Episode 23: 2/04/09

Readings:

Psalm 119:73-96
Isaiah 54:1-10
Galatians 4:21-31
Mark 8:11-26

Sermon:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
The Book of Psalms 51:10-12

Grace, Mercy and Peace from God, our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

We love to look at life as if we are in complete control…

Since the beginning of creation man has looked to his life and his destiny and desperately struggled for control over it, believing he could reason as God and set his course on just as sure of a foundation without the Lord.

As Adam and Eve heard the temptations of the Serpent, who, in using his forked tongue, sought to lure them to sin through his words of enticement, playing off of their vanity, told unto them “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), they would fall into that easy trap even in their youth and naivety. They would seek wisdom that would make them God’s equal, understanding the nature of all things. There, they even before they would take that first bite of that alluring forbidden fruit, they would believe that they knew better, that they knew more than their Creator, disobeying the only rule He had laid out for them in Paradise.

With the fruit of that tree they could finally utterly take complete control over their own lives, their own destinies, determining all things for themselves.

They would not be alone in that belief.

Persistently and perpetually the children of Israel had believed that they somehow knew better than the Lord. They could not find it in themselves to lead their people from the dark chains of bondage to the Egyptians, but once God had freed them, suddenly, they knew more as to the cause and the course of their future, able to discern better than He who, in taking them as slaves, made them free men and women. The water was too bitter, then it was too sweet, God had provided manna every day but what if he stops tomorrow, we need to stockpile despite having been told not to, that the Lord would provide. Moses has been gone for too long, surely the Lord has left us and whereas God created us, we now must create our own gods to care for our needs, ones with no tongue to speak or eyes to see or ears to hear, that we might have the image of all powerful but we are the ones who are, in our own lives, the masters of our destiny.

In the end it would be this heart that would lead to the curse of a generation. Having failed to place their trust in God, and instead, having heeded the voices of men, placed their hopes and trust in their own numbers, an entire generation, including the prophet, would not set foot in the Promised Land, beholding with their eyes and yet passing from this life to the next before they could ever enter into it.

But even as they passed from this world to the next, their lessons still would not be heeded.

And there we would see King David, the mighty ruler and psalmist. As he wrote these words, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” as a prayer of humble supplication to the Lord, he knew the consequences of the arrogant and vain self righteousness that could so easily overtake the hearts of men. After all he had stared at temptation through the window of his palace at night, and trusting not in God’s plan, nor in God’s judgment, trusting not in even the sacred bounds of matrimony laid out by the Lord to bind two together as one, he would want. Soon that want would turn to need and as so often is the case, as one covets that which is not their own, need would turn to sin.

Trusting not in the plans of the Lord, this righteous king would hatch a plan for evil, blindly turning from the Lord and relying solely on the wisdom of his heart and the judgments of this world to grasp at the future of his choosing. In the end, many would pay the price for David’s sins.

There, we come to learn that for the trust we place in this world, setting its knowledge and wisdom above that of the Lord, we pay an awful price. Yes, perhaps we want to believe that we have the power and the capacity to set our own course, or to choose our own direction, and yet, when it comes down to it, that which we can decide, that which we can discern is nothing compared to the complete understanding and comprehension of an all-knowing God who disperses the clouds of ignorance to reveal perfect judgment in all things and in all ways.

Too often on the road of life we tend to look at God as the spare tire of the vehicle that brings us to those places where we need to be, never thinking about Him except when we are in trouble or are in need or there is some sort of emergency that affects us. Yet that is not God, nor can we see Him as such. Rather, we must view Our Lord as the steering wheel, guiding and directing us. He is that which sets things in motion, moving us in the course that we need to embark upon if we truly and sincerely wish to find ourselves on the right path, going in the right way towards the destinations we are meant to be at.

God must be, first and foremost, the center, the leveler, the One who we work with to know where it is that we are going as to ensure that we are kept safe and secure in all things and in all ways. There we cannot just ignore him or pretend as if He is not there, nor can we find ourselves looking to our own wisdom, expecting it to be sufficient for us and our needs. Too often has that been tried and too often have we found that we have taken a wrong turn, a turn that leads us down a road of sorrow and pain and suffering, a road where sin and temptation, where the iniquity of our sins end up causing stumbling blocks along the way. Yet, if we sincerely seek to travel the path of righteousness we must know that this worldly person cannot be who we are or how we are.

There, as Christ Jesus, our beloved Savior, paves the way through the awesome sacrifice He has made for us and our salvation, we know that through all things and in all things we shall find a road that will take us to all places where it is that we need to be.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, pray…. Pray for a sincere heart, pray for God’s loving guidance, pray for the Spirit to restore the joy of your salvation, pray in thanksgiving for that which Christ has given unto you, never ceasing in the sheer joy and amazement, knowing that through He who created us, He who has saved, and He who has brought us to the gift of grace, all will be made right and whole through a divine wisdom down a road of endless power in His Holy Name.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that peace that transcends all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting. Amen.