WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:05.500 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be 2 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:09.000 joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. 3 00:00:09.400 --> 00:00:10.500 This is our text. 4 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:17.100 It is the purple penitential season and so I'll begin with two 5 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:18.000 confessions. 6 00:00:19.100 --> 00:00:23.600 First, I must confess that when I first learned of the plan for a 7 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:29.400 spring sermon series on the Ten Commandments, my reaction was well, I 8 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:32.900 guess you could call it somewhat less than enthusiastic. 9 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:40.300 I know Luther did it, but still it seemed to me to be an efficient way 10 00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:43.000 to discourage Chapel attendance. 11 00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:49.800 Since all those contemplating coming to Chapel on any given Friday, 12 00:00:49.900 --> 00:00:52.600 already knew exactly what awaited them. 13 00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:55.200 The pericopes could offer 14 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:55.400 no 15 00:00:55.400 --> 00:00:56.400 hope at all. 16 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:58.700 Everything had already been determined. 17 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.700 I wondered if perhaps this wasn't a clever ploy to quash all 18 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:08.100 enthusiasm for any serial preaching once and for all. 19 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:15.300 So you can imagine the tremor of delight when I learned that the 20 00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:19.600 singular privilege of preaching, on the 6th of The Commandments was 21 00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:20.700 gifted to me. 22 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:25.800 Such were my sinful, thoughts. 23 00:01:26.600 --> 00:01:29.300 And so a heartfelt confession is in order. 24 00:01:30.300 --> 00:01:31.500 I do so confess. 25 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:35.100 Thank you for the tacit 26 00:01:35.100 --> 00:01:35.600 te absolvo. 27 00:01:38.900 --> 00:01:42.000 My second confession may not require an Absolution. 28 00:01:42.100 --> 00:01:45.400 It is more of an admission of ignorance. 29 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:54.000 I have read studied preached and taught on Genesis 2 for decades, but 30 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:55.700 only a few months ago. 31 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:00.800 Did I realize the most remarkable and obvious thing about this text. 32 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:03.900 In this second creation account. 33 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:09.699 The very first thing that God makes is man. 34 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:18.100 Yes, there is obviously some stuff there before Adam dust and a midst, 35 00:02:18.100 --> 00:02:22.700 that presumably would make a marvelously malleable mud. 36 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:24.300 That's it. 37 00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:32.600 The first recorded instance of creating is God making Adam from that 38 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:33.200 mud. 39 00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:40.400 But here's the kicker, the last thing that God makes in Genesis 2 and 40 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:43.600 Genesis 1 for that matter is the woman. 41 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:51.600 In between God plants, a garden, fills it with trees, locates the man 42 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:58.100 there and then creates every other creature of land sea and sky in an 43 00:02:58.100 --> 00:02:59.700 effort to find man's 44 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:01.000 suitable helper. 45 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:07.800 I had never noticed this before, but the truth is profound and 46 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.400 beautiful on so many levels. 47 00:03:11.700 --> 00:03:16.900 As the story is, recounted the man and the woman and the relationship 48 00:03:16.900 --> 00:03:22.900 between them, become the bookends for all of creation. 49 00:03:24.100 --> 00:03:29.700 Everything that exists within creation exists between them and within 50 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:34.500 the frame of their relationship, that foundational marriage 51 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:39.600 relationship. And so, Luther's, contention that marriage is the 52 00:03:39.600 --> 00:03:42.500 creational relationship that norms and shapes 53 00:03:42.700 --> 00:03:43.400 all that 54 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:45.900 God made is profoundly, right. 55 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:52.800 Small wonder then the God establishes a commandment just for marriage. 