Trinity 11
Dear friends in Christ. The life of a Christian is marked by righteousness. There is that outward righteousness that is seen and visible to all—that’s our godliness, our striving to live a life in accord with God’s holy Law. The life of a Christian is marked as being different from the non-Christians that we live around. The Christian will stand up and not go along with everything the society around us says and promotes. The Christian’s mind and conscience are formed, not by the prevailing current thoughts and trends of the day, but by the word and will of God, by the Holy Spirit living in us and leading us into the Lord’s will.
The Christian’s life is also marked by a different kind of righteousness—the holy and perfect righteousness of Christ. This righteousness is not obvious to all; it is a righteousness only God Himself sees. That’s because it is a righteousness of faith. Spirit worked faith grabs ahold of the forgiveness of sins Jesus won for us on the cross; it grabs ahold of His perfect righteousness, His sinlessness, and makes it our own. As faith grabs ahold of Jesus and perfect righteousness and sinlessness, God does not see all of our sins and wretchedness but only Jesus and His holy, perfect keeping of the Law, His righteousness; in Christ God declares us righteous.
As Christians, we, then, have a two-fold righteousness—the complete, perfect righteousness of Christ which He gives us and which faith receives; and flowing from this, in joy, love and thanksgiving is our lives of righteousness in which we follow the Holy Spirit as He leads and strengthens us into a life of righteousness, striving to do the Lord’s will. This righteousness will be far from perfect; that’s why we rejoice that our sins are forgiven us and Christ’s righteousness is given to us. Although they will be imperfect our lives will still be marked by outward righteousness; the working of the Holy Spirit will still be evident in our lives.
St. James, brother of our Lord, writes [5.16]: The prayer of a righteous person has great power in its working. Prayer is part of our life of righteousness. Prayer is talking with God by thoughts and word. As we ponder our salvation and all the great blessings of God on us, we offer our prayers of praise and thanksgiving. As we see and feel our own needs and the needs of others, we pray. Our praying for others is called intercessory prayer. That’s what we do in church as we pray for people and all kinds of situations; that’s what each Christian does as he/she prays for people in need; that’s what you do when someone asks you to pray for them or when you become aware of their need. Prayer is part of your day in/ day out life of righteousness—the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts leads and empowers us.
1. That’s exactly what we see in our text today. Our text is part of the OT saint, Daniel’s, prayer, his intercessory prayer for the Israelites. The prophet Daniel is in exile far from Jerusalem and the temple. He probably had before him or was familiar with the prophecies of Jeremiah 25.11; 29.10 telling about the end of the exile after 70 years and the overthrown of the Babylonians, who had conquered and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Now the situation in Daniel’s day was that the Babylonians had fallen but the temple still lay in ruins. Did that mean God was postponing the return of the people to Judah? Had God been forced to cancel His promise because of the people’s impenitence? Daniel didn’t know so He turned to the Lord in prayer and prayed for the Israelites—intercessory prayer. Our text is the last part of Daniel’s prayer.
Just like in our Lord’s parable in today’s Gospel: the prayer of the tax collector flowed from humility and faith, so too does Daniel’s prayer flow from humility and faith. Both the tax collector and Daniel and each Christian, you and me, live a life of righteousness—which flows from humility and faith—and prayer is part of it.
Notice what Daniel prays: And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. In simple humility, Daniel does not deny, minimize, or excuse sin. He simply confesses it. That’s part of our life of righteousness—recognizing and confessing our lack of righteousness!
The accusation of the law of God, of our conscience is not pleasant. We don’t like to hear that we are sinners. Instead of recognizing our sin and letting it accuse us and humbly recognizing that God’s law and condemnation are correct—I have sinned and earned nothing but God’s wrath and condemnation—we so easily comfort ourselves like the Pharisee in the Gospel: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector; or there’s the old: everybody else is doing it; or, you get society and government to change the law and redefine things like marriage, so that your sin is no longer sin—at least in society’s eye.
In simple humility, the tax collector in our Lord’s parable standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ That’s the humility of Daniel and that’s the humility of each of our Lord’s Christians. The glorious thing is that as in humility we simply confess our sin, recognize it for what it is—a violation of the holy will of God, that each sin shuts heaven and opens hell, that sin is not just a “mistake” but rebellion against God—there is truly righteousness for us because we despair of our own righteousness and look for a different righteousness; we don’t look to ourselves but to the Lord and His mercy. There is the forgiveness of sin and Christ’s perfect righteousness.
