Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, who’s the fairest one of all?
[Brynn Shewman is going to help us with the story of Snow White.]
What is interesting about mirrors—both the one in the fairytale and those that are found in our houses, cars, and otherwise—is that they never lie. The only thing they can do is reveal to us the image we project. Said Samuel Butler, the 19th Century British novelist, Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
If the enchanted mirror had been able to
– look beneath the skin-deep beauty of Snow White’s stepmother,
– peer into the dark and murky depths of her heart,
– examine the condition of her cold, cruel soul . . .
its answer would never have been so complimentary.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall . . .
All of today’s lessons invoke this sense of taking a good, long look at ourselves—to observe and assess not just the image we project, but the condition of our hearts and spirits in our daily walk with God.
– Observe the commandments, says the author of Deuteronomy;
– Look into the law of liberty, says the Apostle James;
– And, says Jesus, Do you not see that what goes into a person can’t make them impure, but it’s the ugliness that comes out of them that defiles?
These words of Scripture aim at the heart of this tension between
– what we see in the mirror and what sticks in our souls,
– what the world grasps and what God embraces,
– what is psychically rotten and what is spiritually good.
It’s a tension that we know well, isn’t it?
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall . . .
Luther Seminary professor Craig Koester asserts that today’s lessons inspire two questions: “Who is God?” And “Who are you?”
Our guitar group has taught us the song “Open the Eyes of My Heart.” So let’s do that now; let’s ask God to open the eyes of our hearts and see if, in answering these questions, we can discover something about God and about ourselves that will bless our ability to see God in all that we do.
Question. #1: “Who is God?”
– God is author of creation (Hymn 554 “This is my Father’s World”).
– God is giver of the commandments.
– God is all of the omni’s: omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere present), omnipotent (all powerful).
– God is jealous of our affection, wrathful against sin.
With that in mind, here’s question #2: “Who are you?” What do you see when you look in the mirror?
To answer this question, I guess the first thing we have to do is take a look back over our own histories. If yours is like mine, it’s a mixed bag of
– joys and sorrows,
– successes and failures,
– the shining light of faith and the dark night of doubt,
– memories that make us smile—as well as those that fill us with regret.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall . . .
And though pleasant recollections can often warm our hearts, it’s those painful memories that can grasp our hearts in their icy grip. And here is the brick wall that we hit whenever we look at ourselves in the harsh light of truth and stare into the mirror of our souls laid bare. James commands us: rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness (1:21).
And we ask, How? How can we stop sinning?
How can we cleanse those memories that fill us with guilt?
How are we to rid our minds of thoughts that are twisted with anger?
How are we to find peace when we feel lost in a fog of anxiety and grief?
The Apostle Paul, in Romans, chapter 7, says it like this:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it…So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. He ends by crying: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
With this plea, this prayer, this petition of Paul’s pounding in our ears, there is a final question for us to ask: “Who are we once we know who God is?”
– Forgiven—and given for God’s service.
– Dead to the world’s ways—and alive in the life of Christ.
– Sinners who are sorry—and saints who celebrate God’s abundant grace.
– Hearers and doers of the Word—as James says: caring for orphans and widows in their distress and keeping ourselves unstained by the world.
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?
You are; and you are, too; and so am I; and so is everyone out there! So let’s go tell them and show them—for the sake of Jesus Christ who died and rose that all might live. Amen.
Pastor Scott Fuller