It's All Right Now
The apostle has big news for us, in fact, the biggest news you'll ever hear because it has to do with where we're at in our relationship with God. Here it is: It's All Right Now. October 31, 2010.
In 1968, the Rolling Stones rocked the charts with a song called Jumpin’ Jack Flash featuring the refrain, “It’s all right now.” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards may have had recovery from psychedelic drugs in mind, but what exactly does the phrase “It’s all right now” mean? I suppose it depends on the context. More specifically, it depends on the meaning of the word “right,” which can refer to a direction as in right and left, or it can mean correct, accurate, and pure. After the elections on Tuesday, a news commentator who describes the results by saying, “It’s all right now,” could mean that the results are exactly as he predicted them or that right-wing conservatives were elected. You call a friend to verify directions while driving to her house at night. If she says, “It’s all right now,” that might mean you’re headed in the correct direction, or it might mean that you’ll need to make three right turns to get there. When you tee off, and your golfing partners say, “It’s all right now,” they might be complimenting you that your golf ball landed safely in the fairway, or they might be commenting that you banana-sliced another one out of bounds.
In the second Scripture lesson today, from Romans chapter three, the apostle has big news for us, in fact, the biggest news you’ll ever hear because it has to do with where we’re at in our relationship with God. Here it is: It’s All Right Now. Just what does he mean by that? That’s what we intend to explore today. But this much I’ll tell you up front. He’s not talking about direction but using the word “right” in the sense of correct, accurate, and pure as he unfolds: what “right” is, what “right” does to us, and what “right” does for us.
What “Right” Is
Are we all on the same page if I state that being right with God is not something many people think about? If they happen to turn their attention to spiritual things, most Americans are more interested in what they experience and what they feel than in what some church has to say or what the Bible has to say. A preacher can gather a crowd and get lots of folks to listen if he talks about how people’s lives can be different and better. “Get practical, preacher-man! Help me live my life. Tell me how I can handle this situation or that. I wanted to be empowered to be all I can be so I can not only cope with bad junk but make a difference in this world.” While all of that is good and noble, there is something far more important because it’s the basis for being all we can be, and that is being right with God. More important than how life is going now is getting right with God so we know where we’re going now and forever. I say that because we could be disease-free, debt-free, hassle-free and still end up un-free and fast bound in Satan’s chains with death brooding darkly o’er us. Getting right with God is the only way to live happily ever after. And the only way to find out how to get right with God is to find out what he says about it. After all, it’s his ballgame.
That’s where the apostle starts. In order to be right with God we have to be as right as he is. There’s that word “right” again. At the core of what he demands is rightness – total, complete purity all the time in every nook and cranny of our living and thinking. You can understand how important being right and pure and clean is to God when you think of how important it is to you. There you stood at the ironing board getting your freshly washed dress shirt pressed just so, not a spot to be found, not a wrinkle to be seen. But at a lunch time meeting, you’re listening intently to your co-worker while biting into your sandwich, and mustard squirts out the bottom and splatters on your shirt. You are about to greet your neighbor who sneezes into his hand and extends it for a handshake. You pull out a kitchen drawer for a mixing bowl and spy what appear to be mouse droppings in there.
From little on, Martin Luther learned that fairly clean is not acceptable. Kind of pure won’t cut it. Almost right does not make it, especially when compared to God and what he demands. God is right in every way. There’s no lint on his robe, no bad marks on his record, no low credit scores. He is correct, accurate, pure, and holy, and he demands that if we’re going to be near him, then we have to be right, too. “He demonstrates his justice at the present time.” That’s what “right” is.
What “Right” Does To Us
The little boy grabbed his blanket and crawled under the bed almost certain that he’d be a goner. His little face was pressed so close to the floor boards, he didn’t even notice the spider scamper by. He just shook. Nearly every night was nightmarish. He’d toss and turn and sometimes cry out. The fears never really subsided. Even as a teen away from home at school, staying with a kindly matron who provided a warm and safe home, he still trembled. Then while at the university, there was that semester break and the trip home in a storm with winds that could have ripped power lines if there were any. Pulling his collar tight over his ears, he bent into the wind, and felt the rain pellets smack his cheeks. Lighting flashed all around. Thunder crashed, and “Crack!” – a tree smashed to the road in front of him. On his knees he wailed for help. What caused such fear? Not ghosts and goblins, not winds whipping. Just one thing, one scary thing – rightness, more specifically the rightness of God. The name of the young man, Martin Luther.
