The Joy of Duty, the Duty of Joy

Texts: Genesis 29:14b-20; Proverbs 8:27-31; Romans 5:1-5; Ephesians 6:5-8; Hebrews 12:2-3

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A job you absolutely hated?   Maybe you still have it. Your boss is arbitrary and unfair.  Your duties are repetitious or degrading.  Your pay in no wise measures up to everything you’re required to do.  You’re going crazy.  How can you spend one-more-day laboring at it?  But with the state of the economy, where are you going to go?  And you’re a Christian, so you know it’d be a sin to commit sabotage or tell off the boss to his face.  So you suffer through it, all the while comforting yourself with this thought: “I feel miserable, and in this job I’m going to keep on feeling miserable.  But blast it all, I’m Doing My Duty, and God will give me credit for all the misery I’m going through as I Do My Duty.  In fact, if I enjoyed my job and did my duty out of joy, there’d be no merit in it at all.  So Lord,  look at all the misery I’m going through on this rotten job, and give me the reward I deserve.”

That’s the default attitude for human beings going through difficult, unavoidable situations, whether we’re Christians or not.  It might not be a job we feel trapped in.  Our unwelcome duty may be taking care of an infirm or ill relative, where he or she is ungrateful and everyone else in the family leaves all the heavy lifting-- maybe literally-- to you.   Or maybe the difficult duty you face is keeping a struggling marriage together for the sake of the children.  Or you’ve taken on a task for an organization you belong to and now that you’ve got it, nobody else will step up so you can resign in good conscience.  Or maybe, just maybe, the struggle and suffering you’re undergoing has to do with bearing with ridicule and disadvantage because you belong to Jesus Christ.

In all these situations, we have a natural inclination to believe that God should give us credit for how terrible our duty makes us feel.   In fact, we assume that if we felt joy and love in our duty, it wouldn’t be Duty at all.  Sometimes the object of all our self-sacrifice will even say: “You don’t really love me, you’re only doing this for me out of duty!”  We feel that Duty by nature is something done because we have to, not because we want to or take any pleasure in it.  I mean, if somehow we enjoyed our duty, wouldn’t that be selfish of us?  (I’m speaking according to conventional wisdom).  That means the more reluctant we are to do our duty, the greater the merit there is in it..

But is this what the Bible says about Duty and Joy?  What is God’s will concerning them both?  This morning we’ll examine a few brief passages that shed light on this subject, and by the help of the Holy Spirit may they aid us as we love and serve God and our neighbor in this present age.

We read these verses in the order they appear in the Bible, but I’ll start with the reading from Proverbs 8 first.  The context here might be called “The Song of Wisdom” or “Wisdom’s Manifesto.” In Proverbs Wisdom is personified as a woman, but when you look at the qualities and attributes she demonstrates, you realize that this describes none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity.  And doesn’t St. Paul call Christ “the Wisdom of God” in I Corinthians?  In our Proverbs passage we see the eternal Son of God, God’s eternal Wisdom, laboring at the Father’s side in the work of creation.  We see this truth confirmed in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, where it says that  “by him all things were created,” and in St. John’s Gospel, where it is written that “without Him [that is, Jesus Christ] nothing was made that has been made.”  Jesus our Lord in dutiful submission to the will of His Father labored as the craftsman at the Father’s side, making everything that is.  And what does Christ the Wisdom of God say?  Speaking in the guise of Lady Wisdom He says:

I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.

God the Son did His duty to the Father, and in His duty He took delight and joy!

Now, it might be objected: The work of creation was not Duty for the Son.  But not so fast.  What is duty?  It is what is due to or owed someone.  The Scriptures make it clear in various places that God the Father is owed all obedience, honor, and submission, and from eternity God the Son pays His Father His due.  He does His duty, and He does it joyfully.

We, brothers and sisters, are now children of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, saved by His precious blood.  We follow in His footsteps in rendering all obedience, honor, and loving submission to God our Father, and like Him, we are called to do it with joy.

But another objection might be raised: Yes, but it’s one thing to render joyful duty to God.  What about to other people? That’s where we face all the trouble and hardship that we want credit for!  That’s where duty stops having anything to do with joy and love!  Isn’t it?

But consider the story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis.  “I”ll work for you seven years, Uncle Laban, in return for your younger daughter Rachel,” promises Jacob.  And so “Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.”  Jacob was doing his duty all that time.  He promised his service to his Uncle Laban, and he owed it to him according to his promise.  He felt that Rachel deserved any amount of service, and he rendered it.  Now, Laban did not do his duty towards Jacob; we all know the trick he pulled substituting Leah for Rachel on the wedding night.  Even so, for Jacob, duty and love were so intertwined for the sake of Rachel and it was hard to tell the difference between the two.

So it should be with us as Christians.  There should be no distinction between duty and love and the joy that flows from both.  Even as we fall short of the goal, we should strive and long for the time when we could so love all those we serve so deeply that the time and difficulties would seem like nothing.

Yes, all right, we can object, but it was Rachel that Jacob was doing his loving duty for.  What if he’d known he was actually serving seven years for Leah with her weak eyes and not-so-lovely form?  In our own lives, we might ask what joy can there be in working for that mean boss or taking care of that ungrateful relative or bearing patiently with that belittling parent or spouse?   We cannot possibly pretend we like being put down and called names and worked to death for someone who thinks we’re only around to serve their purposes.

Christian friends, God does not call us to pretend to like it, let alone to actually like it.  Nevertheless, it is His will that we should find joy in doing our duty, wherever it may lie.

Romans 5 deals with our duty to accept suffering with a joyful heart.  This suffering would be especially what we might undergo for the sake of Jesus Christ, but the passage doesn’t limit it to that.  Verse 2 says, “[W]e rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”  All right, that’s understandable.  But Paul goes on to say, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings.” Why?  Are we supposed to be like those Medieval monks who scourged themselves, thinking they were gaining merit with God by self-cruelty?  No, we rejoice in our sufferings because of the results we can expect from them.  Jacob surely rejoiced in his seven years of labor because they were (supposed to) result in Rachel.  For us, suffering patiently and even joyfully borne results in perseverance: we learn to keep on keeping on.  That produces strong character: We become people who can bear up under hard testing.  And as we develop that kind of character, our hope in God grows all the more.  By hope we aren’t talking about mere wishful thinking, but to a confidence that looks ahead and knows that the promises God makes to us in Jesus Christ He will keep.  We know it because He’s already keeping His promise of love to us even now, pouring it into our hearts through His Spirit.  And refreshed by His love we can rejoice in whatever that rotten job or difficult relationship or physical ordeal throws at us, because our hope in God will never disappoint us.

In the same way, in our passage from Colossians chapter 1,  Paul by the Spirit prays that the Colossians and all believers may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Why?  So we may live a life worthy and pleasing to the Lord.  So we can bear fruit in every good work, and grow in the knowledge of God.

Sometimes we think, “Oh, that would be so easy if I didn’t have all the hassles of daily life to contend with!”  But it’s the other way around.  Bearing fruit for God happens in the midst of the real trials of this earthly life, as we encounter trouble and suffering and hard, boring, ungrateful labor. And so Paul prays that we may be strengthened with all of God’s mighty power so we might have great endurance and patience.

What is this endurance and patience?  Is it gritting our teeth and just getting through it?  No, in all we endure God desires that we should joyfully give thanks to Him.  Why?  Because it is through our hard labor and trials that His glorious might is revealed in us.  Because in them we are more and more driven to trust Him and not our own abilities.  Because He’s teaching us to seek our satisfaction not in the joys and pleasures of this earth, but in the inheritance of the saints He has laid up for us in the kingdom of light.  This inheritance is eternal blissful fellowship with Him, and it’s not something we can earn; it’s already ours through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 6 brings the issue home.  Now, slavery is never God’s ideal for how one human being should relate to another.  Nevertheless, it existed as an integral part of 1st century Greco-Roman society, just as tedious, low-paying jobs exist in ours.  This passage does not advise us on getting better employment, any more than it deals with how a slave might try to become free.  What it does command is that as long as we are under a given boss or master, we should respect and obey him sincerely, just as we would respect, fear, and obey Jesus Christ.  Not going about moaning, “I’m miserable; O Lord, reward me for my misery!” but doing the will of God from our hearts.  Again, Paul says, “serve wholeheartedly.”  Not much room there for keeping a tally of our injuries and expecting God to pay us back for them, is there?

