St. Matthew 22:15-22 Caesar and Israel had an interest history. The Jewish people had a pattern of rising up against foreign kings and rulers. The whole Jewish area had become Roman property. In order to help keep the Jewish people in check with all of their uprisings, the Romans divided all the lands into four provinces.
The Romans ruled by means of Princes and Tetrarchs. This made it more difficult for the Jews to gather and unify. Of the four, one of those rulers was Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee. It was with this background that the Pharisees sent some of their disciples, along with the Herodians to ask the question. The Pharisees were using their worldly wisdom to snare Jesus. If Jesus said “yes” to paying the census tax to Caesar then it would create an uprising by the Jewish people against Jesus and He would be done. If Jesus said “no” to the tax, then the Herodians who listened in would report back to Herod that Jesus was an insurrectionist and he would be beheaded. The Pharisees thought they had Jesus either way. Here we see how Satan darkens the minds of the worldly and the wicked. The Pharisees were forgetting the fundamentals of the Old Testament scriptures, along with their civil law, which said “be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite”(Deuteronomy 17:15). Their own civil law convicts them. So, Jesus responds by asking to see the census tax coin. Jesus takes the coin, asks them whose inscription is on the coin. Their very own mouths convict them-- “Caesar’s” It is Caesar’s inscription. Caesar has become their lord. It is the Jewish people who had already forsaken their own civil law. The acceptance of Caesar’s picture on the coin is the very evidence of their own failure. Christ’s spin of words causes the Pharisees and Herodians to marvel at Jesus’ wisdom. There is, after all, a lot of marveling that takes place in the gospels. Godly wisdom brings something to light out of these holy accounts. Satan is so crafty that he can make things that are wrong seem so right. What had happened with the Pharisees was they had become more concerned with their positions and their earthly goals. The King that they were supposed to be awaiting stood right before them. But their minds were darkened. Instead of finding peace in the Savior of the world, they were more concerned in seeing if they could trap Him. It all gets turned around. This happens all the time today. We forget what is really important. When our children are young, we want them to have all of these experiences. So, we send them to schools that teach evolution, which goes completely against the scriptures and preaches against our first article of the creed--God the Father, Creator. We send our children to Caesar to be taught contrary to the scriptures. Then we enroll them in every activity imaginable. Our intentions are good. We want to be supportive parents. We want the children to have a plethora of knowledge and “socialization.” The evil twist of it all is that our children are being taught doctrines that contradict the Apostles and Nicene Creed, and they are too busy to come and worship the Lord in church. What has Satan done to us? What have we done to ourselves? We are left standing trying to figure out why our children forsake the confession of faith that the church teaches. In trying to be good parents that seek to fulfill the role God gave to us as parents to care for our children, we have run so fast and so hard in the ways of the world that, as a culture, we have forgotten the most important aspect of our vocation--to raise Christians who spend their lives at the Lord’s altar confession the Lord’s holy name. BUT....When we are older, Satan works on us, too. We become complacent. We become more concerned about losing what we have. Our gaze is subtly turned away from heaven, and we want things to stay the way they always have been. We become more focused on our routines than God’s word. We become brittle and coarse, and God’s word becomes window dressing to the lives we want to lead, rather than the holy incarnate word that illumines our very existence and gives full meaning to the way we live and confess. All of this happened to the Pharisees. They were so entrenched in how they were living out their days and ways, that God’s word was no longer the normative word that gave meaning to their lives. There is something for us to learn in all of this. Part of our own meditation of the scriptures entails our coming to grasp with the fact that it is not just our actions that are sinful--their is something wrong with everything that our lives are wrapped in. Original sin--the inherited, sinful condition--is much deeper than our trying to balance out how many sins we have committed versus time we’ve spent in church. The sin issue is much weightier than asking the question “Are the points for me greater than the points against me when the game is over?” We are bound up in this sinful condition and it rests in our flesh and in everything that we are. Satan holds out the carrot of enticement, and the flesh jumps in--even in the midst of seemingly good intentions. Godly wisdom, therefore, must ponder this. When we ponder the depravity of sin to this creation, we repent, and we let the light of the scriptures give illumination to our lives. When we let the white beam of the Scriptures define us, then things are better understood. We also better understand the world and ourselves. The Holy Spirit works in the light of the scriptures. Satan’s darkness is dispelled. Life, then, has the ability to become more simple when we see things as they really are. What do the scriptures teach me about my life in Christ? How do I order my steps as a Christian? How should prayer look? What does Christian service look like? Who is my king? Whose image bears itself on me? These are questions for you to ponder for your life. The King of Kings imprints His image upon you. In His love, He covers you. In His mercy His compassion and care encircles and enwraps you. The image of the cross, stained with His blood, despised by the world, is traced on your forehead and upon your heart, giving you the white purity of His own bloody sacrifice. In the irony of the world’s despising of the true King and crucifying Him, Christ’s payment for your sins comes to you. His death came because He desired to protect you from the depth and depravity of the sinful world and from all the enticements of Satan. Christ Jesus brings forgiveness to you granting remission of your sins. He orders your days and the lamp of the gospel shines in your midst, showing Christ’s love and mercy, as He continually rains down from the heaven the dew of His teaching that keeps you in His care. You shall be forever His. Christ will not forsake His own. Christ has given he gospel lamp as the light that beams forth, bringing eternal truth and love to this dark and dying world. Amen. -- Rev. Chad Kendall Trinity Lutheran Church Lowell, Indiana www.trinitylowell.org http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=243282012833
_______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
