“After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2 With a mighty voice he shouted: ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’”  (Revelation 18:1-2a)

When John recorded that vision in the first century A.D. Babylon had already fallen.  Everyone knew that.  It had happened six centuries earlier.  That mighty kingdom had fallen which once held sway over the fertile crescent, swept over Judah and carried God’s people off into a seventy-year captivity.  She had fallen to the Medes and Persians, to the Greeks and then to the Romans.  Why announce it as if it were news?  It was ancient history. 

And that was precisely Jesus’ point.  Did you notice the certainty of the verb Jesus chose to use in those verses?  Babylon is fallen.  There is no maybe, there is no doubt in God’s rule.  When God acts on behalf of his people, things happen his way.

What a comforting message for us to hear, especially in these times of moral decay at home and geopolitical turmoil abroad.  None of that is easy for the church to cope with, is it?  God’s people in every age have faced formidable forces arrayed against the church.  Sometimes merely vexing and other times vicious, those forces have opposed God’s kingdom, thrown hindrances in the way of the gospel, and discouraged believers.  First century believers living under Roman rule were experiencing some of that, and there was more to come.  But it would not last.  It can’t.  Just as Babylon had fallen, so will all those who oppose God and his gospel.  Kings can take their stand against the Lord and nations can rage against the gospel, but when all is said and done it will be in vain.  That is God’s promise.  If the gates of hell itself will not prevail against his church, what can mere human forces do against it?  Trust that the same God who loved you so much that he sent his Son into the world to be your Champion and Victor over sin, death and the devil still rules the world.  The God of grace is still the Lord of history.  Luther had it exactly right when he said, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures.” (LW, Vol. 35, pp. 370-31)

Dear Lord, rule over the nations for the benefit of your church.  Amen.

I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, but I do check it regularly.  Partly it’s a way to keep in touch with family and friends whom I have “friended.”  But it’s also a way to kind of put a finger on the pulse and a hand on the forehead of the culture to see what’s going on.  Sometimes what I read there is fall down funny.  Sometimes it’s heartwarming.  Sometimes it drives me to distraction.  But it’s usually illustrative of what’s on people’s minds in the culture.

This political season (when is it not?) makes it all the more interesting.  I ran across a meme the other day that purported to be quoting the CEO of Costco:  “At Costco we pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 ... Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximizes employee productivity by commitment and loyalty.”  Below the meme the group that posted it wrote, “This is how businesses use to be run before conservatives turned greed into a way of life.” 

It is beyond question that there are people on the conservative part of the spectrum who are greedy.  They are primarily motivated by how the bottom line affects self, without much regard to the needs of others.  And it is also beyond question that there are people on the liberal/progressive part of the spectrum who are envious and jealous.  They see that some people have more than others, have decided that they shouldn’t, and are determined to take some away from them to give to those who have less without much regard for how that would affect those who labored for it.  To paint one philosophical position as greedy and paint the other as envious seems to be order of the day.  The election season just heating up will put that on full display, if some of the ads we’ve seen and speeches we’ve heard so far are any indication.

That isn’t political.  It isn’t economics.  It’s theology.  Very sloppy theology.  Here’s what I mean.   The sins of greed and envy were not hatched in the smoke-filled backroom of one political party or the other.  They were hatched in Eden long before there was even a notion of political parties or political points of view.  When our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned, they lost the image of God.  For the first time self became big and important and other was diminished and expendable.  How else do you explain their effort to save face before God by blaming their sin on someone else?  For the first time, human beings decided that what I want is more important than acknowledging God’s right to put some things off limits.  How else do you explain their action of eating the one thing God said was not theirs to have?  Ever since that day, all human beings have had a nature like Adam’s and Eve’s.  Jesus himself said it, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”  (Matthew 15:19)  The apostle Paul was clear about where things like greed and envy come from, too:  “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:  sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”  Conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, and even other “-ist” or “-ive” you can name has one of those sinful natures.  We all do.  To say that one of those “-ives” or “-ists” has cornered the market on sin is both morally myopic and theologically untenable.  Let’s face it, the Word is right when it says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...”

So what’s the solution to the problem of sin?  It is not in electing the right people to public office.  The solution is Jesus – only Jesus.  He is the one who on our behalf, in our place, and for our benefit never once sinned.  With his whole life he wove a flawless and spotless robe of righteousness that God now wraps around you and me.  That doesn’t change the fact that we are sinners before God’s law, but it most certainly has changed our status before God himself.  Then Jesus went to the cross bearing in his own body the guilt and punishment of every envious and greedy thought, word and deed of every person who will ever have walked this planet.  And for Jesus’ sake alone, God has forgiven and forgotten.  I know that to be true because that’s what God has said:  “God made [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Sin isn’t something that’s just attached to political parties; it’s much more personal than that.  Sinful is what we are by nature and sin is what we all do.  The only place where sinfulness is covered by righteousness and where sins are atoned for is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  That’s not politics, because politics is about opinions.  That’s law and gospel, and that’s the unchanging Word of our unchanging God.

True confession time.  This little crossing guard thing that I’ve volunteered to do at my grandson’s school is not the first time I’ve been involved in this sort of thing.  The last time was when I was in 6th grade.  I was given the opportunity to be part of what was called Safety Patrol.  It was a pretty cool thing.  You got out of class 15 minutes early every day to get ready.  You got to wear this white canvass strap thing that crossed your chest and went around your waist.  On it was the AAA insignia and the words SAFETY PATROL in big letters.  The town kids who were in it were given the responsibility of handling crosswalks around school and hallways in school.  We country kids were typically tasked with monitoring behavior on the buses we rode to and from school.  That was my first experience with authority.  It didn’t go very well.  That’s not because the kids who rode my school bus were particularly bad kids.  They weren’t.  It’s rather that I let the authority go to my head.  I actually got to the point that I kind of liked when a kid broke a bus rule so that I could report them to the principal.  I racked up a pretty impressive “arrest record.  I was so good at it that I could catch a kid changing seats while the bus was in motion even when they didn’t think I was looking.  If they wanted to change seats they were supposed to ask me.  I would decide.  I had power and I liked it.  But rather than gain the respect of the kids on that bus, they came to regard me as kind of a jerk.  Which was pretty much the way I was behaving.  I completely lost sight of the real reason I was there:  to help keep kids safe by following basic rules of riding the bus.   I was supposed to be doing my job because I wanted those kids – my neighbors – to be safe going to school and getting home again.  Let’s just say that on the last day of school that year they gave me quite a performance review by completely soaking me with squirt guns they had smuggled onto the bus.  Report them all?  Nope.  By the time I got home I’d learned my lesson.  Nothing like being soaked all the way through to your undershorts to teach you a little humility.

I should have known better than to behave like that.  I was born into a Christian home and raised around Jesus.  We went to church every Sunday and staying home was not going to be an option unless some part of you was broken, you were throwing up sick, or Jesus came back in glory.  And every Sunday that I sat in church and in Sunday School I heard about Jesus, God’s Son, who came into the world to seek and to save sinners.  I knew that he did not come into the world to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many – for me, too.  Throw his weight around?  Take delight in catching people sinning so he could lower the boom?  I never saw Jesus act that way in any story I ever had in Sunday School or in any sermon I heard preached.  I never saw my Dad act that way, either – not at home and not when he was president of Farm Bureau and not when he was president of the local school board.  He was all about service, too.  I should have known better than to let that authority go to my head.

So why did I?  I did it because human beings are hard-wired ever since the fall into sin in Eden to want power and to exercise it for self.  That’s sin.  God knows we’ve all been there.  So what’s the solution?  Now as then, it is Jesus.  His service at the cross has washed away all the guilt of all my disservice and self-service.  Yours, too.  God in his generous grace has forgiven me and you.  How do we respond to that?  Paul said it as well as you can say it:  “12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”  (Colossians 3:12-14)

So now I’m back “in uniform” again.  This time I get it.  It’s not about me.  It’s about the kids.  Thanks, Jesus, for giving me another run at this.  With your help, I’ll get it right this time.

My grandson’s elementary school had an open position for crossing guard and they were having a hard time filling it.  Since I’m there every morning to drop him off and pick him up after school (his mom works), I figured it just made sense for me to offer.  I had no idea what that process was going to be.  The list of  documents I had to complete was long.  They included:  Personal Data Sheet, Criminal Record Check Form, Conviction Disclosure Form, Unprofessional Conduct Form, Authorization to Release Information, and Fingerprint Processing Tracking Form.  As I worked my way through all of that paperwork I thought to myself, “All of this just to be a crossing guard?”

But as I filled out those forms it dawned on me that behind them are sad stories.  It’s because our society knows that bad people could do bad things to children if they were around them, that my grandson’s school is leaving no stone unturned in making sure I am who I say I am and that I have not done anything that would make me a bad choice to be around children.

I know why his school wants to know all of that.  The parents in our community love their children.  They want them to be safe from cars on the street as well as from predators who would harm them.  They want them to come home safely from school at the end of the day, happy and healthy.  Those parents want their children to learn in a safe environment.  Those parents want what’s best for their kids physically, emotionally, socially, academically, and athletically.  Good for them!  I want that for them too and especially for my dear grandson.

This past Sunday in Mark 9:42 Jesus said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”  In the very next chapter Mark records these words of Jesus, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”  (10:14)  It’s clear that Jesus loves children, too.  He, too, wants them kept safe, fed, loved, raised, and treasured.  But he wants even more than that for them.  He wants them to know him.  He wants to have a relationship with children.  His words from Mark 9 and Mark 10 mean that he is really, earnestly, uncompromisingly serious about our bringing our children to him for blessing and about not doing anything that would prevent them from coming or that would cause them to turn away. 

So maybe it’s good that we parents run our own background check on ourselves in this regard.  Have I brought my children to Jesus so that he can bless them through Holy Baptism?  Am I faithfully bringing my little ones to God’s house so that he can bless them there through his Word?  Am I sharing the Word with my children in family devotions?  Do I reflect God’s will and God’s forgiveness and love in my parenting?  If you realize you’ve fallen short, if you see that you could have done better, don’t despair.  God forgives sins.  If you want to honor him by doing better, be confident that he stands ready to help strengthen you and guide you through his Word.  If we at Ascension Lutheran Church can be assistance to you in this, please let us know.  We want for your child what Jesus wants for your child.