But wait a minute.  Look, here in verse 8, it says the Lord will reward us.  Yes, He will.  But not for how much we hated the whole experience, whatever it was.  Our reward will be for our faithfulness in the situation, for our service to Him no matter how terrible our boss might be, for our wholeheartedness and joy in the Lord as we imitate Jesus Christ-- who did not shirk the dirtiest, most offensive, and most demeaning job of all:  going to the cross to pay the price for our sins.

So in all the hard labors and trials of our life, let us indeed

. . . fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus willingly went through suffering for the joy of winning you and me as His redeemed people.  You belong to Him now; remember that and be comforted whenever you encounter trouble and opposition.  He has brought you out of sin and death and He certainly can give you joy in the midst of whatever hard labor you may go through.

But what about getting credit for our suffering?  If by that we expect God to reward us for having a bleak, miserable, unloving, and joyless attitude towards our work and relationships, sorry, we’re out of luck.  The Son of God rejoiced over us at creation and joyfully went through hell to present us as His workmanship before the Father.  We are now children of God, beloved by Christ who died and rose for us.  Since this is true of Him and true of us, we owe it to Him to take joy in our duty, and we also owe Him the duty of joy, just as He rendered joyful duty and dutiful joy to His Father in heaven.

And isn’t this what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves?  If we were perfect people in this very imperfect world, we would be so filled with love for our neighbor that the worst kind of service for the most difficult person would be like Jacob serving to get Rachel.  And as a very imperfect human being I’m tempted to tell you (and myself) that of course God does not expect that of us. But I’d be wrong.  He does expect that of us, for He expects us to grow up to the fullness of the stature of Christ, who joyfully suffered that we might live.

But take heart, brothers and sisters! He expects it of us through the peace, wisdom, and strength of Christ, not through our own. God loves you: Ask Him to help you love your neighbor.  God rejoices over you in Christ; pray in all things that He will bring you more and more to rejoice in Him.  And pray with all His saints that He will bring us through suffering at last to His kingdom of light, where duty is joy and joy is duty, to the praise of His glorious name.  Amen.

When Our Hard Work Doesn't Work

Texts: Romans 4:1-25; John 6:22-29

TOMORROW IS LABOR DAY, WHEN we celebrate the efforts and accomplishments of America's workers.  So it was appropriate that recently the actor Ashton Kucher should give an audience of young people a strong exhortation about the value and necessity of hard work.  He was speaking at the Teen Choice Awards, and among other things, he said, "I've noticed throughout my life that Opportunity looks a lot like hard work."  His point was that nobody should sit around passively and then complain when opportunity to get ahead seems to pass them by. Hard work is essential, and the kids need to get that through their heads while they're young, and save themselves a lifetime of disappointment and misery.

That's how it operates in this world, "under the sun," as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes.  You get what you work for, and if you don't work, you don't get. And if you can work but refuse to, and by dint of welfare and handouts you do get, you're settling for way less than second best, and when the handouts run out, you'll be sunk.  It's the way things are.

But there's a sphere where all these facts are stood on their heads.  Where to stop working is virtue, where to keep on working is to do evil, where being willing simply to reach out and receive good things we don't deserve is to be the happiest of all.

St. Paul speaks of this condition in our reading from the fourth chapter of his letter to the Romans.  Now, in the Bible, context is everything.  So we need to remember that prior to this, up to the first part of chapter 3, the Holy Spirit has convicted us all, Jews and Gentiles alike, of unrighteousness before God.  The Jews have the Law of Moses written on tablets of stone; they don't obey it.  The Gentiles (and all mankind, really) have the natural law of God inscribes on their hearts, and they suppress it and break it, too.  So we're all in the position where the law has declared us all guilty.  God has brought us to this position so that, as Paul writes in 3:19-20,

. . . [E]very mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

The law of God, whether it's the written law given through Moses or our inward sense of right and wrong, describes the work, the big job we have to do in order to please our Lord and Creator.  Ultimately, whether we acknowledge Him or not, God is our Boss, and if He wants to fire us, there's no place else to go.

And even if we feel we want to do what is just and right and do the work God requires, every day we're putting ourselves more in His disfavor.  We're like incompetent workers who not only don't do our jobs, but even when we're trying our best we break the machinery and alienate the customers and embezzle our employer's funds. When it comes to achieving favor with God, our hard work doesn't work.  This is how it is when we depend on ourselves to gain and maintain our own righteousness by obeying the law.

But the good news, as Paul tells us in the last part of Romans chapter 3, is that God Himself has done all the hard work for us through His Son Jesus Christ.  His blood shed on the cross makes everything right between us and our divine Employer: We are justified in His sight.  His death paid the price to buy us back out of slavery to sin: In Jesus Christ we are redeemed.  His sacrifice of Himself propitiated the wrath that God rightly had directed against us for our sin: He has settled the our sin debt for us and it will never be held against us again.

Jesus Christ did all this for us when He died on Calvary, and His resurrection proves that God accepted His work.  But how do we make the work of Jesus Christ our own?  Do we do it by laboring really hard to love God and our neighbor, so we'll deserve the favor of Christ?

Well, think of the words of Jesus Himself as recorded in the sixth chapter of John's gospel.  The day before He had fed the 5,000-plus on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  Then somehow He'd transported Himself to the Capernaum side of the lake, though everyone had seen the disciples go off in the only boat they had without Him.  Even though they didn't necessarily know Jesus had walked most of the way across on the water, they certainly were sure that this Rabbi was a special representative of God and they weren't going to lose hold of Him.  They were racing around, working hard not to lose hold of Him.

But as Jesus says, "You are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."   He seems to be agreeing with the idea we all have, that spiritual blessings, like earthly ones, have to be earned by our own efforts.  So of course the representatives of the crowd ask Jesus, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

Now, they knew the Law.  And they knew God expected them to keep it.  But maybe, just maybe Rabbi Jesus would give them some wonderful new tip so they could keep it.

And Jesus says simply, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

That's it.  If they or we want to gain eternal life, if we want to appropriate the work of Christ on the cross for ourselves, we must not work.  We must let God do all the work and simply receive the gift of salvation by faith in Christ alone.  Our work has no place in God's plan to make us right with Him.  In fact, to insist on working for it ourselves is to imply that Jesus and His death aren't good enough for us.

But if you've read your Bible and knew about the patriarch Abraham, you might be inclined to object.  Wasn't Abraham justified by his works when he obeyed God and left Ur and then Haran to go to the land of Canaan?  Didn't God reward him for his deed when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah?   Abraham pleased God by his works, didn't he? and aren't we to be sons of Abraham and follow in his footsteps?

Not so fast, Paul says in Chapter 4.  How was it actually that Abraham pleased God?  The Apostle quotes Genesis 15:6:  "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  It was by faith and faith alone that Father Abraham was accepted as righteous before God!

And is the righteousness that God credited Abraham by faith the heritage only for the circumcised, that is, the Jews?  No, because God created that faith in him and accepted that faith before the sign of circumcision was even given.  The important thing is not whether we are Jews or Gentiles, the important thing is that God does His work in us and credits righteousness to us by faith.  To walk in the footsteps of Abraham, Paul argues in verse 12, is to receive by faith the work that God has done for us and to live our lives trusting that God has done everything necessary for us to be accepted by Him.  Just as Abraham looked forward to Christ and trusted in the work He would do, we look back on the saving work Jesus completed and trust that it is enough and more than enough, apart from anything we could accomplish.

But--!  But--!  Don't we have to do something to be Abraham's true heirs?  The other day I heard that some television host was arguing that if you don't think the impending national healthcare law is a great thing you can't possibly be a real Christian.  The radio host who passed this story along thought this was ridiculous on political grounds.  As Christians, we first and foremost have to reject this statement on spiritual grounds.  We are Christians through being accepted by God in Jesus Christ, and that was due to no work of kindness of ours, public or private.  For as our reading says, "It was not through law--" [And the law is largely about how we should be kind to one another] "--Not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith."

