Humility and Joy - Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Trinity

Eleventh Sunday after the Trinity                        
August 28^th, A + D 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
Humility and Joy 
Luke 18:9-14 and Ephesians 2:1-10 

     Two men went up to the temple to pray. We always go up to the temple, even if the
room itself is located in a basement, as has been common throughout the history of the Christian Church, and as was the case at Our Savior’s for the first decade or so of her life.  No matter the elevation of the worship space, if we are approaching the true God, the almighty creator, to pray, and worship, we are, in the cosmic sense, always going up.  Because the Lord God is greater and better and higher than us. 

      We live in a time of radical egalitarianism, or so it is said, when any average citizen should be able to interact with presidents and rulers and kings, without nervousness and with an equal voice. I'm not sure this idea is really true in our culture, but it is certainly not so with God. Although the Lord does not make himself visible to us, as he did from time to time with ancient Israel, the reality is that the Almighty comes.  He comes down to us sinful creatures.  When we approach the Holy God to pray, the great difference between us and God must influence our behavior. We sinners must enter the presence of the Lord with deep humility. 

       But we don't want to. Just as it can take a lot of convincing to get people to to take measures to protect themselves against the invisible, microscopic threat of a virus, we have a hard time taking an invisible God seriously. We live naturally by sight, and from our perspective, we human beings are pretty impressive.  And important.  We are the sovereigns of the natural world.  We are capable of great things . It seems that usually that the most successful people in the world lack just one thing: humility. Pride, self-esteem, and self-promotion are the buzzwords in culture. Humility is for losers. Nice guys finish last, right?

      This perspective, so normal, so common, and often effective in worldly affairs, is also eternally wrong. It is the great self-deception of our human race.  We look at sinful, fallible, dying creatures called human beings and think:  pretty impressive.  God looks at us, sees our reality, and in His amazing grace, has compassion on us. 

    Because the Lord God is concerned about our eternity, He decided to spend 33 years with us, visibly.  Thirty-three years to reveal our folly and disabuse us of our pride and self-esteem, all to be able to give us something much better. God, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, laid aside his glory and power for a while, coming down to take our human flesh, to give us an example of proper humility. 

      It is a common thing to think of Jesus as meek, courteous, and friendly. And He is.  “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden,” He beckons, “and I will give you rest.”  But all the time that Jesus lived with great humility and gentleness, He was at the same time also the Almighty Creator of the entire universe.  The source of all energy and matter.  The great ruler of the cosmos. 

      On top of his remarkable example of humility, Jesus preached many sermons on the same topic, none more important or profound than our gospel today .  To some who trusted themselves as righteous, and treated others with contempt, [Jesus] also told this parable: Two men went up to the temple to pray: one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.   

      Today, to lack any concern for God or religion is increasingly common and fashionable.  Historically for most cultures, rightly worshiping God has been very important. But zeal for the Lord does not change our nature. Although supposedly a man of religion, this Pharisee had no humility.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.   I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 

      Wow, the nerve of this guy. Even many pagans, praying to mute idols, display outward humility. This Pharisee essentially calls out to God and says: “You should be very pleased I’ve come to worship you, God, because I’m pretty special.”  It´s tempting to think that Jesus is exaggerating. I have never seen someone so overtly egocentric in their prayer. But let's remember that Jesus was and is more concerned with the interior, with the faith of the heart.  Perhaps we never appear to be so obviously proud and self-satisfied.  But what is in our hearts?  What are we thinking about ourselves and our worship?  It is good to fast in preparation for worship, to give a tithe, or ten percent of your income, to the Church.  It is good to avoid sin, as the Pharisee said he did. I truly hope that we all do similar things. 

   But the question is, when we do good works, are we able to avoid inner pride? Or do we prefer to think that our good deeds are, at least in part, what have made us worthy to approach God?  Do we imagine that we stand before Him on our own merit?

      Jesus continues:  But the tax collector, standing afar off, would not lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.  The tax collector doesn’t sugarcoat it.  In fact, what he is actually recorded as saying by Luke is even stronger than our translation.  It’s sounds odd, and so virtually every translation I know of changes two words.  But literally, the tax collector said “God, expiate me, the sinner. 

