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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is on vacation, but, for our reflection this morning on the Third Reading for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Pastor Galler completed a sermon outlined by The Rev. Daniel J. Brege, associate pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Decatur, Indiana, and president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Indiana District. Rev. Brege’s sermon was published in the 20-21 volume of Concordia Pulpit Resources (31:3, pp.4, 19-21), to which publication Pilgrim subscribes primarily in order to supply sermons on occasions such as this, when our pastor is away and the congregation has not otherwise supplied the pulpit. The edited sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before God created the world, there already was the concept of family. From eternity, there was the Father and the Son. When God created the first human being, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (Genesis 2:7). In a sense, God created another son, a son with a beginning, a son in this world (confer Luke 3:38). From that son, God took a bone and built a woman, a daughter. Joined together by God in the one-flesh union of marriage (Genesis 2:18-25), that man and that woman together would be God’s means of creating additional family members. Clearly God’s goal was not to create just individual beings but families, individual beings living as members of independent love-centered groups consisting of a father, a mother, and children. Considering the Third Reading this morning, we realize that God’s goal is that we, individually and collectively live as immortal members of His family.
In His creation, God’s goal was to have family. God lovingly commanded human beings to be fruitful and multiply: in essence, they were commanded to have families (Genesis 1:28). Humans beings were uniquely created in God’s image; the term “image” can be seen as a family reference (Genesis 1:26). “Image” can include the understanding of being one’s child. For example, Adam’s son Seth is described as being fathered in Adam’s image (Genesis 5:1 – 3), and we still use the term “image” in reference to families in our phrase “spitting image”. God joined the man and woman in marriage, and they were to have children, who would be joined in marriage and have children of their own, and so on, and so on, and so on.
But, humankind’s fall into sin forfeited some if not all of the image of God. The fall in some sense broke God’s perfect created family, and the fall changed how God the man and the woman related to each other and so also how their descendants, including us today, relate to one another. For example, in today’s First Reading (Genesis 3:8-15), we heard how they blamed even other members of God’s family for their sin. And, in the verses that follow today’s First Reading describe the consequences of their sin for themselves and us, including their sin’s impact on bearing children (Genesis 3:16-19). The serpent, Satan, the devil, had a hand in their fall (Genesis 3:1). Human beings are born in Satan’s domain (Ephesians 2:1-3), and Jesus even referred to at least some human beings as having the devil as their father (John 8:41, 44).
In today’s Third Reading, Jesus’s family members wrongly thought that Jesus was out of His mind, and some Jewish leaders even went further, accusing Jesus of being possessed by a demon and so being involved with Satan’s kingdom or house. Similarly we see the impact of original sin on our own families, and we recognize that we sin against our own family members. Spouses sin against one another: pre-marital sex with each other, post-marital sex with someone else, divorce. Parents sin against their children: not disciplining them, not loving them, not bringing them up in the Christian faith. Children sin against their parents: not loving them, disobeying them, not caring for them when they need it. For any one of these or our countless other sins, not to mention original sin, we deserve both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity. Sin was the root of death, and the wages of sin continue to be death. But, God’s goal is still to have humankind as His family, which is why He calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin and trust Him to forgive our sin for His Son’s sake, Whom God sent to be the long-promised Seed of a woman, the Seed Who would crush the serpent’s head.
As I mentioned earlier, God took a bone from the man He had created and “built” a woman. Unlike the narration of God’s other acts of creation, a different Hebrew word is used to describe God’s “building” her. Similarly, Sarai says of Hagar, “Perhaps I shall build children through her” (Genesis 16:2), and, as Ruth is ready to marry Boaz, the people exclaim, “May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built the house of Israel” (Ruth 4:11). Based on such wording, rabbis described woman as both the building and the builder of humanity. How appropriate that God Who ultimately is the builder of every house (Psalm 127:1) builds His house of salvation through a woman—the humble Virgin Mary!
God’s and Mary’s Son Jesus lived the perfect life that we fail to live, and He died in our place on the cross the death that we deserve for our failure to live it. On the cross, Jesus, in the words of today’s Third Reading, as the Stronger Man first bound the strong man and then plundered his goods, in a sense taking his children, us, away from him. Jesus descended into hell and then rose again from the dead (1 Peter 3:18-20). The Divinely-inspired author of Hebrews writes that, in Jesus, the Son of God partook of our human flesh and blood so that through death He might destroy the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Hebrews 2:14-15). As we said in the antiphon to today’s Psalm (Psalm 130; antiphon: v.7), with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption. When we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for His Son’s sake, then God does just that: He forgives our sin. God forgives our sin related to our families and all our other sin, whatever our sin might be. In Jesus, God’s goal is reached; His family in this creation is restored.
God’s Word uses family concepts to describe His relationship with us. For example, we can say both that God is our Father and that Jesus is our Brother, with ties of both Baptismal water and His own Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar—both Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar also means of God’s giving us His gifts of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. And, God’s Word also speaks of God as the Groom of His Church, His bride, Whom He makes holy by washing Her with water and the word (Ephesians 5:26-27, 32) and blesses through His marriage supper (Revelation 19:9). At the font, we are adopted back into God’s family (Galatians 4:5-7), renouncing the devil and all his works and all his ways, and then we eat the family meal. Through His Word and Sacraments, we are incorporated into Christ and made new, again possessing the image of God (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:4). Thus, the Church as the Bride of Christ has become God’s building and builder, as eternal children are continually conceived and born in and from her through the living and abiding Word of God.
We are His true family members, who do not blaspheme the Spirit but do the will of the Father, including believing in Jesus (John 6:29). We are imitators of God as His beloved children (Ephesians 5:1-2). Generally speaking, we will want both to marry someone of the opposite sex and to have our own biological children, although foster children, adopted children, and step-children can be equally loved as family even if not related to us by blood, as can foster parents, adoptive parents, and step-parents. However, some forego spouses and children for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:12). The appointed time has grown very short; the present form of this world is passing away; and, those who refrain from marriage are said to do better (1 Corinthians 7:29, 31, 38). The solitary are not alone but set in families, especially those of brothers and sisters in Christ. And, as we heard in the Second Reading (2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1), though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, and our light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Today’s Office Hymn put it this way: “Praise God, our triumph’s sure. / We need not long endure / Scorn and trial. / Our Savior King His own will bring / To that great glory which we sing.” (Lutheran Service Book 668:3)
Our restoration as God’s children is beyond the grasp of the world. Thus the apostle John writes:
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2.)
As we live out our lives in this fallen world, we struggle; we have pain. But we know that as God’s children, we have eternal life. We shall indeed “be like him.” We are waiting for our glorious immortal bodies, bodies like what was intended for God’s children. Thus, in conclusion, hear how St. Paul explains our immortal family, speaking of each of us as sons:
The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:19-23)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +