READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 20:1-17
Romans 6:3-11
- St. Matthew 5:20-26
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Savior. (Titus 1:4)
Who speaks to you from the Gospel reading today, saying:
“For I tell you,
unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
With these words, Jesus reveals the Holy Life, as it should
be, and spoiler alert, its not ours. What this should point us to is a greater
appreciation to God for our Baptism for there we see the work and promise of
God, for us, to give us the Holy Life of Jesus. We should then seek greater
catechesis, learning, about baptism in order to remember our own and bring
others to this great gift.
If Jesus willed that we all be chased out and the gates of
heaven be closed off forever, He would have only had to preach and teach these
few verses from the Gospel of Matthew today. Because He not only demands
righteousness exceeding the Scribes and Pharisees, but exposes the true nature
of our hearts, demanding they be reconciled to our brother and his anger before
we even think of coming to His Altar.
Well do we sing in our hymnals, “If Thou remembrest every
sin, who then could heaven ever win or stand before Thy presence?” (LSB 607).
Does God ever forget?
You have heard it said that “the entire life of a Christian
should be one of repentance”. Thus spake the blessed Dr. Luther at the
beginning of his 95 Theses, nailed to the church door on Halloween. He said,
“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), He
willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
What he was attempting to reference was Jesus speaking in
His Gospel today. That once we sit and contemplate the 5th Command from God, “thou
shalt not murder”, we find no end of sins to repent of, though there are 9
Commandments left to go over.
For this reason, the Church of Jesus, throughout history,
has decided to put this Gospel next to our epistle reading for this the 6th
Sunday after Trinity. Though it is good for the entire life of the Christian to
be one of repentance, today we learn not just on Christmas, Easter, or when we
feel something is really wrong. Romans 6 reveals that baptism comes first.
For today, truly truly I say to you, when our Lord and
Master Jesus Christ said, “Be baptized” (Acts 10:48), He willed the
entire life of the Christian be a continual return to the baptismal font, where
the Old Adam is forcefully drowned, and the New Man emerges, as the words and
promises of God declare.
Our Large Catechism puts it this way:
“Lastly, we must also know what Baptism signifies, and why
God has ordained just such external sign and ceremony for the Sacrament by
which we are first received into the Christian Church. But the act or ceremony
is this, that we are sunk under the water, which passes over us, and afterwards
are drawn out again. These two parts, to be sunk under the water and drawn out
again, signify the power and operation of Baptism, which is nothing else than
putting to death the old Adam, and after that the resurrection of the new man,
both of which must take place in us all our lives, so that a truly Christian
life is nothing else than a daily baptism, once begun and ever to be
continued. For this must be practiced without ceasing, that we ever keep
purging away whatever is of the old Adam, and that that which belongs to the
New Man come forth. (LC IV:64-65)
In the Gospel reading for today, Jesus crushes us, with the
Good and Holy Law of God. It is nothing less than Romans 3:20 come to life
before our eyes, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified
in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin”.
In our epistle reading, we are revived again, with the
Gospel. That is, in Romans 6:3-11 Jesus proclaims the comforting, liberating
victory He purchased and won for us. St. Paul declares that we have already
died to sin because we were buried with Christ through Baptism into His death.
We are no longer slaves to sin; we are alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Thus, with these two readings, we are sunk under the water
and drawn out again. We are shown our sin and its depths and then brought to
our Savior, Who has baptized us into His faith, into His Body. Matthew 5 slays
our self-righteousness, leaving us completely bankrupt before the altar of God.
Romans 6 rescues us by plunging us into the tomb of Jesus, raising us up as
entirely new creations.
This is necessary for us, because when it comes to
repentance we truly believe in “one and done”. That we sin, we ask for
forgiveness. Done. No worries ever again. Similar to the 5th Commandment and
St. Peter’s question on forgiveness. St. Peter asks how many times must he
forgive his brother and Jesus basically answers “as many times as he asks for
forgiveness”. A life of repentance.
