Riddle me this:

There is an irresolvable conflict that rests within the heart of God and therefore an irresolvable conflict within the entire universe, which after all is just his footstool. Over here is the infinite God who can do anything he decides to do…who says let there be light and there is light….And over there is the finite and flawed human “us”, who can’t do right even if he wants to, and often doesn’t want to in the first place. The aching heart of god contains two contradictory ideas…that man must pay for his own sins, that is justice which is what God forever, by his nature, must have, and yet man must go free from his sins so he can be with God, because that is what God wants the most. Hear the contradiction in a nutshell in this account in Exodus: And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." What God wants more than anything else is us, you and me, our love, our voluntary obedience motivated out of love and respect, in short he wants intimate friendship with us, the only ones in creation who can be called his own offspring. But our sin gets in the way. Habakkuk 1:13 says, his eyes are too pure to look on evil. He is God…The one thing he cannot do is contradict his own nature. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus sits down on a hillside and introduces us to God’s standard of righteousness, and I for one have always found it to be a terrifying thing … as high above my generation’s idea of morality as the moon is above my back yard. Look at a beautiful woman walking by on the street with lust in your heart; you are equal to a man having an affair with another man’s wife. Can’t control your wandering eye? Dig it out with a screwdriver. Can’t keep your hands off things that don’t belong to you? Cut them off with a hacksaw. Angry with your brother without a good reason, to God you are as good as a murderer. Or try this: somebody slaps you, don’t fight back, but instead haul around your other cheek so he can have another go at it. And from what I can tell God doesn’t grade on the curve. These ethics seem to us like climbing Everest…theoretically possible, but in practice simply unattainable. First time I turned to Matthew 5 to find out what the good news is I, like the young man in Matthew 19, went away sorrowful, because like him I was not willing to give away the ethical system I already owned. In Romans Paul said you could be saved if you lived a righteous life…but no one does. The prophet Isaiah wrote:
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
When offered the sumptuous and fulfilling lives of royal sons and daughters we choose instead seventy years of hog troughs filled with cheap thrills and petty substitutes He has followed us down through the years like a broken hearted father, sending prophets, miracles, voices from the sky, smoke and fire from the mountaintops, floating axe heads, suddenly visible armies of angels materializing in the clouds, anything but waving his gigantic arms and we keep running away and as we look back we laugh in his face. God with a weeping voice says what else can I do? Praise god there is an answer: Today, those of us who are on the other side of the grave of baptism, can sing the song the elders sang in Revelation 5: Worthy is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. What happened was, a lamb without blemish found, and was led forward and placed on the altar before the living God. It seems it was God’s one and only son. It apparently was always destined to be so. His throat was cut, his blood was spilled, and he was of such perfection that the sacrifice was accepted. This sacrifice was sufficient to cover all the sin of those who would rely on it, even yours, even mine. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. If you are one of the imperfect ones who doesn’t live the Sermon on the Mount this is what you must have faith in. This is what you must rely on. It is reliance on this that is what this meal represents, and it is that faith that makes you eligible to participate in this holy meal today. Paul says examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith, in short, to see whether you are a Christian.