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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, here we are again: the Sunday that falls on or between October 2 and October 8 in the second year of our three-year cycle of Readings again presents us with the Divinely‑inspired St. Mark’s account both of Jesus’s answering Pharisees’ and His disciples’ questions about divorce and “remarriage” and of His teaching about little children and the Kingdom of God. Faithful proclamation of this Gospel Reading here at Pilgrim three years ago arguably played a role in some members’ later decisions to leave the congregation. Trust me when I tell you that I look forward to preaching on this Gospel Reading probably about as much (and by that I mean “as little”) as at least some of you look forward to hearing about this Gospel Reading. For me who is committed to almost-always preaching on the Gospel Reading, wanting to avoid the topic of divorce and “remarriage” is almost enough to make me preach on either the Old Testament Reading (Genesis 2:18-25) or the Epistle Reading (Hebrews 2:1-18) instead. Others may do so; for example, the Synod’s preaching journal this year focused on the Epistle Reading, and a pastor a just few miles north of here apparently preaching on the Epistle Reading. And, even those pastors who do preach on the Gospel Reading may expound it in such a way that it better suits their hearers’ passions (2 Timothy 4:3). But, contrary to what some of our former members may have thought, I do not pick out Gospel Readings or interpret them in order to attack any individual person or people, but I endeavor faithfully to expound each and every Gospel Reading to all people in order to let the Holy Spirit apply God’s law and Gospel to each individual as He alone knows best.
Of course, one does not have to be an expert on the three-year series of Readings, much less an expert on St. Mark’s Gospel account, or even to have been in a church service on this Sunday on some multiple of three years earlier, in order to know that Jesus ultimately calls divorce and “remarriage” adultery and says that all people need to receive the Kingdom of God like a little child. For, some “parallel” passages are appointed to be read on other Sundays, and other “parallel” passages can be found when reading the Bible outside of Sunday services. So, there is nothing in today’s Gospel Reading that should be surprising.
When we hear that, because of the inseparable union of those God joins together, Jesus ultimately calls divorce and “remarriage” adultery, we should not only think of the sin of those so “remarried” and of the sin of those who commit adultery by having sexual intercourse with someone other than their spouse, but we should also think of their and our own other sins related to the Sixth Commandment. Jesus understood the Sixth Commandment broadly (Matthew 5:27‑28), and so did, for example, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther in his Small Catechism (Small Catechism I:12). Since God generally creates someone male or female, we may readily ridicule the G‑L‑B‑T‑Q‑I‑plus acronym and the related lists of dozens of so-called “genders”, but that is not where the list of sexual sins ends. Pre‑marital sex, rape, homo‑sexual activity, incest, sexual child abuse, obscenity, and the use of pornography are just a few of the kinds of deeds—not to mention the words and thoughts—that the Sixth Commandment forbids. Not one of us leads a sexually pure and decent life in all that we think, say, and do. Divorced and “remarried” or not, all people are equally guilty under the Sixth Commandment, as under all of the other Commandments, as well. By nature and by actual sins of omission and commission, all people are equally deserving both of death here and now and of torment in hell for eternity. No civil provision in view of the hardness of the hearts of those outside of God’s Kingdom will help us in the end; the only thing that helps us in the end is God’s enabling call for us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake.
As St. Mark narrates in the verse just before today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus had moved to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan (Mark 10:1), apparently where John the Baptizer had said that King Herod could not have his brother’s wife as his own and then later been beheaded in prison (Mark 6:17-28). The Pharisees testing Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading may have been “trying” Jesus in order to get Him in similar trouble with King Herod, though, when later given the opportunity, Herod did not find Jesus guilty of the Jews’ charges (Luke 23:6‑15). Rather, Jesus went to the cross carrying your sins, my sins, and the sins of the whole world, and there on the cross Jesus died for us, in our place, the death that we otherwise deserved. Jesus the Christ loved His bride, the Church, and gave Himself up for her, and, in what the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul called a profound mystery, what God created as inseparable human marriage refers to the inseparable union of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:25, 31-32). Even in the Old Testament, God did not give the unfaithful and hardhearted people of Israel a certificate of divorce, but instead He redeemed and forgave them (Isaiah 50:1-2). When, enabled by God, we turn in sorrow from our sins and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God forgive us. God forgives our sins against the Sixth Commandment, all our other sins, and also our sinful natures. As broadly and seriously as God condemns our sin, so broadly and seriously God forgives our sin, by grace through faith in Jesus.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the disciples rebuked people who were bringing little children—even infants (Luke 18:15)—to Jesus, and Jesus told the disciples to stop hindering those bringing them and to let the little children come, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God, and so all must receive the Kingdom like a child in order to enter into it (confer John 3:3, 5). We do nothing to save ourselves but God does it all, taking us in His arms and blessing us by laying His hands on us, as through the water and the Word of Holy Baptism. Nothing hindered or prevented the Ethiopian eunuch from being baptized by Philip (Acts 8:36), and nothing prevents little children, even infants, from being baptized by pastors today. And, all those baptized seek out their pastors privately to confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts in order to have those sins forgiven by the pastor as from God Himself, and then those so absolved are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar in order to receive bread and wine that are the Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed for them, for the forgiveness of their sins.
As we receive the forgiveness of sins from God for our sins against Him, we extend our own forgiveness to those who sin against us, including those in the most-close of relationships, one’s spouse. In some cases of marital disruption, in-formal and even formal separation may be necessary, but for Christians the options are remaining “unmarried” or being reconciled (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). God instituted marriage before humankind fell into sin, so God arguably intended for marriage to last forever, and, though Jesus says that people who rise from the dead will not become married, Jesus does not say that people who were in the married state before the resurrection will not continue to be in the married state after the resurrection, though apparently they will not, at that point, procreate (for example, Mark 12:25). To be sure, God’s grace is sufficient for each of us no matter our marital status to be content, now and forever (2 Corinthians 12:9-10; confer Matthew 19:10-12), for, our peace and joy comes not primarily from an individual spouse but from He Who is the whole Church’s Bridegroom.
This morning we have gone again to the Gospel Reading appointed for this day. May God grant that I have faithfully expounded this Gospel Reading to all people in order for His Holy Spirit to apply His law and Gospel to each individual as He alone knows best.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +