Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Preached at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Custer, South Dakota
Based on Genesis
2:7-17, Romans 6:19-23, Mark 8:1-9
Audio of the sermon can be found HERE.
The rivers in Paradise flowed backwards, in the opposite way than normal. Or at least, the opposite of what we think is
normal.
In the world we know, the world after sin shattered God's
good creation and began its decay, in our world, small streams and rivers join
together in their course to form larger rivers, until they flow into the salty
sea, and all the water becomes unfit to drink, until God in His merciful and
purifying evaporation brings it back over the land to rain down life again.
It was not like this in Eden. As
Moses says in Genesis 2: “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden,
and there it divided and became four rivers.
11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the
one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is
gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good;
bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of
the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land
of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is
the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the
Euphrates.”
That’s weird. Eden, the garden
God created for the man and the woman, was the source of the water, and the
River divided to deliver this life-giving liquid to four more lands. In the original Creation, before the arrival
of sin, water came from a single source and was then distributed, carrying life
everywhere.
This is one of the less appreciated consequences of the Fall into Sin: a
reversal in the very nature of rivers. St.
Paul teaches us in Romans 8 that the
creation was subjected to futility… and bondage to corruption.” This side of the Fall, we cannot fully
grasp the depth of the destructive changes that human rebellion against God
introduced into the good world He had created. We usually think about the effect sin has had
on people and our relationships, and that is the priority, certainly for us,
and also for the LORD. But from Genesis
to Revelation, the Bible also explains that there were profound changes in
nature, reversals and corruptions of the way things worked when the earth was
brand new.
Regarding water, there is a fundamental change. In the beginning, there was a source, one
main river dedicated to irrigating the garden, which then divided into four
more rivers to water the surrounding lands. Rivers existed for the benefit of humankind
and all creatures.
After the entry of evil in the world, water and rivers were still good,
necessary, often beautiful. But they can
also be dangerous, violent, drowning people and flooding crops and cities. And water is always running away from us, one
stream joining another and another to form mighty rivers that empty their
precious liquid into the ocean, where it becomes salty brine, unfit to drink
and sustain life. Access to good water
for drinking, cooking, and cleaning, and the search for sufficient water for
agriculture and industry have been constant challenges for every civilization, ever
since Adam’s descendants founded civilization. The abundance or lack of good water has been a
major cause of migrations, and of famines, and of wars.
Many things were reversed, greatly damaged, when our first parents chose
to ignore the only limitation they had: do not eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Marriage was inverted from perfect companionship to
an often bitter competition. Work, originally
just tending a garden, gathering delicious ripe fruit, and watching over the
animals, became a struggle, a risky endeavor to scratch a food supply from the
dusty soil. Childbirth is still a
wonderful thing, once it’s complete. But
what was to be a moment of pure joy became exceptionally painful, and risky, to
mother and child.
These reversals, these inversions have greatly impoverished our lives. Now death, pain, decay, and decline are
constant threats, sometimes more pressing, sometimes receding, but never
disappearing. And these reversals
impacted not just humankind, but all creatures, even all of creation. But there is still hope, even in the reversal
of the natural order. For the creation was
subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who
subjected it, in hope 21 that the
creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21) The damage, the reversals that
creation suffered do not lead to a negative end. No, rather, the creation eagerly awaits the
freedom of the faithful, the final liberty of the children of God, when all
things will be fully restored.
We see a sign of the beginning of this reversal, from slavery to
freedom, from fear to joy, in our reading from St. Mark. Through the presence and power of God's only-begotten
Son, Jesus Christ, and because of His mercy, the people witnessed and received
an unexpected and marvelous reversal, seven loaves and a few small fish multiplied
into a banquet for many, with leftovers to spare. At Jesus’ Word, scarcity was turned into
abundance. For the gathered guests of
Jesus, there was a change, from hunger to satisfaction, growling bellies to
full stomachs.
In Eden, we saw that a river became a blessing for four lands. With
Jesus, we see a glimpse of a new Paradise, as the Lord turned the seven loaves
into a banquet for four-thousand people. The consequences of the Fall into Sin were
beginning to disappear. And why? Because this New Man, this New and vastly improved Adam, named Jesus
of Nazareth, is also the true God, the Creator, with more than enough power to
exchange bad things for good.
