O Felix Culpa!

Sermon for the Octave Sunday of Easter

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

With hindsight, you can look at an argument and see that it wasn't your fault.

With hindsight, you can look at your accident and see that it could have been worse.

With hindsight, you can see the unforeseen benefits to that pain you had.

[PAUSE]

Hindsight is a terrible thing.

With hindsight, you can see that that accident was entirely your fault.

With hindsight, you can see that things could have been done much better.

With hindsight, you can see that your efforts to help made things a lot worse.

Either way, with hindsight we get a different perspective of events that have occurred.

[PAUSE]

There is a notion called Felix Culpa - the happy fault or happy sin. The idea goes that, if Adam hadn't sinned in the first place, then we would never have seen how much God loves us. We can say that with hindsight. How does that make you feel, though?

Perhaps you think that if Adam hadn't sinned then God would have shown us how much He loves us in a less painful, less bloody way.

Perhaps you think that this makes human beings extra guilty for forcing God to take such terrible action to bring us back.

Perhaps you think that this is all God's fault for planting a tree that would cause so much pain that He only has Himself to blame, so the crucifixion is His own fault.

Hindsight does not solve "what if" problems.

[PAUSE]

What we have is human sin and human death, God's love and God's death, God's Resurrection and human resurrection. Those are the facts.

Because we sin, we die for the wages of sin is death - separation from God.

Because we die, Jesus dies to pay our ransom. 

Whom does He pay? 

Does He pay God? Is God a feudal lord who demands justice? Does He demand satisfaction? Where's the love in that? Where's the forgiveness?

Does He pay the Devil? Who gave him permission to rule us? Is God powerless? Or are we toys for God to share with the Devil?

Does He pay Death itself? Yes! For Death is an absence of Life and Sin is an absence of Good. Both sin and death are debts - they need resolution. God's death fills them and, in filling them, destroys them. It is like destroying a hole by filling it in. 

Sin is an absence of Good: only God can fill it for only God is perfect Goodness.

Death is an absence of Life: only God can fill it for only God is perfect Life.

Paying the ransom destroys the power of death and sin over us.

[PAUSE]

We look back at Good Friday and see that it may have been agony, but it was supreme victory. The whole life of Christ with us is the supreme victory.

Yes, we sinned, but we have been given more than we ever lost. We have been given God with us! 

O Felix Culpa, indeed!