    First we have “expiate,” instead of “have mercy.”  Expiate does mean have mercy, but in a very particular way.  To expiate is to extend mercy to a sinner by providing an atoning sacrifice.  Like the priests did for Israel through all the animal sacrifices of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Innocent blood, poured out to provide mercy for sinners.  The tax collector didn’t just ask God to have pity on him, but rather he asks God to act to wash away his sin, that God “expiate” him. 

    Second, the tax collector identified himself as “the sinner.” Not merely “a sinner,” more or less like all those other sinners, but “the sinner.”  As if no one else had ever sinned.  As if the entire issue of sin lay at his feet, was his responsibility, and no one else’s.  He showed a profound understanding of the gravity of entering into the presence of God.  For sin separates us, from each other and from God.  Each of us is on our own in this sense,  accountable to God for our actions.  Each of us needs a personal pardon from the Almighty.  And that pardon must be purchased with atoning, expiatory blood.    

    The tax collector, a tax collector for the Roman rulers, those foreigners who persecuted the Jews, was not despised only by the Pharisee.  It was normal in first century Israel that everyone looked down on tax collectors.  Especially since many of them, like that famous short tax collector Zacchaeus, abused their position, taking more than what the Romans required from the people, to make themselves rich.  Many tax collectors deserved the contempt they received. 

    But Jesus was friendly to tax collectors, dining with them, including at Zacchaeus’ house.  And He made Levi, or Matthew, one of His 12 Disciples.  Jesus came for sinners, including tax collectors.  They almost seem a favorite object of His mercy. 

    Certainly Jesus doesn’t single tax collectors out as especially sinful.  Because, as Jesus reveals again and again, according to God’s standard, and judging us by our hearts, all of us are just as naturally lost in sin as a cheating tax collector.  We may look better on the outside.  But inside, and before God, we all are the sinner.   

      But right here we discover the power of humility and faith.  Being humble in the world does you no good.  But when the Lord teaches us honest humility about our condition, we receive the key that unlocks heavenly treasure. Despite the reality of his life, the tax collector trusted that God is merciful, that He is the God who atones for our sin. By the Word and the Spirit, the tax collector believed in the promise that the Lord God of Israel wants to forgive sinners.  So, with humility, shame, and faith, beating his breast, he confessed his sin, his need, his unworthiness. And Jesus praised him: ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. 

      What? How’s that? How can it be that God forgives repentant sinners, without them doing anything to deserve it? This is the question that has started most of the errors within the Christian Church for two thousand years. Where is the justice in giving mercy to bad people, without some previous reform on their part?    

      This is a good and difficult question, and very important.  And it has a very good and important answer.  Jesus.  Jesus Christ is the answer.  The "it can be" of mercy is located and revealed in an even deeper humility than the tax collector’s.  The “it can be” of God’s mercy is found the passive humility of God himself.  The answer lies in the cosmic shame that the Author of our parable, indeed the Author of life endured, to win God’s righteousness as a gift, for us.

      Jesus showed humility, the proper humility of a human being, throughout his life, always serving, always putting others before Himself. He also taught, as in our parable today, the need for humility and honesty about sin. But ultimately, the justice that makes our forgiveness possible is the justice that Jesus suffered on the Cross. The wicked justice of the Jews and Romans, and the perfect justice of God, against all sinners.  The Cross is the key and center of humiliation, the acceptance by Jesus all sins, sins of thought, word and deed, all sins, those exterior and visible, and those hidden in our hearts.  The sins of the tax collector, and of the Pharisee, and even the sins of His own executioners, the sinners who with their own hands crucified the Lord of glory.  Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing. 

   It is finished.  Christ Jesus is He who humbled himself unto death and hell.  In Him we receive mercy and justice and eternal life, because now He is exalted, resurrected, glorified and ruling in heaven, right now.  We by our faith connection are seated there with Christ the King, right now.  We are his beloved baptized.  We are citizens of heaven, as long as we continue in the true confession, the confession of our sinfulness and the divine mercy revealed on the Cross, where Jesus expiated, He atoned, once for all.  This is the faith that binds us to Him forever.