Such moments are encouraging. They
give us hope, especially when we in our lives face truly negative things. When an infection or cancer is destroying our
body and threatening our life, we long for reversal, for remission. And when it comes, what a relief to have that
burden lifted. When war rages, we pray
for peace. When the land is dry, we pray
for rain, to stay the fires and allow the plants to grow. And, as He did in a moment for the 4,000, God
often grants us blessed reversals. But none
of these, least of all the feeding of the 4,000, are a permanent solution. The shortages, deficiencies, and curses of
this life are symptoms of the main problem, not its cause. Returning the world to its original good state
would require much more.
To make this great reversal, this exchange of a fallen world for a
restored one, God had to make an investment, like investment bankers and
entrepreneurs make when they risk something valuable, for the hope of receiving
a greater return. For God the Father, the
investment required to fully restore His good Creation, was to invest, to risk,
to sacrifice, the life of His only-begotten Son. Jesus Christ was given 100% into the project
of restoring the creation, and mankind, the crown of that creation. God gave His Son to fix all the things
inverted, turned upside down and broken, by us and by our sin.
Jesus did a lot of things during the three decades He visibly walked
this earth. He loved His family, His
neighbors. He taught, He healed, He fed,
like no one ever had or ever could. The
King of Heaven, with all glory, honor and bounty ever at His beck and call,
laid that all aside, and chose to wander around the dusty roads of Israel, sleeping
on the ground. He embodied the truth
that it is better to give than to receive, better to serve than be served. Giving and serving are better, they are
Godly, because giving and serving and loving are essential to the LORD’s
character, they are of the essence of who He is. Like the river flowing from Eden spread out
into four rivers to bless more and more lands, even more God is the giver of
every good thing, and loves doing it.
And so naturally, of His Godly nature, this is how Jesus lived. Still, none of these things were His Great
Reversal.
No, the Great Reversal, the mysterious and too-big-to-fathom work of
Jesus was when He accepted the consequences of all our wrongdoing, all our sin,
and the sin of every person. Jesus took
all sin into His own body, and destroyed it with His own death. This He did, willingly, in order to restore
us to the state we lost in Paradise. This
is the investment, the exchange, of the Cross: the good for the wicked, the
living for the dead, the holy for sinners, all given to change our reality, to
transform our future—a reversal from condemnation to blessing, from suffering
to glory, flowing out from the Roman Empire’s favorite tool of execution.
And then, the river really started flowing out again. All sin and all Godly justice and punishment
flowed to one point, to Calvary, so that, on the Third Day, all righteousness
and mercy and blessing could begin to flow out, to the four corners of the
world. This mercy mission of Christ has extended
even to us, here, and God always seeks to see it divide and flow, farther and
farther, dividing and growing to bless more lands, carrying blessing and new
life to the ends of the earth,
It is difficult to live in reverse. Even though it is already ours by
faith in Christ, it is difficult for us, still sinners, to live in Christ’s
reversal, in the new reality of the resurrection. This is why St. Paul had to write so much
about the Christian life, the new life that begins even during this earthly
life. This is why, in today's Epistle,
St. Paul teaches us about the transformations we have experienced, and how they
should be visible in our lives.
Before the living water of Christ poured over us, our members served
impurity and wickedness, but now their service is reversed. Now our members are for sanctification, for a
life of increasing holiness. Justified,
declared innocent and right with God by the death and resurrection of Christ,
Paul exhorts us: present your members to serve righteousness.
Through baptismal regeneration, we have been given faith and
forgiveness. We have received the
exchange of life for death. How, then, can
we seek dead things? No, let us strive
to live, in holiness and righteousness, as children of God do. Let us leave behind the false attractions of
this world, and seek the things that are above, the higher things.
You see, now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves
of God, the benefit you reap leads to sanctification in this life, and in the
world to come, eternal life. For the
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
This gift of God is yours in Christ, for in Him, (and only in Him) all
your sins are forgiven. So, stay close
to Him. Without His daily bread, without
the bread of heaven that comes only from Him, we too will faint along the way. But there is no reason for it to be so. The bounty of the Bread of God is ours. Christ Jesus is here with us, through His
Word and in His mystery meal, our Savior present to nourish us, protect us, and
guide us to the very end.
The Father’s investment is complete, and His return, the Father’s
profit, now rules over all things at His Right Hand on High. Since Jesus reigns on high, for you, so also every
day, and especially when you face struggles and doubts, know that the curse has
been reversed, and Paradise is yours, in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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