The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
August 29th, years ago, the Christian calendar commemorated the death, by way of beheading, of John the Baptist, beheaded by King Herod. September 14th hosts a Christian festival, little-known to most Christians in the world, but nonetheless, for a while it was all the rage. The festival is known as the Festival of the True Cross, and St. Helena. Legend says that the true cross of Christ was found, semi-buried, by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the emperor, during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 326 AD. As the years passed, fragments of the true cross were sent off to Roman Catholic churches throughout the world, for the purposes of raising money for the church in the form of pilgrimages. It was said in order to visit a true part of the cross of Christ. John Calvin pointed out that if we gather all of the existing fragments together of the, quote, true cross, you could fill a large cargo ship, in order to raise money for the church.
Now there’s no way to verify or discredit the legend of the true cross of St. Helena, but September 14th is still celebrated as a way to remember the Passion of the Christ, the suffering and death, the agony, the forsaking of the heavenly Father, and then ultimately the resurrection. September 14th provides observant Christians with yet another opportunity to reflect on what the Passion of the Christ meant, wherein Jesus endured the burning wrath of His heavenly Father, and our death, so harsh and so daunting, that He sweated blood as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that that cup be taken from Him.
To all these Christian observances, add the anniversary, which will soon be upon us, of the 9/11 terrorist attack, which was carried out by people who are sworn enemies of the Christian faith, and who believed themselves to be carrying out a holy war, a jihad, against, quote, a Christian nation. But your enemies, enemies of the Gospel and of Jesus’ church, aren’t just found in the adherents of other violent religions and nations and cultures. There’s no shortage of enemies to the Christian faith. We have them now in spades, throughout our own country, in our states, in our communities, and in our government, state and federal institutions.
You see, from the moment John the Baptist appeared from the wilderness, baptizing in the River Jordan and preaching repentance for the remission of sins, through this present moment in history, the Christian faith, the religion of faith and hope and love and peace, attested to by the epistle lesson this morning, the Christian faith and the Christian church, as well as individual Christians, have enemies that seek our collective extinction.
Yet in the lesson this morning, Romans chapter 12, Paul invites Christians not only to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, but he also tells us to bless those who persecute us. That’s verse 14. In so doing, he echoes what Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 5:44, “Pray for those who persecute you,” and again in Luke 6:27, “Do good to those who hate you.” Here Paul tells us what it means to do good to those who hate us, to do good toward those who persecute us. He says, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he’s thirsty, give him a drink.” He doesn’t even deny that they’re enemies. He simply states what it is they do: enemies persecute Christians.
He has specific people in mind, namely the people who are persecuting, or one person who’s persecuting another person, on account of their Christian faith. Namely, people who persecute you. These are the people to whom Paul is referring, people taking active actions that demonstrate to the world, and to the one being persecuted, that the persecutor is in fact a true enemy of the faith, of the Christian church. He’s talking about family members and neighbors and acquaintances who take direct actions. But he’s not talking about neighbors and families and co-workers who just are ignorant and blind about the true doctrines of the Christian faith. In other words, not all unbelievers are enemies in that sense. Even Jesus said, “For he who is not against us is for us.” That is, he who is not taking direct action to destroy or impede us in our work, they’re not enemies, they’re just people.
Paul doesn’t single out a lineup of usual suspects in his epistle. He doesn’t rant and rave or go after the infamous centurions or tax collectors or scribes or priests or Pharisees. He doesn’t target Egyptian polytheists or Gentile pagans as the primary opponent and problem for the Christian faith and the Christian church. In Ephesians 6:11-12, he tells us exactly who is our real enemy. He writes, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you’ll be able to withstand the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against powers, against forces of this world, of this darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
In the Gospel lesson, Peter becomes before Jesus an obstacle to the work of Christ, and Jesus rightly says to him, “Get behind Me, Satan.” That is, Peter is mouthing a temptation from the devil to oppose the work of the cross, and Jesus summarily and immediately dismisses him. Yet in the epistle lesson, Paul speaks of an enemy nearer to you than this. He speaks of that entity in another epistle, Colossians 1:21: “You were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.” That is, we all, Christians, who were once just purely evil people, doing things evil against the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we were once enemies of God and of His Law and of His Word. And that old enemy still lives within us.
This old nature creates a conflict within us, between the new nature: “For I have a desire to do what is right, but I’m not able to carry it out. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I do not want to do, and that’s what I keep on doing. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” There he paraphrases where the real enemy is. This is the real enemy that causes most of the trouble in the life of a faithful church. The most dangerous of all enemies of the Gospel is our own self. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Romans 3:10: “All have sinned and fall short together. They have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.” In Mark 10:18, Jesus said of us, “No one is good except God alone.” Nobody. And against our innate desire to take up and eat, self-interest, pass through life, Jesus says, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Jesus says this because He understands that in the heart and mind of each Christian, there is a war going on between the old and the new, between the right believing and the wrong believing.