     Therefore, as Luther says in the Large Catechism, “in the Christian church everything is ordered so that daily we can obtain the full forgiveness of sins through the Word and the signs.”  With this Luther is simply repeating the same thing that, through the tax collector, Jesus teaches us today.  The heart of worship and the center of the life of the Christian Church is the delivery of the merciful forgiveness of Christ to humble sinners. 

      Humility is never going to be a fashionable word with the world, but it is the word of truth that can rescue lost men and women, the humility of the Son of God, which is our salvation.  And for all sinners who are converted to this faith in the forgiveness of sins, everything changes. Today we descend from the temple to our homes with joy, because we are justified, we have peace and friendship with God. 

      We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.  We have something much better than worldly pride and honor, better than self-esteem.  We are esteemed and loved in the eyes of the Lord.  Today in Christ, we are free from the fear of earthly humiliation, be it from poverty, the contempt from others, sickness, or other earthly failures. These things may come, but we already have the life of Christ and all the wealth of God as our inheritance.    

      Therefore, we are also free to live with the humility of Christ, without the need to win in the world, not only seeking our own good, but also sharing the love of Christ with our neighbors.  And perhaps even sharing with them the good news of the great surprise, that the Son of God came to serve, and not to be served, and to give His life as a ransom for sinners. 

      Yes, I am a sinner.  The sinner.  It’s shameful.  But I can dare to confess it, you can dare to confess it, because in Christ we have free and full forgiveness. We are justified. We live in the mercy of God. What joy. Amen.       

Get Dressed - Funeral Sermon for Steve Aves, preached August 27th, Year of Our Lord 2022

 

Steven Dale Aves
Born December 6^th, Year of Our + Lord 1948 in Lansing, Michigan
Baptized into Christ January 29^th, Year of Our + Lord 1956
at Seymour Ave. Methodist Church, of Lansing, Michigan
Married in Christ February 17^th, Year of Our + Lord 1973
at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church of Holt, Michigan
Confirmed in Christ, Year of Our + Lord 1973
also at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church of Holt, Michigan
Died in Christ August 3^rd, Year of Our + Lord 2022
at the Veterans Administration Regional Medical Center in Denver, Colorado
Soli Deo Gloria – To God Alone Be Glory

Deanna, Julie, Wesley, Cillian and Dexter, Kelly, Leighton, to the family and friends of Steve:  Grace, Mercy and Peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. 

    Get dressed.    Deanna shared with me how she and Steve used Portals of Prayer for their devotions, and how she has saved the devotion for June 21, titled “Get Dressed,” based on our Old Testament reading.  This devotion helps her, on those days when the sadness is so deep, helps her to remember God’s promises, and His call that she should get about her day.  It is good and right to mourn the death of a loved one, and some days we may not be able to do much.  But as Steve reminded Deanna in his last weeks on earth, the Lord has more plans for her, more things to do through Deanna, even as he has plans and tasks for each of us.    

      Get dressed.  A helpful devotion for Deanna.  And we remarked, also a fitting way to think about the life of Steve.  He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, friend. Steve got up everyday and got dressed, to get to work.  As the Lord said to Jeremiah, “But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you,” so also Steve each day set about the tasks that he understood the Lord had given to him. 

     My privilege to know and work closely with Steve, and to gather for worship with him, this privilege for me only lasted these last 18 months.  I don’t know so much about his earlier life.  But I know a few things.  Born in 1948, Steve heard the call to get dressed in a soldier’s uniform and serve in Vietnam, as an Army infantryman.  Nothing glorious or pleasant about that call.  But Steve got dressed, and served his country with honor. 

    In 1973 Steve got up and got dressed as a bridegroom, and fulfilled the tasks of husband to Deanna for the next 50 years.  Fifty years as husband, and then also father, and grandfather. 

