We heard today the Ten Commandments that our Lord gave from Mt. Sinai. People misunderstand the Commandments. Most people think of the Commandments as rules that God came up with to corner you in and bother you with. They figure that the Commandments are arbitrary rules that can be ignored or else that have to be followed to get right with God. But the truth is that none of these views is the right one. First of all, the Commandments are not mere rules to follow. They are not just things God says you have to do or not in order to not go to hell. Rather, the commandments, because they are God's Word, are a gift. They are a treasure. In each commandment, the Lord is teaching us about some gift that He has given to us. In the First Commandment, the Lord teaches us that He gives us Himself. In the Second and Third, He gives us His name to call upon and His Word to hear and believe. In the Fourth He gives us our parents and family and in the Fifth our lives. The Sixth Commandment teaches us of the gift of our spouse. The Seventh and Eighth Commandments speak about the gift of our possessions and reputations. The Ninth and Tenth teach us about contentment. In every commandment we see that the Lord has given us a gift and would protect that gift for us.
The problem with us, however, is that we despise God's gifts. Our sinfulness causes us to refuse the gifts the Lord would give to us. Do you know what sin is? Sin is really not about breaking rules. It's about despising God and the things He gives us. Why do people have other gods? Because they don't want the True God who made them? Why do we despise God's Word and not learn it? Because we think there are other more interesting things to know about. Why do children disobey their parents? Because they don't appreciate and love the parents God has given? Why do marriages fail? Because people despise the spouse that God has given and want some other one. Why is there murder and stealing and gossip? Because we don't want the things God has given us but instead want to make ourselves better than others and have reputations that we have made for ourselves. Why is there so much coveting? Because we are not content to have the things our heavenly Father has given us but instead must worry and fret and strive to get everything else we think we need. In short, our sin is that we don't want God or what He gives to us. This is far worse than breaking rules. This is a hatred and despising of the God who made us and provides for us. Our sin isn't just that we break some rules but that we tell Him we don't want Him or the stuff He gives us. This shows us also that our sin is far worse than simply the things we do. Our sin is a corruption so deep it has taken us completely away from the God who made us.
And it gets worse. The judgment of eternal death and damnation doesn't come about because we broke some rules and now we have to be punished. No, when the Lord judges us according to His commandments, He is actually giving us what we want! You don't want God? Then be separated from Him for all eternity! Don't want the parents or kids or spouse or possession the Lord has given you? Then have nothing for all eternity. That's what you want, isn't it? Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Ten Commandments show us our sin not because it reminds us that we broke some rules but because it shows us what ungrateful and selfish people we really are. The judgment against us isn't that we are rule breakers but God haters and gift despisers who deserve nothing else than to be given exactly what they want: no God and no one else forever! Here is where we learn true repentance! True repentance isn't just fessing up to some naughty behavior. It's not just acknowledging that we did some things wrong. True repentance is the recognition, which can only come by the Holy Spirit, that we are so terribly self-centered and corrupt that the worst thing God could do is give us what we want! Our repentant cry to the Lord is to have mercy and give us not what we want nor what we deserve but what is Christ's! For otherwise we perish. But we are saved by Christ who is the keeper and fulfiller of the whole Law.
Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away until it is all fulfilled.” Here Jesus is saying that we will never get out from under the Law. It will always be the beautiful gift of God which ends up showing us our sin and condemning us to judgment. But, He says, it will be fulfilled. That means the Law will be kept. Not by your or me. We could never do it. Who then? By Him. Jesus keeps the Law. He keeps every commandment. He loves God the Father above all things and loves His neighbor as Himself. Jesus doesn't do what we do by trying to make the Commandments easier. The Pharisees taught that if you didn't kill anybody, you hadn't broken the Fifth Commandment. That's how we usually judge things too. If you've never shot or stabbed or run over anyone with your car, you're not a murderer either! Easy! One down, nine to go! But the Law isn't like that. Jesus teaches us that it isn't just physical killing that is murder but all anger and hatred and hurting another person. The Law isn't easy at all. It covers our whole lives and words and thoughts and actions. And where we fail, Jesus keeps it. All of it. Without sin. Without a mistake. Therefore Jesus who has kept the Law perfectly is the one man who never has to die. But He does die. Horribly. On a cross. Why? Because He takes on our sins. Our hating God. Our hating our neighbor. He takes it all on and dies for it. On the cross, Jesus suffers and dies for us and gets rid of not His sins but ours. It works like this: You and I never kept the Law so Jesus kept it perfectly for us. You and I deserved eternal death and punishment. Jesus took that on for us too. He lives our life. He dies our death. At every spot where every jot and tittle of the Law hits us, Christ stands to do it right and then take the hit for us. Here is the One, Jesus, who is perfectly content with all that God the Father gives Him, even content with dying to save sinners because that pleases the Father. In Jesus, the Law is fulfilled and kept. And with that, its judgment over you passes away.
Now Paul tells us that we have died and risen with Christ in Holy Baptism. We are dead to sin. What does that mean? Well it doesn't mean we don't sin anymore. It means sin doesn't have any power over us. Your Baptism is God's promise that He doesn't hold your sins against you any more because of Jesus. It's His promise that you have been given the Holy Spirit to battle against sin in your life, but that in Christ you already have the victory over that sin. But Paul asks an important question: Now that we're forgiven, does that mean we can go on sinning? Absolutely not! To think to ourselves that because we have been forgiven, we can just do whatever we want is to really have no repentance at all and to once again fall into despising Christ's gifts. But to live in our Baptism is to recognize that Christ's perfect life is our perfect life. His death has become our death. His being judged for sin is our being judged for sin. His rising to life is our new life. And that new life is totally different than the old life. Our life of sin is to want what we don't have and to despise what the Lord has given us. The new life in Christ is to love the Law and to learn from it how to glorify God and love our neighbor. It's such a teaching that we no longer hold another's sins against them as God has not held them against us. It's the new life in Christ in which we learn to be reconciled to our neighbor and not hold people's sins against them. Where once we did not want what God give us and so He would have obliged, instead Christ does what the Father wants and we are saved. By His loving the Father and dying for us, the Law is kept and we are saved.
And now, having all that is Christ's we learn that the Law is not our enemy, sin is! The Law, the Commandments, becomes the way of learning to repent of our sins and see what Christ has done for us. The Ten Commandments have become a picture of what Jesus has done to save us and how it is that He lives in us and through us. Now the Commandments, fulfilled in Christ, become for us a true treasure and gift, sweeter than honey and more to be desired than gold and riches. For the Ten Commandments point us to Christ and Christ, who has kept the whole Law, has redeemed us from its curse and made us His own. Christ has kept the Law perfectly and now, in Him, so have you. In you, the Law is fulfilled because you have died and risen with Christ by the waters of Holy Baptism. What is Christ's is now yours. And you are His. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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