Pastor’s Corner

Pastor’s Corner

Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (John 8:7-11)

The passage above is a comfort for many. For those who wrestle with their sin, or for those burdened by their past, we can hear Christ’s words and know that because of Christ, the Great Judge, not even He will condemn us. For others, though, they may try to use the above passage as an excuse to continue in their sin. They might say, “Remember, even Jesus said, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.’ So, don’t tell me I’m wrong. Let me live my life however I want. Quit judging me!”

The question of how to deal with sin in the church can be a confusing one. We find passages like the one above that seem to say, “we shouldn’t judge anyone.” And yet we will find multiple passages that speak about repenting of our private sins and of stopping public sins from spreading like yeast throughout the church. In fact, most of Paul’s letters have mandates commanding the church to prevent sexual immorality and other public sins within her and expel those who say they are Christian and yet choose to remain unrepentant in their sin (Rom. 1 & 2; 1 Cor. 5).

So, what is the church to do, and how are we as Lutherans to hear Christ’s words in the world in which we live? In the passage above the last verse is crucial. Jesus told the woman to “go, and from now on sin no more.” The woman was called to live a new life now, not of openly sinning, but of openly repenting. She was called by Christ to live a life of faith in Him and turn away from her sins. During this season of Lent, we are also called into an identical life of repentance as that woman. Luther’s Fourth Part of Baptism in the Small Catechism speaks to this when it says,

What does such baptizing with water indicate?
It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

We are all sinners. And we are all called by Christ to daily repent (which means to turn away from sin) and to look more and more to Christ as our Savior. Seeing Christ as our Savior truly is what the season of Lent is all about.