    Steve got up and got dressed to work as a grocer for decades, earning and saving and carefully spending to provide for his family.  Through this he also served his neighbors, his coworkers, employers and customers.

    Over time Steve was called to dress as a family man, a community man, and a church man.  Again and again as we consider Steve’s life, we see him getting up, getting dressed and doing the work he was called to, serving the people that God had put around him in his life.  Steve served a great deal in this little church.  We have multiple roles to fill here at Our Savior’s, as Steve was one of my elders, and our treasurer, and our altar guild. He kept the candles looking good, but he also always got the absolute most out of each candle, before replacing them.    

    But as wonderful as they are, none of these different sets of clothes that Steve put on morning by morning are the most important thing.  Not to God, and not to Steve.  When we lose someone we love, it is quite natural for us mortal creatures to focus on the various ways that the dearly departed served, to talk about all the good they did.  And that’s o.k., as long as we keep one thing clear: for our Lord, and so also for the Christian, none of these things we get up and get dressed and go do have any eternal value, unless we are first dressed by God for His eternal banquet.   

    You see, none of our clothing nor the works we do in them make us fit for God’s heaven.  Jeremiah was called by the Lord to get dressed for work precisely because God’s people Israel were not doing their job right.  Called by God to be His chosen people, set apart and richly blessed, the people of Israel were in return called to the work of faithfulness, to loving, trusting and worshiping only the Lord God.  They sometimes outwardly dressed the part, but they constantly failed to fulfill it.  God’s people gave in again and again to temptations to mix other false religions in with their true worship, temptations to ignore God’s ways and laws, and instead walk in the sinful ways of their neighbors.  Which is to say, they were a lot like we are: sinners, constantly prone to turning our back on God, despite all He has done for us. 

    Jeremiah feared and tried to avoid God’s call for good reason; his work was to condemn his countrymen’s sin and warn of coming invaders, invading enemies sent by the Lord, to punish Israel and take them into exile.  Jeremiah put on the prophet’s mantle, and accepted the prophet’s lonely way, in hope of turning his people back to God.  Even though he knew that defeat and exile were coming. 

    How did Jeremiah do it?  How did he bear up under this terrible task?  Because Jeremiah was also given another message, a message of future hope, a message of return and forgiveness and renewal.   For example, in chapter 23 of Jeremiah the Lord proclaims: 

   ³ Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴ I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

   ⁵ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

    That righteous Branch who would come and save Israel is also the Righteous Savior who came and saved Steve, who comes still today to bring forgiveness and salvation to you and me.  Jesus, God the Father’s eternal Son, laid aside His robes of heavenly glory and got dressed in the flesh of mankind, to be about the work His Father gave Him.  The Creator of the universe made His earthly debut as a naked baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.  Jesus wore the clothes of a child, of a carpenter, of a wandering preacher, all to complete the task His Father had given Him, the task of providing eternal clothes that prepare sinners for heaven.  And in a divine and awesome mystery, the Son of God, in order to win for us forgiveness and Godly righteousness, even submitted to suffering.  Dressed in royal robes by mocking Roman soldiers, then stripped naked and nailed to a cross, Jesus hung in the place of unfaithful Israel, and in your place and in my place, suffering our punishment, in order to give us the robe of His perfection, His sinless holiness and righteousness. 

    So, when on the third day He rose from the dead, (for death could never hold onto the Author of Life), Jesus left His last earthly clothes neatly folded on the bench where His dead body had lain.  For Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had lowered Jesus from the Cross and dressed Him in burial clothes.  But Jesus no longer needs those burial clothes, for He is risen.   Death is defeated, once and for all.  Clothed in all the glory of heaven, the resurrected Savior came forth from the tomb, to share the Good News of His victory with Mary, and Peter and John, and the Eleven.  The Good News of forgiveness delivered through the ministry of forgiven sinners, sharing God’s love with other sinners. 

    Forgiveness delivered through common things, like water, combined with God’s Holy Name.  For all who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, are clothed with Christ. His righteousness covers their sin and thus they are dressed for heaven, by God’s amazing grace.

    These are the clothes that mattered most to Steve, and they are the most valuable thing for you, too.  The robes of Christ’s righteousness, given freely to all who recognize their sinful need and trust in the forgiving love of Jesus, poured out on the Cross, these are the only clothes that make you right with God. 

    Being clothed in Jesus’ robes, knowing that despite your sin, God forgives and accepts you for Jesus’ sake, this is the only way to dress, the only way to live, forever and ever, Amen.  And these invisible clothes received by faith are not just for the distant future.  They also change your today.  Freed by Christ from fear and guilt, the Christian is set free to love, to serve, to sacrifice, because the Christian has already received all the riches and glory of God’s Kingdom, by faith in Jesus.  The Christian does not fight for his country or love his bride or raise his children to earn God’s favor, or in fear that God will punish him if he doesn’t.  No, the Christian is simply set free to love as Christ first loved us. 

    We saw this in Steve.  But even more, because as Steve would be first to tell you, he was still a sinner, we saw Steve’s faith in the way he kept putting on the full armor of God, week after week.  Steve kept returning to the Source, to have his faith renewed.  Returning to the places he knew Jesus had promised to meet Him: in His Word, in the gathered congregation, in the the Holy Supper of Christ’s Body and Blood.  Here, again and again, Steve’s robes were washed clean, pure bright shining white.  Washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. 

    Steve’s soul now rests with the Lamb, awaiting that day when the trumpet will sound and the bodies of the dead in Christ will rise to meet their Savior in the sky, to live, body and soul reunited in His glorious presence forever and ever, with the Spirit and the Father, and all the saints and angels.  In this in between time, Steve would have you hear again today this truth:  only unforgiven sin can soil your clothes and exlcude you from God’s heavenly banquet hall.  But in Christ Jesus, crucified, resurrected and ascended to God’s right hand, all sins of mankind have been forgiven.  Steve got dressed in this precious Gospel to his dying day.  You should too. Get dressed in Christ and His forgiving love.  Because it is for you, today, and forever and ever, Amen.             

Beware of False Prophets - Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost

Eighth Sunday after Trinity
August 7^th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota

   God speaks.  Our Lord, the true God, is a communicator.  He uses language, not just to tell us things, but to do things.  As the Psalmist writes:
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host…For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. (Psalm 33:6, 9)  As scientists discover more and more about God’s creation, the speaking nature of our Creator is ever more awesomely revealed.  The physical world is built for communication, designed for delivering messages.  Within the last 200 years we have successively learned that a needle bouncing along grooves can reproduce words and music, that electricity flowing through a wire can carry information and sound, and that invisible waves passing through and around us can carry voice, and data, and images.   

   The language bias of our Creator Lord is nowhere more amazingly revealed than in the genetic code that resides in every living cell, without which there is no life.  DNA and RNA, acids and proteins, are arranged in intricate spiral codes, biological language, generating messages that tell cells how to grow and what to become.  God speaks, and life is.  And that life is filled with communication, including microscopic messages that cause things to happen, language on which life depends.  This biological communication reminds us that the Lord God Communicator Almighty is the source of all life, all knowledge, all words, living and active. 

   God speaks, and does His works by speaking.  So we should not be surprised that the Lord hates false prophets, false speakers, preachers who dare to claim to speak on God’s behalf, but who instead speak lies, false promises and foolishness.  False prophecy offends God to His core, for God is the Speaker, the Truth Teller, the Eternal Word who makes and maintains all things with His voice.  He calls and sends prophets to work on His behalf, for the good of people, for the good of their hearers.  But no good comes from false prophecy.  Good only comes from faithfulness to the speaking of God.  Nothing but brokenness and evil can result from the proclamation of lies.

   And so from Jeremiah we hear of God’s anger against these dreamers, self-appointed prophets who dream dreams, and tell the people what they want to hear, instead of the difficult truth they need to hear, so that they might be turned from their evil ways, and live. 

   And St. Paul warns the elders, that is the pastors and bishops of the church at Ephesus, that false teachers would arise.  From outside the Church, yes.  But also from among their own number men would arise speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.  False teachers attacking from the outside is bad enough.  But so much more demoralizing, for preachers and hearers alike, is the corruption of one called and committed to proclaiming the truth, but who later begins to distort the Word and mislead God’s people. 

