✠ Psalmody: Psalm 31:6b–7a; 1; Psalm 6:2a, 2b-3a; Psalm 103:10; 79:8–9; Psalm 109:21a; Psalm 16:11a
✠ Lection: Exodus 20:12-24a ; Matthew 15:1-20
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
From atop Mount Sinai thundered the Lord’s giving of the Ten Commandments; good and holy words from a good and holy God. Every single one of them pure, without a shred of cruelty in them that should ever cause us to detest their existence. They describe a reality that exists in and by the one Who Is. May we never view or treat the Law of God as a distasteful, burdensome, pesky, miserable killjoy in our world of fun. One step in that direction is already a step too far, for even though the Law strikes down the old Adam in us, it also instructs the new man unto holy living. The Lord teaches these good intentions by His words to the children of Israel in the Exodus; to the children who fear Him in love and faith.
It is true that the Commandments are weighty, just as the holiness of God is weighty and deserving of our utmost reverence. The weight that we tend to focus on is the one that makes us squirm, despise, and react with unchecked passion, whereas the Law is truly a delightful blessing to the Christian heart wherever it is meditated upon day and night. As the Lord concluded speaking the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, Moses immediately continues that the people witnessed what accompanied the Holy Presence and the Ten Words being given: thunderings, lightning flashes, sound of the trumpet, the mountain smoking; manifestations that impacted the senses as testaments that this Lord is true. His holy desires weren’t given to secret meetings of religious elite, but were accompanied by fearful events upon the earth so that all men were to know that these words apply to us all. No one is exempt from their standard, from God’s standard, which is indeed frightening as sinful man looks upon the might and holiness of the Lord at Sinai and discerns what is reveals about our fallen condition.
Thus, when the people saw how creation trembled at the Lord, they too trembled and stood afar off akin to what drove our first parents to hide in the trees afar from the Lord. It is healthy for the weight of God’s Law to strike terror into our hearts, lest we live in the darkness of deception, and worse, walk in the way of antichrist by replacing the good of the Commandments with their opposite. Such is the way of the heart that must daily be drowned and die with all the sins and evil desires that seek the ways of the devil, for in having the positive, good statements of the Commandments, it is also revealed to us their opposition as is what saturates the wicked heart of Satan. Gaze upon the beautiful commandments, turn your head opposite to where they are broken, and there you will se the will and way of the devil.
For us, God’s sublime Law is fundamental to our salvation in that it must have its way with us so that the stricken heart can then see the need for a mediator. Standing in the fear of their sins laid bare in the presence of holiness, the children of Israel would not approach the Holy One in such a state and called upon the prophet Moses to speak to God for them. Behold the condition of us all: afflicted with sin, unable to approach the Mighty Lord of heaven and earth, in need of a mediator to approach Him for us. The prophet of old, like whom God would raise up one to be the Mediator of all men, drew near the thick darkness where God was on behalf of the terror-stricken, as he was the one ordained by God so to do. As the Commandments drove the people to seek a mediator, so do they act as a driving force for us, as St. Paul says in Galatians, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Better than when we are driven to seek out a doctor when we become aware of a serious health problem is the Law’s drive of us to seek out the Savior Who comforts us with the cure of our deep, sinful woe.
Yes, the Law is but a mirror bright, bringing the inbred sin to light, but God’s Holy Words aren’t thundered just for that use, for there is more delight in them for the heart that has been washed clean than from the weight of their breaking. Jesus, our great Prophet and Mediator, stands now before the Father as our own High Priest. Therefore, though your sins trouble you, hear Moses, hear Jesus: do not fear; for God has given the Commandments to test you, to guide your faith, to instruct your life, that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin. The Law instructs the good life and the Gospel fuels it. As Christians, it is imperative that we live in the full truth of what God has done. His Law is holy, which only a fool would give up in despair just because the imperfect is unable to keep it perfectly. We must cast pride down with Satan and embrace both the forgiveness of our sins and the new heart that desires the new norm of life that is given clearly in the Commandments. His Law is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. The commandments show what is worthy of praise or of reproof, be it in the decisions our government makes, the words we confess our churches, or the lives that lead in our homes. Yea, the Law is good in its application in all places, just as its Giver is good. Blessed be the Lord our God Who forgives our breaking of the commandments and gives us new hearts that seek them out all the more, trusting in all their goodness for the sake of our Mediator, Jesus Christ our Lord!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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