The Sixth Sunday after Trinity – Sunday 7 July A✠D 2024
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 28:8-9; 28:1-2a, 7;90:13, 1-2b;31:1
✠ Lection: Exodus 20:1-17;Romans 6:3-11;St. Matthew 5:20-26
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Blessed be God the Father for giving His children another day in His house where we might receive blessings from Him in His Divine Service, bestowing Christ upon us in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s Day affirms what we believe, teach, and confess as sacramental, Christ-centered, crucifix-focused Christians. We have plenty of other adjectives to boldly describe who we are, but these are joyfully sufficient. They are sufficient because the Scriptures are sufficient for all things having to do with this life and the next. The Catechism that we store up in our hearts first in our youth, and make good use of throughout all our days to help us know God and His Scriptures, is one of the most profound and simple tools of learning the faith that has been given to us over the history of the Church. Let us not treat it the way most of American Christianity does with faith, seeing such gifts as the Gospel and the Catechism as cutesy things of Christianity past or minimal knowledge keys to get us just inside the door of God’s house of favor, simply thankful to be out of reach of flames and dangers of hell fire. Our adoption as sons of God is a far greater treasure about which we need not be bashful nor merely nostalgic. We are alive in faith because Christ lives and reigns now and forever.
The Christian life is one that is tested every day, even if only by rightly considering every sin as unacceptable, by repenting of it, and by then living in the joy of the forgiveness of those sins as is found only in Christ our Lord. That is the baptismal life. That is walking in the newness of life. That is what being a Christian is and if we treat any part of life as if it is not, then we are sure to discover in times of great testing just how strong or weak our faith truly is. This is the identity change we seek to live in and by daily, because it is the one that God Himself has brought about. We enter His kingdom by our baptismal birth from above. It is a new creation that redeems that which has been corrupted, yet exists, yea, even thrives, in the orders of creation that still define truth and reality when devils and unbelievers fight so hard to turn it into an upside-down chaos. God is a God of peace, not disorder. His good order in what He creates is what stills the storm, what brings peace to the chaos, what calms the Christian heart. His orders are meet, right, and salutary and are good for the soul in all places and at all times.
In the beginning, God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. This is what God said and did and when our Lord came in the flesh, He reaffirmed the truth when answering the Pharisees’ testing saying, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female?” If you desire to have Godly knowledge and wisdom to help you navigate the roaring seas of lies with which we’re bombarded all for the sake of pride, tolerance, affirmation, inclusion, the Catechism helps us understand how basic truth about all created people is attacked.
The First Article of the Apostles’ Creed confesses that which God has revealed about Himself. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” What does this mean? I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. (SC II) He makes all things according to His good order. He makes no mistakes. It is good to be born a man. It is good to be born a woman, and only the foolish are lured into the deceptions of changing God’s gift, and that it is harmless or even compassionate to affirm someone who rejects what God has given as a born man or a born woman. This isn’t merely a particular group’s interpretation of the reality in which we all dwell. It is the truth about what is seen by all people and it is about He Who brought all things into creation out of nothing and did so in good, blessed orders. It is God that has given every person a body and soul and the Almighty makes no mistakes. It is only sinful man, who in our self-deception and fleshly pursuits, claims that God was mistaken when He made a particular person with the soul of a woman, but with the body of a man. This cannot be true. There is no such thing. God has given men men’s bodies and women women’s bodies, for His order and His creation is always good. The disconnect between the body and soul, between identity and anatomy, is a sin-produced delusion that is driven by the lust of the flesh and only satiates a sinful appetite as it gorges itself upon the dainties leading to hell.
Your place, dear Christian, is one where you are called to stand firm in God’s truth, no matter its cost to you, for what worth is ever-changing earthly glory that is truly fake treasure worse than fool’s gold? Your place is to have mercy, but not at the cost of truth. Fake peace demanded by sinful delusion is no peace at all. Sin always destroys. It is difficult to stand against the onslaught, against the tidal wave of debauchery, sodomy, and pedophilia as it is plastered throughout our culture, but remember that it is coming against God, and as the Scriptures proclaim and the Catechism echoes, He defends you against all danger and guards and protects you from all evil as you live in the good order as His baptized children. Trust Him to be God. Trust that the only identity that can be given or changed is that which comes by His creative, redemptive hand through baptism, and it is one that does not change your sex or gender, but your heart.
It is only Holy Baptism that can bring about good, intended, ordained identity change, because the change that we need is that from enemy of God to son. It’s a blessed change that retains the goodness of how God created us at birth as male or female, and redeems it in preparation for eternal life. Only by God’s doing is there a change within a person that neither he or she nor others can see with their own eyes until it grows in more orderly, outward works that reflect the goodness of God and His mercy toward all sinners. It is one that brings the baptized out of darkness and into the light all by the power of God in His Word with the water. Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. We do not see bright, glowing halos appear above the newly baptized, yet they are now robed in the pure robe of Christ. We don’t hear the angels shout out, “Hallelujah!”, although they sing it gloriously in the heavenly places. We do not see the roof torn open while hearing with our ears a voice from heaven, but we know, by faith in His Word, that God looks down upon His baptized child saying, “in you, I am well pleased on account of My perfect Son into Whom you are baptized.” Heaven rejoiced at your baptism and sings praise to God everyday with you because you are His. Baptism is no insignificant event and it identifies who you are in eternal days that begin here and carry on yonder.
A baptized sinner sees his or her clear, corrupt reflection in the Law’s mirror and is strengthened to fight well by a baptismal identity that means repenting of sin and feasting regularly upon He Who is your strength. Thanks be to God that baptism isn’t merely an ordinance that is only water touching filthy skin and that being a Christian is more than something that we just say that we are. It is Life because Jesus is Life and every second of your life in Him is rooted in how your baptism is lived out. Bless His holy name in the fact that baptism runs as deep as you need it to; all the way down to the root of your problem: the lifeless, sinful heart being washed clean, being washed alive. Baptism into Christ drowns the slave to sin and raises you to freedom to fight with your cleansed, regenerate heart for what is truly good…a life of a contrition and repentance that is comforted and strengthened by the peace from the forgiveness of your original sin, forgiveness of your daily sins, forgiveness of your whole life’s sins.
The battle of flesh and spirit is taking place within us and outside of us and it may bring about much temporal cost to us, but into the Victor God’s children are baptized, resting securely, fighting confidently in His strength, and with His sure hope of our life in Him Who has conquered death by His death. As many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life, for life is what has been granted to us in good, Godly order.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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