But let's say it were possible for someone to receive the new heaven and new earth God promises by his or her hard work trying to love God and neighbor.  If that were the case, Paul says, "faith has no value and the promise is worthless."  But we've already seen that doing our best to please God-- that is, following the law-- doesn't get us anywhere.  It only puts us deeper into God's righteous wrath.

But being right with God through faith is an entirely different story.  For one thing, it's totally inclusive.  For it says in verse 16;

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring-- not only to those who are of the law [that is, ethnic Jews], but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.  He is the father of us all.

This is totally countercultural!  The culture says-- what is that song from The Sound of Music?  It goes something like

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could;
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must've done something good.1

Human culture says it's all about work and rewards.  But the promise of God comes to us who are dead in trespasses and sins, who are totally helpless and can't do a single solitary thing to work our way to eternal life.  And see! He makes us alive in Christ!  Our God is the God who does call something out of nothing by the power of His Word, and He does it every time the Holy Spirit plants faith in Jesus Christ into a lost sinner, like each of us were before He gave us new life in Christ.

Our God is the God who "calls things that are not as though they were."  And when He speaks, those things spring into being!  How do we know this is true in time and space and not just in theory?  Well, says Paul, look at the whole history of the birth of Isaac.  Both Abraham and Sarah were as good as dead where it came to having children.  They totally didn't have it in them.  But God had promised him a son from his own loins by his wife Sarah herself and no surrogate.  God in His mercy maintained and repeated this promise even after the fiasco with Hagar and her son Ishmael.  And without wavering Abraham believed that the Lord indeed would give him his own begotten son by Sarah.  He had faith that God had the power to do what He had promised, and this faith was "credited to him as righteousness."

So what does this mean for us as we go about our lives as children of God living in an ungodly world?  First, we must resist the Devil's lie that God requires more of us than faith in the finished work of His Son Jesus Christ, or that faith itself is some kind of a work we do, and not itself the gift of God.

We must stand firmly against the world's conception that being a Christian is about doing good deeds, and the more good deeds you do, the better Christian you are.  Yes, God does want us to walk in the footsteps of our Father Abraham, who acted on the divine promises he believed.  But our actions and our work do not make us his children or children of the living God.  That all comes by grace through faith in Christ alone.

And we must utterly reject the falsehood that creeps upon us when we're depressed or in a bad situation, the nasty little voice that suggests we're not good enough to be saved by the blood of Christ, or worse, that somehow the blood of Christ isn't strong enough to save a wretch like you or me.  If we were good, we wouldn't need saving!  And the promise of God in Jesus stands firm and strong.  His cross is more than sufficient to save us from all our sins.

For what does the Apostle say at the end of our reading from Romans?

The words "It was credited to him" were written not for him [Abraham] alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness-- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

In the sphere of this world, by all means, work as hard as you can at the vocation God has called you to.  But in the sphere of the world to come, stop struggling, stop your fruitless working, put down your tools and come with empty hands ready to receive.  The Son of Man gives you the food that endures to eternal life, and He gives you the faith you need to take it from His hand.  By His grace, may you cease your labors and rest forever in Him.  Amen.
____________________________________________
1  By Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, 1959

God's One-Sided Bargain

Texts:  Genesis 15:1-18; Luke 22:14-30

TWO VERSES FROM OUR READINGS this morning sound the keynote for today's sermon.  The first is Genesis 15:17 and it says,

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 

The second is Luke 22:20, which says,

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. 

One verse that's familiar, one verse we may find to be obscure.  But both have to do with the covenant of grace that the Lord our God makes with us, not counting the cost to Himself, that you and I might be saved.

The making of covenants is fundamental to Biblical history.  Our God is a covenant-making God.  But let's not think that the making of covenants was some special Bible thing off in a category by itself.  No, it was basic to human life and civilization back in ancient times and it still is today.

People make different kinds of covenants with one another, for different purposes.  Treaties.  Bargains.  Marriage vows.  Contracts.  You name it.  All of these involve the parties promising to do certain things for one another.  Very often they stipulate the penalties the parties will face if either of them fail to live up to their side of the bargain.  The general form was, "Do this, and this benefit will follow.  Fail to do this, and this penalty will follow."  As you might expect, if one party to a contract was more powerful than the other, the weaker party incurred most of the obligation and most, if not all, of the penalties.  But what would you think of a covenant where the stronger party took all the obligations and all the penalties to himself, and all the benefits came to the party that was weaker?  That's not how it happened in the ancient world, and it's not how it happens today.  But that's exactly what the Lord God Almighty does for us in the covenant of grace He has made with us for our salvation.

Genesis chapter 15 begins with the word of the Lord coming to Abram in a vision:

"Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield,
    your very great reward."

At the outset, we see God conferring a benefit on the man Abram.  And who was Abram?  Was he some hero or demigod who had the right to deal with the Lord God Almighty as an equal?  No, he was a nomadic herdsman of Syrian descent whom God out of His own free grace had elected to be the one through whom all the nations of the world should be blessed.  God of His own choice gave Abram the right to expect something of Him.  So to this wonderful assurance Abram basically responds, "How will I know that You will keep your promise to me?  You've promised to make me into a great nation and look, I still have no children and a servant of mine looks to be my only heir."

  And does the Lord say, "Trust Me?"  He could have.  But in grace He responds that indeed, a son coming from Abram's own body would be his heir, and He gives him the sign of the stars of heaven as His testimony that His promise is firm and sure.

Does Genesis say, "Abram did this or that to deserve that God should favor him"? or "God required these actions and good works from Abram as his part of the bargain"?  No, it tells us that upon seeing this sign,"Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  All the action was on the Lord's side; all the passive receptiveness was on Abram's.  Abram simply received God's grace, and by that grace he received the righteousness of God that made it possible for him to walk with God in friendship and peace and receive His blessings forever.

But God has not finished making His one-sided bargain or covenant with this man.  The Lord says,

"I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it."

Again, as in verse 2, Abram asks for a sign that this indeed will take place.  God, being God, had every right to say, "Abram, you trusted Me before; go on trusting Me now.  Isn't My word enough for you?"

But the Lord doesn't do that.  Instead, the Lord God of the universe condescends to a man and grants him signs and seals to ratify the bargain, exactly as if it were one man making covenant with another.

The Lord commands Abram to bring certain animals of a certain age, along with two birds.  Abram obeyed, cut the animals in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other, with the birds opposite each other, though not cut in half.  Then Abram sat down to wait, driving the birds of prey away from the carcasses, waiting to see what the Lord would do, waiting to see what the Lord wanted him to do.

This strange procedure was a standard way of ratifying and witnessing to a covenant in the ancient Near East.  What could it possibly mean?  It might help if we turn over to Jeremiah 34.  There the leaders of Judah have made a covenant before God to free their slaves, but they've broken it and taken the freedmen into slavery again.  So the Lord says,

The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.  The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, I will hand over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

The covenant was sealed in the blood of the animals.  The idea was that the parties making the covenant would walk between the severed animal pieces, in effect saying, "If I break this covenant, may I be like this slaughtered animal.  May my dead body be food for birds of prey, with no one to drive them off."  Typically, it was the weaker party who passed between the pieces.  A weaker king.  The debtor who needed the money.  The people of a god.  The powerful party merely witnessed that all was done properly, to his benefit.

But what is this in Genesis between God and Abram?   It had been nighttime with the stars shining when the Lord first came to him in this vision.  It was now sunset of the day after   As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and "a thick and dreadful darkness came over him."  This was no ordinary darkness and no ordinary sleep, it was a sleep from the Lord.  Abram would not be asked to walk between the pieces; he would not be asked to do anything.  In fact, God wanted to make sure Abram wasn't capable of doing anything.  This treaty, this bargain, was going to be totally one-sided, and the one party making the promises, the one party obligating Himself to them was God and God alone.

In verses 13 to 16 the Lord sets forth the terms of the promise:  That Abram's descendants would indeed inherit the land, but not until the sin of the present inhabitants (here known collectively as Amorites) had reached its full measure and their judgement was due.