56 00:03:53.500 --> 00:03:58.300 And how appropriate the Luther doesn't first provide the usual don't 57 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:04.400 do this part in his explanation, but only stresses what must be done. 58 00:04:05.100 --> 00:04:08.500 Use sex the right way and honor marriage. 59 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:10.900 Everything in creation 60 00:04:11.300 --> 00:04:12.900 hangs on this. 61 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:18.399 This creation account that is so normative for our anthropology and 62 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:19.300 our telos. 63 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:23.500 And our reason for being also does have much to say about our 64 00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:26.000 relationship with the rest of creation. 65 00:04:26.700 --> 00:04:29.600 It's all here for us. 66 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:31.500 Of course 67 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:36.000 this is not to say that it is ours to dispose of or waste as we 68 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:43.000 please, but it is all here for our delights and frankly to keep us 69 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:43.600 company. 70 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:49.800 You see God wasn't trying or experimenting until he finally got it 71 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:50.100 right 72 00:04:50.100 --> 00:04:50.900 with Eve. 73 00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:54.900 He crafted each creature for man's benefit. 74 00:04:56.100 --> 00:04:57.900 There are lessons then to be learned. 75 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:03.800 All that exists around us is here as sheer joy. 76 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:09.800 It is here for us to enjoy and experience because it is a creative 77 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:13.700 gift from God that he created for the sheer 78 00:05:13.700 --> 00:05:15.700 joy of it at least presumably. 79 00:05:16.500 --> 00:05:21.300 And so the created world around us is God's gift and we explore it and 80 00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:23.800 take care of it and delight in it. 81 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:26.800 And celebrate the wonder of all that God has done. 82 00:05:28.200 --> 00:05:32.500 But in light of today, week 6 in our decalogue sermon series. 83 00:05:32.500 --> 00:05:37.400 We also recognize what this text teaches us about God's plan for 84 00:05:37.400 --> 00:05:41.900 marriage, aside from the obvious truths. 85 00:05:42.700 --> 00:05:47.500 Those truths that are world routinely rejects and resolutely mocks. 86 00:05:47.900 --> 00:05:51.100 You know, the one man, one woman. 87 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:55.600 One flesh for life, that part. Aside 88 00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:56.300 from that truth 89 00:05:56.300 --> 00:05:57.900 this story teaches us the most 90 00:05:58.000 --> 00:05:59.900 most important thing about marriage 91 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:07.700 of all. God created marriage to solve man's oldest and greatest problem. 92 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:09.500 Loneliness. 93 00:06:11.400 --> 00:06:16.800 This is not merely the loneliness of an empty house and abandoned 94 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:20.000 playground or an aimless afternoon. 95 00:06:21.100 --> 00:06:26.200 It is not a loneliness eased much less solved by sharing a drink 96 00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:27.200 called loneliness. 97 00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:32.700 Now this is the fundamental existential loneliness of being 98 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:33.800 singularly 99 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.400 isolated in one's own ego centric 100 00:06:37.400 --> 00:06:43.100 universe utterly cut off from anything but oneself. 101 00:06:44.500 --> 00:06:49.700 Adam may have had a glimmer of a sense of it early on that sixth day 102 00:06:49.700 --> 00:06:53.300 of creation before he got busy naming animals 103 00:06:53.400 --> 00:06:59.400 and before God brought him, his newly built bride. But he only tasted 104 00:06:59.400 --> 00:07:06.100 the full horror of solitariness on the day when he and his wife ate 105 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:07.300 from The Forbidden tree. 106 00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:15.700 That action of defiance plunged them, both into utter Independence and 107 00:07:15.700 --> 00:07:17.000 crushing isolation. 108 00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:22.200 Marriage had been meant for the remedy for man's aloneness. 109 00:07:23.300 --> 00:07:29.200 But the man and the woman denounced the gift of the other turned away 110 00:07:29.400 --> 00:07:35.300 from the other and curled back into the solitary shell of self. 111 00:07:36.700 --> 00:07:38.200 And by this sinful act, 112 00:07:39.300 --> 00:07:44.000 the creation built within the framework of that first informative 113 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:45.000 relationship. 114 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.900 The creation was cut loose from its grounding and has been tearing 115 00:07:49.900 --> 00:07:53.000 itself apart from within ever since. 