Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2003 : October 26, 2003
Jesus Goes Back to the Basics
Pentecost 20
Some football fans, especially around here, consider Vince Lombardi, head coach for the Green Bay Packers in their glory years, to be the greatest coach that the game of football has ever seen. He wasn't successful because he ran trick plays or because he necessarily had the best players on the field. He won because he stressed the basics. In one game in particular, the Packers were playing lousy football and couldn't seem to get into the groove of the game, and they were down at halftime. When the players went into the locker room for their halftime pep talk, Coach Lombardi walked in very slowly carrying a football. He said nothing for what must have seemed like hours to the players. Then he said something very simple. Displaying the thing he had carried in, he said, "Gentlemen, this is a football." It must have sounded silly to these professional football players who knew more than anyone what a football was, because their lives revolved around that ball. But Lombardi's message was clear. The players had forgotten the basics of the game. They needed to rethink exactly what they should be doing on the football field with that ball in order to win. And they did win that game, because they got back to the basics.
Today in our lesson Jesus also wants to teach us about some of the basics of Christianity. Jesus goes back to the basics as he teaches a discourse on divorce, and Jesus goes back to the basics as he teaches the fundamentals of faith.
At this time in Jesus' ministry, the Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked him a question. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" This sounds like a sincere question on the surface, but Mark alerts us to the fact that their whole purpose was to trap Jesus. John the Baptist had condemned the divorce and remarriage of Herod Antipas. After he did so, Herod had imprisoned John and eventually had him beheaded. So if Jesus agreed with John the Baptist and said divorce was wrong, then maybe Jesus would suffer the same fate as John. Herod would do their dirty work of getting rid of Jesus for them. But if Jesus agreed with John, he would also seem to be going against what Moses said concerning divorce. The Pharisees said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." But Jesus knew the Old Testament better than any of the Pharisees. The fact is, Moses never did say that divorce was alright. A divorce always involves sin. Why? Because it goes directly against God's purpose and institution of marriage. So Jesus went back to the basic principles that God had laid down for marriage. Jesus said, "At the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' " God himself had instituted marriage. Therefore, God was the one who set all the rules for marriage as well.
Then Jesus said, "the two become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one." Husband and wife are now one in every respect. They are like two rivers. When two meandering rivers join, there is usually some turbulence when they meet, but later the united river is swifter and stronger than each of the rivers could have been separately. Once those rivers combine to form one river, they can never be separated into the two original ones again.
So, since husband and wife are now one in marriage, and since God brought that about, then man has no right to separate what God has joined together. Today everyone claps when a couple is honored for their 40th or 50th wedding anniversary. And rightly so. But what a sad comment on our society that a life-long union is such a strange and amazing thing! God always meant it to be that way.
But then Jesus told the Pharisees what Moses' words about divorce meant. Jesus told the Pharisees that it was because their "hearts were hard that Moses wrote" about giving a certificate of divorce. Do you think that just because God said, 'I hate divorce' in the Old Testament (which he did in Malachi and elsewhere) that the people wouldn't get a divorce? Of course not. In fact, in spite of God's clear condemnation of divorce, some Israelites, even some Pharisees, thought a man could divorce his wife for any reason if the woman displeased him. So some Jews were getting divorced whenever they wanted. But Moses, by telling the man to give his wife a certificate of divorce, wasn't saying divorce was OK, but he was simply trying to keep order in society. Can a divorce ever be legitimate? If you are the innocent victim -- Jesus said in Matthew that if your spouse commits adultery, you can get a divorce, but that's because the other partner has already broken the marriage. Paul said in 1 Corinthians that if the unbeliever leaves the marriage, again, the innocent victim can get a divorce. Those are legitimate reasons for divorce. But the problem today is that most people aren't simply trying to follow God's will -- they are trying to see any loophole around God's will so they can do what they want.
God said divorce is sin, but would that stop divorce from happening? No. God said that sin in general was a deplorable thing in his sight, but would that fact ensure that mankind would not sin? No. In fact, sometimes it works just the opposite. If you have a little girl and tell her, "Don't touch that hot burner because it will hurt you," what is the first thing that little girl will do? Try to touch the burner, right? Moses wrote about divorce because God was trying to keep the situation after the divorce from getting even worse than it already was. It is just like telling that little girl, "Don't touch that hot burner because it will hurt you. But if you do, run your hand under cold water so it won't hurt you even worse."
Jesus was giving the Pharisees and us a divine discourse on divorce as he got back to the basics of marriage, but really Jesus' words apply to any sin that we commit. God tells us not to sin. He requires that we obey his law perfectly. Why? Because otherwise we will have to suffer the consequences for that sin. Because he is a holy and just God, he has to punish sin. Why does God tell us not to divorce? Because he knows what will come from that divorce. He knows the pain and anguish that will affect the parents and the children as well. He is telling us to stay away from sin because we're playing with fire, and that fire will burn us eternally if we don't realize our danger. But God also tells us what can help us when we sin. Just like that little girl putting that burned finger under cold water, God directs us to the soothing power of the cross. That cross tells us that Jesus died for every one of our sins. Every sin, all those ones where we went directly against God's command of "Don't touch!" but we touched anyway. All of those sins have been washed away. Jesus paid for them with his own perfect life. God gave us Jesus' perfection instead of our sins. Now we can and will enter paradise because God has declared that we are sinless and holy, just as he is. Therefore, we will strive to live every minute of every day obeying God's commands of "Do" and "Don't do" because we know they are for our good and because we know that Jesus has already obeyed them perfectly for us and given us heaven freely.
In the verses before us, Jesus went back to the basics of marriage by showing what God intended marriage to be -- a lifelong union between one woman and one man that only God has the right to end in death. But Jesus soon found another threat to his ministry in some of his closest friends -- his disciples. Jesus just gave a discourse on divorce, but now he talks about the fundamentals of faith.
Jesus had quite a following by this time in his ministry. Many had heard of him and wanted hear what he had to say. Soon after Jesus had finished talking to the Pharisees, we hear that "People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them." These people knew who Jesus was -- the promised Messiah -- their Savior. But they also knew that he was the Savior of their children as well. So they brought their children to Jesus so he could bless them. Let us not miss the importance of what these people were doing. They didn't let their children decide for themselves whether they wanted to go to Jesus or not. They brought their little children. Today you will hear many parents say that they don't want to force their own beliefs on their children, but that the children should decide for themselves what religion they want to follow, if any at all. Therefore they don't see any reason for bringing little children to church to hear God's word. But how foolish that is! It's like planting a garden in the spring and letting it do its own thing for the rest of the summer. What will happen? It will be infested by weeds. The people here had the right idea: they were bringing their children to Jesus. But what did the disciples do? They turned the people away. After all, Jesus was a busy man, and he had much to teach. He didn't have time to spend on insignificant people. They were probably crying and running around anyway. But what was Jesus' reaction? "When Jesus saw this, he was indignant." That doesn't mean he was a little angry, it means he was really angry. And he tells the disciples the grave mistake of what they were doing. He said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Jesus had to go back to the basics with the disciples regarding faith. He showed them the fundamentals of faith.
The disciples needed to be reminded that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. That includes children. Jesus came to save little children, too. Jesus had taken special care to show prostitutes and sinners that he had come to seek and save the lost. No one was insignificant to Jesus. His salvation is for all. His healing is for all. Now he wanted to assure these little children that he had come to live and suffer and die for them as well. Jesus did the same for you. He lived, he suffered, he died for you. Even when you feel like some insignificant person that time after time goes against God and his will, you know that Jesus loves you and paid the price for every one of your sins. He is there every day to care for you physically. Simply trust is Jesus for everything in life, especially for your forgiveness, and that forgiveness is yours. The simple, unquestioning trust of a child -- that is the one who will enter heaven one day, and really, through faith, already has eternal life. If a parent would tell a young child that the sky is green and grass is blue, they would believe it.
Jesus went back to the basics in talking about divorce and faith. Both show us the blessings God wants to give us, both physically in marriage and spiritually through faith. Go back to the basics of your faith and life also as Jesus taught us to do and see that you have won the victory through Jesus and will live eternally through faith in him. Amen.
