we could ever ask for. He grace is so wide and so merciful that he sends rain on both the good and the evil.

Christ was dead serious when he preached this sermon. God gave the commandments to condemn our sin and drive us to faith and hope in Christ. When Christ came, he raised the stakes. He raised the condemnation of sin to a fever pitch. He said “if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.” But Christ did not come only to raise the condemnation and the eternal stakes. He came to die for you. He didn’t come swinging a machete and loping off the body parts of sinners, he came to be killed and rise again on the third day in order that sinners might live.

So he did his alien work, he condemned sin, but this is not his proper work. He condemned in order that he might have mercy. As Romans says, “Romans 11:32  ³² For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” God doesn’t stop at telling us to cut and gouge, as my dear Mother from Iowa might say, “God has a whole ‘nother word.”

Christ’s proper work, his gospel word, his good news, is that he came to save sinners. And you have to learn this distinction between God’s two words, or you’ll never get anywhere and you’ll be stuck your whole lives trying to build up the will-power to start cutting off parts. We must distinguish God’s commandments from his promises, his bad news from his good news, his law from his gospel, his alien work of condemnation and his proper work of salvation. This scripture gives us a beautiful lesson in making that distinction. The language of condemnation and the law is the language of scarcity. It says things like, “one hand,” “one foot,” “one eye.” The language of the gospel is the language of abundance. It says things like, “they feed 5,000 men and had many baskets left over.” The gospel says things like, “whoever eats my flesh shall live forever.” It says, “I am going to my father to prepare a place for you. My father has a mansion with many rooms.” The gospel is excessive. It says, “this is my body given for you AND this is my blood shed for you.”

So when the law comes to condemn you, when it reminds you of your sin, and especially when the final condemnation comes, when death itself comes, you’ve got to learn to tell it to shut up. You say, “I am Christ’s and there is now no condemnation for those in Christ. I am already risen from the dead in faith.”

Already you are dead and already raised from the dead, but only in faith. Faith is the gift the Holy Spirit gives us by means of the word. But as long as we breath in this old evil age we will be more than our faith. We will be a mixture of faith and unbelief, fully righteous in Christ and faith and fully sinners in ourselves and our parts. We will be simultaneously old and new, dead and alive. So the law will continue to condemn us from time to time. The law is meant to drive us totally to Christ. So outside of faith, in our unbelief, we continue to need its condemnation. The baptismal death and resurrection has already happened in our faith and hope, but it also must work itself out in our bodies.

But even bodily death is finally good news. When you stop breathing, the law and the devil will be unable to say anything to you. They will be unable to tempt you into unbelief. When you stop breathing, your hands will no longer be able to sin. You will no longer be able to look at your hands or your body and remember all your sins. Finally, death will take away even your memory of your sins, and you will never again think of yourself as unworthy of the kingdom of God. So finally death itself, God’s alien work, will serve his proper work. It will end the condemnation of the law, and set the stage for your final resurrection.

James is exactly right. The Lord will raise you up. His gospel word can speak to the dead. Just ask Lazarus. But James is a life-deather, he thinks this raising will happen before death. Jesus Christ is a death-lifer. He was crucified and on the third day he rose again, and you will follow him.

James drones on and on about how to live your life and how to be a good Christian, because he doesn’t have Jesus’ cohones. He doesn’t have the guts to tell you to cut off body parts because he’s a life-deather, and life-deathers are finally absolutely terrified of losing their parts and their lives, because they have no hope; they think death is the end of the story. So they prefer to be slaves in Egypt rather than live in the hope of the promised-land.

But you little baptized children are death-lifers, you’re on your way through the wilderness of death all the way to Jerusalem, and Christ has led the way for you. So have no fear little flock, the Father has chosen to raise Christ from the dead, and death will not be the end of your stories.   

Jesus is correct. It would be better to enter life maimed than have two hands and burn in the everlasting hellfire. But these scarce options of the law are not the only options. Jesus Christ is so big and his gospel is so fat, so excessively merciful and gracious that he is going to raise you from the dead and give you brand new bodies, without any parts missing. He’s going to give you new bodies and a new being that will never sin again. He’s going to give you a body that will never be sick again. He’s going to turn you into a bunch of death-lifers. Jesus Christ has paralyzed paralysis, he is Alzheimer’s to Alzheimer’s, he has blinded blindness, he has amputated amputation, he is cancer to cancer. He killed death dead by breaking its bonds and rising from it, and now he will never die again. He is coming soon in power and blinding glory ridding on the clouds with the holy angels to make you new.

Nicholas Hopman is a licensed lay minister in the ELCA