   Since Jeremiah and Paul were both faithful preachers chosen and sent by Jesus, it is not surprising that their message correlates perfectly with Jesus’ word to us today.  “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”  And as Jesus explains, it is pretty simple to identify false prophets:  “You will recognize them by their fruits.”  The fruit of a prophet tree is the message that comes out of the mouth.  Put simply, God the Communicator has given us His unchanging Word, and so we can compare any prophet’s message to that Word, and so know whether the prophet is a faithful sheep called to speak on behalf of God, or whether underneath the wooly exterior hide the fangs of a murderous wolf, seeking to take a bite out of God’s lambs.     

   False prophets, lying preachers, have been a problem ever since we have had problems, ever since lies first deformed God’s good creation.  The warfare of God’s Church always has and will be until the End a battle of messages, a warfare that rightly consists in accurately proclaiming God’s message, and also in resisting and refuting the lies of Satan and the false prophets who, consciously or unconsciously, promote lies against God’s Truth.    

   So, what false prophecies afflict us?  It is insufficient to merely point out the general problem of unfaithful teaching and preaching.  As God’s flock we should identify and reject the particular false ideas that threaten to lead us astray, the wolves that are stalking our flock in our day.  Sadly, there are many that we could talk about. 

  Some are easier to pick out, like completely false religions that openly reject God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as He reveals Himself through the Holy Bible.  And there is materialism, both crass, “I want more stuff materialism.” And there is sophisticated “scientific materialism,” which uses the good gift of science as a cover for denying God’s existence, and just so happens to leave mankind at the top of the ontological pyramid.  A heady intellectual route to fulfilling the false promise hissed out by the serpent:  “You will be like God.” 

   There is the replacement of true religion with politics, so common today, the quest by people all across the spectrum to find a new messiah, a savior, in an elected official.  All the while making demons out of citizens on the other side of the political divide.     

   We have lots of false prophets, lots of areas we could consider.  This morning, let’s focus on just one area, and dig in a bit.  For the false prophets of the sexual revolution are perhaps the ravenous wolves with the largest influence today.  All of us have been affected. 

   There are plenty of obvious, grotesque examples.  Consider for a moment the behaviors and activities that today will get you labeled a menace to society, if you dare to oppose them.  There is a vocal minority promoting “drag queen story hours” as an important social good.  The most basic human biological reality, that human beings are either male or female, is rejected by powerful voices who claim that there is a spectrum of sexuality along which people can move, back and forth, according to what they feel on a given day.  If your physical characteristics don’t fit what some Instagram prophet has convinced you is your true identity, no worries.  The medical establishment has been recruited to “help” you, by filling you with hormones that stop and reverse normal development, and surgeries that permanently disfigure your human body.  Talk about wolves seeking flesh to devour. 

   This is unpleasant to talk about, but it needs to be said, because people, more and more often children, are being sucked into these lies, suffering physical and emotional wounds that will not heal in this lifetime.  On top of that, as this twisted distortion of God’s plan for humanity and family and men and women is accepted by more and more people, we are making ourselves into a sterile, increasingly childless society.  And without babies there is quite literally no future for the human race.  These false prophets and their lies must be identified and rejected.  But, lest we think this just means pointing a finger at all those freaks “out there” on the fringe, we need to face up to the root of today’s madness, which lies much closer to home, for all of us. 

   What I mean is this:  The cultural upheaval of the last 25 years has been breathtaking.  Even in 2008 and 2012 it was still impossible to get elected president of the United States without defending the traditional definition of marriage.  But then the dam broke.  In 2015 the Supreme Court redefined marriage to include homosexual unions.  Two seconds later, it seems,  the “cause celebre” shifted from merely giving homosexuals the “right” to be left alone to get married, to the requirement that everyone celebrate homosexuality.  And pansexuality.  And transexuality and gender fluidity.  It became a pressing national concern that little boys to be encouraged to consider whether they might really be little girls, and vice versa for little girls.  It is madness. 

