St. Luke 21.25-36

December 8, 2024

Why did God become man? St. Augustine took two very different Bible passages and put them together to show us the answer to that question. Why did God become man? “The Word was made flesh that He might be delivered up for our sins and rise again for our justification.” We could simplify that and say, “God became man to rescue us.”

But some people resist God’s rescue. You see it in the warning Jesus gives His disciples in today’s Gospel: “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly.” Carousing and cares are two sides of the same worldly coin – both are ways of living as functional atheists. Whether you’re living with abandon, or overwhelmed with worry, either way you’re saying there is no God, or He’s far too removed to bother with me.

Both are signs of a life turned in on itself. Our turned-inward nature is the heart of our malady. We need to be rescued from ourselves. St. Augustine put it this way: ”The sinner, then, because he wishes for some gratification all his own, causes his transgression, that is, his sin, to revert to himself alone.” In other words, our real problems are not external. Our problems have nothing to do with money or the government or sex or this or that health challenge. Man “wishes for some gratification all his own.” What about you? Are you scrolling the internet, looking of your next dopamine fix? Are you hitting refresh on your brokerage account, willing it to go up so you can leave the rat race and finally do what you want? Are the endorphins from a moment of pleasure really going to make your life any better?

“Take heed to yourselves,” Jesus says; assess your desires. Your longing for personal gratification will only land you in your personal hell. This desire for self-gratification, this life turned inwards, is the root sin of each person.

God’s Word calls this avarice. It shows up in 1 Tim. 6, where it’s rendered as “love of money”: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” In popular quotation “love” gets dropped so it ends up as “money is the root of all evil.” But it’s not money, it’s the craving for self-gratification, independence, autonomy—that’s the real sin.

Our English word avarice comes from the Latin avere, which means “to desire eagerly; to crave (more).” From Adam and the tree, to David with Bathsheba, to Judas grasping his 30 pieces of silver, it’s the entire story of mankind: man desires, and the object of his desire turns and devours him, like Gollum grasping the ring and in so doing falling into the fire. Our desires kill us.

The prodigal son is paradigmatic for man's condition; he leaves his father to satisfy his cravings. Augustine imagines the Lord saying to us, “You were hoping that if you left Me you would have something more.” Yet we end up not with more, but less.

So what’s happening when God becomes man? Jesus the rescuer shows us the true nature of goodness. He shows us who God is. He shows us also what man was meant to be. And He does that not by seeking Himself, but us.

There are two passages in the New Testament that I think draw out the implications for our own life. What does it mean to imitate Christ? In the first one, Philippians 2[:19-21], Paul laments that he has no other colleagues like Timothy. Timothy, he says, genuinely cares for people, not himself. He writes to the Philippians, “But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I also may be encouraged when I know your state. For I have no one like-minded, who will sincerely care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus.” All seek their own. That's the root of sin, even (especially?) among clergy. The second passage is just a phrase from the great chapter on love, 1 Cor. 13. Paul says love “does not seek its own.” Everyone seeks his own. Love does not seek its own. God is love; i.e., He does not seek His own, but is turned outward.

The great Advent hymn of Paul Gerhardt, which we sang last Sunday, puts it like this: “Love caused Your incarnation, love brought You down to me.” In the midst of the warnings about the judgment, this is the tender side of Advent: the divine love which enters into our misery and seeks us out. You will not find your cravings satisfied elsewhere. The quest for self-gratification ends in self-ruin. Only in the community of the Christ will true desire find its goal.

So take heed to yourselves, take stock of yourself. Self-love will be your ruin. Jesus will be your redemption. You were made for more than money, sex, cars, and retirement. Your redemption draws near. You were made for the kingdom of God.