Limits

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga, there is a scene where the band of good guys are racing through the underground realm of Moria, and they are confronted with an ancient evil foe risen from the lowest depths of the earth. The Balrog comes up from the darkness and pursues them through the caverns and halls, until they reach the bridge of Khazad-Dum, a narrow stone bridge spanning an abyss that falls into the very heart of the earth. The men, dwarves, and hobbits race across the bridge toward safety, but, seeing that they are in dire danger, Gandalf the wizard stops in the middle of the bridge, plants his magical staff, and defies the enormous ancient beast, shouting, “You shall not pass!” The demon tries with all its might to attack Gandalf, but the light holds fast against the darkness, until Gandalf strikes the bridge, shattering it and sending the Balrog down into the abyss, allowing the rest of the Fellowship to escape. However, at the last second, the demon's whip grabs Gandalf and pulls him down, too.

Notice what Gandalf does to protect the rest of the Fellowship. He plants himself in harm's way and announces to the evil force, “You shall not pass!” He sets the limit, beyond which the evil may not go, and behind which the good guys are safe, for the time being. Gandalf draws the line, where the border between evil and good, darkness and light, is tangible. He stands at the boundary and proclaims it. Then, as it happens, he gives his life to enforce the boundary. No one shall harm the Fellowship while Gandalf has something to do with it.

While Lord of the Rings is fantasy and fiction, the set limits of nature, of good and evil, of heaven and hell, are no fiction. And the God who sets these limits is no joke; nor is He an old wizard with a funky-looking staff. The Lord God, King of the Universe, He is the one who sets the limits on all creation.

As the Lord spoke to Job, He is the one who set the creation in its ordered courses and ordains the limits for all of nature. He stretched out the heavens in the firmament like a tent. He placed the heavenly bodies in their places by His almighty and creative Word. He set the seas in their places and fixed their borders with dry land. He made the mountains rise and the canyons sink. He makes the earth spin and revolve. He makes life possible, and makes all life which is possible. He sets the limits and parameters according to His great mercy.

The Lord of Hosts also sets the limits on disaster. When a calamity befalls the people of this earth, the temptation always comes to ask, “Why some, and not others?” The better question would be, “Why not all?” The Lord, in His infinite – although often inscrutable – mercy, maintains that no world-wide calamity will come to pass. When that tornado veers just the other side of the farm, it is because of God's mercy. When that grave illness makes your loved one deathly ill, but does not kill him, it is because of God's mercy.

The selfsame King of the Universe even controls the laws of nature. He sets the amount of gravity on our planet so as to maintain life as we know it. He makes possible the scientific discoveries that we put to work every day by keeping the forces of nature acting in a regular, well-ordered fashion. He makes it so that dangerous and toxic chemicals like sodium and chlorine combine to form extremely useful and necessary compounds like table salt. He is the God who has created such a miraculous and unique substance as water. What you take for granted as constant is only so because God keeps it constant.

All these are just a handful of examples of what we might well call God's mercy. God's kindness and providential care shown to an indifferent, and even hostile, creation is evidence of His mercy at work for you. He sets the limits on His creation for your good, even when you do not realize it or acknowledge it. He is the one who says to the forces of creation, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther.” (Job 38:11) This is all for your good, for your benefit.

But you do not like it. Limits bother you. Your old, sinful nature chafes at limits and boundaries and borders and fences. The grass is always greener on the other side. The other side of the road is always more interesting than your side.

The trouble with limits, for your sinful nature, is that you want to cross them. If someone draws a line in the sand, you walk up and put your toes on it. You ask, do I have to cross the line, or just break the plane, to get in trouble? How far do I have to go to get in trouble? Maybe you would like to stick your neck out like a cow poking through a fence, straining to get the grass on the other side, even though you have a bunker of feed within easy reach inside your yard.

This is the issue of gross, active, wanton sin. The Law says “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy,” and you ask “How often do I have to?” The Law says “You shall not murder,” and you ask “How much can I hurt someone? The Law says “You shall not commit adultery,” and you ask “How far can we go?”

Or maybe you do not even stop to ask the “How much” questions. You just charge across the line, rushing in where angels fear to tread. After all, an estimated 60% of couples in the United States live together without marriage for some period of time, as likely as not to result in children, often never to get married. Scores of people download music they have not purchased. Our country has an epidemic of people using prescription drugs longer than prescribed, or for reasons totally unrelated to the original prescription.

