The Remedy

Scripture: Romans 5:12-19

It used to be called consumption.  This is because for a lot of the infected people who were symptomatic the disease would slowly progress, consuming more and more of the person’s health and vitality until it eventually killed them.  In the 1800’s, as industrialization led to more people being  packed tightly together, the threat of consumption spread.  At its height it was responsible for a quarter of all deaths in Europe.   Special facilities called sanatoriums were built specifically to treat and house afflicted patients.  In the United States more than 1,000 of these facilities were built.  We no longer call disease consumption today, because today tuberculosis is curable.  A vaccine was created in 1906 and in 1946 antibiotics offered an effective cure.  

Despite there being a vaccine for more than a century and a cure for eighty years, tuberculosis has never been eradicated.  Worldwide, the disease continues to be an ongoing issue.  In fact, it was estimated in 2024 that there were around 10.7 million new infections, and annually tuberculosis kills more than 1.2 million people, making it the leading cause of death from an infectious disease.  It is a tragedy and an absolute failure of our global systems that a curable disease still causes so much suffering.   The world has the technology and the collective resources to get the deaths caused by tuberculosis as close to zero as possible, but so far global leaders have not made the choice to do so.  

 It is unfortunate that a disease with an established cure still causes so much harm in the world today.   Yet, for much longer the same has been true about the spiritual lives of people.   As this morning’s scripture points out, sin is a spiritual affliction with a 100% infection rate.   It is a spiritual affliction that causes untold suffering and real harm in the world.   This morning’s scripture also points out that God has provided a cure.  Jesus Christ is the remedy for that which ails us.  

 The book of Romans can sometimes be a hard book to approach, because it tends to be one the denser books in the bible.  In Romans Paul seeks to bridge the divide between Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome’s Christian community, and he seek to do so through doctrine and theology.   As such, Romans is a methodical book constructed with philosophical logic.  Each layer builds upon and then expands the layer just laid down.   This structure can make it difficult to consider in part, because whatever scripture we read from Romans it is likely deeply connected to the surrounding section and cannot be easily pulled out.   We find that dynamic in this morning’s scripture.  

 It is in this morning’s scripture we find the conclusion to one of Paul’s points and the introduction to what will be the major focus for the next several chapters.   Paul was trying to bridge the gap between two different cultures, so one of the beginning arguments in Romans is the importance of the Jewish law.   Paul makes the point that the law, found in the first five books of the bible, is helpful and necessary because it defines what is right and wrong.  It gives a clear direction to what righteousness looks like.  While this would have been old news to the Jewish believers, Paul made a meticulous case for the importance of the law for the gentile believers as well.  However, he points out there is a problem.   The law does not save.  As Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”   The law of God found in our Old Testament, is helpful for knowing what is right and wrong but it is powerless to save us from the power of sin when we fall short.

 I have had the privilege to teach confirmation classes a number of times over the years.  In teaching young people, the basic beliefs of Christianity and the unique aspects of our United Methodist heritage, we will talk about sin.  I will ask them for an example of a sin, and every single time I have taught confirmation the very first answer given is murder.  It makes sense, because it is something we all know to be wrong-and it is something that we likely believe we will never do.   When it comes to sin, we try to make short cuts by creating list of sinful behaviors, and often the least tempted we are to do one of the behaviors the more likely we are to hold it up as a clear example of sin.  

Sin is more than just a list of behaviors though.  There are many ways to define sin.  Perhaps the shortest is that sin is willfully doing what we know is wrong.   A more complete definition of sin would be that sin is any thought or action that fall short of God’s will.   The greatest consequence of sin is that our sinful actions separate us from God.  So, any actions that move us further away from God is sin.   This is why this morning’s scripture begins by focusing on Adam.  The creation story found in Genesis tell us of Adam and his partner Eve.   We can read in Genesis chapter 3 how they chose to take a step away form God, and how that act of rebellion put sin into the world, polluting the relationship of people with God. 

Sin, fracturing the relationship with God, has created the spiritual reality we find ourselves in.  It is not that people are born naturally sinful, but we live in a world, corrupted by sin, and because of that we cannot escape the corruption ourselves. Theologian Randy Maddox, who sought to define John Wesley’s practical theology in his book Responsible Grace, calls this state inbeing sin.  Being separated from God distorts our nature and inclines us to sinful actions that move us further from God  Like a virus, we are all inevitably infected by sin.   In trying to summarize John Wesley’s viewpoint on this Maddox wrote, “From this spiritual corruption, spring our actual sins, which affect all . . .relationships definitive of human life.  We no longer consistently love and serve other humans; . . .our own happiness and self-acceptance drain away.” 

