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The Third Sunday In Lent
Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Third Sunday In Lent
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Scripture citation(s): Exodus 20:1-17
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Exodus 20:1-17
✛
Life after Baptism
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In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen
Today’s first reading, from Exodus, was the first giving of the Ten Commandments by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. How many of us could, right now, recite them in order? Not many, I think, including your clergy and yours truly. [Well, I could get the Ten, but I might trip on the order.][1] One way to remember them is to think of the two tables brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai. One table is about our relationship to God and consists of the first four commandments. The other table is about our relationship with our neighbor, beginning with our parents, and consists of the other six commandments. Four about God; six about Man.
Jesus summarized the law in this fashion, as we heard today between the Collect for Purity and the Kyrie eleison. He emphasized, in both the commandments about our relationship with God and about our relationships with one another, the verb, love, a command: We shall love the Lord our God with all our strength; and we shall love our neighbors as ourselves.
This coming Tuesday, the Rector’s Christian Doctrine Class will focus on the Ten Commandments in a section entitled, “Life after Baptism.” That phrase, “after Baptism,” is decisive, because being a baptized Christian, a follower and member of Christ, makes a difference in how we regard the Commandments, both those about God and those about our neighbor. The difference, in a word, is Jesus.
First, Jesus makes a difference in each of the four commandments about our relationship with God. Whereas at Mount Sinai God identifies himself to Israel as the Lord who brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for us, Jesus Christ God’s Son is the Lord who has redeemed us from the bondage of sin and death. Whereas at Mount Sinai God forbade any graven image as the sin of idolatry; for us, Jesus Christ is the visible image and human face of God, and depictions of his life, death, resurrection and ascension – including especially images of his cross and crucifixion (as well as of his victories in the lives of his saints) – are not only permissible, they are needful.[2] Whereas the Holy Name of the Lord (Yahweh – I AM) was not to be directly mentioned, the Holy Name of Jesus, our Lord and God, is to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth, worshiped and adored as the Name of our salvation. And whereas the seventh day, Saturday, the Sabbath, was to be kept holy as Israel’s day of rest; now the first day, Sunday, the Lord’s Day of Resurrection, is pre-eminently the Christian day of worship.
Second, Jesus makes a difference in the remaining commandments concerning our relationships with one another, even beyond his summary command that we shall love our neighbors as ourselves. For example, while from of old Moses taught that we shall not commit adultery; now Jesus says that if we look lustfully at another, we have already begun the process of adultery (or whatever lustful transgression) in our mind and heart. While from of old Moses taught that we shall not kill or more specifically commit murder; now Jesus says that if we are angry or insult a brother or sister, call that person a fool or slander him, we are liable to hellfire. Jesus similarly addressed matters in the law such as taking oaths (swear not at all), retaliation (turn the other cheek), enemies (kill them with kindness), and greed (give what you have to the taker, but as for you be thankful and beware of all covetousness). “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” says Christ, “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”[3]
But we are far from perfect. We fall short on the laws of justice, let alone on the Gospel mandates of love to the uttermost. Since we do not obey them, of what use are they, except to discourage?
Since we do not obey them, we see clearly our sin and need of redemption. The Law does not take away sins, it points them out. The Law is a schoolmaster unto Christ. It drives us to seek refuge and strength in the Savior.
Whatever else Jesus was doing in his Sermon on the Mount, he was providing a description of his own practice – for he completely practiced what he preached. Once, when asked by his disciples if he needed something to eat, Jesus replied, “I have food to eat of which you do not know. My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.”[4]
Jesus is not only the doer of the Law; he is the incarnation of the Father’s will and the embodiment of human perfection. And, he did not come merely to set an example; he came as the friend and redeemer of sinners. The Son of Man – the one true human being – faced our sin, especially as it masquerades as righteousness, received its judgment and condemnation, and went voluntarily to his death as prescribed by the leaders of both his church and his state. The fulfiller of the Law of the Lord was damned by the Jewish council as a law-breaker and executed by the Roman governor as a disturber of the peace. He who knew no sin was made sin for us; that in him we sinners might become the righteousness of God.
It is essential to know the Ten Commandments, the most basic values of virtue and justice. It is even more important to know the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinner’s only Mediator and Advocate with God.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[1] There was a time – not that I wish to return to it – when the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, was routinely recited at the beginning of the Anglican Eucharist, following the opening Collect for Purity. The Kyrie eleison was incorporated into the Decalogue: after the Priest declared each Commandment, the people responded, sometimes set to music, “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” With the coming of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, this practice was relaxed, so that our Lord’s Summary of the Law could be substituted for the Ten Commandments. In the standard Prayer Book of 1979, the recitation of the Commandments is part of an occasional penitential rite.
[2] The Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787 upheld the veneration of icons and images as the inevitable result of the Incarnation of the God the Word and Son. The Iconoclasts, like Seventh Day Adventists, took a strictly Jewish interpretation of the Second Commandment. Saint John of Damascus (c 650-750), the great Doctor of the Church before the Council, saw the connection between the Iconoclasts and the rising influence of the new religion of Islam – indeed, his father had been in the employ of the Sultan.
[3] This is a major thrust of the Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5-7.
[4] St. John 4:31-34, in the story of Jesus and the Woman of Samaria.