Now, we might think that doesn't exactly count.  If you tell me I've won the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes but then tell me you'll make the check out to my great-great grandchild who hasn't even been born yet, and I'm getting on in years and don't have any kids in the first place, as a modern individualist I'm likely to say, hey, that wasn't what you promised before.  But our ancient ancestors were much more family and clan oriented than we are, and they understood that they lived on in their descendants.  A man like Abram would have taken no pleasure in receiving a blessing that would die with him.

So as Abram lies in deep vision-sleep, the Lord unilaterally declares what He will do.  And then, wonder of wonders, when the sun had fully set there appeared (verse 17) a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passing between the severed animal pieces. This was none other than a vision of the Lord God Almighty swearing an oath against Himself, saying, "May I be like these dead animals if I do not keep my promise to Abram my friend."

God Almighty Himself is conferring all the benefits!  And taking on all the penalties and obligations!  Most covenants then as now say, "Do this in order to receive that."  But God's covenant of grace says, "Believe this and receive that."  Or maybe putting it better, "Believe Me and receive this." God was witnessing blood against Himself if He should fail in any of His promises to His friend Abram.

What is this to us?  Everything.  Because in His grace, God's one-sided bargain with Abram set in motion the divine plan for our salvation.   He promised him a land to call his own, but the physical land of Canaan was only a sign of the kingdom of heaven that we, God's covenant people, will receive.  He promised him heirs like the stars in the sky, and physically, this came true, but even more numerous are those who are children of Abraham by faith, for all who, like Abraham, believe God and have it counted to us as righteousness.

But the greatest fulfilment of God's covenant with Abram came in the greatest of his descendants, who is Jesus Christ our Lord.  And so we see Him in the Upper Room, sharing a meal with His disciples shortly He is to die, and like God His Father so many centuries before, God the Son of God makes a one-sided covenant with those He loves and seals it in His own blood.  "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you," Jesus said.  For us He became those animals whose bodies were cut in two.  For us He walked the road to Calvary   Jesus did not bleed and die because He failed to keep His covenant of grace with us, He bled and died so that covenant could be put into effect.  His resurrection from the dead proves that this is true; because He rose, we know that we will rise with Him.

In this season of Lent, as we look forward to Easter and Christ's resurrection, let us remember that there is nothing we can do to deserve God's blessings of life and fellowship and forgiveness.  His covenant with us is like His covenant with our father Abraham, totally one-sided on God's part where it comes to action and obligations, totally benefitting us whom He has called to be His own.  Indeed, our new covenant in the blood of Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises to Abram, who believed the Lord and to whom that was credited as righteousness.  For as St. Paul says in Romans 4 says,

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

By faith we are the children of Abraham, the friend of God.  But even better, by faith in the shed blood of Christ, we are the children of God, who makes His extraordinary promises to us, and keeps them all.

A Kingdom Not of This World

Texts:  2 Samuel 23:1-7; Romans 1:1-6; John 18:33-37

WHAT KIND OF KING DO we want?

As good Americans, of course we will reply we don't want a king.  That's why we fought a revolution.

All right, then, what kind of president do we want?  What kind of leader do we want at our head to guide us and guard us and make decisions in our behalf?

Well, taking it from history and recent events, typically we want rulers with the common touch.  We want someone who can sympathize with our needs, aspirations, and desires-- and help fulfill them.  Someone who can identify with us as his fellow human beings. He should be down here and present with us.  We want his kingdom to be a kingdom of this world.

At the same time, we want our leader to be a little better than we are, just like us but more so.  Accomplished and superior enough so we can look up to him, but not so high that he's totally detached.  We want him to symbolize our own aspirations for power and greatness, because we want to think of ourselves as great.

We want our leader to be accountable to us.  Even the most powerful of emperors could be taken down by a vote of his nobles, or by a palace coup.  We want him to bear in mind that with all his power and riches and fame, he's only our ruler as long as we allow him to be.  We want him to reign over a kingdom of this world and answer to us, because we're very much of this world.  That's the kind of king we want.

So how does Jesus Christ fit into this?  Today is Christ the King Sunday, the day when the Church has traditionally celebrated our Lord's exalted status as king of heaven and earth. Is He the kind of king we traditionally want?

In some ways, yes.  In 2 Samuel 23 we have a valedictory psalm of David, his official last words.  In it, among other things, he celebrates that God has made with his house and family an everlasting covenant.  This refers to the fact that the Lord God promised that there would never fail to be a descendant of David sitting on the throne of Israel. And who was David?  He was the despised shepherd boy whom God had raised up to shepherd His people Israel.  And who is Jesus?  As St. Paul reminds us in Romans chapter 1, Jesus is the descendant or son of David.  Jesus has humble family origins.  We can identify with Him.

And also in Romans 1, the apostle speaks of Jesus' human nature. Jesus as He walked this earth and proclaimed His coming kingdom was a human being just like we are.  He was subject to the physical laws of this earth.  He needed food and sleep.  The rain wet Him and the dust of the road dirtied His feet.  Jesus shares our humanity.  Very good, He's like us.

In His ministry we see how Jesus definitely had the common touch.  He gently and tenderly dealt with those who were sick and hungry and hurting.  Mothers eagerly brought their children to Him to be blessed.  He stood up for the poor and oppressed and defended them against the powerful.  His heart was with the people and their needs, and His actions were, too.

In all these ways and more, Jesus seemed to be the kind of king people traditionally want.  A king of a kingdom of this world, taking care of our worldly needs and desires.  Think of what St. John tells us about the crowd after Jesus fed the 5,000, how they wanted to take Jesus and make Him king by force.  They knew a good candidate when they saw Him!

But even in His time, people knew that if Jesus was a king, He wasn't the ordinary kind.  He was also fulfilling the expectations for the great king who would be the special Anointed One, the Messiah of Israel.  Through Him God would work in a unique way.  It was only to be expected that Jesus should identify with the people by performing signs and wonders and miracles for their sake.  At least, they figured it was all for their sake. What else?  The crowds were filled with admiration at how the powers of nature took a back seat to this Man whenever He spoke a word.  They were thrilled at the authority with which He taught.  And they delighted in how He overturned the pretensions of the religious leaders who opposed Him.  Jesus was that ruler who could be looked up to and admired.  As David sang long ago in his farewell psalm, Jesus the Son of David was One through whom the Spirit of the Lord spoke.  He ruled over men in righteousness, and in His day He was like the light of the morning sunrise to those who labored under oppression of every kind.

So far, Jesus was and is the kind of king we humans naturally want.  But there's a problem.  Jesus refused to be bound by our desires and expectations.  Yes, He fulfills our need for a king who is like us and from among us, One who sympathizes with our weaknesses because He has known them Himself.  But Jesus came to be a far greater king than that, and His kingdom is not a kingdom of this world.

We see this starkly in our reading from John 18.  Here we have Jesus standing His trial before Pilate, the Roman governor.   "Are you the king of the Jews?" Pilate asks Him.  Is he asking a serious question?  Of course not.  The idea that this beaten and battered Man before him could be the king of anything is absurd.  Something else must be going on.  So Pilate asks, "What it is you have done?"  And Jesus replies, "My kingdom is not of this world."  And just in those words we have the basis of the religious authorities' charges against Him.  He refused to be the king of a mere earthly kingdom; He asserted ultimate divine power.  His kingdom is not of this world, and as such He and it were an offense not only to the Jewish leaders, He is an offense to what we are in our natural sinful state.

For now Jesus is really claiming to have control and authority even over the terrible situation He finds Himself in.  Pilate has pointed out that the Jewish people and chief priests have handed Him over to him.  Jesus replies that the very fact that His servants didn't fight to prevent His arrest is proof that His kingdom is from another place, and doesn't follow the rules of kingdoms here.  Maybe Jesus was including the disciples among His "servants" in this verse, but much more likely He's referring to the holy angels.  As He reminded Peter in Matthew 26:52-53, when the apostle drew his sword to try to protect Jesus from arrest, "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" But He did not put in the call, because like a good king and general He was working out His plan to bring in His kingdom which is not of this world.  If an ordinary man made this kind of divine claim we'd laugh at him.  And it's true, people laugh at Jesus and His royal talk, too. But they're forgetting the innumerable displays of power over nature, sickness, Satan, and sin He displayed throughout His ministry.  They're ignoring all the times the authorities tried to seize Him and He miraculously eluded their grasp.  No, the very fact that Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested showed that He was in charge of a plan that went beyond simply bringing in a new earthly kingdom.

