October 7, 2018 Text: Genesis 2:18-25
Dear Friends in Christ,
We are living in a time of crisis. At the core our present difficulty is a radically new understanding of sexuality, marriage, and humanity, with profound implications for our society, as well as our church. Many of our young people have been led astray. Sheep and shepherds are confused and afraid. To those who are still apathetic, Erick Erickson and Bill Blankschaen have famously warned, “You will be made to care.”
It is the Gnostic view that human beings – living members of the human species – are not necessarily persons. Having a human body does not define you as human. This makes it easier to justify abortion, euthanasia and the use of human embryos. If we are not fully human beings we can then define our own existence. We must play along or get punished. Sherif Girgis writes, “For the New Gnostic, then, a just society cannot live and let live, when it comes to sex. Sooner or later, the common good – respect for people as self-defining subjects – will require social approval of their self-definition and approval.” Whether the emperor is wearing no clothes or a dress, we must nod and smile – or else.
Make no mistake about it – the Holy Scriptures reveal God’s plan for the human family. Marriage and family are not a social construct, something we dreamed up. We don’t get to define them as we choose. In our text for today marriage wasn’t Adam’s idea it was God’s. He created the woman to be the helper for the man, so he would not be alone. God brought Eve to Adam and he received her as a gift. As people mess with this gift and screw it all up, it’s good to ask . . .
“WHAT IS THE PRICE OF A RIB?”
For God, the price of a rib is the start of the human family. “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” says Adam. This is the Lord’s plan. Male and female, man and woman, given to each other. When the two become one the Lord blesses the union with more gifts – children. We heard it in our Introit: “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a real blessing.”
The Lord reminds us today of this crown of His creation. Listen to these words from our Epistle lesson: “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Crowned with glory and honor. If sinful man can get us to deny God’s wonderful creation and where man should be then the next step is to kill a child or old person while saving an owl or salamander. If we mess with God’s creation, that beating heart in the womb is not a person. Young and old forgo commitment and live together. Divorce escalates because “happiness” is more important than God’s Word. And the most dangerous of all – when we – in our own churches give tacit approval to some or all of this under a satanic twisting of our Lord’s words, “Judge not”? What is going on?
All God-given relationships have been ripped apart by sin. Satan’s angle has always been to have us fight, argue, disagree to those in whom we are the closest. Adam and Eve against God. Adam and Eve against each other. Cain and his brother Abel. Just in Genesis alone we have Noah and Ham, Abram and Lot, Sarai and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers.
The most intimate relationship is that of husband and wife. The only human relationship described as “one flesh.” The price of a rib today is the sucker punch of Satan and his minions who want us all to turn on our back on this “one flesh union.”
The Lord saw this coming. From that first rib came all of humanity until a Savior came in human flesh. As God put Adam to sleep and took from his side that which he made the woman, so our Lord Jesus sleeps in death on his cross and his tender heart is pierced. Then from that heart flows a fountain of blood and water. In the church that is a picture of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, by which the Holy Spirit creates the Bride of Christ, the Church, and brings her to the Bridegroom.
And that Bridegroom, Jesus is faithful to you. Jesus is faithful even when you have been faithless to Him. He is not giving up on us but His patience goes only so far. We need the Spirit’s help to turn from life choices outside the bounds of His creation. We need the Spirit’s help to turn from rib-rocking cohabitation to the sociological bedrock of society – marriage between a man and a woman. It was important to the Lord in our Gospel. It is so needed now. We need the Spirit’s guidance when we want to throw our hands up with “what else can I do?”
This is where our faith in the Lord of creation is such a blessing. All of this, you see, is pictured in the way God – not we, not Adam, not society – long ago designed the institution of marriage and family. God established marriage and family to be an image of His own unfailing commitment to you, his people.
Therefore, if there is anything in this sad world that can bring hope and a future to counter the mess we’ve made of trying to do marriage and family on our own terms, thinking we know better than God, it is the open heart of Jesus. His patience and kindness is upon us. He sends you forth forgiven and renewed to mirror in your families and neighborhoods the divine love of the Bridegroom, Jesus. The price of a rib was His life. Let us live for Him who has become one with you forever.
Amen.