Readings for Pentecost 18

Gen. 2: 18-25

Hebrews 2:1-13

Mark 10: 2-16

Passage for meditation: But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2:9  

Devotion: The “family” is the discussion of both the Old Testament and the Gospel readings for the week.  And it may go without saying that the “family” is something that is under attack from various sources today. Unbridled promiscuity and premarital cohabitation are seen as inalienable rights.  Divorce rates among those in the church and those outside the church are about equal with a success rate of only 50%.  For those, married or unmarried, who find themselves with an undesired or unplanned pregnancy, aborting the unborn child is a viable means of “birth control”.   Even the basic structure of the family, the marriage of a man and woman, is under attack and subject to redefinition.

Shocking and alarming?  Worse than ever before?  Yes and no.  “Nothing is new under the sun”.  The failure of the family is the result of our first mother and fathers surrender to Satan’s attack in the garden.  The family, as created by God, has been the source of attack since after the seventh day. And the rest of scripture shows us horrible aftermath of Adam and Eve’s defeat by Satan.  Brother killing brother, father’s sleeping with daughter, husbands taking other wives, mothers slaughtering and sacrificing babies to false gods’, men exchanging natural “relations” for unnatural ones.  The result of Adam and Eve’s sin is a long, sad story that becomes so “normal” for all who hear it and live it, including us.  Shocking and alarming? Not so much.  Worse than ever before?  Perhaps in sheer volume.  Their sin is the sin we are born into.  What is condemned in the flesh of Adam is condemned in our flesh, for we are all his offspring.  

What is shocking and alarming is what God does about sin.  Rather than let the world rot in a cesspool of moral filth resulting in eternal damnation, God actually does something about sin, and to the world’s surprise, it comes from and through a family.  The Father sends the Son to be born of a middle eastern virgin two millennia ago.   A child born in the flesh to be a sacrifice for all the flesh of mankind.  A child “begotten”, being fully God and fully man, who in adulthood stands in the middle of the religious leaders and corrects their thinking on family and children.  Jesus, fully God and Man willingly gives up his life, so that in his death, man’s sin may be condemned in the flesh once and for all.  By His resurrection from the dead, he demonstrates his power to change and transform lives that were once defeated by Satan.  His victory over death is our victory through baptism, and our birth into His family.  His design for the family still remains, and God is still active in families throughout the world through Word and Sacrament.  No matter how bad it gets, God’s institution of marriage and the family will stand until the very last day.