Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In our Scripture readings this morning, we see very clearly what could rightfully be called a “Number Game.”

Look first of all in our First Reading today from Genesis, chapter 2 [verses 18-25]. There we see one of two Biblical accounts of the creation of Adam. After creating the Heavens and the earth, the day and the night, the dry land and the sea, and after creating creatures of every size, shape and form, God looked around and sadly realized that as “good” as was His creation, there was none of His entire creation that really resembled Himself. So God said, “Let us create man in our image” [Genesis 1:26]. After 5 days of simply saying, “Let there be” and there was, God took a different approach to the creation of man, that creation that would reflect Himself. God invested Himself in the creation of Adam. Not simple words of “Let there be,” God took the dirty dirt of the earth in His own Hands, He formed what we call the body, then He breathed into that sculpted, earthen vessel His own breath of life [Genesis 2:7]. That’s what you and I are. We are the investments of God Himself in earthen dirt.

That’s all preliminary to our First Reading today, to the place where we see God’s Number Game. After forming Adam as the one, singular human being to reflect His own image, God said, “It’s not good for this man to be alone” so, years before modern anesthesia, God made Adam fall into a deep sleep and He surgically removed a rib from which He formed a second human being, a beautiful woman whom Adam would name “Eve,” meaning “the mother of all the living” [Genesis 3:20]. Now God had two separate human beings, whom He would then bring together in a mystical union we call “marriage” – bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, woman taken out of man, two separate human beings becoming one flesh. That’s what I call a number game – one becoming two becoming one. As mystical, as magical, as difficult as it is to understand, that is what is called God’s Number Game.

We see a different type of number game in our Gospel today [Mark 10:2-16]. The Pharisees had established themselves as the experts in the law. They could tell you all about the Ten Commandments, originally given by God to Moses on those two tablets of stone [Exodus 20]. They could tell you word for word the exact location of the more than 700 other commands also given by God, commands that were largely further clarification of the original Ten Commandments. They could also quote verbatim their own wordy and convoluted interpretations of those 700 divine commands, loosely rooted in the original Ten. The Pharisees were the experts in the law and they were sticklers for the law. They were the protectors and enforcers of the law.

The Pharisees came to Jesus that one day not because they really needed an answer to the question they asked. They already knew the answer about whether or not it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. They, after all, were the experts in the law. They were the ones who would issue those divorce permits. They were asking that question not to get an answer, but to test Jesus and, hopefully, to trip Him up enough that they could get Him on the Cross quicker than they did. That’s why Jesus turned that question right around and re-asked them, “What do the Scriptures say? What did Moses command you?” Jesus knew that they knew that answer and they proceeded to quote Him the correct answer – there is indeed a way, according to the law, that a man may legally divorce his wife. They knew exactly which law that was. They could quote it verbatim. The problem was that that law was secondary to God’s original law, God’s original plan for the human beings designed to reflect His own image.

Later that day, though, privately among His disciples, Jesus showed how that answer was really, simply a human number game. Jesus went back to God’s original Number Game in Genesis – one becoming two becoming one. Jesus showed how the intent of God’s Number Game had been usurped by human wills and desires of people living in the days after the fall into sin, how human beings required of God a legal “out” when they had messed up His original plan and intent for them. And that applies not just to marriage and divorce, but to every single one of God’s laws.

You see, whether we like it or not, God’s law is clear. It always has been. It always will be. God made it that way. God’s law has never been called the “Ten Suggestions,” except in the minds of human beings. God’s law has always been called the “Ten Commandments” and God has always required absolute obedience. “The soul that sins shall die” [Ezekiel 18:4]. “Be perfect as I am perfect”[Matthew 5:48]. If you don’t like those words, don’t get angry with me. Take it up with God.

The truth of the matter, though, is that we do daily sin. Adam and Eve guaranteed that for us. The truth of the matter, though, is that we are not perfect as God is perfect. When viewed from God’s perspective – and that’s truly the only perspective that matters when it comes to matters of salvation, we are terrible failures, whatever we might tell ourselves, no matter what the psychologists might tell us is healthy or not healthy for us to believe about ourselves.

But that’s precisely why God introduced yet another Number Game – God’s Number Game. We see that blessed, God-inspired, God-ordained, God-orchestrated, God-completed “Number Game” in our Second Reading today. Hear again these words: “But we see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels [despite being “God of God and Light of Light, very God of very God” as the ancient creed of the Church proclaims], now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death [“the soul that sins shall die”], so that, by the grace of God [God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense], He might taste death for everyone” [Hebrews 2:9].

Talk about a Number Game! The sins of the entire world carried by and paid for by one man, the perfectly sinless God-man, Jesus Christ. Your sins and my sins were laid upon Him. Your sins and my sins – all the little games we play with God’s law – whether it’s divorce or adultery or theft or murder or not honoring the Sabbath Day or not honoring our father and mother or cheating God of what is rightfully His – all those sins – all our sins were paid by Him so that Jesus could say, reminiscent of the action He took that one day in welcoming the little children into His Arms, “Here am I, and the children God has given Me” [Hebrews 2:13].

There was – and there is – no other way that Jesus could welcome the little children into His Arms! There was – and there is – no other way that Jesus could welcome you and me into His Arms! What we see in Jesus’ death and Resurrection is a reinvention of God’s original Number Game – one [me] becoming two [me and Jesus] becoming one [my sins laid on Jesus and Jesus’ righteousness and holiness and perfection the only thing God sees in me].

So, my friends, the next time you find yourselves playing a Pharisees’-inspired number game, whether it’s on your taxes or whether it’s in your justification of things we’ve created and instituted to make our sinful selves a little more palatable to God’s order of perfection, thank God that’s He’s got His own Number Game going on and that it’s so much better than any number game we play – one becoming two becoming one.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena