Text: Matt 5:17-26
(Ex 20:1-17, Rom 6:1-11)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
God created mankind to be perfect. In our original creation, we didn’t need to even know about good and evil. But when we disobeyed God, we learned about good and evil, and we were corrupted. We chose evil. This is bad news.
As St. Paul says, all people have the law “written on their hearts.” They are all “without excuse” for their sins. And that leaves all of us condemned and without hope.
The Ten Commandments may not seem like it, but they are a way to restore hope. For God was calling His people, His beloved Israel, from slavery to freedom. He was establishing them to bring the Savior to the world. And the Word of God was engraved into stone. The Ten Commandments is part of the covenant that rescues us.
They are like a mirror that shows us that we need a Savior. For if we read the commandments honestly, we are guilty. We are condemned. Nobody keeps them – and “God is a jealous God,” and our punishment runs generation after generation.
But as we so often do, we missed the point. And we still do. For the purpose of the Ten Commandments is to show us that we need a Savior. But when our sinful flesh hears the commandments being read, we convince ourselves that we keep them. “You shall not murder” is a good example. Most people have never killed anyone, so we pat ourselves on the back and expect God to be impressed. And of course, we don’t worship false gods. We all believe in the true God, so we keep the First Commandment. Right? And even when we break the commandments we have good reasons. We can argue the law like lawyers with God, making a case for our own righteousness, and we have a million excuses for why we break the commandments – including, “We’re only human.”
The people Jesus had the most trouble with were not the admitted murderers and adulterers and thieves – the ones who were guilty, who knew it, and whom society never let them forget it. No, these people sought forgiveness, and Jesus gave it to them. The real enemies of Jesus were the ones like the scribes and Pharisees: the devoutly religious people who had a whole system of workarounds and loopholes. They relaxed the law so that it seemed doable – and they taught others this religious system. They could say a single word, and they thought it released them from their obligation to their parents. They used a whole bunch of tricks to keep the Sabbath.
One time, a rich young man – who had made an idol out of his possessions – came to Jesus and asked about salvation. Jesus asked him about keeping the Ten Commandments. This young man had been fooled into thinking that he kept them. When Jesus asked him if he would sell off his stuff and follow Jesus, he refused. He had been bragging that he kept all of the commandments, but in reality, he couldn’t even keep the first one. And we are all a little like this young man. We have idols, but we prefer not to acknowledge them. We make excuses. We deny our guilt. We look for loopholes.
Jesus came to close the loopholes. Jesus came to remind us of the commandments. For until we come to grips with our sin, we cannot have forgiveness. And that is what He comes to offer us, dear friends: forgiveness. He doesn’t tell us that we can sin, but we get a free pass. Not at all. He tells us that sin leads to death – and then He dies in our place, so that we might live. Jesus doesn’t abolish the law, but rather fulfills it.
So we still teach the Ten Commandments. We make our young people memorize them. And we use them to honestly examine ourselves before we take Holy Communion. They remind us that we don’t save ourselves, that we are not worthy, and that we need a Savior.
Jesus teaches us that we are all murderers. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But 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.”
Or, to put it in the words of our catechism, “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.” When we fail to do this, dear friends, we are guilty of murder. The commandment isn’t just for dictators and mass shooters. We are all guilty.
And as Jesus points out, if you are guilty, it’s better to settle out of court, “lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”
So how do we settle out of court, dear friends? How do we come to terms quickly with our accuser, with our conscience that teaches us that we are without excuse, and with the Word of God as spoken by Jesus that leaves us without a loophole?
We turn to the cross. We plead the blood of Christ that atones for us and wins us pardon. The Ten Commandments point us to our sin, and then point us to the cross. They point us to Jesus: the only way that we can keep the Law and avoid punishment. We confess and we plead guilty to settle out of court. No excuses and no loopholes. We cannot say, “We’re only human,” for Jesus is too. But He keeps the Law, and He fulfills it. He gives us His righteousness – that “exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,” so that we are promised that we will “enter the kingdom of heaven.”
We are set free from the Law’s punishments and condemnation. So, the apostle Paul asks, “What shall we say then?” Since we have God’s grace, should we just sin even more so that we get even more grace? “By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
St. Paul points us to our baptism. In baptism, we “were baptized into His death,” that is Jesus’ death on the cross. Baptism connects us to the cross, dear friends. “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
So what does this mean? It means that you, though you are guilty of breaking all the commandments, you confess them, and you are baptized. Your sinful flesh has been crucified with Jesus. And so what happens next? St. Paul says, “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His…. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.”
What a different way to live than like the Pharisees, who lied to themselves that they kept the Law. In fact, they believed that they were not murderers, even though they murdered Jesus. We too murdered Jesus, dear friends. Our sins put Him on the cross. The Ten Commandments teach us that we are guilty. But we plead guilty and settle out of court.
Your baptism connects you to the cross, and your debt is paid. Instead of being like the rich young man, we are like the murderers and adulterers and thieves that Jesus forgave: the people that the Pharisees looked down upon.
Yes, that’s us. The world hates us and calls us judgmental because we believe the Word of God. Yes, we are judgmental. For the Ten Commandments judge us and all people. We are all guilty. But thanks be to God that we have a Savior, one who came for all men precisely because they do have the Law written on their hearts and are without excuse.
Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. You have been baptized, cleansed, forgiven, and pardoned. And so, dear friends, “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” This is good news!
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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