OK, so this week, the Second week of Lent, we have this great Old Testament lesson about Jacob wrestling with the Lord and a wonderful Gospel lesson about the Canaanite woman whom Jesus calls a dog but she keeps after Him anyway, trusting in His mercy and grace. But then it seems like there's this completely unrelated Epistle Lesson about keeping our bodies pure and not cheating our neighbor and God's will that we live in holiness. So your pastor has gone to work wracking his brain trying to see the connection between these wonderful stories that teach us to pray and this little blurb about holiness from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. How are they connected? It occurred to me as I prepared for Catechesis: if our lives are going to be holy, over against the disgusting ways of the world, the only way is that they will be holy in Christ and our lives will be a struggle of prayer to the Lord to keep us in His holiness against the world which seeks to make us unholy and bogged down in its filth and sin. So there it is: our lives as Christians are a struggle for holiness in this world. It is a battle in which we pray hard to the Lord to preserve us from the devil, the world and our flesh (as we just learned in the Third Petition) and as we learn that living in holiness means living in Christ.

Because the world doesn't care how you live. Paul targets two particular sins: sexual immorality and defrauding others. That's the world's lifestyle. The world doesn't condemn promiscuous and casual sex. The world doesn't care what you look at on the internet or in secret. It doesn't care what sort of lifestyle you live. It doesn't care if you get married and then find someone to cheat with or if you get divorced for no good reason. In fact, the world's one motto is: do what feels good as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Sometimes not even that condition is made! And what about cheating others? We know this is the way of the world. Get something from others without hard work and without compensating them. Do whatever it takes to get ahead of someone else. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Make up rumors about them to make them look bad and you look good. Remember: to the world, sexual immorality and cheating and defrauding are just the way to do things. That's life. But the Lord sees such filth and wickedness and it is vile and cursed in His sight. There is our repentance, brothers and sisters in Christ: to turn and flee from such thoughts and words and deeds that stink of the world's way of doing things. To flee to Christ and to plead for our Lord to make us holy and keep us holy, just as His Name is holy.

But holiness is not what some churches think: that you can somehow master your sins and not commit them anymore. As if we have the power to shut off our sins and start keeping God's Law! No, the Lord demands holiness and we can't do it! So our only hope is Jesus Christ. And our hope is not in Jesus showing us what holiness looks like so that we can imitate Him. Sure, we should try to be pure as Jesus is pure. But not even than saves us. No, holiness is what Jesus Himself is and has. Holiness is that HE does not sin. Holiness is that Jesus has no lusts of the flesh to which He gives in. Holiness is that Jesus doesn't take advantage of others to His own benefit. Holiness is that Jesus fulfills the Law and keeps the commandments perfectly. Holiness is that Jesus truly and completely and perfectly fears, loves and trusts in the Father above all things and that He loves His neighbor as Himself, even greater than Himself! Holiness is that Jesus pays the just penalty for our sins and takes upon Himself the deserved punishment for our transgressions. Where our lives are full of filth and sin and the pollution of our sinful nature, Jesus takes upon Himself our sin and becomes the curse for us on the cross. There, on Calvary, His holiness defeats our sin. His perfect blood flows and covers our sins. His perfection covers our imperfection and His suffering and death clean us. Now, given in Baptism, He washes us clean of our sins and puts on us the robe of His holiness. Now, in the words of absolution, He dry cleans that robe to make it shiny white again. Now, with His flesh and blood given us to eat and drink, He who is holy lives in us. Now, when St. Paul tells us that the will of God is our sanctification, our holiness, we can say: Covered outside with Jesus and filled inside with Him, we are holy inside and out! God does not see your sins. Take comfort in that whenever you fall into sins: the Lord does not see them because you are covered in Christ!

Now pay close attention dear Christians: being covered by Jesus means that you cannot be condemned for your sins. But that doesn't mean the Lord desires to leave you to continue in your sins and believe falsely that you can live however you want because it's all covered anyway. When an artist is carving a statue, he covers it when he is not working on it. He covers it so that we don't see the ugly block of stone that is chipped and carved. We don't have to look at it. But that sculptor IS making something out of that block that will one day be a beautiful masterpiece. Just so our Lord covers us, but He is also actually working in us by His Spirit to become sinless people. That will not happen in this life. Our sin will not be gone until the Last Day. But until then, the Spirit is at work in us, teaching us God's Word and to turn away from impurity and selfishness. The Spirit is at work to teach husbands and wives to love and honor only each other and single people to be chaste and patient. He is teaching us to look outside of ourselves to others and what they need us to do for them. That means we struggle. We struggle to call ourselves Christians when we still struggle with sin. So don't measure your standing with God by how holy you LOOK. Measure your holiness only by Jesus. Yet on the other hand, don't take yous sins lightly! Struggle against them! Pray hard every day for God's name to be hallowed and His kingdom to come and His will to be done. Don't let the devil come in with His lies and the world with its false advertising and your flesh with its willing ways to drag you away from Christ and to think sins are OK and you don't need to worry about them! When that happens, flee to Christ. Back to your Baptism, where the pure robe is given! Back to confession and absolution to cancel Satan's power! Back to the Lord's Supper to have more of that holy and perfect Jesus given to you! And it is Jesus, covering you inside and out that is your holiness even to the Last Day.

So, let's review: The Second Week of Lent teaches us to pray and to cling to Christ. Just like Jacob. Just like the Canaanite woman. And we are taught to live in holiness. Against the world's invitation to love ourselves we pray for God's grace and mercy in Jesus. We live in holiness, the holiness of Christ who covers us with His holiness and righteousness, wipes out our sins by His forgiveness, and preserves us in Himself until the Last Day when He raises us from the dead, perfect and holy for God's glory and the joy of those with whim we will spend eternal life! Holiness is Jesus. For Jacob. For the dog-lady. For you. Amen.