Pilate, in his worldly cynicism, responds, "You are a king, then!"  Like, "Sure, right, tell me a new one."  Jesus, however, takes the governor's bare words and confirms the truth of them.  "You are right in saying I am a king."  I'm a substitute teacher, and sometimes a kid will say something to be funny or sarcastic that is more true than they know.  You have to latch onto that and confirm it to snap them out of their silliness and bring them face to face with true knowledge.  Yes, Pilate, it's true.  I, Jesus of Nazareth, am a king.  As king my first duty is to testify to the truth.  Those who are on the side of truth listen to me and are my natural subjects.

Our gospel passage leaves out Pilate's flippant reply, "What is truth?"  But it's worth answering.  According to the Scriptures, truth first and foremost is God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Truth is all God says and all God does.  Truth is His word communicated to us in Holy Scripture.  And truth supremely is the testimony that, as John records in chapter 3, that "Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil," but "whoever by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."  And how do we come into the light?  As Peter writes in his first epistle, it is God Himself (and God alone) who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. We need to be ruled by something or someone outside of this world for us to be part of Christ's kingdom, and His divine power reaches in and conquers our souls for our own good.

Pilate made a flippant reply about truth because he was the mighty Roman governor dealing with a prisoner who was totally at his mercy.  But when we in our sin make belittling comments about Jesus and His truth, we show our discomfort that with the fact that Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.  His kingdom of Truth shows up all our dishonesty and lies.  Jesus the King of Truth convicts us of our sins and calls us to repent and believe in Him, who is the Truth.  As heavenly King He has the ultimate right to judge, for He answers to no earthly constitution and is accountable to no earthly court.

This is not like the kings and kingdoms of this world!  And see how Jesus the King ascends to His throne-- through the cross!  The servants of an earthly king would fight to protect His person and His realm.  But Jesus the Son of God goes forward to fight and die alone to win for Himself a kingdom that is not of this world.  As Jesus says in John 12, "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."  Some He will draw for salvation, some for condemnation, but by His death Jesus won the right to be the eternal ruler and King.

In our natural sinful way of thinking, Jesus is not the kind of king we want.  He claims to be in control of the forces of history-- and in control over us.  He claims to personify Truth-- and His truth judges not only our sin, but also our goodness, and finds it wanting.  Jesus claims that His kingdom is not of this world-- and refuses to let us co-opt Him and it for our own earthly purposes.  In short, He asserts that in all His humanity, in all His status as the Son of David, in all His sympathy with us and our needs,.He is more than that and beyond all that.  He was, as Paul says in Romans, "through the Spirit of holiness . . . declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead."  But the glorious and comforting thing is that on His cross Jesus won the victory over sin and death, and that included our sin and our death.  Jesus our King has removed the blindness from our eyes and the stubbornness from our hearts, so that we can recognise Him and long for Him as our true and only King, whose kingdom is not of this world.

What does this mean for our every day lives?  For one thing, it would keep us from confusing our own government or any other earthly system with the kingdom of Christ.  Bad earthly rulership does not tear God's kingdom down, neither does good human government cause God's kingdom to come.  All is in the Father's control, and His kingdom will prevail when every human administration has passed away.

And since we are not merely subjects, but also children and heirs of Christ's kingdom, we know that whatever happens to us in this world we belong to  a heavenly commonwealth that will never be destroyed.  This world is a wonderful place to travel through, but it's even better to know that one day we're going home.

And because Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, we know that He will definitely succeed in His ultimate purpose, to call us with all His saints to the perfect obedience that comes by faith.  We have been called to belong to Jesus Christ, and King Jesus will not fail to transform you into His image, no matter how guilty and sinful you feel you are.  He is the King whose kingdom is not of this world, and He can and will do it.
So let us depend on Him for all things and honor Him in all we think and do and say.  He is your Lord and King-- mighty, powerful, high and lifted up-- but also humble, gracious, and able to sympathize with your every sorrow and need.  Give Him praise and glory, for Jesus Christ is just the King we truly want and truly need.  Amen.

Worth Repeating

Texts: Psalm 136; Romans 8:31-39

       O GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD, FOR He is good:
        for His steadfast love endures forever.

Is this a statement worth repeating?  Our spiritual ancestors the ancient Israelites thought so.  All through the books of Kings and Chronicles, at times of celebration at the Jerusalem temple, frequently when the armies of the Lord go out to war, we read of this call and response being made between priest and people. It stands as a confession of faith for the Old Testament church.  And since the Lord's church is one church, it is a confession of faith for us.  The Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever.  This is a confession we should take upon our lips daily.  We should find it marvellously worth repeating. 

    But what happens when the goodness of the Lord seems to fall short?   What if we feel that His love isn't exactly steadfast, or not exactly what we'd define as love?

    I was moved to preach on these two passages a couple weeks ago, long before a hurricane called Sandy began making its way up the Atlantic coast.  Around here we got off pretty light.  But elsewhere--!  Even now there are still people in New York and New Jersey who are cold and hungry and suffering.  They have no heat and no running water and they're short of food.  Ordinary people just like us in a terrible situation.  What if that was us?  Would we still be able to respond, "His steadfast love endures forever!"?  Would we want to?  Today's readings teach us that not only should we want to, even in the worst of circumstances, but through that same steadfast love of God, we can.

    The first step is to understand what this steadfast love is.  It goes way beyond a feeling or preference, it includes the active kindness and mercy of God toward men.  The word is hesed, and it describes how God is in Himself and also how God behaves as He reaches out to us in grace and favor.

    But here's our problem: We get the idea that if somebody loves us they should give us exactly what we think we want right now, whether it's the best thing for us or not.  And if he or she doesn't give it, it means they don't love us after all.  This attitude can make it hard for us to repeat that "His steadfast love endures forever!"

    I hope you and I aren't so childish as that.  I pray the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to see that God shows His steadfast love towards us first and foremost in giving us a relationship with Himself, in allowing us to catch even the reflection of His greatness.  The psalmist proclaims,

        Give thanks to the God of gods,

and

        Give thanks to the Lord of lords.

Think of it!  Only we among the creatures are made in His image.  Only we are privileged even dimly to recognize who He is. The animals, the rocks, the trees: they worship God in being what they are, but they are totally unaware of the splendor and majesty of their Creator.  But Lord God has granted that we should see His glory, and in His love He has enabled us to enjoy Him in worship.  This is a privilege that nothing can take away from us, for God in His splendor always remains God.

    But as we see from verse 4 through 9, this loving God is more than great in Himself, He is also the Doer of wonders who made heaven and earth and all that are in them.

    And that includes us.  Our very existence is proof of the Lord's steadfast love!  He didn't have to create us.  He wasn't forced to give life to you or me in particular. We breathe and inhabit this earth out of the loving mercy of the Lord, and this should call forth our thanks-- even when that existence is threatened, because even in danger our lives are in His loving hands.

    For He knows our trouble and frailty.  Our God is not a wicked king who takes delight in being a tyrant over his subjects.  Our Lord is a God who shows His steadfast love in saving His people.  Verses 10 through 15 speak of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt.  That was the great founding event in the history of the Old Testament church. At the Red Sea God displayed His power and salvation right there in human history and forged the Hebrew people into the nation of His choice. A Jewish friend recently asked me how we could know that the God of the Bible exists.  I reminded him that the God of the Bible has actually acted in loving acts towards real people in real time to real effect.  As a Jew this friend isn't particularly faithful to the Scriptures, so I don't know how much my reminder convinced him.  But for us who are under His New Covenant, these verses about Israel's salvation from Egypt should move us to thanksgiving, for they remind us of the greater salvation the Exodus looked forward to.

    For as great as God's victory was over Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt, even greater was the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ when He triumphed over sin, Satan, and death on the cross of Calvary.  As wonderful as God's love was when He safely brought His people Israel through the Red Sea, even greater was His love when He brought His Son through death to resurrection.  This was love shown to us, for we know that when Jesus rose from the dead, all of us who were chosen in Him from the foundation of the world were raised with Him as well.

    God shows His steadfast love for us in salvation.  But like the people in Staten Island and Queens, we want to be saved now and saved the way we want to be saved.  We can't judge those storm victims for being in the state they're in.  Even if they had evacuated, they couldn't have gotten far and they'd still be in dire straits.  And who of us can really visualize a fifteen foot tidal surge slamming up and washing away homes and taking out the power supply?  But when it comes to my sin and your sin and the sin of all mankind, we must judge ourselves.  I must give thanks for God's lovingkindness in salvation, because I myself am a sinner who needs to be saved.  No, none of us is Adam or Eve who first rebelled against God in the beginning.  But every day by my human nature and by my sinful acts I follow in my first parents' footsteps and I am covered in guilt.

    And so are you, and every human being who ever lived.  We do not deserve God's steadfast love or His favor.  In fact, it was the sin of mankind in Adam that disrupted creation so that superstorms like Sandy are so terrible and devastating.  In our chapter from Romans if we read verses 19 to 22 we see that creation was subjected to frustration and is in bondage to decay, because of the sin of mankind.  God in His steadfast love decreed that the creation should not be freed until we His elect are revealed as His glorious adopted sons.

    And this is what God has predestined us to be.  Our God doesn't merely rescue us and let us go where we will; He also guides us to our new home in Him.  This is what we see in verses 16 to 22 of Psalm 136.  Especially significant are the verses about the defeat of Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan.  We can read their stories in Numbers 21.  The Israelites always knew they were going to have to fight the Canaanite peoples on the other side of the Jordan.  But Sihon and Og ruled on the east side of Jordan, and both of them attacked Israel with no provocation.  Oh, no!  Do we see terrible situations coming at us like that and conclude that God's love isn't steadfast and doesn't endure forever?  No!  That's when we like Israel stand strong in the power of the Lord and trust His steadfast love to help us overcome the foe. 

    Verse 23 and 24 tell us how even after Israel entered the Promised Land there were still times when, due to their disobedience and sin, they suffered humiliation and attack by their enemies.  But even then God's merciful love towards them prevailed and He saved them again and again.  And that's how God acts towards us who belong to Him through Jesus Christ.  In His steadfast love He keeps on forgiving our sins and redeeming and repairing what we destroy in our own foolishness.  It is worth repeating: "His steadfast love endures forever!"

    Let us never forget: God's salvation isn't something we deserve, it's something we need.  And in God's perfect timing, there it is for us!  Even as we cry out "How long, O Lord, how long?" we can also affirm that His steadfast love endures forever, because our God is a God who keeps His promises.  Did you know that the Lord told Abraham that his descendants would be oppressed for four hundred years in Egypt, and then He would save them?  Four hundred years!  All that time, God was working out His perfect plan, making the conditions just right.  It was the same in the centuries before Jesus won our salvation on the cross.  But what about all those who died before Moses?  Who died before Christ?  God's loving kindness extends to them as well.  All whom God has chosen are included in His great salvation, no matter when they lived and died.  The One who made the moon and stars is capable of seeing to that!  And one thing we must learn and hold onto: The salvation of God is not limited to this earthly life.  Its goal and purpose is to bring us into His presence in the life of the world to come.

    And so in the midst of storm and trouble; yes, even as "the nearer waters roll; while the tempest still is high" we can respond "For His steadfast love endures forever!"  Because we know that God in His grace and wisdom is working all things out for our salvation; and not only for our salvation, but also to make us holy and wholly glorified in Jesus Christ.

    For as we read in our verses from Romans 8, it is actually in the midst of trouble and persecution that we can lift up our heads and repeat that "His steadfast love endures forever!"  For above all we see His love displayed in His Son Jesus Christ, who suffered trouble, persecution, and death for our sakes.  The loving Father God who has saved us from our sins will certainly not let us be overcome by those who hate and harm us because of our salvation!

    It is sad, tragic, even, that so many Christians have been falsely taught that as soon as you ask Jesus into your heart all your troubles will be over.  And when trouble comes, they conclude God doesn't love them or isn't faithful, and they fall away.  Our unbelieving enemies sneer at us on the strength of this lie:  See, they say, your God isn't so powerful or loving after all!  Will we listen to their trash?  Will we let their attacks and taunts make us doubt the steadfast love of the Lord?  When we suffer  "tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword" for the sake of Christ, shall we conclude that all this means that God has forgotten us?

    No!  "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."  It is no mere mantra or affirmation when we repeat that God's "steadfast love endures forever"; we know it's true because of what Jesus Christ did for us.  In Him God is totally, irrevocably, and lovingly for us, so who or what can be against us?  He has given us His Son Jesus Christ!  What an immense and unfathomable act of enduring love!  Truly, "His steadfast love endures forever!"

    And lest we falter, lest we forget, our Lord has given us this sacrament of the Lord's Supper.  Here at His Table we have physical elements that we can see and touch and taste.  Here God confirms that just as surely as we take this physical food into our bodies for our nourishment, just as surely His Spirit nourishes us with the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ our crucified and risen Lord, to the nourishment of eternal life.  Brothers and sisters, as you partake of this holy meal, remember that no matter what happens, God's love is faithful.  For

    . . . neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.  So give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.  And let God's people repeat: "For His steadfast love endures forever!"
   

Newborn from God

Texts:    Romans 6:1-17; John 3:1-14

    IN A LITTLE WHILE WE WILL BAPTISE H-- A-- B--, infant son of H-- and D-- B--.  I was told that H-- was born on the 15th of this past August, so he's not quite two months old.  Once this child was not even thought of, but now he's a little person living here among us.  Even in these past two months he's growing, developing, and gaining strength.  What will he look like when he's big?  What will he be able to do? 

    We marvel at the glory of human life, especially when we find it packaged in a little child.  But human life is not enough.

    And what a miracle H-- is!  If anything on this earth could be called miraculous, it's the birth of a newborn child.  We know from science how minuscule we all start out in our mothers' wombs, but somehow the genetic coding works together and a new human being is born!  And now, see how intricate, how delicate, how marvellously-formed a tiny baby is!

     A child like this is indeed is an earthly miracle.  But earthly miracles are not enough.

    And think of the spirit in this child, already manifesting itself.  Here is a new soul with all its dreams and possibilities ahead of it.  How can we look upon a infant like this and not be inspired to contemplate the mysteries of life and the universe and beyond?

    Certainly, the human spirit is an amazing thing.  But the human spirit is not enough.

    All this is not enough, for we know from Scripture-- and from the testimony of our own hearts-- that we are not what we should be or what we were created to be.  We are sinners who  fall short of the glory of God.  We treat God, our neighbor, and ourselves in ways we ought not, and we fail to give God and our neighbor the honor and consideration they deserve.  St. Paul in our passage from Romans 6 speaks of people who would insult the grace of God by using it as an excuse to sin all the more.  He needs to command even Christians not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies.  So wonderfully formed our bodies are, with tremendous capabilities and strengths, but we have to be warned not to use them as instruments of wickedness.  Paul urges us not to let sin be our master, to stop being slaves to sin-- and by this we understand that having sin as our master is the ordinary condition of human life.  It's the problem we were born with and still struggle with, no matter how old or how young we are.  Because we are sinners, our lives lead to death, our miracles are fleeting, and our spirits end in frustration.  All our human glories are not enough.

    But maybe (some might say), but maybe all this about sin is just Paul the Apostle talking.  After all (people say), Paul didn't want anybody to have any fun.  He just obscured the real Jesus-- the kind, loving, gentle, inclusive, all-accepting Jesus who'd never lower anybody's self-esteem or judge them or make them feel there was anything about them that God couldn't like.

    Oh, really?  That's an imaginary Jesus people make up in their own heads, and not the Christ of the Bible.  We can read what Jesus Himself said about the natural condition of humanity.  In John 3:18-20, He says,

    [W]hoever does not believe [in Jesus the Son of Man] stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

"Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil," says Jesus, the Son of God.  Not some men, but all men, and that includes us women, too.  It just comes naturally for us to do what is bad and wrong and to try to hide our guilt in the darkness, away from the righteous judgement of the holy God.  We are born with sin as our master and condemnation is what we naturally deserve-- Jesus has said so.  The tiniest child, the most aged, venerable senior, all of us come into this world as children of darkness and not as children of light.

