- Psalmody: Ecclesiasticus 36:16–17a; Psalm 122:1; Psalm 122:1, 7; Psalm 116:1a; Exodus 24:4–5; Psalm 96:8b–9a
- Lection: Deuteronomy 10:12–21; 1 Corinthians 1:4-8; Matthew 22:34–46
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The LORD our God is almighty, all-knowing, all-holy, and altogether perfect. He created all things out of nothing by the power of His Word and on the sixth day God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Being created in God’s image means that man was given the power to be good, to be perfect, just as He, the Source of the image we bear, is good and perfect both. The power was realized, lived out in real time in those paradisical days in the Garden. Adam and Eve were perfect, their nature and relationship with God intact. Yet today, we know that there is not one among us who is anywhere near perfect. There was a great collapse, a fracture, a cursed fall leaving the perfect utterly imperfect, utterly corrupted. The once perfect image in which man was created was lost in our sin; in the original sin that passes down to every natural descendent of Adam and in our sin that manifests itself daily as we live real time not in a perfect state, but in one plagued by our own incurvatus in se, that is, by our being curved in on oneself. Because of this corruption, the power that man was given as divine image-bearers has been crippled, rendered incapable of true, godly love of Him and love of neighbor. Yet the standard, the original lofty, perfect position for which we were created, still exists. How do you view that standard of perfection?
Let us first come to a better realization of the level of our sinfulness, of just how utterly imperfect we are, neither to wallow in the fact nor to diminish our sins’ colossal amount, but to grasp what we’re dealing with in an aware and healthy spiritual way, so that we may rightly ponder God’s demand of perfection. A lawyer asked Jesus a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” In other words, what is the highest standard of godly perfection? Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” On these two commandments hang all that there is in the definition of perfect.
Do you love God and neighbor? Most of us would answer in the affirmative, that, yes, we do. Thus, the next question to ask is do you love God and neighbor all the time? Perfect love loves perfectly all the time. Therefore, if we love God 50 or 60% of the time, that means that at least 40% of the time we’re sinning, because we’re not upholding the perfect law of God. We are falling short, missing the mark. Apply the same percentage assessment to your love for all the people that God has placed around you, your neighbors. Do you love them 100% of the time? It’s sin when you don’t. And if you say that this doesn’t matter, because what if you don’t care about loving God 100% of the time? Then that’s a heart problem. Repent. What if you don’t care about loving neighbor 100% of the time? Then that’s a heart problem. Repent. This self-examination of our love is to help us come to a fuller realization of our own level of depravity; to see just how far fallen we are from that original state of perfection to which the Lord holds us and to which He aims to restore us. This examination isn’t for stirring up despair over inability, but for seeing the depths to which Christ’s hope descends.
So, consider the two essentials to which our precious Redeemer points us in a life that doesn’t settle for the imperfect: love God, love man. To love God is to desire the perfection we once possessed. Now, ruling out those who actually believe that perfection is attainable in this life, let the rest of us deal with reality, for though we are not able to achieve perfection, the standard is yet good and godly and worthy of life’s pursuit. Let us not conclude that since we can’t be perfect, then why even try. Such a viewpoint accepts the devil’s design for us more than it does our Father and Maker’s, and embraces our creation as something deeply flawed and hopeless, unworthy of the effort it takes to walk the path of suffering and righteousness that leads to our higher good, even here; a path that grows nearer to that original perfect place and existence for which we are designed as those made in the image of God.
If we’re not of the lazy or epicurean type holding to the why try mentality, then maybe we harm ourselves by the opposite approach, being one who, with great fervor, effort, and noble dedication, deeply desires and strives for perfection, but while doing so, constantly and severely evaluating our every thought, word and deed with merciless, critical eye, being our own harshest judge, and thus crushed repeatedly by anxiety, disappointment, and sadness over our failures. It is extremely hard to be one of this type of people because there’s so much honest care involved that gets continuously battered and bruised by sin’s reality; that it keeps showing back up, or that when one sin is overcome, seven others seem to arise ready to take up residence. Unfortunately, the value of the pursuit of goodness rooted in perfection is measured by success or failure, of reality of the law and our sin taking its toll. Yet, even in all that, it is good that desire for perfection exists in such a heart, unlike in the apathetic soul’s aim that is, by default, to be imperfect and not to love God with all the heart, soul, and mind.
That first essential in life is to love God, because we are to love like Him. Loving Him and like Him is what He has created in His good and perfect design. And the second is like it: to love man. Loving one another is to desire, aim, and follow the very path which God takes with us all, for we cannot deny His love for us. He has proven this in the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son for the life of the whole world. Greater love hath no man than this, that [He] lay down His life for His friends. Thus, we are to love our neighbor for God’s sake, if not for his own.
But from whence comes the desire to return to the Lord, to love Him, to love man perfectly? And more so, from whence comes the salvation that we need as we realize the magnitude of our sins, of our utter imperfection, and of our inability to reach that lofty state of loving God and neighbor and to do so perfectly? Oh, how blessed are you, for your eyes and seen and your ears have heard the goodness of the LORD your God, as St. Matthew’s Gospel does not end upon Christ’s words “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.” He leaves you not to struggle against sins’ firm grip alone. Blessed is the man who hears the continuing words of Life from the Lord Jesus that dawn upon our hearts bestowing upon us love for what He once made that was perfect and to comfort us in our present condition that often seems so, so far from it.
What do you think of the Christ? Whose Son is He? In His humanity, He is the son of David, born here below just as you, so as to raise you up out of the pit of death lurking in your flesh. In His divinity, He is David’s Lord, for He lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. He, the Holy One of Heaven, in Whom these commandments are kept perfectly and to Whom you are joined by faith. Consider Christ the Third Essential that gives you power to love God and neighbor once again. For in the One person of Christ is not only the refreshing restoration of the desire for godly perfection as He desires and hopes for us all, but there is forgiveness for all the percentages, all the imperfections, all the sins committed in not loving God with all that we are and our neighbor as ourselves. In Him is the true freedom of striving for what is good and perfect in reckless abandonment, fretting not over success, and living without fear and burden of perfection eluding for this breath of time. Faith in Christ as Redeemer from sin and the Restorer of all good things makes easy the love of God, for to look at Christ and to see in Him God Who died and rose to regenerate you is to love God. To see and believe the One through Whom you were made, and made anew, is how all this is given. Faith in Christ as Savior of the whole world makes it easy to love God and makes it easier to love man, for we see how He loves us. The love of God and man is made possible for all who believe in Christ, Who is Himself God and Man in One. May His love fill your hearts this day and forevermore.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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