Let your waist be girded: A Meditation on Luke 12

New Year’s Eve this year, is the eve of a festival day too infrequently remembered:  the Eve of the Circumcision of Jesus.  For those who may not remember, Jesus was circumcised according to the Law of Moses and the covenant God established with Abraham, like any other young male child of Israel.  Though Jesus is the same God who spoke to Abraham regarding the covenant, and the same God whose finger etched the stone tablets of the Law for Moses on Mt. Sinai, Jesus also voluntarily places Himself under His own Law.  He receives in His flesh the mark of the covenant, and by the shedding of His most precious blood, is counted among the people He has come to save.

While it is fitting that our Lord would fulfill all righteousness and accomplish every jot and tittle of the Law (that He may be without sin, a spotless sacrifice for the sins of mankind,) we should remember that this is done entirely for our sakes.  Jesus does not need the covenant of Abraham to be united to God, any more than He needs the Law of Moses—Jesus is very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, through whom all things were made.  Jesus has always been the eternally begotten Son of the Father, united with the Holy Spirit, in perfect communion and harmony.  It is man who needs the Law to see how far he has fallen from the grandeur and beauty of fellowship with the Most Holy Trinity, not Jesus.  Jesus freely places Himself under His own Law, that He might give His life as a ransom for the world.  He takes on flesh and blood, that through the unity of His Divine Person, He might give His flesh and blood for the sins of all mankind.  This is the mystery of the Lord’s Supper, when He says, “This is My Body… this is My Blood… given… shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.”  Jesus makes His flesh to be food indeed, and His blood to be drink indeed:  a heavenly food, far greater than the manna which fed Moses and the people during the Exodus.  This food is Jesus Himself, His grace poured out through His sacrifice on the Cross, that all who would receive Him by faith, would live forever in Him.  This is the food we really need, that we might live forever.  This is the food Jesus has given to us, that we might have our food in due season, being nourished and enlivened in Him.

When Jesus tells His disciples in the twelfth chapter of Luke, that they should have their loins girded and their lamps burning, He is telling them that they should be about His work in the world.  Jesus tells them that the servants so at work when He returns, will be blessed, and that He will come in to them, and serve them, giving to them that food which is life everlasting.  But with this encouragement, is also an admonishment.  We are called to both be working, feeding the needs of the people given to our care, and to be watching for the Lord’s coming, because we do not know the hour of His return.  We are set at work by the Word of the Lord, to love God and our neighbor with perfect, heavenly, righteous, sacrificial love, and by faith to hear His Word, believe and trust it, and to watch for His return.  It is His calling to all, to remain in Faith, Hope, and Love, and to await His coming, no matter how long He may tarry.

This teaching of Jesus seems to unsettle His disciples, and they ask Him:  is this only for us, or do you speak it to all the people?  Jesus responds with the simplest of answers:  who shall I reward in the Kingdom of Heaven, giving authority to feed the people and provide to them the grace that meets their needs, except those I find so doing when I come?  It is simple, and elegant, and terrible all at once.  Who among us wants to be held in honor or prestige in heaven, or given a place of honor or authority in the Kingdom of God?  That one should be about the sacrificial, selfless, humiliating service of their neighbor in this world, giving to the people what they really need:  Jesus, the suffering and humiliated Son of God.  There is no place of honor or authority in God’s Kingdom, except that which is given by the Suffering Servant, who gives His life as a ransom for many.  The place of highest honor and authority in heaven and earth, is the Right Hand of the Father Almighty, where Jesus is seated, who will come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead.  If we are to be honored by the Son of God, then we must be at work as He has sent us, caring for our neighbors by a faith working in love, which sacrifices the self for the sake of the other.  From the highest ecclesiastical offices in the Church, to the humble hearth of a family home, the expectation is the same.  And to whom much has been given, much will be required.

And so we must ask ourselves, who are our neighbors?  How have we treated them?  Not just the ones we enjoy, but the ones who tax us, who hurt us, who wound us with their insensitivity and selfishness.  What have you done for the one who has slandered you, and despitefully used you?  What have you done for the one who spits upon you, beats you, abuses you, and leaves you weeping?  What have you done for the one who curses you, who threatens you, and speaks falsely against you?  Surely, it is easy to love those who love us, but even tax collectors and brigands do the same.  Jesus, however, loves even you.  He died for every one of those people who lied about Him, cursed Him, and sent Him scourged to die on a Cross.  He gave His life for you, whose sins nailed Him to the tree.  And for all those who wound you, He calls you, to serve them as He served them: to show them the means of their redemption and salvation, which is the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

As we embark upon a new year, we must hear the call of our Lord, to be faithfully at work, waiting for His return.  We hear Him call to us, that despite all our failings and evil, He has sought us out, and saved us by His grace, that we might live by faith in Him forever.  And through us, He calls to all the world, that He might by our hands, and by our mouths, give to the people their food in due season—the food which comes down from heaven, which if we eat of it we shall live forever, even Jesus Christ our Savior.