There’s a lot of theology, by the way, in Romans 12:20: “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Paul uses a kind of interesting Greek word there, anthrakia. That word translates into English “burning coals.” We derive our English word anthrax from that Greek word. The word anthrax designates an infection brought about by the bacillus anthracis bacteria. That’s a pathogen that feeds on the protein in blood. It can be contagious to animals and to human beings, and also can be transmitted from a human to an animal. It’s in the soil, it’s in the grass, and sometimes the conditions are right for it to become deadly, and then eaten by an animal, and thus anthrax spreads. The pathogen can remain dormant, hidden inside that soil, for extended periods of time, even years, only to be reactivated under certain conditions. That’s why anthrax is the most used biological weapon in the arsenal of any nation.
The old sinful nature, you see, is like anthrax. It smolders within us. It’s just under the surface. Our own sinfulness kindles and fuels anger and animosity toward people, and often makes enemies out of people that may not be our enemies. In anger, we say and do things that inflame and burn others. Our sinful selfishness sears and scorches us to our very core. Our anxiety and arrogance and embarrassment and outrage scalds us, makes us tough and dry, again in body and soul and mind, towards other people. At times, we make enemies of our own neighbors and co-workers and family and friends, simply because they stepped on our toes. Most of all, we make an enemy of the Word of God when we ignore it, or we use it to justify wrongdoing, or dismiss it when it goes against what we want to do.
But you see, the Lord has coals of His own. He’s got two kinds of coals. He’s got coals of consuming, and coals of cleansing. He said to us in verse 19 and 20: “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. So if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he’s thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Jesus puts the apostle Paul in mind here of all those times in the Old Testament that the Lord God utilized coals, enlisted its servants, that combustible sedimentary rock, as a means of judgment and also as a means of grace. A holy fire of judgment to punish sin, and a holy fire of healing and grace. Isaiah wrote of his first encounter in the temple with the Lord God: “And one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth, and he said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips, and your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.'”
Then there’s the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement. Once a year, going to the tabernacle or to the temple, where sacrifices were made and burned upon an altar with coals on fire. We’re told about the smell of the sacrifice, that it’s pleasing to the Lord God. It’s a sweet incense that hovers over the mercy seat. Leviticus 16:12-13: “And Aaron shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense, beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil. Put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he, that is, the priest Aaron, does not die.” It’s a saving fire, a saving coal, cleansing him of sin, based solely on the mercy seat of the Lord God in the Old Testament.
Think also of the charcoal fire that warmed Peter on the night in which Jesus was betrayed, and just minutes before Peter denied Jesus for the third time. Think of the lyrics from a song of deliverance written by King David, 2 Samuel chapter 22: “The earth reeled and rocked, and the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked, because He, the Lord God, was angry. Smoke went up from His nostrils, and devouring fire from His mouth. Glowing coals flamed forth from Him.” That’s a coal of judgment, of people that are about to be consumed by the holy Law of the Lord God.
Then in Job, after all those chapters of suffering and questioning and doubt and wondering and accusing, the prophet speaks: “His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from His mouth.” Yep, another Bible verse of judgment and burning coal. Psalm 140:10: “Let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into fire, into miry pits, no more to rise.”
Think of Jesus, sweltering under the hellfire judgment of the Lord God and His forsakenness on the cross of Good Friday, in order to atone for you, for your sins. Not with burning coals, but with His own flesh and blood. You see, the coal of judgment touched Jesus, and that coal of judgment that touched Jesus made Jesus your grace, your saving grace. It’s the same grace that touched the lips of the prophet Isaiah. On your behalf, Jesus endured the flaming wrath of an angry God. He then returned to the earth from which humanity came, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Christ, the coal of judgment, for you, once and for all.
Think of Jesus making a charcoal fire and roasting fish that warmed the disciples in the cool of the morning, burning away their guilt at a post-Easter breakfast, for those who had abandoned Him on Good Friday. Think as well of the fanning fire that fell on Pentecost, going out as tongues and fingers of fire onto the heads and into the hearts of the disciples who had forsaken Him on Good Friday, giving them theological clarity and courage to proclaim the good news, the Gospel of grace and peace.
Our Lord has coals of judgment for consuming, and He has coals of grace for forgiving. And He says to us, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” That’s a quote that Paul used from Proverbs 25:21. Both passages teach that it’s not for us to administer justice or vengeance on our enemies, or the enemies of the church. It is given to us to treat our enemies as if they are our neighbors. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If your enemy is thirsty, give him a drink. Do not overcome evil by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Believe, see, and be glad that it is not yours to pass judgment on the people, whether they’re saved or not saved, whether they will burn with the wrath of God or be graciously ushered into the heavenly kingdom as a brother and sister of yours. Instead, help yourself to the coals of the warmth, the coals of God’s Word, in the midst of a bitter and cold world. Take hold of the declarative Word of God that forgives you all your sins, and usually utilizes things like bread and wine and water, and even coal, as means of grace to forgive you all your sins.
Make use of the Word and the Sacrament ministry of the church, the sterilizing coals that crown your head, you baptized and beloved of the Father, who purified you with a holy fire, and purifies your faith (1 Peter 1:7). Trust the atoning coal that touches your lips as you commune, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
See, your troublemakers, your rivals, the ignorant, so have I. We are the criminals. But God has made such people easy to identify, and has administered to us the coals of His kindness. There are enemies of the faith all around us, and as it turns out, we have met the enemy, and he is us. For while we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. Much more, having been reconciled, we are being saved by His life. Thanks be to God, He has burned you clean. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.