    So what must we do?  Try harder?  Aspire to please God by acts of charity and service?  No, for even our best and kindest acts are polluted and degraded by selfish motives.  No matter how much we try, we fail to meet the standard of goodness set by God's own righteousness.  It's beyond human capability for anyone by his or her own efforts to have eternal life and not perish under the judgement we so properly deserve.

    Human life, human spirit, and earthly miracles are not enough.  We need divine life and the Holy Spirit, given to us by heavenly miracle.  It's not enough for us once to have been newborn-- we need also to be newborn from and by and through God.

    When Nicodemus, the member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus by night, he wondered whether Jesus' presence marked the coming of the kingdom of God.  The coming of the kingdom was an event all good Jews eagerly awaited.  Jesus has been doing miraculous signs in Judea and Galilee, and Nicodemus recognizes by this that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, and the Lord is with Him.  Plainly, the next question is, "Rabbi, are You the Messiah, and will we see You inaugurating the kingdom of God very soon?"

    Nicodemus was expecting the time when God would fulfill all His covenant promises to His chosen people, an unending time of blessedness and joy for those who belonged to Him, with a simultaneous experience of punishment and woe for the enemies of God and Israel.  To a great extent, Nicodemus and his good Jewish countrymen were right.  But it's more than that.  The kingdom of God also has to do with the condition of every human heart.  Is God our Sovereign and Master-- or will we continue to be enslaved by sin?  Jesus gets right to the point: In order to see the kingdom of God-- that is, to be able to experience it, live in it, and enjoy the eternal life that only God can give-- it wasn't enough to have been born of the bloodline of Jacob.  No, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

    For Nicodemus this is such a bizarre thing for Jesus to say that he tries to imagine an adult man crawling back into his mother's womb and having her deliver him all over again.  Absurd and impossible!

    But Jesus is not talking about anything natural or anything of this earth.  This new birth is from first to last an act of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In order to participate in the kingdom of God, we must be newborn from God.  Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit."   Elsewhere in John's gospel the Evangelist records how Jesus promised the Samaritan woman living water that would become a spring welling up to eternal life.  When He preached at the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus spoke of "streams of living water flowing from within" those who believed in Him, by which He meant the Holy Spirit, which believers would receive.  Repeatedly in Scripture water, especially flowing, running water, is used as a means of physical cleansing and refreshing, and as a symbol for spiritual cleansing and revival.  John the Baptist baptised people in the Jordan River, so they might be ready to accept the Messiah when He might be revealed to Israel.   Behind the physical element of water stands a powerful truth about what God does in the human heart so each of us can be fit and ready to see the kingdom of God.   

    And you and I can't do or be a single thing to bring the kingdom of God to us, or to make ourselves clean enough to see and enter it.  Jesus won't allow Nicodemus or us to delude ourselves.  We must have a spiritual rebirth, and that can happen only by the will and pleasure of the Holy Spirit Himself, who is God.  Can you or I control the wind?  No, we only see its influence and feel its force.  And so it is with the new birth from above-- it's totally up to God and His sovereign will.

    But we can take heart.  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."  God has provided the way for us to be born again and to have the life and Spirit that is more than enough.  Jesus Himself is the way, and as we believe in Him through the work of the Holy Spirit, we pass from life to death, from condemnation to adoption as sons, from darkness into light.

    Baptism is God's divinely-ordained sign and seal of this tremendous heavenly reality.  We take a common element, water, plain old H2O, and as we in faith invoke the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our Lord promises to apply His promises to us and our children.  Our Christian baptism is our initiation into new and eternal life-- because, St. Paul says (again, in Romans, chapter 6), our baptism into Jesus Christ is our baptism into His death.  In John 3:14 and 15, Jesus says that "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."  By this He looks towards the death He was to suffer on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  His death washed away the guilt and stain of our sins in His own blood, and in the waters of baptism we are symbolically plunged into the blood of Jesus, that we might arise cleansed and purified and worthy to enter the kingdom of God.

    No one who refuses to come to God through the medium of Christ's atoning death will see life.  But if we are united with Him in His death, as Paul says, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.  With Christ in death, with Christ in newborn life-- this is our hope and our glory.

    But we also rejoice that when we are baptised into Christ, our old sinful self stays dead so we are no longer slaves to sin.  Oh, yes, that old sin nature still hangs around within it us, nagging us and tempting us to go back to what we used to be.  But now that we have been baptised into Christ, we are no longer what we used to be.  We are newborn from God-- truly innocent, truly perfect, truly holy-- because we have been united with Jesus Christ, the truly innocent, perfect, and holy one.

    As we baptise H-- A--, we express our faith that God will do for him what He has promised in Jesus Christ.  He is only a tiny child, and will not be able to express his faith in Christ as His Lord and Savior for many years.  But it was in our very helplessness that God took the initiative to revive and quicken us and raise us up in the power of the Spirit so we might call Jesus Master and Lord.  The Word of God written will teach H-- about Jesus and His death for him, and through the ministry of Christ's church as you surround him with your love and godly example, this child will come to  acknowledge and confirm the blessing of newborn life God gives to him and all of us in Christ. Young or old, whether you are a recent convert or a long-standing pillar of the Church, let us reaffirm our own baptisms, and humbly accept the what God has done for us through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For God so loved you that He gave His only-begotten Son, that if you believe in Him, you will not perish, but have everlasting life.  By His sovereign grace you are reborn into eternal life.  God has done it, let us receive it, and praise His name forever and ever.  Amen.

What Do We Owe?

Texts:    2 Chronicles 26:3-5; 16-21; Romans 13:1-7; Matthew 22:1-14
           

    UP WHERE I LIVE, WE HAVE A SCHOOL district per capita tax.  A poll tax.  Everyone has to pay it simply because they live in the school district.  It's $15.00 a year, no big deal.  I pay it and forget about it until the bill comes in the mail the following July.

    In occupied Israel in the days when Jesus walked this earth, paying one's poll tax was a big deal.   It raised passions and questions of freedom and worship, of bondage and loyalty.  For Jesus' enemies, it was a way to try to destroy Him and His ministry.  But for us, the events of Matthew 22:15-22 should lead us better to understand who we are under God and what we owe to the kingdom of God and to the kingdoms of this world.

     It is Monday, the day after our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Jesus is in the Temple.  He'd been teaching the people that morning, until He was interrupted by a delegation of chief priests and elders, many of them Pharisees.  They challenged His right to do what He was doing: His royal procession into Jerusalem, His driving out the moneychangers, all of it.  In answer, Jesus confronted them with three parables, all of them passing judgement on these Jewish leaders for their failure to be ready to welcome Him as Messiah when He came.  Did that humble them and send them home to search the Scriptures and pray the Father to open their eyes to welcome their King?

    Of course not.  It made them all the more determined to find a way to get rid of Jesus, to kill Him.

    So, our passage begins, the Pharisees left His presence.  But they didn't go far.  They huddled together to make plans to trap Jesus in His words.  They'd ask Him one little question about paying the per capita tax to Rome.  However Jesus answered, they'd have grounds to arrest Him and have Him tried for  sedition, or He'd rile up the crowd so they'd spontaneously stone Him.  Cleverly, these same men didn't return to the Temple themselves.  No, they sent disciples of theirs, men they thought Jesus wouldn't know, to pretend to be earnest seekers after knowledge.  These men would flatter Jesus and then, when He was off His guard, they'd spring a question that was sure to land Him in disaster, no matter which answer He gave.

    Why is that?  Because, unlike the poll tax I pay to my area school district, the poll tax levied by Rome signified subjection to Caesar.  To a good religious Jew, that meant that Caesar was usurping the place of God.  In Exodus 30 the Israelites were each commanded to pay into the Tabernacle treasury a half-shekel "atonement money," as the NIV puts it.  The Scripture calls this a ransom for each Israelite's life, the price on his or her head, so to speak, and it symbolized that they belonged to the Lord their God and lived or died at His sovereign pleasure.  The Jews of Jesus' day still paid the Temple poll tax, but Caesar had imposed a head tax of his own, as if they belonged to him instead.

