"Bustin' Out"

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

Being surrounded by four walls is not a good thing, not an enjoyable thing.  At least for some.  On this Mother’s Day, I think of all the sayings that my dear mother has told me over the years and one in particular sticks out…probably because she said it to me so many times… “Go to your room.”  Looking back, I’m not entirely sure of my reactions each time she told this to me, but I can only imagine.  Now a parent myself, I find myself sometimes telling Michaela “Go to your room” and then watching  and hearing the subsequent tantrum and screaming and crying…the subsequent planning on her part to bust out of there. 

            Isn’t that how it is with all of us though…we resist walls, we resist being enclosed within someone else’s boundaries…so often we’re planning and working on bustin’ out.  This happens from the very beginning…as a baby grows in a mother’s womb, he or she begins to get cramped and begins to push and shove looking for a way out, infants want out of their cribs, children want out of their rooms, teenagers often want out of their parent’s rules, and even adults are guilty of trying to bust out from the various walls that encircle their lives. Growing up on a farm, I found that we humans are not the only ones with this built-in desire to bust out…animals too.  A perfect image is if you’ve ever been to a rodeo (Larry Rezba should be familiar with this) and you see the bronc or the bull in the chute ready just before they pull the chute gate open…they’re tense, pushing against the walls with all their might and then finally they explode out of there.  You see my friends, whether animal or human, all creation that has the breath of life in it, is alike in this way…we resist the walls, the rules, that surround us, and we’re always looking to bust out…even when it is those walls that protect us.

            Let’s travel for a moment in our minds all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, the first two chapters of Genesis.  If you’ve read through these chapters or have studied them at all, you know this is the spot where perfection is found—such perfection that our minds on this side of history cannot fully begin to understand.  God the created the heavens and the earth and all that is them and it was perfect…as He said when He looked out over it all, “It is VERY good” (Genesis 1:31).  He created all the living beings, the capstone of which was mankind—the one He breathed His breath of life into.  And He took this perfect creation—man and later woman, and He placed them in a perfect spot—the Garden of Eden—paradise is the word we often use to describe it, but whatever word you want to use, it was perfect.  A part of this perfection that often gets overlooked is the walls, the boundaries, the rules that were present there.  “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-18).  Yes, this world, this creation that God Himself had created, the world of Genesis 1 and 2, was perfect in every aspect.  Adam and Eve, our mutual father and mother, were free in this perfection, they were more free than anyone has ever known since their time this side of heaven.  But a part of this perfection were the walls that God had set up around them, His Law which served to protect them and care for them eternally, as they were designed to live this perfect life forever.  You see God’s perfect creation, man and woman were most free living within the walls of God’s Law, the instrument of His love and concern for His creation. But Satan came into that perfect world and began to corrupt it by tempting Adam and Eve, causing them to question the walls of God’s Law, causing them to doubt that God their Father knew what was best for them.  “He [Satan] said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'’ But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis 3:1-5).  Satan tempted Adam and Eve to bust out, to break through the walls of God’s design, of His perfection, of His Law.  And so they did, they ate of that forbidden fruit, and they sinned, they broke through the wall.  But what they found on the other side of the wall was not as good as they had one thought it would be.  Indeed, they had broken through  the wall that ensured perfection only to find themselves now surrounded by imperfection.  And so it is that they were cast out from that perfect place, from paradise, from the Garden of Eden, and they could not go back.  “Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man [and the woman], and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:23-24).  The wall of perfection, the wall of God’s Law, the wall that had ensured Adam and Eve’s place in the family of God for eternity had been busted through and they could not go back through.  The gate was closed.  Despite what they once had thought, despite what Satan had tempted them with, they were not free at all.  No, they were surrounded by a wall which was impenetrable, walls which they never could bust out of…the walls of sin, the walls of suffering, the walls of the grave that awaited these who were created as immortal but had now made themselves mere mortals, people who would die.

            The unfortunate thing about all of this is that by their bustin’ out of God’s design, God’s perfection, bustin’ out of God’s family, we—you and me, have busted out of God’s family too.  Believe it or not the moment in which we were conceived in our mother’s womb as the tiniest of embryos, it was as if we had already busted through God’s wall, in fact, we had.  “I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).  You see when Adam and Eve busted out of God’s perfect world, they brought you and me with them…we inherited their desire to bust out.  And we see this…do we not…in our lives.  Take a look…look inward at yourself…I’ll look into myself and what do we see there…even in the hearts and souls of those of us who are deeply Christian people?  A desire to bust out.  Every Sunday we come to church or we listen to this service on the radio, and we hear Pastor Meyer faithfully preach God’s Word and we are faced with God’s Law and the promises of a perfect life that it offers to those who live within it, and what do you and me and everyone do?  We bust out.  We say this Law is not for me, I see what is “promised on the other side” and I’m going to go and get it, and enjoy it.  We hear God’s Law and despite the perfect life that is offered through it, we say this is not for me.  Living within the “room”, the realm of God’s design for our lives, our marriages, etc. seems kind of dark, claustrophobic, unexciting, unpleasurable and out we go to where (to use an already over-used metaphor) the grass promises to be greener, where the light is just a bit brighter.  In sin, we bust through, we willingly and deliberately walk away from God.  You and me, in our sin (both inherited and actual), we turn everything on a head.  It is as Isaiah says in his 5^th chapter, we see evil as good, good as evil, darkness for light and light for darkness.  (Isaiah 5:20).  And while pleasure may be found, like Adam and Eve, it is not long before you have to face the other walls that God’s Law now make evident to you.  The walls of life away from God.  You see you may have thought getting away from God’s law would free you, but that isn’t the case at all, you’re more captive than ever, captive to your own sin. 

You know, over the years, archeology has shown that most ancient cities were surrounded by huge walls, we hear in the Bible that Jerusalem for example, was like this.  The wall was there to protect the inhabitants.  If you leave, if you go through the gate or possibly bust through the wall in your excitement to leave, you’re out in the open, you’re vulnerable to attack.  When you’re outside God’s wall, you are open for attack and you are going to suffer, you are going to suffer affliction, you’re to be met with temptations out in the wilderness, you are going to die.  We may have been brought out by the promise of light, but the walls of our sin and the consequences thereof, envelop us in nothing but thick darkness.  And we cannot by “our own reason or strength” (Luther’s explanation to the 3^rd article of the Apostle’s Creed) do anything to go back inside the walls of God’s family.  Like Adam and Eve, that path is closed to those who sin (all of us), the gate is closed, and though in our sin we busted out, we cannot bust in. 

Out in the darkness of the world, God’s children desire the light of His love again to be within the walls of His city, His family.  How about you?  Do you this day find yourself hating the darkness that the walls of your sin shadow you with?  My brothers and sisters, God our heavenly Father, greatly desires to have you back, to not leave you out in the dark, outside the walls of His perfect dwelling place. This is why the message that Isaiah brings in chapter 60 is so awesome when he says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2). What a wonderful message Isaiah speaks, originally spoken to God’s children who would soon find themselves in the darkness of exile in Babylon after the walls of their city Jerusalem were left in rubble.  What a wonderful message God brings to you this day.  A message that says that through His Son, your Savior, Jesus Christ, the light of God’s love once again will shine upon you.  For Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).  Yes, Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in the coming of Christ.  Through Christ you are redeemed, the light of God’s love has risen and shines, but yet…yet there is still something more to be realized because the darkness is still around us, we feel it all too often, we still struggle, we’re still afflicted, we still hurt, we still suffer, we still live lives of sin.  Oh yes, those walls of sin still stand, and the shadows of darkness that flow from them creep ever closer to us each and every day…as we come closer to the time when these bodies will be overcome by the darkness and laid within the walls of closed casket to be sent deep within the walls of a very dark grave.

But you see my fellow redeemed, Christ did come and He brought the Light of the Father’s love with Him, but He died, He was laid with the darkness of a tomb….but then He busted out…He burst forth from the walls of the grave on that awesome Easter morning.  And it is because of that, it is because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, that you, who He engraved on His hands through the nails of the cross, you who’s name He wrote in the Book of Life for all eternity, it is because of Jesus that you also will one day bust out of the grave.  And on that Day, you will stand at the entrance to the eternity City of God and its gate will be open, for there…there will be no more darkness, no more sin, no more pain, no more tears.  There will be nothing but the eternal light and love of God and of the Lamb.  There, inside the walls of God’s dwelling place, you will forever rejoice in the wall of God’s eternal care and protection, in His eternal peace and security…forever.

      Amen.