The Christian’s life of righteousness flows from humility because in humility we see and recognize that God is a holy and righteous God who must punish sin, those revolts against His holy and good law. As we feel our sin and the accusations of God’s holy law, and don’t cover it up or try to excuse or minimize our sin, there’s no way that we get bold and cocky before God: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men.’ Instead, like the devastated temple was for Daniel and the Israelites—a symbol/ reminder of their sin and God’s wrath over sin—so too is each twinge of conscience, each pang of guilt that we feel, each accusation of the Law—we, on our own, do not have that perfect righteousness God demands; we cannot do enough good to earn/ merit salvation. In short, we cannot endure God’s judgment. This is why we pray for ourselves and others, like Daniel did here—that the Lord would forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Precisely because we have no righteousness of our own to offer God and somehow make Him obligated to us, we are humbled. And in this humility we seek out a different righteousness: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
In this humility we know that any confidence in ourselves and what we do is empty—even the good works we do as Christians, what the Holy Spirit in us leads and empowers us to do. We dare never base our prayers on our own goodness or supposed righteousness. We dare never base our salvation, our hope for heaven, on what we do, our good works because no matter how many we do, we are still sinners and our sin excludes us. Our righteousness as Christians still flows out of humility because our trust is not in ourselves and our works; instead hope, our trust is in another righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. Again, unless we have this humility seeking another righteousness from outside us, in Christ, we never will be righteous nor truly live lives of righteousness.
2. This humility, despairing of ourselves and our own righteousness, is not an end in itself. Instead, it leads us to that true, perfect righteousness—the holy and perfect righteousness of Christ. In His holy word and sacraments, Jesus comes to us and offers and gives us His perfect righteousness—His perfect keeping of the Law of God for us. Where we have sinned, Jesus offers us the forgiveness of sins and His perfect keeping of God’s law. Not only that, but by His Holy Spirit at work in the word and sacrament, He works faith in our hearts to receive the forgiveness of sins and His holiness. Our life of righteousness—our lives as Christians—now flows from this faith, and like we see here in our text with Daniel that life of righteousness now also shows itself in prayer, as we pray for others.
What’s the first part of Daniel’s prayer in our text? And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself… Daniel looks back on the Lord’s mercy in the past and holds this mercy before the Lord. That’s faith mightily at work—the same faith that receives the forgiveness of sin and righteousness of Christ, looks past the present suffering and trial and sees nothing but the mercy of the Lord. Not only does faith see the mercy of the Lord, but faith reminds and holds the Lord to His mercy and His promises of mercy and faithfulness—especially those He made to us in baptism.
How powerful this faith is in our lives of prayer! Look at what Daniel here prays: as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill… Daniel, in humility confesses his sin and the sin of the Israelites; and then He goes on and holds the Lord to His promise to forgive and rescue His people. And how does he do that? By pointing the Lord to His righteousness: O Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill. It seems like the wrong thing to do—after all, doesn’t God have to punish if He is righteous? Absolutely! But what bold thing, flowing from faith, is Daniel doing here? He is holding the Lord to, pointing Him forward to, the perfect righteousness of Jesus. Why would/ could Daniel here pray that the Lord let [His] anger and [His] wrath turn away from [His] city Jerusalem, [His] holy hill? Because according to all [His] righteousness—that righteousness that He would bring about by His holy perfect life; that righteousness that in mercy turned away from Jerusalem and all sinners and toward Jesus on the cross, loaded down with the sins of the world, and pouring down on Him all of His righteous anger over the sin of all people.
Daniel is reminding the Lord of the promised Savior, that He would send and the salvation, the reconciliation that He would bring about. Daniel is holding the Lord to His promise to forgive sins for the sake of the Savior He would send, Christ.
Here is the basis/ foundation of our Christian lives, our lives of righteousness and also of our prayers. Jesus brought about for us true righteousness before God and each time we pray for forgiveness for our sins, we are praying the Lord to forgive us our sin for Christ’s sake: according to all your righteousness—that He brought about and obtained; each time we pray for forgiveness we are going to Christ to receive that forgiveness and righteousness—and He is not skimpy in offering it and giving it to us as He offers and gives it to us in His word, in the absolution, at our Baptism and in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood.
Here is the foundation of prayer that we Christians pray as part of our life of righteousness: God is merciful and, in Christ, reconciled to us sinners. That’s what faith holds to and in the boldness of faith, we pray for ourselves and others: O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. Prayer is part of our life of righteousness, both flow from humility and faith. INJ Amen