What St. Peter is really getting at is a much darker
question that fills us with fear. The real question we want and don’t want the
answer to is “how many times will God forgive us?”
If we say we have no sin, then the Truth is not in us and
the answer is zero times.
Since we say we have sin, Jesus’s answer is as many times as
it takes.
This is the great, holy, and inexpressible gift that Baptism
is. Not only is it the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s
Word;
not only does it forgive sins, rescue from death and the
devil, and give eternal salvation at the Promise of God;
and not only does God’s Word create such a miracle for faith
to receive;
But, it also is the sign and indication before God Almighty
of us being sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Yes, the signs we seek are the ones that men will
acknowledge, but the signs God gives are the ones He will acknowledge. This is
also part of Baptism. It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily,
Daily, contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil
desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in
righteousness and purity forever.
We long to say the words of Joshua and have them mean
something, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15).
We long to show God just how much our anger is not as bad as our brother’s
anger. We long to serve the Lord, but Joshua has words for that, just a few
verses after this one, “You are not able to serve the Lord” (v. 19).
Why? Because, as Hebrews reminds us, “without faith it is
impossible to please God” (11:6) and the chief worship of God in the Gospel
is the desire to receive forgiveness of sins, grace, and righteousness (Apology
IV, Tappert, p. 310). Faith is that worship which receives God’s offered
blessings (Ap IV:49). These blessings God has located in His Word and
Sacrament.
God makes the signs. God gives the signs. No volunteering.
No making your own decisions. Only dying. Only being raised. “And so it is
written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a
life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).
The Old Adam in us is that entire corrupt and evil nature we
inherit because of the Fall into sin. Every action, no matter how holy and
righteous, is done in sin. The New Adam is Christ and all who are baptized into
Him. It is only in belonging to Christ that we are a part of this New Adam
which also means being crucified with Him.
That is impossible. You thought fulfilling the 5th
Commandment was hard according to Jesus today, try going back to the moment of
Jesus’s crucifixion. The Way is Christ’s alone. His Way. His Word. His
sacraments.
Joshua’s house is not his own. He can say those pretty words
about serving the Lord, because he was brought into a land that was not his
own. He did not labor in the land, he did not build the cities in that land,
and he did not plant vine or tree in that land, and yet he received them.
Your house, your clay vessel, your temple is not your own.
You were brought here. You were given both body and soul. You did not create
your life, your family, or your possessions, yet you were given them.
We cannot serve the Lord, because it is the Lord Who is
serving us. He sits in the lowest place. He washes the feet, hands, and heads
of His Chosen. He is not reclining, but serving at the Table. And what He
serves up is His cross. His cross from 2-thousand years ago. Not just news of
it, but the cross itself, that we might bear it and follow Him, and that we
would crucified with Him.
Yes it is the cross which brings us back to Baptism, as it
should our entire lives. For, I ask you, with which words do we regularly
remember our baptism?
The words, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19), known as the Trinitarian Invocation,
first declared over us at our Baptism.
By repeating these words, in Church or by ourselves, we
recall, claim, and confess before heaven, earth, and hell all that God the Holy
Trinity has given us in Baptism.
And what accompanies such a declaration? The sign of the
cross which we make over ourselves, to mark us as “redeemed by Christ the
Crucified”.
At the same time, our pastor, in the stead and by the
command of our Lord Jesus Christ, makes the sign of the cross over you.
And while your sign, made this way, for Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Then these two for Jesus, both God and man, crucified by nails
through the hand.
The Pastor makes it this way: here are four Greek letters IC
XC, for Jesus Christ. The three fingers standing up, for the Trinity, and the
two together for the union of the divine and human, in Jesus Christ.
So who is the man that does not murder or hate His neighbor?
Jesus Christ.
Who is the man baptized into and dwelling in that same
glorified Body of Christ?
You are.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment