Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost ALAS, EDEN!
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Epistle, God’s apostle Paul compares his present experience in life with the future, resurrection life God has promised and given to you through His Son Jesus. “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us,” declares Paul. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. Dear Christian friends, · After enough days super-hot weather, some people might think they have grounds for justifiable homicide if you ask them that well-known and oft-repeated question, “Is it hot enough for you?” · I once drove past a farm in Missouri named “Piece of Eden.” The name suggests that the owner thought his farm approximated God’s original Eden in the book of Genesis. From the look of things, the original Eden might have contained a large number of rusted-out automobiles. · A fellow pastor recently told me about a childhood camping trip, during which his sister saw a bear. She immediately grabbed for a stick to throw, hoping to scare the bear away. She did not end up with a stick, but a snake. The bear ran away on account of the shrieking. Miserable and dangerous weather; rust and decay; animals that frighten and even harm us: Paul includes all of these things and more in today’s Epistle when he speaks about “the sufferings of this present time.” In addition to the persecution God promises His Christians will suffer (1 Peter 4:14-16), in addition to the ongoing temptation and sin that you feel waging a war within your own body (Romans 7:21-25), in addition to the devil’s constant prowl and earnest desire to devour you (1 Peter 5:7), God also wants you to know that the very dirt beneath your feet now works against you. As it is written here, “the creation was subjected to futility,” to frustration (NIV), to pointlessness, to nothing to show for our labors. Simply stated, this creation in which we live will ultimately bring us nowhere. Yes, God uses the creation to feed and sustain us for a while, but “the grass withers, [and] the flower fades” (Isaiah 40:7). You can do your best to build a giant building or an expansive railway system or an immense city or a giant headstone for your grave. Time and weather will eventually win. Time and weather will eventually destroy. Not even empires that span entire continents can hold up against the corrosion of the creation. As today’s Epistle explains, God did this on purpose. Your Creator willingly threw His entire creation into “bondage to decay.” God has press-ganged the weather into mercenary service, so to speak, so that it will be merciless in its heat, savage in its raging, and deadly in its power. God enslaved sunlight and rust and bacteria, forcing these things continually to tear down and to break apart everything you attempt to build and to keep. God is not the least bit bothered by the fact that snakes freak you out. He planned it that way and He wants it that way. “For the creation was subjected to futility… [and] its bondage to decay.” God the Father enslaved and subjected and imprisoned His creation for you and for your benefit. God did this so that His creation will NOT help you. In particular, God subjected the creation to bondage so that the creation will NOT help you reach what Paul calls today “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” and “[our] adoption as sons” and “the redemption of our bodies.” Rather than helping you reach your freedom and adoption and redemption, God’s creation waits alongside you. The creation earnestly yearns with you for these things to be given to you. As today’s Epistle explains, “The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” There are all kinds of good reasons why God the Father would so lovingly subject the creation to futility, so that it cannot and will not help you reach “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” and “[our] adoption as sons” and “the redemption of our bodies.” Here are some reasons why the creation’s “bondage to decay” is such a good thing for you. 1. God wants you to have real and genuine faith in His promises, especially those promises of “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting” (Apostles’ Creed). This faith—this hope—is what Paul is speaking about in today’s Epistle when he stated, “in this hope we were saved.” But then Paul goes on to explain why everything in the creation has to stay bad for us: “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” Stated another way, God subjected the creation to futility so that we would not see with our eyes the promises God has spoken into our ears. If we could see such things—if we could prove God’s promises by what we observe in the world—we would have no future hope at all. We certainly would have no need of God’s Word or His Baptism or His Holy Communion, through which His promises come to us. 2. God does not want you to love this present life too much. He has way better things in store for you in the life to come. This creation is a mere shadow compared to the Light that will shine for you in eternity. Whatever goodness you find on this earth is nothing compared to the goodness and glory of the new heaven and the new earth, which the Scriptures call “the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). Here is an analogy for you: While in a certain African country, I was chauffeured about in a very nice air-conditioned car with leather seats. The car was so nice, so much more comfortable than all my other surroundings, that I really did not want to get out of it. By comparison, my travel in another African country required that I be stuffed into the back seat of a rusted-out Peugeot with a non-existent exhaust system. After three hours of crater-sized potholes, sweaty seatmates, and noxious fumes, I could not have been happier to get out of the car. In a similar way, “the creation was subjected to futility” so that we Christians would not grow too fond of our current situation. Weather, rust and snakes all give us the benefit of constantly reminding us that there are better things soon to come. The “bondage to decay” keeps us discontented and focused upon those future blessings, ready and willing to bail out of the Peugeot as soon as we get the opportunity. 3. Discontent is really what the creation’s “bondage to decay” is all about: a. God your heavenly Father has forgiven you all your sins on account of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ your Lord. Right here and right now, you are NOT GUILTY of any sin you have committed in the past or will commit in the future. You are perfect, you are righteous, you are sinless and you are holy on account of the Christ who right now is inside of you, wrapped around you, and always with you. Nevertheless, God your heavenly Father does not want you to feel content with forgiveness because He has more in store for you. b. The forgiveness God gives to you is so powerful and so complete that you right now are living in God’s gift of eternal life. When you reach the end of your earthly days, you will not die. You will only pass from one room in eternity to another room in eternity. Your Lord Jesus Christ has sworn and declared, “Everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:26). Nevertheless, God does not want you to feel content with eternal life, and He does not want you to think that the goal of your faith is that you go to heaven to be with Jesus. God has more in store for you than even that. c. God promises you that your human flesh shall rise again, and that you shall have a fully perfected body in the resurrection on the Last Day. The resurrection is the ultimate goal of this creation’s “bondage to decay.” God earnestly desires to keep your attention firmly fixed upon the resurrection, when even earthly death shall at last be destroyed for you. As Paul says in today’s Epistle, “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” That is to say, the whole creation is longing to give birth to her dead, as Isaiah prophesied of old: Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead (Isaiah 26:19). Enjoy the weather, folks! At least rejoice at what it is not: it is not hell. Nor is it the resurrection life you will at last experience with the fullness of all your senses. Look upon the beauty of creation and think about Eden if you wish. Nothing you see here comes anywhere close to what you shall see in “a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13, NIV), promised to you by your God. Pray thanks and praise to God every time a snake gives you the willies. Even he looks forward to better days. ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected] Unsubscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected] Archive? <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/> For more information on this or other lists offered by Confess And Teach For Unity, you can contact the CAT 41 list administrator at: Rev. Fr. Eric J. 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