This is spiritual state, infected by sin, that we find our world in.   It should not take a lot of convincing to the truth of this.  We can see the evidence all around us.   We can the systemic abuses that enrich the selfish.   We see the suffering that pride and greed create.   We see oppressive systems that target vulnerable and marginalized communities, and it seems that cruelty is the point that motivates far, far too many.   This is not the way that it should be.  This is not the way that God created the world to work.   This is the result of rebelling against God, it is a result of countless individual, selfish choices that have moved people further and further from God.  Sin might have entered the world through one man, as this morning’s scripture states, but at this point we are all guilty.  We have all chosen ourselves over our neighbor, we have our stepped further from God through our actions.   There is no difference between us and Adam and Eve, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 

 If sinful behaviors are the result of separation from God, and sin is the cause for that separation, then Jesus is the remedy.  This is the main point that this morning’s scripture seeks to make.  The gift of Jesus, the grace poured out through him overflows and covers the sins of all.   So that all who accept him as Lord and Savior are reconciled with God, have a blessed assurance that their sins-even theirs- are forgiven.   It is Jesus who reconciles us, it is Jesus who brought about forgiveness, and it is Jesus who defeated sin and offers us the ability to be righteous, in right relationship with God our creator.   

 In Romans Paul uses doctrinal arguments to convince the Jews and Gentiles that regardless of their cultural backgrounds, they are all in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.   Scriptures like this morning’s have led to our doctrinal beliefs about the nature of sin and our continued need for Jesus today.   This morning, in this place we all fall into one of two groups.   For the first group, perhaps the idea of our separation from God, the infection of sin, and the need for a savior is new to you.   Perhaps it is not new, but it is only been an abstraction, it has been a theory on paper, and not your lived in experience. Perhaps, God feels distant to you and has always felt distant.  If that is you, then the truth of this morning’s scripture is that God will continue to seem distant without Jesus.   We can not know and fully experience the immense love of God that justifies us and then sanctifies us without Jesus in our lives.   Without Christ all of us are separated from the full love of God, and it is only through following Christ that we can experience the forgiveness of sins.  If you have never in your life truly committed to following Jesus and believing that he is the savior of the world, then it is my most sincere prayer that you would hear this morning’s scripture.  That you come to believe that Jesus is the remedy.  If you are in that group, and you want to take a step in faith then there is nothing in the world I would like more today than to have that conversation with you.  

 For the second group, this morning has mostly been review.  It has been review because you have made committed your life to following Jesus, you already consider him as your Lord and Savior.  You have already experienced the blessed assurance that comes from knowing that your sins are forgiven and covered by the amazing grace of Christ our Lord.   If you are in that group, then I hope this morning has helped provide clarity to what you already know or helped give you the ability to put what you believe into words.  If you are in this group, then I think the question before us is, what do we do with this morning’s scripture?  How do we let it impact and shape our lives today?  

In this morning’s scripture Paul makes the case that sin has separated us from God, but through the obedience of Jesus and the gift of grace offered though him forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with our creator, and a new life, a righteous life, is possible.   Perhaps the way that we let this scripture impact our lives is that we let our actions reflect the grace of Christ.   Because the world we live in, it is still infected with sin, it is still broken and fallen.   If grace and forgiveness through Christ is the remedy to this affliction, then we can be agents of grace and forgiveness.  Because when we model grace we ultimately point back to Christ.     

 A good example of what it means to model grace is what happened in Pennsylvania in 2006.   For reasons only known to him, Charles Roberts  burst into an Amish school house where he eventually killed five girls before shooting himself.   This was a senseless, inexplicable act of violence and the Amish community responded in the exact opposite way, with an inexplicable act of grace and forgiveness.    The family of Charles Roberts, who had no idea this was coming, were horrified and confused.  Mere hours after shooting, the family found members of the Amish community-including parents of the murdered children- at their doorstep.  They were not there for vengeance; they were there to comfort, to love, and to offer forgiveness.  In that dark hour the family of Charles Robert found the very people he had wronged the ones who were there to meet their needs.    The Amish community even set up a charitable fund to help the family of the shooter.   In the face of unspeakable evil, the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania modeled forgiving grace.  

 We can all choose grace.  We can all choose to forgive, and when we do we show what it looks like for sinners like us to be made righteous through Jesus the son.    The world is sick with sin, and while we cannot cure it, we do need to.  Jesus is the cure.  The good news of this morning’s scripture is that he has already won the victory.   So may we show the world what grace looks like lived out.  May we be living examples that state there is a solution to many of the problems and suffering in this world.  May how we live point to the beautiful truth that Jesus is the remedy.   May we show just how amazing grace is.