    To make things worse, Rome required that every citizen and subject of its vast empire must pay the poll tax with the imperial Roman denarius.  This was a silver coin minted out of Caesar's personal treasury.  Therefore, it belonged to him.  With it he paid his soldiers, officials, and high-ranking local collaborators, and through them, it got into circulation in the occupied territories. Most Jews were anxious to obey the Second Commandment, the one forbidding graven images, and they ordinarily used copper coins with no images of humans or beasts on them.  But the imperial denarius always bore the portrait of the reigning Caesar.  And to make things worse, it was also stamped with a motto.  The imperial denarius of Jesus' day read, "Tiberius Caesar, Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus."  There was this man's blasphemous claim to divinity, on the very tribute coin they were forced to use.

    What a galling affront this would be to most Jews!  The Pharisees, as the official defenders of the faith, would be opposed to Rome and all it stood for.  So would the super-patriot Zealots and their supporters.  So would the crowds that followed Jesus and wanted to make Him be their earthly king.  They wouldn't be happy if Jesus said paying the tribute money was right.  But Matthew tells us that some Herodians came along with the Pharisees to set the trap for our Lord.  These men supported the Herod family and its ties to Rome.  They favored Roman rule; after all, the Herods were kings only through Caesar's gift, not because they were proper Jewish royalty in the line of David.  The Herodians would make sure Pilate heard if this rabble-rousing rabbi from Nazareth said the Jews should refuse to pay.

    So here they all come to Jesus, talking Him up and pretending to esteem Him and His reputation.  Ironic, isn't it?  Everything they said about His character was absolutely true.  He was and is a true man, a man of integrity.  He did and does teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.  Our Lord was not influenced in His judgement by who people were or what positions they held.  But the Pharisees and the Herodians don't actually believe that.  They think Jesus is a dangerous imposter who can be maneuvered into condemning Himself with His own words.  By reminding Him of who He has set Himself up to be (as they saw it), they think they'll compromise His credibility as a rabbi if He refuses to answer, or make Him go against Scripture, if He does.

    With this in their hearts, they spring the question: "Tell us then, what is your opinion?  Is it right to pay the poll tax to Caesar or not?"

    They don't understand that they're dealing with the Font of all Wisdom, the divine Son of God.  His Spirit sees clearly into their evil hearts and He retorts, "You hypocrites!  Why are you trying to trap me?" 

    Yes, they are hypocrites.  Hypocrites for coming to Him with their flattery, pretending to be eager to learn.  And hypocrites for another crucial reason, which Jesus is about to reveal.  He commands them, "Show me the coin used for paying the tax."

    Ah, yes.  The hated silver denarius, bearing the image of the blasphemous emperor and his claim to be the son of a god.  One of these Pharisees, at least, has such a coin.  In his possession.  On the sacred ground of the Lord's Temple.  So shocked they would have acted, had Jesus said outright, "Pay Caesar's poll tax."  Why, that'd mean agreeing with Caesar's claims!  But here they are, carrying and using Caesar's money, even for their everyday business.

    Like the discerning rabbi He is, Jesus asks them a question in return: "Whose portrait is this?  And whose inscription?"

    They answer, "Caesar's."

    To us, this may seem to be a simple question and a simple answer.  But to Jesus' opponents, His words couldn't help but remind them of the words of Holy Scripture.  The Greek word the NIV translates "portrait" is εικών, icon.  It's the how their Greek Bible translated the Hebrew word meaning "likeness," as in "image and likeness."  Ah! what does that remind us of?  First, the fact that people are not to make images or likenesses of God or anything alleged to be a god.  But it also reminds us, and Jesus' challengers, of Genesis, of creation, and of mankind being made in the image and likeness of God.  Whatever is made in the image and likeness of its maker, belongs to its maker.  So this coin belongs to Caesar who made it and whose image it bears.

    And Jesus confronts them about the inscription, the επιγραφή, on the coin.  Remember, it says "Tiberius Caesar, Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus."  It was a confession of faith in Tiberius and his adoptive father Augustus as gods.  But Israel had its own inscription, its own confession of faith, which the Lord had commanded the people to write, not on coins, but on scrolls to be affixed to their doorposts and bound onto their foreheads and hands.  It's found in Deuteronomy chapter 6, and it says,

    Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

    Whose inscription shall be heeded and obeyed?

    Jesus' opponents have presented and seen the coin.  They have admitted that the likeness and inscription on it are Caesar's.  Jesus has evoked the authority of Scripture.  With this, He delivers His response, and it utterly confounds the Pharisees and the Herodians alike.  He says, "Give--" literally, "give back"-- "to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give back to God, what is God's."

    Matthew, Mark, and Luke all report that these men were amazed and astonished.  They had failed in their purpose.  Jesus had somehow evaded their trap with a riddle of an answer, and they had to admit defeat and go away. 

    Brothers and sisters, the Pharisees and Herodians didn't approach Jesus because they cared deeply how a servant of the one true God should relate to a pagan civil authority.  But we do care.  And because we do, it's frustrating that this text doesn't actually give us clear guidance on how we are to relate to the civil government, especially to a government that seems to be growing more and more hostile to the free exercise of our Christian faith.

    What did Jesus actually say?  Many scholars write that by reminding the Pharisees that mankind is made in the image of God, by evoking the confession of "Hear, O Israel," Jesus was saying that faithful Jews-- and faithful Christians-- should not pay taxes to godless governments.  For everything belongs to God, which leaves nothing left over for Caesar.  And in fact, the chief priests made this very accusation against Jesus in His trial before Pilate (see Luke 23:2).

    But according to other scholars, Jesus has effectually said to us, "This paltry silver coin made in the image and likeness of Tiberius?  It's his, he made it, let him have it back.  Pay your earthly taxes.  Meanwhile, you, child of God, give yourself and your devotion back to your Maker who owns you."  And, as for Caesar's claims to be a god and the son of a god, God Most High Himself refers to the human rulers of the earth as "gods," as we read in Psalm 82.  Fine, says Jesus, Caesar can call himself a "god" all he wants-- as long as he administers justice and defends the right as his own High King and Emperor, the God of Israel, has given him the authority and responsibility to do.

    Which of these has Jesus said?  We can't be one hundred percent sure.  But God has not left us to go away astonished and amazed.  He has given us sure guidance in His Scriptures on how we are to relate to the civil authority.  I'll summarize these quickly, then I'll conclude.

    First of all, in Matthew Jesus shows us that the kingdom of this world is not to be confused with the kingdom of God, not in ancient Israel, not even in these United States of America.  We have duties and responsibilities we owe to both, but those duties are not the same. 

    Second, our epistle reading from Romans 13 shows us that all civil authority is under the power of Almighty God, even when that government is pagan and doesn't acknowledge the Lord God at all.  Earthly authorities are established by God to uphold the right and to put down the wrong, according to the law of human nature that our Creator has put into every one of us, believer or unbeliever.  Because earthly rulers are representatives of God, we Christians are to obey their laws and pay the duly-legislated taxes they levy, for to refuse to do so is to rebel against God.

    In our American republic, being obedient to God in the kingdom of this world means fulfilling our responsibilities under the Constitution and voting and being involved to the extent of our ability, for our rulers, under God, are responsible to us, and we get the government we deserve.

    But third, the rights of the civil authority are not absolute.  In 2 Chronicles 26 we read of King Uzziah, a ruler who started out well.  But he lost his kingly honor and authority when he went beyond what God delegated to him.  He tried to usurp the honor and duties of the priests as well, to extend his influence into the affairs of the kingdom of heaven.  When Uzziah did that, God and God's priests put him down immediately and permanently.  As a leper, he could no longer enter the Temple, he could no longer rule, and his son had to take over the government in his stead.

    It's the same with our government today.  When they presume to legislate against the clear commands of God, we must confront them, and we cannot obey.  As the apostles Peter and John said to the ruling council in Acts 4:19,

    Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.  For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

What they had seen and heard was Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Son of God.  The Pharisees and Herodians could not entrap Him in His words, and we cannot escape His authoritative claim on our lives.  Through Him we were made, and through His blood He has remade us anew.  Let us give back to our earthly governments what we owe them under God.  But always and for eternity, let us render back to God our hearts, our souls, our strength, and everything we are, for we bear the image and likeness of His Son, and we are His.