“Forgiven!”

Luke 24:36-48

Forgiveness.

That was the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection

Forgiveness.

That’s what’s available to every human being because of what Jesus did.

Forgiveness.

That’s the gift God offers you today so that you can start living in a different way than you’ve been living up until now – so that you can begin living life as it’s meant to be!

You can start living a forgiven life!

I hope you’ve noticed these past few weeks that the recurrent theme found in almost all the resurrection stories is forgiveness. In today’s reading, the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus have now returned to Jerusalem. While they are carrying on about their experience with the risen Christ, the Lord himself appears among the group. The disciples are shocked and surprised, stunned and stupefied. They think it is a ghost! So Jesus lets them see the nail marks, and then eats a piece of broiled fish just to prove that it really is him – in the flesh. And then Jesus says something very important.

Everything that happened to him – from his birth, to his death, to his rising – happened to fulfill the promises God made to the world when the world found itself lost in sin and despair. You can read about the promises God made in the Torah – the first five books of the First Testament. You can find the promises of God in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the prophets. You can hear the promises of God sung in the Psalms.

To read what we Christians call the Old Testament is to read about how God made promises to redeem the world even when the world had decided to walk away from God.

And in our text today, Jesus sums up the meaning of all the promises God made. A Messiah will be sent. He will suffer and die for the sins of the world. On the third day, He will be raised from the dead.

And forgiveness will be offered to the world!

And then, one more promise. The followers of this Messiah will go into the entire world as His representatives - preaching repentance and forgiveness to all nations.

We followers are called to live forgiven lives – in which we proclaim forgiveness to others!

So what does it mean to live a forgiven life?

One of our church members was telling me about a daughter of his who recently found a spiritual home in the Roman Catholic Church. He was glad about that because life has been tough for her. She’s faced a lot of challenges and hardships and difficulties, and very much needs a spiritual anchor in her life. To have a Christ-centered community within which to raise her children, and an active faith from which she can draw strength and support for living is a wonderful blessing and is making a difference for her.

Well, converting to Catholicism, you know, takes a little work. And one of the things you have to do in order to make your first Communion is to have your first Confession. Now, I’ve told you before about how we just loved Confession when I was a kid growing up. I wasn’t Catholic and neither was my best friend Dennis Astrella, but most of the kids in the neighborhood were Catholics, and when Friday came, they needed our help. So we used to sit out on the front lawn under the big Maple tree and help the Catholic kids make up sins to take to Confession. Oooh, baby! We came up with sins the bible never even imagined! In fact, some of the kids that we sent off to Confession with some of our made-up sins were never seen or heard from again!

Well, in the case of this young woman, there was no need for the help of a Marty Singley and Dennis Astrella. After all, she had 40-something years worth of sins to confess! It took a while to go through them all. And when it was over, she cringed, waiting for the penance to be doled out. I mean, how many Hail Mary’s would that take? But this priest – obviously a very good and wise Christian – told this parishioner’s daughter that he thought the hardships she’s experienced in life are penance enough.

And then he pronounced her…forgiven!

And it was like a new beginning for her! The old had passed away. The new had come. The slate was wiped clean. The account was cleared. The hard drive was reformatted.

She could start her life all over again – at 40-something years of age!

You see, to live a forgiven life means to accept the gift of starting your life all over again no matter how old you are – no matter what you’ve done – no matter how you’ve squandered opportunities, or wasted your life up until now.

A while ago, I was driving up to one of the hospitals to make some visits. I had the radio cranked up to one of the Oldies stations, and all of a sudden, the tune and lyrics of one of the songs took me back. Do you know what I mean? It literally transported me back to the very moment in Junior High when I first heard that song. I could see the faces of the kids I was with. And the exact time and place we were together. And that got me to remembering things I hadn’t thought about in a long time. And in the course of remembering some of the stories of my life, this thought occurred to me: “Gee, if I could go back and live my life all over again, I’d do some things differently this time around.”

Have you ever felt that way?

