Jesus satisfies, fills, and saves because he is the Son of God, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever.
We who live in what the Bible defines as "the last days" according to several passages of Scripture (the "Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, 2 Timothy 3:1-8, 2 Peter 3:3-4, James 5:3, and Acts 2:17) are in the grip of "interesting times." It also is a time that seems connected to the prophetic word spoken in Amos 8:1: "'Behold, the days are coming,' declares the Lord God, 'when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.'"
The world is filled with words – words of accusation, criticism, and self-justification – which people use to attack those with whom they disagree. The energy behind these words is anti-Christ, not only because they stir up contentiousness and strife and are contrary to the Spirit of grace, but more importantly because they seek to replace the Word of the Righteous Judge of all the earth with words from those of who have not earned the authority to judge themselves, much less their neighbor. And yet, they speak as if they were seated on the throne of God. Wherever we fall on the political spectrum, we all seem to agree that things, as they are, are not good or right, and changes should be made. From every political direction, there are those who present themselves as "The Solution." Yet, such solutions continue to prove that "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
Junk Food
There is a hunger in our culture and our world, a hunger that is so pervasive that people bite and devour one another in the pursuit of justice and the defense of freedom. People are blinded to the true liberty that is found in Christ and deceived by Satan into pursuing license in the name of liberty. St. Paul wrote in Galatians 5:13–15:
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
To further shine the light on this fleshly disposition, he described, among the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19–21:
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
In the name of "freedom," people defend and celebrate sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality. Marriage, described in God's Word as "honorable in all things, and the bed undefiled" in Hebrews 13:4, has been redefined in terms of personal emotional and sexual fulfillment to allow for relationships that were not in any way a part of the original orders of creation.
Children, called "a heritage of the Lord," are seen as a restriction on personal autonomy from the moment of conception, and their destruction in the womb is defended as a pillar of women's autonomy. In the battle for "justice," many engage in "enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger," and more. In the name of "social justice" and in support of desired political outcomes, the rule of law is ignored. Even in these twisted circumstances, the words of St. Paul in Romans 2:15 ring true:
"They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them."
A Divine Disconnect
When we live as if "there is no god," we open up a box of limitless possibilities right up to the moment that our words or actions offend someone else.
There are two ways to understand humans. The secular way sees us as a product of evolutionary happenstance. We are the result of the random survival of "the fittest," which is just a tautology for the chaotic survival of the survivors. The Biblical way presents us as God's decisive act of creation, formed "in his own image…male and female." According to the Scriptures, we exist to exercise stewardship over the rest of God's creation on earth and are answerable to him for that stewardship. Prior to the events recorded in Genesis 3, the first two humans had fellowship with God, and until the serpent insinuated otherwise, there was no indication that God withheld anything of value to them. After the woman listened to the serpent, and the man followed her in disobedience of God's command regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we lost the ability to live according to the knowledge that we had of God's will. In view of our weakness, God gave us revelation concerning his will, first oral, then written, as he directed us towards the ultimate act of self-revelation, the incarnation of the Word, Jesus Christ.
When we live as if "there is no god" (see Psalms 14 and 53), we open up a box of limitless possibilities right up to the moment that our words or actions offend someone else. At that moment, either "might makes right," or we try to coexist by saying through clenched teeth that "my truth" and "your truth" are equally valid. That might work if you live in a place where your nearest neighbor is far away, and you can survive by being self-sustaining. Yet most of us do not live in such circumstances, and there is a defensible argument that "it is not good for man to be alone."
Rebelling against God, trying to establish our own righteousness, we are forced to plagiarize God, copying his righteous judgments while claiming that we created them ourselves, or, like Aaron's claim about the golden calf, they just "sprang up" because we asked for them. That story was a lie when Aaron told it to Moses, and in like manner, it is a lie when we tell ourselves that we can "be good without God." While, as Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes," my father was fond of saying, "A lie will die while the truth lives on."
Jesus prayed for the church to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets - the revealed truth of God's Word in law and gospel. The Apostle John recorded his prayer in John 17. In verses 15-19, Jesus prays that we would be kept apart from the world and its corruption by the truth of God's Word:
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
The Righteousness That Sanctifies and Satisfies
While the world tries to satisfy its craving for a perfect and just world that it believes it will create "by any means necessary," those who follow Jesus hear a promise that they know lies outside of themselves.
As we continue to walk in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake, we feel the words of James Weldon Johnson, "stony the road we trod." While the world tries to satisfy its craving for a perfect and just world that it believes it will create "by any means necessary," those who follow Jesus hear a promise that they know lies outside of themselves:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (Matt. 5:6).
The righteousness of faith covers us like a garment, not by works of righteousness that we have done but by the gift of God's Son, the righteousness that God commends and acknowledges. It takes away our reproach; in him, we "lose all our guilty stains." It is a righteousness that looks so small, so insignificant, like a grain of mustard seed. Like plain water which seemed insufficient for William Shakespeare's "Lady Macbeth" to wash away the guilty stains on her hands, so we add the lye - or rather, the lie - of self-sacrifice, social agitation, and the idolatry of our self-empowerment schemes to make us clean, righteous, morally sufficient. Yet when joined to God's Word of promise, that water, in Holy Baptism, unites us to Christ in his death, the death that destroyed the power of hell and took away the sting of death. It cleanses us because God does the work, not us. It does the one thing that none of our self-serving, sin-corrupted good works, or even all of them altogether, can do: it makes us righteous before the holy and righteous God of whom Paul writes in Romans 2:6–8:
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
Come to the Table
In John 6, Jesus declared that his flesh, the bread of life, is enough to feed, and his blood, the cup of the New Covenant, is enough to quench the thirst of all who accept the invitation to come to the wedding feast of the Son. He invites us, and he provides the cleansing and the wedding garments so that no one needs to feel that they are unclean and unworthy to celebrate with him.
The world is hungry for righteousness, and the food God gives us satisfies the craving that the work of the law establishes in our hearts. The Body of Christ labors to share the bread and cup that will satisfy and offers water that will cleanse everyone who will "taste and see that the Lord is good." We know that the only food that feeds our souls is this bread and this cup, just as the only law that renders the proper diagnosis of our individual and corporate sickness is God's law, and the only promise that delivers the righteousness that we crave is God's promise, the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. He does what no party platform can do; he delivers what no governing authority can deliver. Jesus satisfies, fills, and saves because he is the Son of God, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever.
