Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Sts. Zechariah and Elizabeth - 2023

5 Sept 2023

Text: Eph 4:25-5:14

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

We begin our school year with a fitting passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in a way giving us a theme for both this year, and our entire lives as we walk the road of the Christian faith.  As the apostle reminded us just a couple chapters ago, our salvation is “by grace” and “through faith” – but “not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph 2:8-9).  But St. Paul also reminded us in the next verse that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (v.10).

And so Paul now shares with us what this looks like in the real world: the real world of first century Ephesian life, and our own real world of twenty-first century school and work and church.  St. Paul teaches us to “put away falsehood” by speaking the truth with our neighbors.  Living this way is an act of rebellion, dear friends.  For we live in an age of the lie.  We are constantly lied to all the time, and the world, the realm of the father of lies, justifies the lie.  The lie is indeed the coin of the realm, but we live in the realm of a different King.  We are those who follow Jesus: the way, the truth, and the life.  So let us resolve to live authentically by a commitment to truthfulness in all that we say and do.

St. Paul urges us to watch our mouths, not to speak like the world: a world obsessed with crudeness and crassness, not immersed in the good, the true, and the beautiful.  We are not of this world (John 18:36), dear friends.  We are rather seeking to show the world a “more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31), a way of life removed from “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander.”  Indeed, the Christian life is radical!

Rather we, in our family life, work life, church life, and school life, are called to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving of one another, “as God in Christ forgave you.”  We are to “walk in love.”  And again, dear friends, this is radical and unworldly.  It is also a way of life that is both easy and hard.  It is easy, because it is by grace, and because Jesus made our renewed lives possible by His death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead.  Jesus has done it.  It is His work, not ours.  But at the same time, the Christian life is hard.  For we still live in the flesh, in the world, and the devil still “prowls around” (1 Pet 5:8).  And as sinners who still live in a fallen world in fallen flesh, we do indeed fall and fall again.  But in Christ, we rise and rise again, even as we will rise on the Last Day.

And this makes all the difference, dear friends.  We live in Christ, the Risen One.  And we live in the promise of our own resurrection!  St. Paul quotes what seems to be a hymn of his own day to remind us of this reality of our Christian life of grace: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” 

That is His promise to you, dear friends, as you carry out your holy vocations in this school year, and for the rest of your days on this side of the grave.  So indeed, even in our sinful condition, let us take to heart the apostle’s words that, by grace, we “walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true).”

Amen.

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