On the other side of the coin, limits bother you precisely because you are afraid of what is on the other side. Sometimes you can see what is on the other side of the line. You walk outside after a tornado has barely missed you, and see what it has done to your neighbor. You walk through the hospital while visiting a loved one, and see the other people in various sorts of great distress. You look out your window at night and see the darkness, and you might stop to think about what lurks out in the shadows.

And the fear of the limits goes deeper than that. You know that you have crossed the line. You know how far you have gone, what laws you have broken. You know that it is not a question of how much or how far, but a matter of desiring what you cannot have. You know that you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You have broken the Law, and you have done so over and over again, both willingly and unwittingly.

You know the limits, and you know that you have crossed them, going the wrong way. And so you live in fear of what lies on the other side. For, like the Fellowship of the Ring faced with the Balrog, you face the devil and all his works and all his forces, ready to devour you and drag you down to hell where your sins say you should be. You know what you deserve, because the limits have been imposed upon your heart from the moment of your conception. And you, having been recreated in Christ, still have the vestiges of the old, sinful nature tugging you downward, urging you on toward sin and masking the glory of God from your sight.

But look at what Jesus does. He sets the limits of the storm. He has already set the limits of the ship, simply by having created the lake and setting it in the midst of dry land. He sets the limits of the water, and shows them thusly by walking upon its surface. He defines the limits by inviting Peter out onto the water with Him. And He shows His mercy by not allowing Peter to drown, even though Peter falters and doubts.

Notice, though, that Jesus does allow Peter to sink. What happened to Peter? “When he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me.'” He took his eyes off the One who had called him, and he became afraid because he was over the natural limit of human abilities. He was afraid of the wind, and he forgot about the One standing in front of him, the Son of the Living God who controls the wind and the waves, and who sets the limits to all things and all people. Sometimes, in His inestimable mercy, our Lord allows His people to sink a bit, in order to realize that you need to fix your eyes on Him, and not on the storms and stresses of this life. He sets the limits, and He keeps back the evil.

For you, O men, and for your salvation, Jesus has already set the limits. He has set the limit for sin with His holy cross. For just as Gandalf planted his staff in Durin's Bridge, shattering it and sending the Balrog to the abyss, so Christ has planted His holy cross at the edge of life and death, heaven and hell. He has fixed His death as the limit of death. The devil may come to attack and accuse you, but he may not pass the cross of Christ. He may not hold your sins against you, because they have been nailed to the cross, and they have been dealt with there and expunged from your record. The emblem of light and good has been planted, and darkness and evil cannot encompass it.

The Balrog managed to pull Gandalf down into the abyss with it, ensuring his death in the process. But it did not devour the rest of the Fellowship. Likewise, the devil devoured our Lord Christ, enveloping Him in death and seeing Him buried in the tomb, encased in the earth. But our Lord did not fall into hell willy-nilly, nor did He stay there. No, Christ strode down into hell and broke down the gates that held His people captive to sin and death. He defeated your death, and rose to give you new life. He rose from the abyss to proclaim to you that the limit has been set. The confines of your former prison are now the confines of your accuser.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has died so that the limit of life and death might be set in your favor. He has rescued you from sin, death, and the devil by placing His all-availing sacrifice on the cross between you and the pit of hell. Your sins are there, and not on you. They are covered in the blood of Christ, and you are washed clean in the same blood, which makes you white as snow. You are sundered from the multitude of the unbelieving, and added to the number of the faithful, who are preserved, just like Peter, in the holy ark of Christendom. For just as our Lord pulled Peter up out of the water and put him back into the boat, so has He lifted you from the watery grave and set you up in the great ship of the holy catholic Church.

So when the devil rages against you, remember that his limit is fixed. He may not enter into heaven to accuse you. He may not stand against you before God. He may not drag you down into hell, so long as you remain safely behind the cross of Christ. Whatever you have done in the past, whatever lines you have crossed, whatever laws you have broken – all this is history, expunged from the record and erased from existence. Your sins are forgiven, and the devil has nothing to say about them. He has been judged, and sentenced to hell. You have been judged, and declared righteous for Christ's sake.

The Lord of Hosts has set the limits of nature and the boundaries of nature's laws. He has set the limits of your abilities and talents. He has set the limits of the evil that may befall you. And all this He has done for your good. Trust in His mercy, that He will preserve you from all evil. And rejoice to believe and confess the forgiveness of sins found only in the cross of Christ. Trust that the cross of Christ shall stand forever as the limit of the Law's accusation against you, and the limit of the devil's power. He can harm you none. One little word can fell him.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.