May your loins be girded, and your lamp burning, that the Lord may find you faithfully at work when He comes, tending to your neighbor with a love born of His love, and a faith born of Word and Spirit.  Amen.

He makes His works to be remembered: Meditation on Psalm 111

It seems to me a point not pondered enough, that we know what we know about God.  It is common in our age to be skeptical, and with a post-modern mindset, to doubt that we ever actually know anything well.  However, setting the self-delusional and prideful philosophies of skepticism and post-modernism aside, consider what it is that we have, regarding God, and how marvelous it is that we have it.

Regardless of how old you may think the earth and stars happen to be, I don’t think anyone doubts that human beings have been on this planet a long time.  And regardless of exactly how long you think people have been on this earth, I don’t think anyone doubts that these people have been leaving a written history of what they thought, did, and encountered, for over 4000 years.  Whether we trace the cultures of China, or Africa, or India, or the Middle East, or many others, we find written histories going back a very long way.  In these written histories, we find mention of verbal histories—stories—told by one generation to the next, preserving histories even before the advent of the written word.  And this shouldn’t really surprise us in our day, either.  We have voluminous written histories in our hands or at our finger tips, some pulled together or culled by modern historians from both ancient and modern accounts, which tell us of the Romans and the Greeks, of the Chinese emperors and the Mongols, of the Huns, Visigoths, and Vandals… and countless others.  And yet, for all our written histories, we also have storytellers, often in our own families, who regale us of tales unwritten, but of importance or significance in our family history.  Just like the ancients, we have in our time both written and oral histories, books and storytellers.

But books and storytellers can be inaccurate, or even lost.  How many tales of heroism and woe, from how many families, across time and distance, have been lost to the mists of history?  Do you know what your great-grandmother did when she was only 10, or your great-great-grandfather pondered when he was 32?  Most likely not, because the stories have been lost, and the storytellers have forgotten them.  But if your great-great-great-aunt happened to write down her wondrous and dangerous travels in a book, there’s a chance the story could be found again.  Of course, there’s also the very real chance, that this book is lost, destroyed, or buried somewhere, never to be found again.  Even if she engraved her story on the face of a stone tablet, years of rain and wind, war and plunder, could very easily see it lost or broken.  If you doubt the power of nature to wash away the words even written in stone, walk through an old cemetery, and see how many names you can still read from the fallen of the Civil War, or the American Revolution.  Left unprotected, many of these names are lost, washed even from the face of the stone marker placed there a mere 100, 150, 200 years or more ago.

Given the nature of stories and history, consider what a marvel it is, that we have God’s story with us to this day.  To be sure, we have many contrary accounts of who God is, and what He’s done—or what He intends to do yet in the future.  The Muslims have their writings, from the time of Muhammad, around the 7^th century AD, with his inspiration to conquer, enslave and subjugate the whole world under Muslim political and religious rule, still sending Jihadists and Taliban off to blow up cities, wage wars, and topple governments in our very day.  The Hindu Vedas, likely much older visions of ancient mystics and committed to writing somewhere around 300 BC, still inspire the culture of India, with its philosophy, polytheism and caste system.  The I Ching and Tao Te Ching, composed somewhere between 1000 and 400 BC, still have a great deal of influence on Chinese culture, with its divination, animism, and personal piety, even under the modern hands of the ruling Communist atheists.  Other religious stories and texts, from all over the world, with greater or lesser antiquity or authenticity, have shaped people’s understanding of God (or the gods, spirits, forces, etc.,) and the cultures within which they have lived.  And it is certainly true, that an honest appraisal of the stories or texts of Islam, cannot be made harmonious with the Hindu Vedas, or the Chinese Tao Te Ching, or other world religions’ stories about God.  In the end, if the stories conflict, some or most of them must be at fault, if any of them can be true.  And if so, how is one to understand who God actually is, what He has done, and what He intends yet to do?  How is one to sift the conflicting accounts?

