Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – September

6 Sept 2022

Text: Eph 5:15-33

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

It is fitting that we begin a new school year with a controversial passage from the Scriptures.  For we are engaged in Christian education.  And we live in a culture in which ignorance of Christ – and hostility to the church – cannot be ignored.  This is not by accident, dear friends, for we know that evil exists.  Satan is the “prince of this world,” using truly malignant people at the top of the food chain, “seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).

This is what is behind the strategy to destroy marriage, to destroy the family, and to destroy God’s created order of the two sexes.  For as St. Paul shows us, marriage “refers to Christ and the church.”  If one can befuddle and confuse people about what a man is, what a woman is, what marriage is, and the reality of our existence as human beings, then you can also bamboozle people as to who Jesus is, for He is God incarnate, in the flesh, a man in the sense of a fleshly human being, and a man in the sense of embodied masculinity.

Jesus took manly flesh so as to “[love] the church and [give] Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by water with the Word.”  And this reality of Jesus and Holy Baptism is naturally reflected in a man living the ordinary life of a husband.  But today, that is no longer ordinary.  Men have been conditioned to be childish, putting themselves first.  Many men are today effeminate, soft, cowardly, concerned with entertainment, and refusing to be the heads of their families to bring them to Jesus, who is the “head of the church.”

And this confusion is likewise shared with women, who find the biblical injunction and the anthropological reality of submission to their husbands to be evil instead of good.  They too are selfish, treating their husbands like one of their female friends, or like little boys.  They are in rebellion not only against their husbands, but against nature and the God who created us.  Repentance is needed all the way around.

It is little wonder that many children have no idea about the nature of the sexes, and conversely, they know nothing about God – even when God took flesh “and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) as the man Jesus.

And so, dear friends – whether you are students, teachers, administrators, parents, or ordinary Christians who are not directly involved in education, whether you are married or single – you all have a stake in both married life and the church. 

God created us male and female, and our Lord took flesh as a man.  This is how we were born, and this is how we were born again, dear friends: “by the washing of water with the Word.”  We are training an entire generation to rise up and rebel against the “spiritual forces of evil” (Eph 6:12).  The young men and women of today will be the mothers and fathers of tomorrow – Christian warriors who will take up the mantle of the ancient strife.  By virtue of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is the devil who is in the crosshairs.  For the death blow to Satan, dear friends is the cross.  And our confession of the Word of God is how the “message of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18) is both proclaimed and lived: by men and women, as men and women.

So let us make haste to take up the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Eph 6:17).  Let the Holy Scriptures serve as our cruciform battle plan for this year, and even unto eternity.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.