His experience is not just some story to grab our attention. It’s our story. For, it’s one thing to know what rightness is. It’s another thing to see what it does to us. Some people have the goofy notion that God’s holiness is somehow removed from them and won’t touch them, like seeing a lion pacing behind the thick glass walls at the zoo. But God’s holiness intersects with us. His rightness exposes our wrong-ness and clamps our mouths shut so that we can’t even murmur an excuse. “Now we know that whatever [God’s] law says, it says to those who are under [that] law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight [by doing things]; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” The lion is out of the cage. God’s demand for rightness kills and condemns.
What if you were pushed on stage in front of thousands? HD cameras have expanded your face on a screen so large that every person there can see every blemish, every wrinkle, every pore. And you’re in your jammies, no make-up, hair smooshed down on one side and sticking out on the other. And you find out you’re being taped for a job interview which will be viewed by the CEO of the company, and the tape of the event has spliced into it the audio of what you said when you slammed shut your phone after the sixth political action group call in a row, and the video of what you did the night after your last college exam, and the cookies of the last websites you viewed in the last thirty days. That’s what God’s right does to us. I’m so ashamed. You ought to be ashamed, too. Not one of us can get off the hook when we stand before a holy, super-right God. “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory [the rightness] of God.” God is all right now, has always been right, and will always be right. But we’re not all right. We were all wrong. That’s what his rightness does to us.
What “Right” Does For Us
The word “righteous” … struck my conscience like lightning. When I heard [it], I was exceedingly terrified. If God is righteous, he must punish. But when by God’s grace I pondered … over the words [like “The just by faith will live” (Romans 1:17), and “Deliver me in your righteousness” (Psalm 71:2)] …, I came to the conclusion that if … the righteousness of God contributes to the salvation of all who believe, then salvation won’t be by our merit but by God’s mercy. My spirit was thereby cheered. For it’s by the righteousness of God that we’re justified [declared right]and saved through Christ (LW, vol. 54, p.193) … I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered the gates of paradise itself through open gate (LW vol. 34, p.337) [Martin Luther].
The beautiful message of these passages from Paul in Romans is that God not only demands rightness. He also gives us rightness, the rightness of Jesus, his holy and pure life credited to our account, coupled with the blood that covers and pays for all our wrong, just as the blood of a sacrificial lamb was splashed over the gold box in the temple that contained the law of God, exposing the sin of the Israelites of old. In the rituals God gave to those people to picture what was to come, blood covered the box’s cover and washed sin away from God’s sight. “But now a righteousness from God, apart from [God’s demands], has been made known, to which the [Scriptures] testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. God set him forward as a place where sin is covered and paid for, through faith in his blood. He did this … so as to be [right] and the one who [declares right] those who have faith in Jesus. And here it is … [all] are [declared right] freely by his [undeserved love] through the [payment] that came by Christ Jesus.” It’s all right now between God and us. That’s what Jesus’ rightness does for us.
The Festival of the Reformation of the church has been wrongly labeled as a chance for Lutherans to boast about Martin Luther. But what boasting did Luther have in himself? None. Then how could he be so bold to stand up to church and world leaders? Why did he not tremble? Because he was no longer fearful of God’s rightness and God’s demand for rightness. He knew that God gave him Jesus’ rightness. If we have anything to boast about, it is solely Jesus. By him we are declared right. “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of [doing things to impress or try to please God]? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a person is justified [declared right] by faith apart from observing the law.” That’s what makes this message from the apostle so relevant. It does not, nor is any of the Bible’s message from God, intended to make our life on earth cushy. It is for you and for me and for all to know how it happened that we are right with God and will live forever. With that confidence we can cope with anything and make a difference in this world because it’s all right now. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on October 31, 2010
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