While there are certainly other religious texts around the world, some purporting great antiquity, there is a religious text that is very different from the rest.  The Muslim Koran, with a text that dates within a century or so of their prophet, is a fairly recent revelation, dating back only to the 7^th century AD—and due to the actions of an early Muslim ruler, all the competing and confusing textual variants of the Koran in his day, were burned, leaving only a single text to attempt to understand the mind of Muhammad… a text that continues to drive bloody conflict, conquest, and enslavement.  The older Hindu and Chinese texts are written down long after the visionaries are said to have received them, putting centuries if not millennia between the original idea and its initial writing… and many questions that naturally arise, whether the final written form has proper continuity with the original (perhaps mythical) seer.  And bundled together, the religious texts of the world seem to describe a variety of paths to satisfy God, or gods, or spirits, or ancestors, or the universe in general, through human acts, sacrifices, or meditations.  Each of these ancient texts describes some way to appease, mediate, avoid, or employ the gods for the practitioner’s interests in this world or the next.  There is, however, one ancient account of God that is very different.

There is one, where the writing begins about 1500 BC with a fellow named Moses, to whom God comes to reveal Himself, His Name, what He has done, and what He is going to do.  While Moses, born of a Hebrew slave in Egypt, and yet raised in Pharaoh’s household, would likely have known the oral histories of his people (both Hebrew and Egyptian,) God doesn’t leave him to remember the details of Abraham 500 years before his time, or of the events going back to creation.  Rather than leaving Moses to wonder if he had the story right, God gives him the pertinent details down to his time, and leaves him with prophecies of things yet to be done, some nearer in time, and some further.  After Moses, this same God speaks to Joshua, to tribal leaders and Judges, to kings and prophets.  This same God, ratifying what He has said previously, demonstrating His power through miracles and wonders, and then pointing forward to what He will do in the future through prophesy, leaves a trail of witnesses to His one message, from the dawn of time down to Moses in the oral histories, and in written form—by the authors themselves—from 1500 BC through the first century AD.  Even if we might wonder about the content of the oral histories before Moses, God still ensured that we had a written record of His Words and deeds, His plans and His intentions, knit together over 1500 years of authors, times, and places.  And all along, from the beginning to our very day, His people have been carrying forth these writings, the story of our God’s wondrous deeds both past and yet to come, faithfully preserving the witness God has left us of Himself.

This unique, ancient, and prophetic witness is no accident.  God has always wanted people to know who He is, what He has done, what He will yet do, and what He has to say to the people of every time and place.  He has always wanted them to know where they came from, that though they are now fallen and broken, they were originally created good and pure.  He wants everyone to know, that He is not the one who broke us, but that it was our own pride, and the whispered lies of evil spirits, that lured us into rejecting Him, and by rejecting Him, to reject life itself.  He calls to all, so that all may know His great love for mankind, and all the world—that while we were yet broken, dying, rebellious and prideful monstrosities, He brought forth a plan to save us, not only from our own corruption, but from the wicked spirits which hold broken people enslaved.  He sends us the message of His Messiah, His very Son, who in the power of His Spirit, would be born of the Virgin at precisely the right time and place, that in His very Person, having united human nature with His own blessed divinity, He would die for the sins of the world, that all who would believe in Him, might live in Him, forgiven and free. 

From the words Moses records God having spoken to our first parents, when they fell in the Garden, regarding a Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the lying devil who led them into death and captivity, to the words Jesus spoke as He hung dying on the Cross so many centuries later, declaring the work of redemption finished, the united witness of God is one of hope and life.  He shows us His holiness through His Law, that we might know, in every day and age, how far we have fallen from His wondrous creation, and how greatly we need to be saved from our own broken depravity.  And through His Gospel, He shows us just how far He has gone, through time, space, and eternity, to rescue every last one of us, by His marvelous grace, through simple faith, in His blessed Son.  Here is the message that distinguishes the truth from the lie—not that God would give us a mysterious and dubious path to find or appease or manipulate Him—but rather, that He has done all things to seek and to save us.  The message that God has maintained for all times, peoples, and places, is that He alone is God, and He alone can rescue dying mankind, giving life and forgiveness in the place of the death and destruction we each have earned.

These are the wondrous deeds God has ensured will not be forgotten, in this or any age to come.  The work of salvation in His Son, proclaimed by the Church of God, clung to by all the faithful in His Word given through His Prophets and Apostles, is the Everlasting Gospel which shall ring throughout eternity.  By this Gospel, God the Father calls to you, that you might live in His Son through the power of His Spirit, forgiven and free to live out your faith in a love that reflects His endless and boundless Love.  And His wondrous works continue every day, giving new life by grace through faith to dead and dying sinners who hear and believe in Him, until that Last Day when all evil is eternally imprisoned and the saints of God shine forth with the brightness of the sun in His Kingdom.

