You have been created by the Holy Triune God — you are made in His Image and Likeness — to live in His Way, by His Word, according to His Will, in Spirit and in Truth. You have been given life in order to live in harmony and peace with Him, by His grace, through faith in His Word. And you are called to be like Him in relation to His creation — to live in love toward your neighbors, and to grant life to others, within the particular place where the Lord your God has stationed you.
As you thus live by His creative Word, by His divine grace and in His holy love, you are confident and content with who you are and what you have; you are compassionate and charitable toward those who live around you; and, because you are well cared for, you likewise care for others.
By such faith and love — for that is what your confidence and charity as a Christian are — you render your whole body and life as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You glorify His Holy Name — the very Name which He has given to you in your Baptism, inscribed upon your forehead and your heart, your body and soul, along with the Cross of Christ.
In offering such a sacrifice — not of propitiation for your sins, but a sacrifice of thanksgiving for God’s grace — you do not lose your life, but you find your entire life in the Lord your God.
As your life is in Him, so do you fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. You listen to His Word, and you call upon His Name in peace and hope and joy. You love your neighbor as yourself — cherishing your own spouse, and not coveting your neighbor’s wife or husband — not hurting your neighbor, not robbing him or bad-mouthing him, but helping and protecting him, speaking well of him, and serving him as you are able. And you honor your parents and other authorities, all the way up to governors, kings, and Caesar himself. You obey the laws of the land, you pay your taxes, and you pray for the powers that be, who are God’s ministers appointed for your good.
In this way, also — that is to say, in rendering to Caesar what God has given and assigned to Caesar — you render yourself, your body and life, to God the Lord, your Creator and Redeemer. For all things are His, and it is by Him, and from Him, and for Him, and to Him, that you live.
There is no either-or between God and Caesar: You honor Caesar under God, until such a time when Caesar demands that you sin against God, and then you must obey God rather than Caesar at that point. There is no dividing of your allegiance between God and man, but your obedience belongs entirely to God — also in submitting to those authorities whom He has placed over you.
Likewise, where He has given you authority over others, you are to use that authority in the fear, love, and trust of Him who is the Author of all things. Therefore, children, obey your parents in the Lord. And, parents, love and serve and care for your children, as the Lord so loves and serves and cares for you. Feed and clothe and shelter them, sure, but, above all, teach them His Word.
Truth be told, all of this requires the crucifixion of the old Adam in you, who would rather have you live as a god unto yourself, not receiving all things and living by the grace of the one true God, but grasping and taking and striving and contesting for whatever you would call your own.
The Lord shows no partiality, but, speaking the truth in love, He puts to death all that sin and selfishness in your heart, mind, body, and soul. He does so, not with any malice or hypocrisy, nor to trap and destroy you, but that you might know the Way of God, the way of life instead of death.
He brings you under His authority — instead of leaving you to your own self-governing autonomy — not to boss you around, but to bestow His Life upon you, and to glorify His Name in you.
You resent and rebel against this Word and Work and Authority of the Lord, the one true God, because you fear that you are being robbed. It seems as though you are losing yourself, and your freedom, and everything that you consider yours and hold so dear and precious. In the Cross you perceive only punishment and death, instead of forgiveness and life. In repentance you feel only humility and grief, embarrassment and shame, instead of rescue, redemption, and righteousness.
It is not possible for you to see or understand the Cross and the authority of God, the Lord, until He has put you to death by that Cross and raised you to newness of life by the authority of Christ Jesus. That is precisely what He has done for you in Holy Baptism; and that is what He continues to do for you, so faithfully and patiently throughout your life on earth, by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, and by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins in His Name.
He crucifies you, puts you to death, and buries you with Christ, in order to give you new birth and make you His own dear child. He calls for your allegiance in all things, that you should live under Him in His Kingdom, and that He Himself and all that He has should be yours by His grace.
Thus, you have and you live your life before God as a little child. And “becoming an adult” is not about getting an independent life for yourself, but it is properly an exercise of wisdom, reason, and strength for others — to love and serve and give life to your neighbor in the Name of the Lord.
You have been — and you are — brought into this Way of Life with God, in Spirit and Truth, by the Way of Christ, by His Incarnation, by His Body and Life, His Flesh and Blood, His Faith and Love, His Cross and Resurrection. For He is the Image and Likeness of God: True God and true Man, united in His one Person; the Son of the Father from all eternity, now conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the Word of God made Flesh; the Bearer of the Spirit in His Body.
And as God the Father has glorified this incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, at His Baptism in the Jordan River, so has this same Son glorified His Father’s Name by His voluntary suffering — even unto death upon His Cross, whereon was written the Inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
He there submitted Himself to the authority of Caesar — and to Caesar’s governor, Pontius Pilate — in order to render Himself, in holy faith and holy love, unto His God and Father in heaven.
In this way, by His sacrifice on the Cross, the one true God is perfectly revealed in this true Man, and harmony and peace between God and man are perfectly realized. Faith and love are perfectly united, and real life is accomplished and established, for you and all people, in the midst of death.
Indeed, as Christ Jesus your Savior rendered Himself to God for you, so did God the Father raise this same Jesus from the dead for your justification, and reconcile the world to Himself in Him.
Therefore, not only Pontius Pilate, but God the Father Almighty has named this Jesus of Nazareth to be the King, not only of the Jews, but of the heavens and the earth and all of Creation.
As the true Man of God, the Lord Jesus uses His authority to love and to serve, to care for you, and to give you life. As He has already paid the poll-tax for you and all people with His own Body and Life, the “denarius” He grants to you, the coin of His realm, is forgiveness. Such forgiveness you receive freely from Him, and with such forgiveness you love and serve each other in peace.
That’s an economic policy that you and everyone can live with!
Do not be amazed by this great Salvation of your Lord, and do not turn away and leave Him. For this dear Lord Jesus Christ speaks the Truth to you in Love. He shows no favoritism; He has given Himself for all people, and so has the whole world been redeemed and reconciled to God in Him.
He is your Life, your Light, and your Salvation. In Him you are safe and sound in body and soul. In Him you are rendered to God in peace; not for death, but for life, both now and forevermore.
It is in that confidence and certainty that He tells you to give Caesar his due, that is, to honor your father and mother and other authorities, to serve and obey them, to love and cherish them.
And it is in the same confidence and certainty of Christ and His Gospel that the Lord your God calls you to live by faith — which is really to entrust your whole body and life unto God, your own dear Father in Christ Jesus — to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.
So is it also by the sure compassion and certain charity of His own Cross — in the accomplished fact of His Resurrection from the dead — that He grants you this very faith and life, this love and trust in Him, by way of His free forgiveness of all your sins, and with His own Body and Blood.
Come here and see. Consider whose likeness and inscription this bread and wine shall bear — not outwardly, but inwardly, hidden from your sight but not from your ears. Listen to His Voice, as He has given me to speak in His Name, and so let me show you. For the Son of God declares, and His Word makes it so: “This is My Body, given for you. This is My Blood, poured out for you. Take, eat. Drink of it, all of you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.”
These good Gifts Christ freely gives for you, because you are indeed God’s own dear child in Him.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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