BCP/RCL - Son, your sins are forgiven

'"Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, `Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Stand up and take your mat and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' -- he said to the paralytic-- 'I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home."'

Against my own advice I have decided that I will indeed read for Homiletics 3. In so doing I have been introduced to a theologian, who at least based on his Homiletical Theology will enter my top 5 all-time theologian list, Karl Barth.

Barth writes in his book, Homiletics (trans 1991) regarding preaching on sin, "Sin must be spoken about only as the sin which is taken away by the Lamb of God. Christian preaching deals with sin as forgiven sin." In all reality this is the Good News, this is why we have a Gospel, this is why we preach. From the time of Jesus onward to this moment it is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven" than it is to say words of miraculous healing, "stand up and take your mat and walk." For Christ came, while we were still sinners, to save us from temptation. Jesus died doing just that so that we might say, "Son, your sins are forgiven." And yet, our sin continues day by day. Christ came to forgive the sins of humanity, and Christ will come again to perfect the reconciliation of humanity and God. Again Barth, "This once-for-all event is at one and the same time both the whence of believers and their wither." We preach sin as sin forgiven knowing that on this old earth we will never fully understand the unimaginable grace of God. We know sin as sin forgiven only with the understanding of sin eradicated when Jesus returns to fulfill Emmanuel, to return us to that place where there is no yes or no, but only the "yes" of God walking with us side-by-side on the other side.

I will continue to preach sin as sin forgiven, with the understanding that sin is still sin, until such time as Christ returns to perfect my fallen body, mind, and spirit to sin as sin no more.