This message, this history, this story of our God, has been preserved by His grace, for you—and for all those who will come after you.  This unique, ancient, present and future Word of God calls to you, that you may live in His love and grace forever, for this is His revealed will in Jesus Christ His Son.  Lies, deceptions, false prophesies and faulty human philosophies will come and go, but this Eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ—the Word of the Lord—shall endure forever.  Hear Him.  Believe, and live.  Amen.

We are not alone: Christmas meditations on 1st John 4

I have often wondered, if at root, people are more generally afraid of being alone, than they are of being together with someone or something dangerous.  While the answer might seem obvious, I think the way people tend to live shows a less obvious answer.  From the abused who cannot seem to leave their abuser, to the persecuted who cannot seem to leave their persecutors, the world is full of people who choose to be beaten, abused, tormented, and ultimately destroyed rather than risk being alone… from individuals, to entire nations, who subject themselves to abusive tyranny for the sake of not being alone in the world.  While I think most people are afraid of being chased by wild beasts (either human or inhuman,) I think most people are deep down, more afraid of being entirely alone.

And I think this makes sense, considering how God has made us.  We are social creatures, and left to our devices, we will create social structures.  Every person is conceived and born through the actions of other people, whether their parents are loving and kind, or cruel and selfish.  We emerge into this world through a social construct, and we live all our days in some relationship to other people.  Whether we are citizens of a community or nation, or simply members of our family, it doesn’t matter where we are in the world, those relationships remain.  Even if our families and communities become our enemies, they are still our families and communities—the relationship may be poisonous or prosperous, but the relationship still remains.  We cannot escape our connectedness, even if we are cast off on a desert island.  We still have some relationship to someone, somewhere.

And for all our connectedness and community, there is still one terrifying event we must all endure alone:  death.  It is the truly unnatural thing in all creation, a disruption of all that is created good and pure.  It is the consequence of evil and rebellion, of the disruption of creation itself, brought into the world by the evil and rebellion of its chief creatures:  mankind.  I think death tends to frighten us so much, because we know, deep down, it is so unnatural, and so out of synch with the rest of the created universe.  But then, somewhere deep down, we also know that it is just.  No matter how deeply we dig into ourselves, we find that we are responsible for poisoning relationships with our families, our communities, our friends and neighbors.  We are responsible for wounding those around us, using other people for our own designs, and casting them aside when we have what we want.  We are responsible for the governments of tyranny that oppress through myriad ways, even if they have the veneer of justice and law.  We are responsible for the distortions of this universe, and it is right that we should be taken out of those relationships, stripped of our ability to wound and destroy others, and cast into the eternal prison where the only relationship left to us, is that which exists between those who are utterly alone, without hope of reunion or grace.  Death is the gateway we face all alone, which points the way to our just condemnation, of being alone in our self created misery forever.  This is the gift the devil offered our first parents, so many millennia ago—the gift they took and passed on to us, which at first looks and tastes so sweet, only to poison us and kill us, leaving us alone for all eternity.

But God does not so easily let go of us, even as we try so hard to run from Him.  God, Himself a perfect community in unity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally in perfect relationship with each other, chose to reach out and call us into His community.  This is the great mystery of Christmas—not that we loved and sought out God, but rather, that God loved and sought out us, by sending His Only Begotten Son, to be the propitiation of our sins.  God chose to take the wounded community of mankind upon Himself, and in the Person of His Son, be wounded for our transgressions.  He took the poison of our broken humanity into His perfect and eternal life.  He walked alone through the dark portal of death, carrying the weight of every evil and wicked thought, word, and deed, of every person who was or will be born upon this globe.  For all humanity, the Son of God leaves His perfect communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so that He might die for the sins of the world.  This is the meaning of the sign accompanying His birth—He is born of the Virgin, taking our flesh upon His divinity, becoming perfect Man and perfect God in one Person, for the sake of our salvation.  This is the love of God for us, that He would sacrifice His own perfect harmony, to seek and to save us, who without Him, have nothing but desolation and an eternity of solitude awaiting us.  For He so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him, should not perish, but have eternal life.

