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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you ever put on your clothes with the inner surface turned outward and then unintentionally worn them publicly that way, inside-out? If so, you probably know the embarrassment one can feel! In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus speaks about a somewhat similar “inside-out”, repeatedly using words such as “inside” and “outside” and “going out” and “going in”. But, more than one’s feeling embarrassment from having clothes inside-out, in the Gospel Reading, when what is inside comes out, one is defiled, one’s relationship to God is destroyed. This morning as we reflect on today’s Gospel Reading, we do so under the theme “Inside Out”. And, we will notice how different uses of the expression all apply.
Today’s Gospel Reading picks up St. Mark’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account right where last week’s Gospel Reading left off. Last week we heard the Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus why His disciples ate with what the Jewish leaders considered defiled hands, and Jesus in turn criticized them for their traditions that made void the Word of God (Mark 7:1-13). Today we heard Jesus command the people to hear Him and understand that there is nothing outside of people going in that can defile them but that the things inside of people coming out are what defile them. When Jesus’s disciples privately asked Him about that statement, He criticized them for their lack of understanding and further explained what He meant, contrasting the stomach and the heart. Then, Jesus listed some of the evil thoughts inside that come out of the human heart, in the form of acts and vices that defile.
This past Wednesday Tyler Watts and I represented Pilgrim at the East Texas Baptist University Church Day, and so we had the opportunity to talk to a number of students there about their faith lives. One student and I ended up talking about so‑called “gay marriage” in both society and some so‑called “churches”. The student remarked that people often say that Jesus Himself never condemns homosexuality, and I referred the student to today’s Gospel Reading, in which Jesus mentions “sexual immorality” using a Greek word that includes all unnatural sexual practices, includin homosexuality. Yet, you and I might focus in too much on that particular sin, to the extent that we might minimize or overlook the other sins Jesus mentions: theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and religious foolishness. The complete list of twelve vices might bring to mind such catalogues of vices from Greek philosophy or, perhaps more likely for most people, the Commandments today’s Old Testament Reading mentioned that we should pass along to our children and grandchildren (Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9). Yet, we seem to do a better job passing along hearts and natures that, apart from God, are completely evil and sinful, producing such vices, breaking the Commandments, and warranting death now and for eternity. God knows us very thoroughly, “inside out”, we might say. And, sadly, too often others also can tell what is inside us by what comes out of us.
To be sure, God calls all people to repent of their sinful natures and all their sin. The notorious sexual sinners of Jesus’s day answered that call to repent more than the Jewish leaders so concerned about superficial purification. God makes that call to repent also to you and to me! God’s call to repent even enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives each of us individually, because of Jesus’s death that won forgiveness for all people collectively. When we so repent, then God forgives our sins of sexual immorality, our sins of the other eleven vices on the list, or whatever else our sin might be. God forgives our sinful natures and all our sin for Jesus’s sake.
Today’s Hymn of the Day was originally written by Christian L. Scheidt, an 18th-century German professor who, apparently before he wrote the hymn, had studied both philosophy at the university at Göttingen, in order to better understand the thoughts and works of men, and theology at the university at Halle, to better understand the things of God. Scheidt seems to have learned the theology well! By one account, few hymns surpass Scheidt’s that we sang on the subject of grace. (Precht, 368‑369, 757.) As we sang, “By grace God’s Son, our only Savior, / Came down to earth to bear our sin” (Lutheran Service Book 566:3). Nothing we could do would ever bring the God-man Jesus here, but He came out of love for you and for me, mercifully to die on the cross and so to earn the forgiveness, that He now gives to us who repent, by grace through faith in Him. All unnatural sexual sin, the other eleven vices, and all other sin—God not only condemns it all, but He also forgives it all! God forgives all our sin by grace through faith in Jesus.
God forgives our sin and sinful natures in the ways that He has given for us to receive His forgiveness. Today’s Introit reminded us that God washes us from our iniquity and cleanses us from our sin with the water and the Word of Holy Baptism (Psalm 51:7, 10-12; antiphon v.2). There, at the Baptismal Font, God creates in us clean hearts that do not defile us and renews a right spirit within us that begins to bring forth virtues instead of vices. When we still fail to live as we should, as we will fail since our sinful nature still clings to us in this life, we return to our Baptisms with daily contrition and repentance, and we privately confess to our pastors the sins we know and feel in our hearts, so that he can individually absolve them by Christ’s command. So baptized and absolved, we from this Altar eat bread that is Christ’s body and drink wine that is His blood, given and shed for you and for me, for the forgiveness of our sins. At this Rail we receive something outside of us that goes into us and makes us holy, sets us apart. Far more important than food and drink in keeping with Jewish Kosher, Muslim Halal, or any other dietary restrictions, this food and drink is clean and healthy and gives us eternal life and salvation.
God’s Word and Sacraments graciously give us the forgiveness of sins, and, in so doing, they change us utterly, they turn us “inside out”, we might say. We are clothed in the full armor of God that we heard described in today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 6:10-20), and so with God’s help we stand in the face of all opposition. We who are clothed, for example, with the breastplate of Christ’s righteousness will have many afflictions, but, as today’s Gradual reminded us, the Lord will deliver us out of them all (Psalm 34:9, 19). Ultimately, we who are in Christ are pure in heart and, as today’s Verse reminded us, we shall see God (Matthew 5:8). We shall be with Him, and, on the Last Day, we shall have resurrected and glorified bodies free of any corruption, inside and out.
Publicly wearing clothes that are inside-out may be embarrassing, but, as we have realized in reflecting on today’s Gospel Reading, that embarrassment is far less than the defilement, separation from God, that results from the evil thoughts inside that come out of our hearts, sinful by nature. God knows us thoroughly, inside and out, we said. And, as God enables us to repent and believe in the God-man Jesus Christ Who died for our sin, He restores our relationships to Him, and He also transforms us utterly, inside out, we said. So, we can say again as we sang in the Hymn of the Day, “My heart is glad, all grief has flown / Since I am saved by grace alone” (LSB 566:6).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +