Enabled: The Ninth Sunday After Trinity Sunday

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.
On Christ, the solid rock I stand;
All other ground is shifting sand.

The dusty road of an August Trinitytide welcomes us exiles with dust filling our lungs. The sweltering sun does not leave us alone, and neither does the ever-present thirst in our parched mouths. One wonders whether such a thirst can ever be quenched. It is a tempting thought to simply rest here and wait for cooler days ahead. An idea, foreign to us, yet somehow implanted in our ear in a devilish whisper, is to wander off the path and seek a natural spring that surely must be nearby. The temptation is dismissed, admittedly, after weighing the option a moment too long. Such foreign thoughts linger in the mind longer than we dare admit.

Another few days later, or perhaps only a few moments later, we cast our eyes off the Way and towards the embankment and once again entertain the thought, “Perhaps a fresh spring lies just over yonder.” The temptation for something greener than the dust on our lips and sun on our backs leads us to imagine an oasis hidden just beyond the trees.

A decision must be made.

Shall we trust our Lord or trust our desires? Shall we fil ourselves upon the promises of God or upon the bread of the earth that rots in the mouth? Shall we believe He shall provide what is sufficient, and be satisfied, or are we going to believe in the deceitful earworm playing around in our head like a worm in an apple? Shall we continue along the Way, or dare to trailblaze a new path that merely shortcuts us to a broad road where many go and many fall.

This is the work of Trinitytide, and it is the walk of the Christian life along the Way.

When clouds and darkness veil His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid rock I stand;
All other ground is shifting sand.

Fortunately, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.” (Epistle lesson, 1 Corinthians 10:13 KJV). Do not look to exit the Way the Lord has set before you for the false oasis you imagine is nearby. Above all, do not vainly believe that you are above and beyond temptation, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12 KJV). Look at your feet, O saint, and make sure you are standing on the solid rock of Christ and His path, instead of the shifting sands of Egypt you fled and Babylon you forsook.

St. Paul incorporates the history of the Israelites into his letter to the Corinthians to remind these Gentile and Jewish believers not to desert God in the desert as our spiritual forefathers did. Since we are incorporated into Christ by faith and our baptism, St. Paul reminds both Jew and Gentile believer alike, “brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.” (1 Corinthians 10:1). Regardless of if you are a Jewish or Gentile Christian, Israel’s sojourning has become incorporated in our spiritual family history. Yet their rebellion also serves as a warning to us. For just as we were baptized and are fed in the Lord’s Supper, St. Paul reminds us that they too “were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:2-4). Despite this direct miracle a blessing of God’s nourishment, “with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” (1 Corinthians 10:5). St. Paul warns us the Kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking physically, but spiritually, and resting not on physical descent from Jacob, but upon the living and active faith of father Abraham.

This epistle lesson is multifaceted. It teaches Gentile Christians that the wandering Israelites are just as much “our fathers” as they are quite literally for someone like St. Paul, a Jew by blood. It teaches us the Lord Jesus is the faithful Rock who nourished God’s people with water for their physical thirst and faith for their spiritual thirst. It truly demonstrates the God of the old and new covenants is “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8). Christ led His people out of Egypt and He leads us out of death and bondage to sin. Christ nourished the Israelites with a baptism in the Red Sea and communion through the manna and water from the Rock, and He nourishes us with a baptism of fire in the Holy Ghost and feeds us by faith in holy communion.

However, let us not rest until we are across Jordan. Although the Israelites were nourished during the old covenant, unless we follow God in faith to the end, then it is for nought. St. Paul is using the historic example of the generation that followed Moses as a warning for us not to follow. Paul encourages us not to slip back into slavery to sin and off the path of Christ as our spiritual ancestors did:

6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. 7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. 8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. 9 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. 10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.

1 Corinthians 10:6-10

This short paragraph is a tour de force reminder of the several rebellions conducted by God’s people against Him during the Exodus. Paul reiterates these rebellions were against the triune God, noting again in verse 10 that the Israelites were rebelling against Christ. He starts this short recap of Old Testament history by explaining to the Jewish and Gentile believers in Corinth, what happened in the old covenant serves as an example for us living under the new covenant. St. Paul reiterates this in verse 11, “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” We who live on this side of the Ascension and Pentecost live in the end times. There is no time to lose exploring off the path of Christ and falling into the pit of our old life of sin. The hour of our judgment is closer now than before you started reading this.

The Israelites sinned by doubting God’s promises and did not cross the Jordan, and were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness. They rebelled on numerous occasions against God and his servant, Moses, as Paul briefly accounts in today’s epistle lesson. We who have the better sacraments of the new covenant, baptism in the death and resurrection of Christ, communion with the body and the blood of Christ, and the Spirit of the Lord dwelling within us by faith, cannot be slothful, idle, or deviate from the Way. The Jordan River is over yonder and must be crossed. Christ has delivered Satan, sin, and death into our hands; they are no longer the giants that they once seemed to be. Shall we follow the Master and conquer in His Name?

St. Paul is shaking us from our slumbering alongside the Way and telling us to set our eyes upon Christ. We need to sober up and slumber not. We cannot presume to continue in sin, rebellion, and ignoring our calling and think we can rest on receiving baptism and communion. We must go to war against the flesh by believing upon God’s promise that He has conquered and does not leave us helpless, but enables us in the Spirit through the empowering grace of holy baptism and holy communion. In other words, we cannot have a hand on the plough and look back to the former lands where we came from. Looking back means ploughing into the seedbeds already made and drifting off course onto another’s field. Our calling is to resist that temptation and fling ourselves boldly and completely in trust Christ, the solid rock.

His word, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the ‘whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid rock I stand;
All other ground is shifting sand.

Our Lord and Master never deserted us in the desert. He is the One who willingly went into the desert, the wilderness, right after His baptism, and manfully and bravely resisted Satan and all his temptations. Christ did not rebel as Moses’ generation did. Christ finished the exodus that He started. He resisted temptation, He trampled satan on his own domain, and He exoduses from death to new life.

Through Christ’s resistance and conquering, He enables us through the mighty and powerful Holy Comforter, who is the Holy Advocate and Seal of our redemption, to do likewise. Such warfare cannot be done without believing He has enabled us through His Spirit. Therefore, we pray this week, “Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as are right.” (Collect of the Day). The Lord graciously gives us His Spirit whenever we call upon Him precisely because “we, who cannot do anything that is good without thee,” require the conviction of the Spirit to flee temptation and the strength and witness of the Spirit of Truth and Life so we “may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will.” (Collect of the Day).

Stand in the Spirit, Christian, and know that you are enabled by the Living God to resist the fiery darts of the tempter because you drink from the eternal spring of living waters poured into you by Christ Jesus. Drink from this solid rock of Christ and be renewed in the Spirit to resist the world, withstand temptation, and oppose the evil one.

Shake the shifting sand off your feet and stand firm in the faith once delivered. Keep your soul, your mind, and your spirit anchored upon the solid rock of Christ. He went before you in victory. Trust in Him to enable you to finish the race begun.

When He shall come, with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found!
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ, the solid rock I stand;
All other ground is shifting sand.