Friday, October 08, 2010

October 6, 2010 - Wednesday of Trinity 18 - Deuteronomy 10:12-21

It sounds easy enough. “What does the Lord require of you other than to fear and love God and walk in His ways?” Or as the Catechism would put it: to fear, love and trust in God above all things. Jesus summarizes it this way: Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. That's all there is to it, right? Love God. Love your neighbor. But if you read through the Old Testament, you will see the story is the same: The Lord's people constantly NOT loving Him and each other. The Lord's people constantly wandering after other gods and treating each other like dirt. Then Jesus comes and distills the entire Law down to just two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. And ever since...well, same thing. Even in Christ's church we find that we have all sorts of false gods. Maybe they're not wood and stone now but printed with green ink or powered by electricity or built with our own hands. Our idols are the things we love more than the Lord. Whatever it is that makes you not study and learn God's word. And as for our neighbor, that's not kept either. We put ourselves ahead of others all the time and if we do do something for others, we expect thanks and praise and recognition. Love the Lord and love your neighbor. Israel didn't do it. Neither do we.

So why is the Law given? What did the Lord expect to accomplish by telling us to love Him above all things and to love others as ourselves? Did he think we would actually do it? Did the Lord suppose that if He just told us something that we were supposed to do we'd just do it? How does that work for your kids? How does that work for you? We might do it under duress. To get a paycheck or avoid trouble. But we don't do it because we love the Lord with our whole hearts and love others as ourselves. Let's be very clear about something: The Lord does not give the Law because you can keep it. He gives the Law as St. Paul says so that our sin will be multiplied and exposed. God gives us His commandments to show us our sin. To demand that we love Him so we see that we cannot. To teach us to love others so that we can see clearly how we don't. The Lord gives us the Law to so completely demonstrate to us what utter sinners we are and that if the Law is the way of life, we are doomed. Finished. Dead. Love God and love your neighbor. It's just that easy. Just that easy to be doomed to death!

When Jesus comes, He comes to do what we cannot. We heard Sunday and it's in our Gospel lesson that all of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. But the Law and the Prophets means Jesus. So Jesus hangs on these commandments when He hangs on the cross. He fulfills the Law by loving His Father above all things and by loving His neighbor by dying for you there on the cross. Jesus came to keep the Law because you don't. He came to keep the commandments that you break. To love God the Father above all things and to love others as Himself, yes, even more than Himself. The Law for us is a mirror of condemnation. For Jesus it is the way of our salvation. By doing what we cannot do and dying for what we have done, He saves us. His salvation is that He lives the life you do not live and dies the death you deserve. Forgiveness of sins means not only setting aside the things you have done against God's Law. It means patching up where you haven't done it. Jesus comes to keep the Law and to obey the commandments for you and to suffer the consequences of our breaking them. In life and death, Jesus takes up the Law and saves us. And our salvation is in Him, never the Law.

It is in this way that what the Lord says in Deuteronomy comes to pass. He is the Lord who administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, who loves the stranger and gives him food and clothing. In Christ, who has kept the Law, we now have a Father. God is our Father in Christ. The church is His bride. He clothes us with His holiness and Law-keeping in the waters of Holy Baptism and He feeds us with His own Body and Blood, the Bread of Life. It is by these gifts that you can be certain that wherever you have fallen down against the commandments, you are forgiven. It is by these gifts that you may know for sure that what you have failed to do has been covered by the blood of Jesus. When the Law stares you down, showing you that you are a sinner, these gifts of Christ declare that the Lord is not counting your transgressions against you. The Lord is not going to give you what you deserve for not loving Him or your neighbor because in Christ, delivered by His Word and Sacraments, that's been taken care of. Finished. Fulfilled. Forgiven. For you.

So what now that we're Christians? Now we learn how to view the Law and commandments the Lord gives us. First of all, we know that the Law shows us our sins. God demands that we love Him above all things and our neighbor as ourself. These commandments show us clearly what we are supposed to do and don't do. They teach us we are sinners and that our only hope will be the Christ who has kept them. Put another way: Christians know that the Law points them to their need for a Savior. Always. We never stop needing that Savior because we never stop sinning in this life. But also as Christians who have been rescued from our sin, we learn to view the Law as a gift from God which teaches us how to live. Here in the commandments of loving God and loving our neighbor we have a lifetime's worth of work to learn how to love God, learn His Word, and to pray. We have a lifetime's worth of work figuring out how to honor and care for our parents, be respectful of others, speak well of others, and love our spouses and children and families and others. For the Christian, the Lord's Law is a treasure in which He teaches us how to live. And most of all, we are rescued from that false way of viewing the Law in which we use the commandments to see how well we're doing with the Lord. By yourself, you are doomed. In Christ, you have kept all things perfectly. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you must know how well you're doing based on how well YOU are doing! Rather, the Law shows us our sins and guides in living but it is Christ who is our life and salvation.

So it sounds easy: Love God and love your neighbor. But we don't. It's impossible. So our Savior comes and hangs on that Law, hangs on that cross and keeps the Law and forgives us our sins. Apart from Christ, the Law condemns us and dooms us. But in Christ, we have kept all the commandments and are holy and perfect in God's sight. In Christ, we love God above all things and we love our neighbor as ourselves, even as we learn to actually do that as the Spirit works in our lives. In Christ, the Law is kept. And you are not doomed. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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