116 00:07:54.500 --> 00:08:00.400 The great sin against the sixth commandment is not premarital sex, 117 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:09.500 pornography, divorce, cohabitation, gender fluidity, same-sex marriage or 118 00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:11.000 even adultery. 119 00:08:12.200 --> 00:08:20.300 The central sin is self-serving, self-chosen, autonomous, independent, 120 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:27.100 willful, solitariness that rejects the other and then uses the other 121 00:08:27.500 --> 00:08:28.900 for self-fulfillment. 122 00:08:29.900 --> 00:08:34.900 And so plunges, all of life, and all of creation into futility and 123 00:08:34.900 --> 00:08:35.700 frustration. 124 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:40.500 The core sin shatters the universe. 125 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:45.700 Instead of all of God's creation revolving around God's good 126 00:08:45.700 --> 00:08:50.000 will we in our sinfulness reorder the creation 127 00:08:50.100 --> 00:08:52.500 so that it now revolves around us. 128 00:08:53.400 --> 00:08:58.500 You become the center of your universe and God singular creation is 129 00:08:58.500 --> 00:08:59.700 torn apart. 130 00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:02.100 Now we have seven point 131 00:09:02.100 --> 00:09:07.200 nine billion multiverses each revolving around seven point 132 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:09.200 nine billion separate eyes. 133 00:09:10.500 --> 00:09:16.400 That's the sin that we must confess. The sin of renouncing the 134 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:17.000 reality 135 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:22.600 God put into place on day 6 of creation. The sin of shunning God's 136 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:27.200 plan that we each live for the other and find our completion in the 137 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:28.700 gift of the other, 138 00:09:28.900 --> 00:09:36.600 given to us by God. The sin, the old original sin, of dethroning God and 139 00:09:36.600 --> 00:09:37.800 crowning ourselves. 140 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:43.400 The absurd sin of demanding for ourselves 141 00:09:43.400 --> 00:09:47.500 the damning, hell of self-centered autonomy. 142 00:09:49.300 --> 00:09:53.400 We all sin against the sixth commandment. 143 00:09:54.400 --> 00:09:55.900 We push against the plan. 144 00:09:57.000 --> 00:09:59.400 We reject God's framework for creation. 145 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.900 And we reorder the universe around ourselves. 146 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:08.100 Children, adolescents, single, 147 00:10:08.400 --> 00:10:11.100 married, widowed, divorced. 148 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.600 We are all guilty and we all must confess. 149 00:10:18.800 --> 00:10:19.800 And for this reason, 150 00:10:20.900 --> 00:10:26.800 the Son left his father became a man and was joined to his wife, his 151 00:10:26.800 --> 00:10:27.400 bride. 152 00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:30.600 The word became flesh. 153 00:10:31.400 --> 00:10:34.700 He became the Incarnate bridegroom of his people. 154 00:10:35.900 --> 00:10:37.100 He loved his creation. 155 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:38.100 He loved it 156 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:40.400 enough to join it. 157 00:10:41.400 --> 00:10:45.000 He came into this shattered world looking for his bride. 158 00:10:46.400 --> 00:10:47.100 Looking for you. 159 00:10:48.900 --> 00:10:49.600 He found you. 160 00:10:50.300 --> 00:10:53.400 Look, you tried to hide and you sought to be alone. 161 00:10:53.900 --> 00:10:54.700 He found you. 162 00:10:55.700 --> 00:11:01.900 Forgave you and joined you in your utter aloneness and made you his own. 163 00:11:03.400 --> 00:11:04.700 You belong to him. 164 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.600 You are his chosen bride. 165 00:11:09.700 --> 00:11:11.700 For you, he lived. For you 166 00:11:11.700 --> 00:11:13.400 He died. For you 167 00:11:13.400 --> 00:11:14.200 He rose. 168 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:20.000 He is the only and final answer to the greatest sin that you have ever 169 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:21.900 committed. Your greatest sin 170 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:23.900 and your greatest need. 171 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:30.000 He is the answer to your desperate solitariness and your sinful 172 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:30.800 isolation. 173 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:37.100 Because he is now, your husband, your Redeemer, your savior, and your 174 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:43.100 Lord, you are now back where you need to be rightly related to God, 175 00:11:43.100 --> 00:11:48.400 your Creator and rightly related to all of God's creation. Your back, 176 00:11:49.100 --> 00:11:50.100 back in the framework. 177 00:11:50.800 --> 00:11:56.100 Back between the bookends of marriage between man and woman, single or 178 00:11:56.100 --> 00:11:59.100 married, widowed or divorced. 179 00:11:59.900 --> 00:12:02.500 You are back where you belong, rejoicing 180 00:12:02.500 --> 00:12:07.800 now, with your bridegroom and waiting for the wedding feast to get 181 00:12:07.800 --> 00:12:09.800 started in earnest. 182 00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:11.200 Amen.