One thing I’d do would be to resign my position as General Manager of the Universe. All my life, you know, I’ve been trying to hold it up by my own cunning and strength. And frankly, I’m getting tired! You know, growing up in middle-class America, it sort of came naturally to think of myself as being perfectly capable of living life on my own terms and relying solely upon myself to meet all my needs, make all my decisions, and set all my goals. Early on in life, I got sucked into the thought that says, “God helps those who help themselves.” I never realized that’s not in the Bible. I never knew that flies in the face of the teachings of Jesus. I never realized that human beings are incapable of making it successfully through life on their own.

I later learned that people who try to live on their own strength alone are ultimately disappointed. Someone comes along who is younger, and stronger, and better – and you are replaced.. A boss comes along who doesn’t care how long you’ve been with the company – and you are let go. Your child takes up a lifestyle that defies your values. A spouse decides to divorce you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The stock market falls, despite all your careful planning. Even though you’ve taken good care of yourself, you suffer a heart attack. And despite a lifetime of achievement, a new generation comes along that doesn’t remember you, and you realize you’re nothing but a “has-been.” And finally, you’re left to face the fact that one day, you’re going to die, and you can’t buy enough insurance to prevent it from happening.

Oh, we who spend our lives trying to be our own gods – meeting our own needs, setting our own goals, providing our own strength - ultimately fail.

God does not help those who help themselves. “The well have no need of a physician,” said Jesus. Just the opposite is true. God helps those who are willing to step down off the throne of life, and let God take His rightful seat. God helps those who let Him become Lord of their lives – their Source, their Guide, their Leader, their Role-model!

Oh, if I could change one thing about my life, it would be to more and more let God be God.

And connected to that, I’d want to be a better husband and father than I’ve been. You know, it’s easy in the ministry to get so wrapped up in other peoples’ lives and problems that you lose track of the people in your own family. And I know this is true in the business world, too. The idea of achieving success in order to provide for our families can become a false god that lures us into actually neglecting our families. Oh, some of us have missed an awful lot of our kids’ growing up. Some of us have lost the ability to truly nurture and influence our kids today because we didn’t take the time to lay the foundations of relationship yesterday.

Taking better care of my mother. Being a better friend. Learning to play the piano instead of learning how to throw a curveball! Reaching out to people different than me, and trying to understand them. Living more simply so that more of my resources can be used for others. Being more of a friend to the friendless, more of an advocate for the poor, more a peacemaker than a combatant. A person with the sensitivity and discipline to offer good gifts of encouragement and affirmation to waiters and workers and parking lot attendants. Controlling my anger. Becoming more patient with myself and others. Being the sort of optimistic person who sees the glass as half-full rather than as half-empty.

Oh, there are so many things I’d do differently, if I had the chance! How about you?

Well, the Good News of Easter is that you can!

That’s what it means to be forgiven!

Through the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the power of even the deepest and most profound blemishes of our lives has been broken! The old has passed away! The new has come! The slate has been wiped clean. The account has been cleared. The hard drive has been reformatted.

And YOU ARE FREE TO BEGIN AGAIN!

No matter how old – or young - you are!

But there’s a catch.

This forgiven life – the gift of being able to start over in all the best ways – is connected to the word repentance, which means to turn around.

You see, it takes a turning to activate forgiveness in your life, and to begin again. It takes a turning to God. It takes a turning away from the old ways. And it takes a turning toward the new ways! It takes some work on your part to appropriate the gift of forgiveness.

So if God is going to be the Lord of your life from now on, you’ll need to learn about Him, and cultivate a relationship with Him through prayer and study. If you’re going to get your anger under control from here on out, you’ll need to ask God to help you, and you may need to get involved in an anger management program. If you’re going to make a new start out from the shadows of the abuse you experienced as a child, you’ll need to ask God to lead you to a good therapist who will help you along the path to healing.

You see, to be forgiven does not mean to be let off the hook. It means to be given the chance of a new start. To be forgiven does not mean to be set free from the consequences of mistakes made or injuries suffered. It means that God will help you build a new life even considering those consequences.

So you may not get your job back. You may not get your family back. You may not get your friend back. You may not get your health back. You may not get your pride back.

But you will get your LIFE back – and the possibility of new things to do, new relationships to cultivate, new ways of living within your limitations, new ways to find self-pride and dignity.

That’s what it means to be forgiven.

And you are invited to come and receive it as God’s gift to you. A brand new beginning! New life, raised up out of the old!

I know I need to start living the forgiven life.

How about you?