But of course, the Author of Life could not be held down by death and hell.  The poison of death He took into Himself, He destroyed by the power of His Almighty life.  The gates of hell opened to receive Him, but in so doing, were destroyed by the power of His majesty.  Death and hell were destroyed for all who would cling to Jesus, for Jesus could not be held by the bonds of death.  In Him is life, and not just in this world, but for the eternity to come.  In Him is the restoration of the created unity, flowing out of the blessed harmony of the Holy Trinity.  In Him, we find the fullness of community and relationship, beginning with Jesus as our Savior and Lord, and through Him, to all the world.  In Jesus, all wounds are healed, all sins forgiven, all wickedness cleansed.  In Jesus, the broken relationships and communities of our fallen world, find their reconciliation, healing, and peace, through His boundless grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness.  Where our Lord is victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil, so are all who are found in Him.

This is the beauty and wonder of Christmas, of the Incarnation of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Here we see that we are never alone, even though we pass through the valley of the shadow of death.  Here we find, that even if our human communities and relationships are broken and wounded in this world, He is the restoration and the promise of eternal community and life.  Here is the hope of salvation, that no one ever need be alone, even for a moment, in this world or the next.  And here is the promise, that we need not take the false dichotomy of fear, that attempts to choose between wicked community or being alone, but rather to live in the perfect fellowship of the Holy Trinity, together with all the saints and martyrs, prophets and apostles, who live in Jesus Christ by grace through faith.  Here is the victory that overcomes the evil one, death, and hell:  Jesus Christ.

Are you hurting and wounded this Christmas season, by the poor choices of yourself and others?  Do you sit in the dark, afraid to be alone, and afraid to be with others who despitefully use you?  Are you fearful and depressed, weary and broken, weighed down by a world that crushes upon you?  Be of good cheer, dear neighbor—Christ is calling to you.  He is with you.  His rod and His staff, they are here to comfort and protect you.  Jesus saw you, knew you, before He called the world into existence, and His great love for you, took Him to the Cross, the grave, and even hell itself, to save you.  He is the one who seeks you in perfect love, never to harm you, but to heal you and restore you—to bring you into the perfect love and harmony that He has with the Father and the Holy Spirit, that you might live in Him forever.  And there, in that perfect harmony of love and community with the God who created you, seeks you, and saves you, you will find a fellowship with all the others He has brought into that same fellowship with Himself.  Through Jesus, you will find the family you never thought possible in this world, and with His love and grace pouring through you, you will find the healing waters that will pour over all the other people in this world who so desperately need Him, too.  Healed, restored, and blessed to be in the communion of His saints, you will become His means of reaching ever more people with His grace and truth.  Far from the depths of sorrow and despair you once knew, alive with His life and love, your mouth shall carry His Words of forgiveness, hope and salvation—your hands shall do His work to care for your neighbor, and your feet shall go to His mission field.  He shall live in you, and you in Him.

And this is Christmas.  God is with us.  And who shall separate us from so great a love, that crossed all eternity to bring us into His eternal and blessed fellowship?  In Him there is no fear, no despair.  For in Jesus, all are made alive forevermore, and all the pain of this life is washed away in His eternal embrace.  He comes for you—He calls to you.  Hear Him.  Believe.  Live.  Amen.

Born of a Virgin: Meditations on Matthew 1

Virginity is a quaint idea in our time, nearly as outdated in the public mind as rotary telephones and carbon copies (those of you under the age of 20, ask your parents what these are).  Old fashioned ideas like virginity are often snickered at by those who find it ridiculous or unnecessary, particularly in our modern and enlightened age.  While it’s often not said directly, the world’s modern ideal is formed by the conviction that since we’re all just the product of evolutionary animals in a meaningless universe, why not gratify our desires and get all we can before we die?  Indeed, what is the value of virginity, when people are just hormone driven animals, clawing out their own passions upon a merciless globe, fretting every moment that they won’t get what they want before someone takes it from them?  The image of a pack of hyenas around a rotting antelope carcass comes to mind…

Of course, this is not what people are.  The illusion of our time, a strong delusion to be sure, has caused the hearts of many to grow cold, selfish, and hateful.  Even Christians, swooning under the neon advertisements that sell “please me now” wares, begin to doubt the need and usefulness of ideas like virginity and chastity.  Christian schools, like public schools, are full of baptized teenagers, who see their peers chasing the spirit of the age, and ask why they shouldn’t do so, too.  They see throngs of their friends following after the Pied Piper, pursuing sex and pleasure and vice, and wrestle with whether or not to join the throng.  What they don’t see, is where the Piper is leading them.

