The Lover of Justice

The Transfiguration of Our Lord – March 2, 2025

Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43

Luther in his Small Catechism begins the definition of the Ten Commandments with, “We should fear, love, and trust God above everything else.” We spend a great deal of time talking about loving and trusting God while ignoring the fearing part. It has not always been that way. Luther wrote and preached much on fearing God. If you go back 100 or 200 years and read the sermons of pastors of that time, such as Jonathan Edwards, you will also find they spent a great deal of time preaching about fearing an angry God. (Edwards wrote a book titled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.) While you can still find preachers who dwell on this in their sermons, they usually are talking to those who are not Christians. Edwards and others of his time were preaching to and about Christians as was Luther. 

I bring this up because our psalm for today begins with the fear of God – that the people tremble before God. The psalmist goes on to contrast the praise of God with the fear of God. For God has established justice and equity. Those who work for equity and justice praise God but those who do not fear God. The psalmist is reminding the Israelites of the times when they forgot God’s covenant and turned back from their sin. That is why he brings up Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. As Lutherans we often forget Luther’s fear of God because we preach salvation by faith and not by works. Although, while we may not fear God, we do fear many things – violence, theft, financial ruin, and cancer to name a few. Luther asks, “Do you fear those more than God?” You see here is Luther’s point. You need not fear any of these things because God has freed us from the bondage of sin and death. The question now is, “Free to do what?”

Another characteristic of many messages from the church today answers this question with a personal twist. That message is that your life will be improved and good things will come to you because you have become a Christian. But that is not the message of the psalmist. His message is for the whole people of God. That we work to bring justice and equity to the world. We are freed from the bondage to sin and death, therefore we do not need to worry about our own lives. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we know our place in God’s kingdom and no longer need fear anything that will come up in our lives because we are fully in God’s hands. Only God can change that now (the fear part). Knowing God’s steadfast love – with God at the center of our lives we can answer Jesus’ call to pick up our cross and follow him to work for justice and equity for all people. That is something that the world desperately needs. An impossible task for any of us, but together we can work to bring justice and equity to the world where everyone is treated for what they are – God’s own creation. So resist the sins that seem so popular today – selfishness, racism, hate, and violence – and work to share God’s love to all the world. Pray that you will be able to stand up to the devil and all empty promises today and everyday as we work to make the world into the image of Jesus.