   But the madness didn’t start out there on the fringe.  No, the enabling shift happened when we Christians bought into the false teaching that “my happiness” is the priority in marriage and family and human sexuality.  You see, being a godly man or a godly woman in this fallen world implies some difficulty, some self denial, even some sacrifice.  God’s original good plan for man and woman, first communicated in the Garden, and also written into our DNA, is one of service to the other, of selfless love.  And this is a good thing, one of the very best things, actually a picture of how God Himself is: outward focused, more concerned for the other than for the self.  Yes, from the beginning great delight and pleasure were built into the Lord’s plan for the man and the woman and their children.  But the delight and pleasure were intrinsically tied to loving and serving the other, not in serving the self.    

   Christian marriage and family, even though battered by human sinfulness, even though we have never done it fully right, has always been a beacon of truth and hope.  But increasingly in recent decades, especially since the 1960s, the Christian Church has given in to the world’s perspective.  Marriage is understood by most to be about “my happiness,” not about serving one’s spouse and having children if God allows.  With this shift to “my happiness” the vows “till death do us part” morphed into “until it isn’t fun anymore.”  The blessing of children was transformed into a choice, to be balanced against financial security and free time and personal fulfillment.  No fault divorce, contraception and abortion on demand were the legal and medical tools that made these new goals, falsely called sexual freedom, seem achievable.  And the Christian Church in America has largely gone along.  We, you and I, have too much gone along.    

   The madness we see in culture today is extreme, but it builds on the same self-centered concepts.  God wrote the plan which teaches us to find fulfillment and joy in serving those outside ourselves, especially in the area of human sexuality.  The lies of Satan and the prophets of the world tempt us to seek only our own pleasure, our own momentary emotional fulfillment, without considering the consequences.  The result is wounded and broken people, many of whom also are tricked into believing the lie that whatever problems they might encounter are the fault of Christianity and the Christian God.  

    But of course, the Almighty Communicator, the One who wrote the good plan for man and woman and family, is not the problem.  In fact, He is the only solution.  The Word who is God became a man, to bring a message of healing, the only prophecy that has the power to undo all that we self-centered sinners have inflicted on ourselves, and each other. 

   The promise of joy and community and growth that was written into the command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth is precisely what God’s eternal Son Jesus came to re-establish and fulfill.  Ironically, not by human marriage.  The hope of salvation tied up in God’s original plan was destroyed by our first parents falling for the lies of Satan.  A new marriage was needed.  A different, higher, greater unity, not between a single man and woman, but a marriage between a Savior and His Bride, the Church. 

    Because we are fallen sinners are filled with false ideas about marriage and family and God and humanity, we struggle to process all the ways that God in His Word uses the picture of marriage to describe His salvation project.  Let me sum it up this way:  God is the long-suffering husband, who puts up with terrible infidelities by His Bride.  We, self-centered sinners, are that unfaithful Bride.  We did not deserve to be cleaned up and brought to the altar, but this was God’s decree, His Word, His prophecy, His plan.  And that altar is a Cross. 

    The first bride was taken from the side of Adam, a rib taken by God to make the perfect partner for
man, the perfect woman to stand side by side with her husband.  The new bride likewise comes from the side of the New Adam, the Savior Jesus, who, hanging on the altar of God’s sacrifice for our sins, was pierced in His side.  Out poured water and blood, blood and water empowered by Jesus’ death, poured out to give life to His Bride the Church, life restored to all who are washed clean in His forgiving love. 

    Jesus is selfless love, poured out for sinners, for you and me, and also for those who have been taken to the extremes of today’s sexual wasteland.  We do not have the strength or wisdom to fix all that we broken.  But Jesus does.  He already has.  Even though we will still deal with the consequences of the false prophecies that have tempted us in this life, we can face these consequences without shame.  Indeed, we can face these consequences with hope.  For in Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom who laid down His life for His Bride, the Church, we are restored, forgiven, and brought into God’s family, His kingdom, today, and forever and ever, Amen.