LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1992, Page 82

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B2 : LIFELIGHT BIBLE STUDY

know not what they do.” And what he heard impressed
him as fundamental to our understanding of redemption
and worth working into his sermon here in Solomon's
Colonnade. :

Of course, Christ’s first sentence from the cross could
not have been Peter’s first sentence—or ours either. Why
didn’t Jesus ask instead, “Which of you convinceth Me of
sin?” That’ stopped them once. The centurion might have
wondered. Later on he demonstrated an open mind:
“Surely this was a righteous man” (Luke 23:47). It might
have prompted Pilate to call the whole thing off. He had
found no fault in Him at all. Of course, we would not have
wanted it to stop, the crucifixion and forgiveness and eter-
nal hope. Maybe it’s just as well Christ didn’t protest His
innocence again. But granting that, why were His first
* words what they were? “Forgive them, for they know not
what they do.” And why does Peter go out of his way to
soften the “stormy, north side” of the law by rationalizing,
“I know you acted in ignorance”?

Ignorance is no excuse, but it is an argument for mercy.
If that screaming mob underneath the porch at Pontius
Pilate’s palace had known they watched the Son of God
and believed that and still had cried, “Crucify Him,” it
might have been something else again. If Pilate had been
conscious of the fact that he was dealing with the King of
kings and washed his hands of it, God might have washed
His hands of him. But they didn’t know, any of them, not
like we do, nor did they believe the way we claim we be-
lieve. And Jesus, who looks for reasons to be gracious,
found one: “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

It gives you pause and makes you wonder. What does
Jesus ask the Father when He pleads on our behalf? Can
He say that in our sin we do not know, that our pride is
from ignorance, that our selfishness is not conscious idol-
atry, that our rebellion is somehow less than purposeful?
Can He say, they know not what they do of us, that we act
in ignorance? What does Christ, who looks for arguments
for mercy, find to plead in our case, we who know 80 well
who He is and what our sins do to him? .

It impressed Peter that even in the moment of His deep-
est pain and shame, Jesus looked for arguments for mercy
and He found them. And it impresses us that in our deepest
shame He finds reason to forgive us. That reason, while it
cannot be our ignorance, not with two thousand years of
Gospel in our hands, that reason is the love of God. God
is love no matter what we are or become. Our failure; our
hard-headed, hard-hearted attitude; our weakness, and
our downright sin cannot change that. God is unchange-
able—and He is love. We are not bigger than He is that
we can change Him. He doesn't forgive us because of what
we are. He forgives us because of what He ia. To this end
He came and for this cause Jesus was born. He has His
reason to forgive us, and nothing we do is going to change
that. We can’t change that. We can’t change Him. |

But He can change us. And J wonder if, after all, that
isn’t the ray of light that we are looking for. I would like
to say this very carefully. I have said it once before. We
are driven by an attitude that at times must seem to some
to be little less than arrogant. We are wracked by a party
spirit, a hardening of our attitudes toward one another.
Our strife-torn family is flirting with its own destruction.

Itg rescue and its healing will not be effected by resolutions
which we pass or don’t. A change in us, in all of us, in our
deepest secret hearts is needed. Part of the trouble and
the tragedy that dogs our days is the way we treat for-
giveness as if it were an option and “do good to those who
despitefully use you” a visionary’s dream. You know how
super critical we can be. We have neither cherished nor
nurtured the tie that binds us to each other, and if some-
body among us writes or talks in a tone that is preposter-
ously inflated we find in that a license to respond in kind.
Have we looked for arguments for mercy, reasons to be
kind and loving? We ridicule people for the positions that
they take. We know all about them on the basis of a few
isolated things they do. We have our labels, fully gummed

‘and ready to slap on. I think each one of us can find a place

for himself or herself in that catalog of failings. We need
changing. We need forgiveness. And we need to be
forgiving. :

God answers prayer, and Jesus knew what to pray for.
“Father, forgive them,” and a thief at Jesus’ side surprised
himself to hear himself ask, “Remember me.” That was
quite a change. The centurion and his confession consti-
tuted an amazing change. 3,000 gladly heard the preaching
of St. Peter and were added to the infant church. A little
later, “a great company ‘of priests were obedient to the
faith” (Acts 6:7). There were some changes made, I should
say.

Well, we need changing. We need forgiveness, and we
need to be forgiving. At Calvary’s cross you find them both,
forgiveness and the power to forgive. “Forgive us our tres-
passes,” Jesus teaches us to pray, “as we forgive those who
trespass against us,” We hold in memory Luther's match-
less explanation, “We pray in this petition that.our Father
in heaven would not look upon our sins, nor on their ac-
count deny our prayer; for we are worthy of none of the
things for which we pray . . . but that He would grant them
all to us by grace. . . . So will we also heartily forgive, and
readily do good to those who sin against us.” Upon Calvary
you find them both, forgiveness and the power to forgive,
because upon Calvary Jesus looked for arguments for
mercy, and He found all He needed in the love of God.

Two sentences after the one in Peter’s sermon that
prompted all of this Peter nails it down, “Turn to God, so
that your sins may be wiped out.” God has all the argument
He needs to forgive us. He is love. And that gives us all
the reason we néed to forgive and love each other.

Bible Study 4

What Made Peter Brassy? Or Whence Great Bold-
ness? :

(Acts 4:18-20)

Acts 4:18-20: “Then they called them in again and com-
manded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of
Jesus. But Peter and John replied, ‘Judge for yourselves
whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than
God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have
seen and heard.’ ”

With great boldness, I should say. That was downright
brassy. Of course, Peter often marched in where angels
fear to tread. He had this kind of childlike trust, without