Today is the last Sunday of the church year. This day usually catches us by surprise because we are so tuned in to the yearly calendar that says we still have a month to go before years end. And that month includes Christmas. And there’s so much that goes into preparation for that event that we often lose sight of the fact that advent, starting next week is the first Sunday of the new church year.
With the New Year next week, we begin again to enter into the life of Christ and review His story from beginning to end in the next six months. Today we leave that part of the church year that focuses on the life of the church. Today is like standing on a bridge. In the middle of a bridge. We can look to one side and see where we’ve been and we can look to the other side and see where we’re heading.
A bridge makes for a good handle on where we are today in the church year. And it can also help us to understand some of our bible readings today also. We look at these readings and we see things that are in the past… and things that are promised to us in the future. We live day to day between those two things past and future.
Our salvation has been assured by what has happened in the past. Our future is assured by the promise of what will be. God has spoken both things into existence. We trust in His word of promise for what He has done and what He has promised to do.
In the Old Testament reading for today we are told of the promise for the future, that our names are written in the scroll of remembrance. We know that because as the reading says, we fear the Lord and honor His name. Our names are not written there because of anything we’ve accomplished. We’ve done nothing to deserve such an honor. We have not made ourselves acceptable to God by our own deeds of goodness. But the future with God has been promised us, because we cling to the name of the Lord for our righteousness, that’s the stuff which makes us acceptable to God. And only for that reason, for clinging to His name do we have the promise of a future on the far side of the bridge.
Then turning to today’s gospel lesson, we see the Lord being crucified on the cross between two thieves. That is in our past. We have come from that direction. We have that as our foundation. The cross of Christ is the assurance that since that has been accomplished we are secure. The promise Christ made to the repentant thief is His promise to us. Today you will be with me in paradise. Those were His words then and they are the words we cling to today, here on this bridge. It is His word we hold to as our foundation.
Foundations are also important to a bridge. And God is the one who laid the foundation for this bridge. A bridge’s foundations are powerful. They are essential for the bridge to stand and to be useful. The foundations of the bridge make it possible for people to cross over it.
And the foundations of our bridge are in the cross of Christ and the word of God. The word of God holds God's promises for us. The cross is our anchor to the past and the Word holds our promises for the future. The cross of Christ is our guarantee of a right and true relationship with God the Father. As the first line of the epistle lesson says today… that God , “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” That; that *redemption from sin is what gives us confidence that the righteousness we need comes from the forgiveness He gives. (*repeat)
And that is why we seek to live our lives on this bridge in righteousness. Oh we don’t think of it that way often but maybe we should. We live lives that reflect the righteousness that has been given to us in the forgiveness of our sins. Our lives are lived as reflections. Again standing on the bridge, we can look down into the water and see there the reflection of the sunlight or the moonlight.
In fact the moonlight helps us to understand how to live life on this bridge. Like the moon reflects the light of the sun so we also reflect the righteousness that is ours by the promise of God's word and the actions of Jesus on the cross and through His resurrection. We reflect His righteousness, not our own. Thank heaven, since we have no righteousness of our own.
So how do we then live? We live in the ‘in-between”. We live in the now and the not yet. We have the now of what God's word promises and the not yet of taking possession of that eternal life that is promised to us. That is the now and the not yet. But what does that mean for us? There it is again, that good Lutheran question, what does this mean?
We live as the thief on the cross next to Jesus did, in those final moments of his earthly life. We live with the promise; the promise that we will be with Christ in paradise. We live the promise.
That frees us. We are free to live and enjoy the life God has given us. We are told that Christ came that we may have life and have it abundantly. That doesn’t mean recklessly but it does give us permission to enjoy life, to relish life to drink it in and savor it.
Thinking ahead to Christmas; are you going to be giving gifts to others? Yes of course you are and what do you want them to do with the gift? Hide it? Tuck away where it can’t be used or seen or enjoyed. Do you want the gifts you give to be set aside on a shelf and never put into use? Of course not!
The same is true with the life that God has given you in Jesus Christ. He has given that to you to enjoy, to put into use. It’s yours. Have you seen the dodge ram truck commercials? They say to grab life by the horns. Well that is a mere pittance of what God has given you to grab hold of.
You’ve been given a hope and a future. Those words come from our past. They come from Jeremiah 29 and they are for us. We have a hope and a future that is assured to us. That is what we are to grab and live by.
The bridge that we live on, that we pass over in this life, is a bridge built by God's promise and Christ’s sacrifice. Those two anchors give us a foundation for life that lets us live it with gusto. But it is we who live that life. We are to be engaged in living and that means being involved with others. We don’t live life merely to please ourselves. What’s our church mission statement? Sharing Christ, serving the community! That’s right and that means involvement, reaching out and participating with others.
All this talk of bridges and reflecting the love of God, what does this mean in our lives? Well, our faith walk in this life is to be a faith that lives, lives life fully as we’ve said and as Saint James tells in chapter two of his letter. Faith is a living thing and gives us the ability to seek after the things God would have us do in this life. And as we have been forgiven by the grace of God, so we too are to practice with others the forgiveness we’ve been given.
Human nature is, as we all know too well, being what human nature is, rebellious and deceitful! When we seek to share Christ and serve the community we will get offended and hurt. We as people of faith, must learn to face such offenses honestly and lovingly as God has done with us. Our lives on this bridge must be lives reflecting the forgiveness we’ve been given. And that is what difference it makes to talk about such things on this last day of the church year.
Consider this when you need to express forgiveness; people who refuse to forgive others burn the one and only bridge to God over which they too must pass. (Repeat) Yes will always have God’s forgiveness and that, that is what we depend on ourselves. That is also what we give away, His forgiveness. We live our life according the promise of God and the work of forgiveness that Christ has done. That past and that promise give us every assurance we need to live a full life today, here and now, and a full life in the future across this bridge on which we pass. In Jesus name, amen.