190120 Sermon on Ephesians 5:22-33 (Epiphany 2), January 20, 2019

190120 Sermon on Ephesians 5:22-33 (Epiphany 2), January 20, 2019

One of the old accusations against Christians is that they don’t want anybody to have any fun.  The old pagans among the Romans and the Germans didn’t like having their drinking parties and their orgies denounced as wicked.  They countered by saying that Christians are prudes. 

But this is not just an ancient thing.  Ever since the widespread use of the automobile in the 1910s young people have gone off to secret places to give vent to their lusts.  This was a change from the courtship that used to take place at the woman’s parents’ house.  Those preachers who might take up a charge of lewdness or fornication against these young people were disliked.  A lot of young people voted with their feet and quit coming to church, or maybe the quit coming to that church and went to some other one where they could be more comfortable.

Even though this is just one hundred years ago it might seem like ancient history for us.  Why bring it up?  I bring it up to show that we are dealing with not just a new problem when it comes to dating, living together, marriage, and so on.  We are in fact dealing with an old problem that has been avoided.  It’s easy to show that it is an old problem by pointing out the similarity of the charge made against Christians.  One hundred years ago the liberated young people were saying that the Church was being prudish and old fashioned.  Times had changed but the Church had not changed with it.  That is the very same thing you will hear today too.

Why haven’t we dealt with this old problem?  It’s because this is an uncomfortable topic that affects all of us.  Who among us is without sin?  And people vote with their feet.  So if your only goal is to perpetuate the existence of the congregation, then topics like this appear to be off limits.  But it is evil and devilish for congregations to just want to continue to exist.  That is not the reason why we have congregations.  The only reason for congregations to exist is so that the Word of God can help people avoid hell and enter heaven.  There would be no reason whatsoever to talk about uncomfortable things if people’s blessedness and salvation were not at stake.  But because they are at stake, and because God’s Word gives us direction in these things for the purpose of helping us, then let us go boldly forward and learn and repent and believe in Jesus.  Then let us teach—all of us, not just me—helping those who are trapped in the imagination of their own hearts about these matters.

Our Epistle reading today is located towards the end of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Often towards the end of their letters the apostles would address how the Christian is now to live in the callings God has given.  That’s where our reading comes from today.  And in the portion we read he is addressing wives and husbands.  Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything like the Church submits to Christ in all things.  Husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the Church—giving himself up for us on the cross so that we could be cleansed from every sin and stain and be presented to himself in splendor.

Some other time, perhaps, I could spend some time on these words addressed to the women and the men.  A lot of people don’t like these words because there is an inequality between the roles.  Husbands and wives are not equal.  They are not the same.  They are not interchangeable.  Each has their role.  The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the Church.  Many people have hated these words for a long time because they believe that only equality and sameness is honorable.  I’m happy to defend what St. Paul says here against those who would pervert the natural order.

But today I’d like to focus on something a bit larger—the sexuality of us creatures as men and women, that is to say, as husbands and wives.  Further down in our reading today St. Paul quotes Genesis chapter 2.  Genesis chapter 2 describes the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib.  Upon seeing his wife Adam says, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.  She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”  The very next verse is the one that is quoted by St. Paul: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

With these words from Genesis you have God’s institution of marriage.  Marriage is God’s design.  Man and woman leave their parents and are joined together in a new family.  To this new family God wishes for there to be children, for he said to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”  Sometimes these families are barren by God’s own hidden will—a problem that afflicted several of God’s people as we read about in the Scriptures.  It was always a cause of rejoicing because something has been set right when this plague was lifted from the couple and a child was given by God.  Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah.  Samuel was born to Elkanah and Hannah.  John the Baptist was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth. 

Children are not a plaything or an ornament or a luxury.  Children belong in these families formed by the union of man and woman, husband and wife.  The union itself is the means through which children are created.  They are to be raised in families where neither father nor mother will leave.  They are to be raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  The only reason why this old world keeps spinning ‘round is so that children can learn of their Creator and Savior and by faith sing his praises.  Therefore, marriage is the highest institution on earth and all of life is directed towards it.  The only reason why we have government or schools or any other beneficial thing is so that husband and wife and their children may be served and benefited and furthered in their filling the earth with life. 

We sinful creatures are somewhat blind to this because one of the worst effects of the fall into sin is that we take things that are common for granted.  If we see something a lot then we think that it must be nothing, a dime a dozen, and unimportant.  Husbands and wives with children are pretty common, and so people think that presidents and CEOs and other more rare (and always highly paid) positions in life must be so much better.  But that is not true.  There is no higher calling than husband and wife, father and mother, because this is where new life comes from.  The whole earth exists for these callings.

And so when St. Paul makes reference to Genesis, to husband and wife becoming one flesh, he is dealing with the highest earthly affairs that exist.  It doesn’t matter that this old ungrateful world is jaded and despises marriage.  It is what it is regardless of whatever anybody thinks of it, and it is high and exalted.  But then St. Paul says something that is very surprising.  He says that this mystery is profound, but he is saying that it refers to Christ and the Church. 

And so this would mean that Jesus leaves his Father and his mother and he holds fast to us, to his Church, to his own body.  The highest earthly calling is elevated to the greatest of all truths that exist: God has become Man, and has joined himself to our sinful race.  The two have become one, so that by the riches of the bridegroom the bride may be redeemed and saved from hell.  All people, young and old, married and unmarried, all people without exception have this engagement from the Son of God whereby he claims them as his own bride to be submissive to him.  This is not an engagement with royalty or mere flesh and blood.  This is union with God.

Most people, however, do not treasure this divine betrothal.  Some are disturbed by it and fight against it openly.  Most, though, more or less take it for granted.  This is the great danger for us and our people who see ourselves as Christians.  Familiarity breeds contempt.  The shocking truth is no longer shocking and they do not wonder about it.  They still pledge allegiance to Jesus, but that is mainly because they want to use him to stay out of hell.  The two becoming one flesh is not holy to them.  It’s hardly anything more than a business transaction.

To be sure, this is not by accident.  God’s enemies would like to have you believe that Christ and his promises are repulsive.  But if they fail in convincing you of that, then they will never cease to work night and day for you to take it for granted.  If the hot sun of persecution won’t get you, then maybe the weeds, the other cares and pleasures of life, might work to choke out all your love and devotion.

Something similar happens also with earthly marriage and the marital union.  There is a concerted effort to make it not sacred.  The goal is to make it seem common and ordinary.  Then the sexual union is nothing other than recreation, a pleasurable activity.  It doesn’t matter who you do it with.  The main weapon for desensitizing us is to indulge in the thrill of seeing the glory of another person’s body which should remain hidden from all others because it is the property of that person’s husband or wife alone.  All our songs, TV shows, music, magazines, internet, and so on urge us to do this.  All the flesh and all the casual sex is meant to convince us that it’s all no big deal.  It’s just a way to have fun.

This desensitization has been very successful.  The expectation today is that beginning with high school and certainly no later than college, men and women use each other like prostitutes until they find one that they think will continue to give them a lot of pleasure.  Then they might make a more permanent commitment.  I know that people who make use of the marital union without the promise of fidelity do not think of themselves or their partners as prostitutes.  I know that they might like to talk a lot about love and other high sounding ideals.  But at the end of the day they are using the other person and if they should ever feel like they are done using the other person, then they will pack their bags and leave.  That is not love.  That is selfishness.

How do we begin to straighten this out?  Not talking about it isn’t going to do it.  That’s been our problem.  We haven’t talked about these things for many decades and we’ve allowed our people to be taught by popular culture.  Popular culture has left deep scars in all of us without exception.  Because of our familiarity with the glory of other people’s bodies, we have been desensitized to what is high and holy in marriage.  Therefore, people are deprived of what is good.  It is good for a husband and a wife to only know the glory of the other’s body after having made a lifetime commitment of fidelity.  The marital union under such conditions is the highest and best of this earthly life. 

There is some kind of connection between our sexuality and our life of faith.  Sexual sin does something to the conscience that other sins do not.  St. Paul in another place says that all the other sins take place outside of the body, sexual sin takes place within it.  It defiles.  Therefore, as he also says, we should flee sexual immorality.  We should fear it.

All of the broken down and godless societies that we find in the Scriptures are always corrupted in matters of sex.  You know well the issues with Sodom and how the men wanted to sodomize angels.  The wicked about to be destroyed in the book of Revelation are dripping with sensuality and lust.  All of these things the Scriptures say to us not so that we can ignore them or never talk about them, but so that we can take warning and not perish with the rest of the world.  If we do not talk about these things, though, that is exactly what will happen.  We will go with the flow, live like everybody else, and be condemned.  This is not hard to have happen.  This is the broad and easy way that leads to destruction.

The Word of God is our only hope.  If we will not hear it, then nothing can help us.  If we do hear it, then it is going to point out our sins and our stains and our spots and our wrinkles.  We are proud creatures (for some stupid reason) and so we prefer almost anything to having these things pointed out about us.  But if we will humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand and confess our sins, then we have the promise of forgiveness and healing in Jesus Christ. 

We heard about Christ and what he is like towards us in our reading: Christ, the bridegroom loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

The amazing thing about our heavenly bridegroom is that he did go find some pretty, wonderful girl.  He chose us with our deformities and ugliness and promised his fidelity to us that is not just ‘til death do us part, but eternally.  And so turn to him and recognize the sacredness of this betrothal and union.  There is no sin he cannot forgive.  There is no stain that he cannot remove.  He makes us holy and without blemish.