Choose Life

Text: “29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” ().

Epiphany 6A

Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Text: “29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” ().

I’m curious how nervous our Valley Lutheran High School students are right now. I was there and did chapel last week. And the verse that I chose was this one: “29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (). To start with, I led them in a few verses of “The Hokey Pokey.” I may or may not have called one of them up to demonstrate the motions for the song in front of the whole school.

I’m curious how nervous they are right now. No, I’m not going to call you up to lead us in singing that song. But, before you get too comfortable, do you remember what the point was? Embarrassing Caleb was only part of the point. The point is that, unlike what Jesus, in our text, admonishes us to do, that’s the way we look at sin, isn’t it? Cut off our hand if it causes us to sin? No—we put our right hand in, we take our right hand out, we put our right hand in and we shake it all about…. And we could go through the song with every single body part. That’s, perhaps, the most frightening part of what Jesus said. Not that we actually need to take sin seriously, not that you should cut off your hand if it causes you to sin, but where would we stop? We would be without both hands. Do our eyes cause us to sin? Just a little. So they’d need to go. And our ears and our feet and our mouths and our tongues…. And, of course, Jesus said that it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks, so that would have to go, too.

Today’s text really does set before us a pretty fundamental point. You’re not here to do God a favor! You’re here because you’re dying. Because your sinful flesh wants to kill you! Because that is precisely what Jesus is setting before you today and every day—life and death, good and evil. If Moses—as we heard in the Old Testament reading—was setting before them life and death, good and evil, what is Jesus setting before you today? Nothing less, to be sure!

For us, sin hardly seems like a life or death matter. And so, for example, we make a big deal about whether or not we ‘like’ how we worship. Whether or not it’s comfortable. We’re here if there isn’t anything else more pressing—or entertaining. But, if we miss a week, it’s not a big deal. You know what? If the way we worship is comfortable, then we’re probably not doing it right. If it doesn’t make you squirm a bit, that’s a pretty good sign that we’re missing something really important. Perhaps that’s a standard for judging worship that we should start using.

Today’s epistle reading should mean more to you and me, as well, shouldn’t it? Thankfully we don’t have the same sort of divisions that they did—one faction that was quite explicitly loyal to Paul and another to Apollos, and so on—but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a similar problem on occasion. Let me phrase it this way: God help me if I try to win new people by the force of my personality, if I start ‘preaching’ myself instead of Christ. I do hope that you like me, but you’re not here because of me, are you? Am I really the reason that you come—or that you stay away?

You’re not here to do God a favor! You’re certainly not here to do me some kind of favor! You’re here because sin really is a matter of life and death. What is there that can possibly carve away our sinful flesh? What could possibly be sharp enough to peel away the dead, rotting stuff and leave only pure, healthy flesh? There is the Word. “12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (). What is that word of God?

It's the word of God that says you’re a murderer. “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (). You are a murderer. That cuts a bit, doesn’t it?

Which is that word of God that is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword”? It’s the word of God that says you’re an adulterer. “I say to you that everyone who looks… with lustful intent has already committed adultery…” (). You are an adulterer. That cuts a bit, doesn’t it?

Which is that word of God that is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword”? The word that says to you: I forgive you. I forgive you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You will live. And not just for a time, not just until some other disease comes that you can’t beat, you will live forever. Because Jesus Christ is the great physician of body and soul. He knows exactly what we’re dealing with, even when we don’t. Do you think He went to the cross because He didn’t have anything else to do that day? No, “You who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here it’s guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load—‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.” He has taken your sinful flesh and nailed it to the cross to die.

He certainly had none of His own. Not even once did a harsh, careless word come out of His mouth. When He showed anger, it was always perfectly just and justified, it was always directed at things in this world that are, in fact, worthy of anger. Even though He is Wisdom incarnate, even though He spent the three years of His ministry being corrected and told that the Scriptures—which He, Himself, was the author of—taught something different than what He was teaching. But He never lashed out in anger and said to any of them, “You fool!” Even as they arrested Him, literally brought false witnesses against Him, and unjustly convicted Him, He still loved them in word and deed.

He had no sinful flesh. Not once did His eye cause Him to sin. In our day it is, quite simply blasphemous to read about some of the sexual activities that are attributed to Him in order to affirm our own twisted views of sexuality. There really is no other word for them except blasphemous. But the reality is that not once did even His eye cause Him to sin. He looked at everyone, male and female, young and old, in perfect modesty, perfect chastity. He, Himself, always conducted Himself the same way—with perfect modesty and perfect chastity. Although He never married, He always honored sexuality as a good gift from God, according to His original intent when He created us male and female.

He was truly and fully human—“to the point that His mother is rightly called the Mother of God”—He was tempted in every way, as you and I are. Yet He was without sin. He was without sin until He took yours upon Himself. “For your sake God made Him to be sin who knew no sin” (). God made Him a murderer so that He could be pierced for your transgressions. God made Him an adulterer so that He could be crushed for your iniquities. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all so that, by His stripes, you are healed. For your sake God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that, in Him, you might become the righteousness of God.

You were healed when you, with your sinful flesh, were brought to this font and that “Old Adam,” that sinful flesh, was drowned by the power of that water attached to the Word and promise of God. “[You] were therefore buried with Him through baptism, into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, [you], too, might walk in newness of life. …Consider yourselves, therefore, dead to sin and alive to righteousness in Christ Jesus.” And baptism is not a one time event. “Baptism signifies that the Old Adam—the sinful flesh—in [you] should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die along with all sins and evil desires and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

Not only does God put to death your sinful hands and eyes along with their murdering and adultery, He also gives you His perfect righteousness. It is given to you as often as you receive the Lord’s Supper. The same body and blood that were tempted in every way, yet without sin, are given to you in, with, and under bread and wine. And, with them, you receive the strength to put to death your sinful flesh, to live in perfect modesty, chastity, and love.

“23 So[, yes,] if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison” (). “31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (). And yes, “4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled” (). Fear and love God so that you lead a sexually pure and decent life in what you say and do—and husband and wife love and honor one another. That is the pure, perfect life that is yours in Christ Jesus.

Today once again, our Lord Jesus Christ comes and sets before you life and death, good and evil. And that’s not in some sort of abstract, metaphorical sense. Life is set before you here at the font. It was given to you there. It is given to you from this altar and from this pulpit. He sets it before you in Words, in water, and in bread and wine and He invites you to choose life.

In His Name, Amen.