It's Lutheran day at the RCL, apparently... The texts today solidly take our righteousness and remove it from our hands as a means of attaining salvation, asserting that belief holds the power in our salvation.
"And you, mortal, say to your people, 'The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousness when they sin.'"
How delicate our lives are - our righteousness is not enough to save us from our sin, but our wickedness is not such that we are unable to turn from it to seek God. It is not that righteousness is not important; it is simply that it is on that upon which we depend for salvation. If it was our own righteousness that saved us, what need would there have been for Christ? The reading from John takes this one step further:
"You search scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life... I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?"
"If another comes in his own name, you will accept him." We are compelled by shows of power and prestige and tempted to make that the object of our hope. We hope that our presidents will bring us out of our financial circumstances, we hope that our military will ensure peace for us and our children, we hope that our church leaders will help the church find a healthy and thriving future... but none of these leaders can accomplish our salvation. That upon which we set our hope, that which we grasp through faith, that is what we claim as our God. We claim the promises of Christ even as we wait for their fulfillment. To place our ultimate hope in anything else is to trade the actual thing for its shadow.
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