Jesus speaks to you pure doctrine today, in v.23 of the Gospel
saying,
The Father is a Giver; the Giver. It is an attribute. It is
part of His being. He gives. Thus, we contemplate this wonder in light of our 4th
command from Him: Honor your father and mother.
In approaching this 4th Command, we find that it
includes both heaven and earth. In the first 3 commands, our Lord demands how
our relationship to Him is to be determined. It is in the next 7 that Jesus
talks about our relationship with our neighbors. So, this 4th command
has been named “the hinge”.
It is one of the purposes of this command to transition from
life with God to life with our neighbor, for we not only have an earthly father
and mother, but also an heavenly Father and Mother in the Church. Thus the
heart of this command is not just giving lip service to father and mother, but
not to anger or despise them and other authorities over us.
And not only are we not to do things, but we are also to do
things such as honor our parents and these other authorities over us, serve and
obey them, love and cherish them. In this way we hear the words of St. John be
proved as words of the Holy Spirit saying, “…he
who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not
seen” (1 John 4:20).
In honoring our earthly neighbors, we practice and are
taught how to honor God. But how this takes place is not in the same way as us
honoring our earthly father and mother because our heavenly Father and Mother
do not reveal themselves in the same way. On earth, in this visible life we
live in Faith, there are differences and similarities in both relationships,
yet still both are given by the Father,.
In Christ, the Father created the universe and gave it to
Adam and Eve. In Christ, the Father rescued His people from Egypt and gave
them their freedom. In Christ, the
Father gave perseverance to His people that they might survive until the time
came for a Son to be born of a virgin, so that all that we ask of the Father,
in His Name, would be given to us.
This is truly how this hinge, this 4th command,
works. Not only are we giving to God, but God is giving to us. This means that
there is always a movement from God to us. This means that in the 4th
command, God is revealing Himself as the giver of every good and perfect gift
from above, in His Son.
We lament over how horrible it is to have been placed in our
families, whether they are wonderful or whether they are a disaster. We despair
over how well or how poorly we honor those authorities placed over us because
we think that proves the truthfulness of God as our heavenly Father.
You believe that because you have been “blessed” with such
and such a family or that someone else has not, that this is a sign of God’s good
and gracious giving. Because you have so much, God must love you and because
others have so little, God loves them less and they’ll just have to deal with
it.
When we look to Jesus for our answers this is what we find:
that, in Christ, God has bridged the gap between fallen humanity and holy God.
That, in Christ, humanity is assumed into God and that, in Christ, the Father
not only hears our prayers, but answers them and gives to us as He gives to the
Son.
What has the Father given to the Son? In other words, what
are the good things that the Good God gives? The Good Father gives to the Good
Son good suffering, good crucifixion, a good death, a good burial, and a good
resurrection. As the Father has lavished these His gifts upon the Son, you too
should expect them in full measure.
Now we see what we are to truly ask for in the Son’s Name
and yet they are not what we ask for. We ask for the removal of these things,
because we can not bear them in our sin. In faith, we ask correctly, because
the Son has come that we might have peace and freedom. Freedom from the wages
of death.
Thus the Son gives another gift that bridges both heaven and
earth for us: the Church. Jesus zeroes in on God’s giving and places it
directly an easy to find place. In plain sight, that Lord offers His gifts to
all who seek them and offers a simple way to honor both father and mother in
obeying and serving the Church
of Christ
When the Lord promises His presence, we gather. When the
Lord promises forgiveness, we take and eat. When the Lord promises salvation,
we wash in it. When the Lord promises life, we pray, we sing, and we rejoice in
His Good Gifts. In this way, the Church becomes a haven of keeping and
treasuring the 4th commandment, in honoring our Mother who we can
see, we honor our Father Whom we cannot see.
The Lord’s Goodness and propensity to give profusely does
not radiate off Him in indiscriminate rays. God always and will only work
through means, meaning, those ways that He has already made ready for Himself
and for us. In other words, the Father always gives to the Son, the Son always
gives to the Spirit, the Spirit always gives to the Church, and the Church
always gives to the baptized believer.
Asking the Father in the Name of Jesus is part of honoring
your heavenly Father. In the first part is believing you have a heavenly Father
and the only way that happens is if you believe in the Son. The Father only
gives in the Name of His Son, the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.
As it turns out, the Father only ever gives to His Son. We
are left out of that direct and divine relationship. Yet, it was the Son’s will
that all be saved and be adopted into the same loving, divine relationship that
He has. So we see Him being born as one of us, being raised as one of us, suffering
and dying as one of us, being resurrected as one of us, without any sin of His
own.
All this so that He would fulfill all of God’s Commands
perfectly, give us credit for a job perfectly done, and lavish upon us with His
gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. We are commanded to honor, in light
of our remaining sin and death within us, but we are given full credit in
faith. Faith that points us to the true honor, true service, and true obedience
in Word and Sacrament.
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