With all our modern thoughts and values, we continue to forget the eternal truths God revealed to the world through His Word.  To live after the flesh, is to die.  That Piper, the spirit of the age, is always calling and wooing people to their eternal demise; to share his fate in the lake of fire forever.  We would be stupid and naïve to think that the Piper is not very talented at what he does, or that he hasn’t been practicing for thousands of years, refining his call to perdition.  Naturally, he doesn’t show you the pit of hell that yawns wide to receive you at the end, and he is happy to slake your lust and pride for a few measly decades, knowing that your ruin and destruction will last forever.  That wicked Piper calls to every person, in every age, to dance and frolic away from the God who made them and gave them life, into a death and hell prepared for the devil and his evil angels.  His song seems sweet and pleasant, appearing wise in the world’s eyes, but the end of that path is death.  And of course, none of us know exactly how quickly that path may end…

In the midst of this wicked Piper’s call, the Word of God continues to call all people to faithfulness and repentance, to virtue and peace.  The Piper may call you to animalistic death, but God calls you to the fullness of human life.  God knows exactly how and why He formed humanity, and He knows how those good gifts He has given, are best to be exercised.  He knows that in our fallen state, our ears are much more attuned to the diabolical strains of the Piper, and our passions disordered into lust and covetousness.  Knowing our weakness, He put before our eyes His holy and righteous Law, that we might have an eternal guidepost in determining good and evil in every age.  No matter how disorienting and unnerving the call of the Piper, we know what our Lord has spoken simply, clearly, and directly to all mankind.  It is a Law which both instructs and condemns, since it shows us to be broken and wicked people, unable to live the lives of purity and righteousness He has called us to.

But in addition to His holy Law, God has also set forth His blessed and eternal Gospel.  This Gospel is more than the Law, in that it fulfills what the Law could not do.  While the Law could show us what is holy and pure, and call us to personal holiness and purity, it could not in fact make us either of those things.  While the Law remains holy and good, it also remains a mountain un-scalable to broken people, showing us a life and salvation outside our natural grasp.  His Good News, however, brings that life to us in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ.  From the unassailable heights of God’s righteousness, the Son of Righteousness descends, with healing in His wings for all who will believe in Him.  The Son of God comes to seek and to save we poor, lost, and miserable sinners, caught in the thrall of the Piper and dancing ourselves to death at the base of His holy mountain.  Jesus comes to us, when we could not climb to Him, bringing to us His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and life.

The Son of God comes to us, in a way that stands out for all humanity of all times and places to behold:  born of a Virgin.  Rather than taking a strange and unnatural flesh, Jesus takes our own flesh from His mother, making her the Theotokos, or God-bearer… the Mother of God.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, by the grace and mercy of Jesus her Son, becomes the means by which the Son of God comes to us, and the Ark of a New Covenant.  She brings forth in purity and righteousness, the very Son of Righteousness, who has come to give us His righteousness in exchange for our sins.  The Blessed Virgin Mary stands forever as a sign of the love of God for mankind, devoted and set aside to the task of bringing forth the Messiah.  As the Scriptures proclaim, all generations shall call her blessed, for what is accomplished in her is the reconciliation of the world to God through her Son.  She is a sign of purity and faith, of holiness and righteousness, for the sake of her Son who will save the world from the deadly song of the Piper.

While virginity is not a model set forth to all people, it is set forth as a sign of the purity all are called to in Christ.  Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, points to the holiness of her Son, who is the Lamb of God.  Jesus’ own eternal virginity, points to His holy and righteous mission to take away the sins of the world.  While people of all times and places are called to be pure and holy, keeping their gift of sexuality in accord with God’s Eternal Word, it is the purity and holiness of our Savior that we rest in.  His Gospel of Salvation, His forgiveness of our impurity and unrighteousness, calls us to rest in Him and to reflect Him to the world.

We are no longer left powerless, under the spell of the devil’s Piper.  We are alive in Christ Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Mary.  We are given His holiness and purity in exchange for our unworthiness, and called to live in Him by grace, through faith and repentance.  Our sexuality, like all our passions and gifts, are called to be used righteously, in accord with God’s design and Word, whether that is in Godly marriage, or in chastity and abstinence.  And in case the siren song of the Piper would confuse us in our day, God leaves the indelible image of His Son before our eyes, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and calling all the world to a faith and repentance which brings life instead of death.

May our ears be opened to hear the call of Jesus, that we may turn, believe—and live.  Amen.