“GRAVED NO MORE:
ENGRAVED IN JESUS”
Saint Matthew
22. 15-22
22nd
Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 23 propers/Michaelmas skip)
27 October Anno
Domini 2013
Fr. Jay Watson
SSP
In The Name +
Jesus
After telling a crowd, including Pharisees,
a condemning parable about the fate of all who reject the free gift of God’s
Grace, Jesus is instantly enmeshed in this morning’s Gospel narrative.
“Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel
how they might entangles Him in His talk.” And isn’t this what unbelief
always does. The best defense in an offense your Mom used to tell you. It’s
just what “old Adam” sinful nature
does when it’s caught up in (your) foul putrescence of sin—go on the attack!
This self-justification runs from Adam blaming Eve, to Eve blaming the serpent,
to you blaming everyone else for your own naked shame whenever you catch a glimpse
of your own true terrifying tap-root of unrighteousness.
When a drowning man is approached by a saving
life-guard in the open water many times the rescuer is met by resistance,
struggle and even attacking blows; all wrought in panic and loss of control.
Many (many) times a sinner caught with his/her hand in the “cookie jar” (adultery, gossip, theft, murderous anger, avoidance
of God’s Word, etc.) attacks the messenger.
The Pharisees along with some of Herod’s
followers tried to incriminate the Lord. Like the apocryphal lawyer grilling
the hapless court witness: “when did you
stop beating your wife,” they too sought to catch, “entangle,” Jesus in a no-win type of answer. “Which are you, Nazarene…a traitor to your own people…or a dangerous
political revolutionary?”
Refusing to play by the rules of sin, the
truly Righteous One simply speaks more truth. God knows wickedness. Jesus
understood the unbelief and malevolence of their hearts. He knows the daily
trespasses and severity of your sinful selves. Trying to hide from Jesus with
the fig-leaves of your own justification, works, or panic-attacking, is
dangerously damning. Repent and believe. He who has ears to hear…
Today’s Good News is not some arcane
numismatic lesson on Roman coinage and the Empire’s monetary policy. God’s
words deal directly with and to YOU on God’s own ownership, election, Law, and
rescuing salvation—the free gift of faith through His merciful Grace!
Caesar’s government, His Empire, seized the
gold and thus made the rules. With swords, Legions, cavalry and the “might of man” they owned what they
could own by force. They either minted the coins or seized other people’s gold.
Caesar vainly put his own image on the currency, marking it like a wolf “marks” its own territory. While you
write your school-age children’s names in the back of their jackets so if they
lose their property they can identify it later on if it’s found; tyrants mark
their filthy lucre so when and wherever it is they can seize it.
This is not right; this is not true, good or
beautiful (much less fair) but it is the way of the sinful world, the kingdom
of the left. He who has the gold makes the rules. Jesus is almost saying “so what,” what does this
Roman/Palestinian/Empire of Tiberius versus “empire”
of Caiaphas & Herod have to do with the important questions of sin and
Grace?
All gold, in truth, belongs to The
Truth. All coins, plastic, silver, or gold belong to the God of creation who made
all minerals, rocks, and the hands and bodies of sinners who covet mammon while
eschewing the family of mercy. Whichever temporary “king of the world” has his “mug”
etched on the blood money of Satan is moot.
“Render unto God the things that are God’s!” Repent and believe.
God minted all of you in the forge of His
own love before eternity. He made you shiny and absolutely perfect, “mint” in your father Adam. After that
fateful marrage, despoiling, and discarding of the “fall,” your luster and sheen were not just lost, your value as
precious was rotting away to dust, death and damnation. But the Maker would not
let his treasure go because you are not inanimate coins but beloved children
and tender lambs to a Good Shepherd.
The Lord put His image onto the original Adam and engraved His superscription of love onto Adam’s soul. Adam even in the fall,
even during the time of Noah, Abraham, Moses and the Exodus, the warfare of the
Judges and the Kingdom of David and his descendents; even during the exile in
Babylon and the long period of the minor prophets, God’s precious golden coins
of His chosen predestinate-- still bore His ownership, His mark, His protecting
and redeeming Grace.
In the fullness of time the Lord sent His only
begotten Son, born of woman. The Second Person of the Trinity marked Himself
with flesh and blood, true humanity save for sin, to restore the shiny salvific
worth and preciousness of His treasure. You are the pearl of great price;
you are the golden luster in the Father’s tender eyes! Not because you are
golden (righteous) in yourselves but because you are marked in His
obedient and commandment—fulfilling flesh and super-scribed in His
sin-bearing and trespass atoning blood. You are stamped and engraved in
and with
the + sign-of-the-crucifix. You wear your ancestral family name, crest, and
heraldry “coat-of-arms”—the Crucified
God/Man!
When you daily sin much and forget who you
really are, Who made you, Who owns you and provides for all your daily needs;
when you run from your family identity like a profligate prodigal…the true
owner reclaims you by letting His own precious body work patiently and
perfectly for 33 years of Law-keeping. Christ the Second and Better Adam
restoring mans dignity, salvation-sparkle and beatific beauty. When you
grumble, chafe and even attempt to entangle Jesus in your own hypocritical
self-deception, He marks you, marks you some more and re-marks you with the
very finger of God, the very Word of God, the very breath, death and re-birth
of God. He willingly permitted His innocent, pure, and sinless Body to be
captured and entangled in rough cords and ropes; entangled in thorns and
spikes; entangled by the suffocating sins of your sin, but rendered in love and
joy to the Father on your behalf, and in your place.
He re-births you in the font, and like a
’49er in a cold California stream panned up pure gold, He resurrects you
through the thrice-fold watery streams of His Blood and Water as “gold of God,” a restored Eve, the Bride
of Christ and Heir of the Father.
Hear Jesus and believe: “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands…I will not
forget thee.” [Is. 49. 16a; 15b] Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the
Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is your Lord.
Jesus has redeemed you, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won you
from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or
silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and
death, that you may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve
Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness… In The Name,
Mark, and Inscription of Jesus.
In The Name of
the Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost
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