That should get us to the core of the matter! So, what is the matter? That is a good question. We often ask or are asked, “What is the matter?” The question arises when someone else or we sense or have become aware that something is wrong. So, what is the matter or concern which is troubling? Often we hope, or it is hoped, that the question will bring us to the core of the problem, perceived or believed to be perceived.

As we go through life, we encounter problems of all sorts and descriptions from the large to the small. We have our problems, and others have their problems. Not infrequently, problems are not only confounding but compounding. One problem often leads to another, and often it seems that problems play off one another which at times can become frustrating if not overwhelming. Sometimes the loss of something simple affects many other parts of our lives. For example, if we were to lose our driving license due to having to forfeit it or simply misplacing it, how quickly our lives would change by not being able to drive.

All the misfortunes and mishaps in human life have their root in one way or another in Adam and Eve having stopped listening and trusting God when they became more interested in listening and trusting the serpent in the garden of Eden. It seems nigh on impossible that such a small thing would not only affect Adam and Eve but their progeny and consequently all humanity. Within a very short span of time, Cain killed Abel, and the story of human history is encumbered with the results of sin and death. The tragedy of human sin extends, however, well beyond humanity. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:22 – ESV).

In other words, Adam and Eve’s breaking their relationship with God has had universal consequences. That seems terribly disproportionate to the crime, so do speak. That, however, goes to the core of the matter. One is often told that Adam and Eve simply broke God’s commandment by eating an apple. Only, we do not know what the fruit was from our perspective. Scripture tells us that they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Who really knows how the apple got introduced into the story. Perhaps it is derived from something like, “An apple a day keeps God away,” to doctor the familiar phrase.

The breaking of the commandment, as it were, is not the primary issue. It is symptomatic but does not go to the core of the matter. The real problem is not trusting God. When we do not trust God, which is the nature of human sin, it affects everything. Adam and Eve’s lack of faith affects all creation because all creation was made and given to them as a gift. So, when God’s primary relationship with creation went awry, that is God’s relationship with Adam and Eve as his prize creatures of creation, nothing could be left unscathed.

So, when God sent his Son as the word of God incarnate to sinful humanity, he did not send a new and better law giver, a new Moses on steroids. Instead, he sent his promise. God’s word is by nature promise. It does what it says. So, when Jesus came and commanded people to be healed, they were healed. This is not some type of magic. It is the nature of God’s word. When Jesus declared that the unloved were lovable, it was so because God in Jesus said it. When God gives us his promise, it by its very nature creates.

So, when God gives us his promise in Jesus, the greatest miracle is that it creates faith, i.e. trust in the promise. The promise is thus self-fulfilling, and that faith created in us mends our broken relationship with God which Adam and Eve cast aside. That is the core of the matter, and that faith makes us right or just before God. For this reason, Lutherans say that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the article or doctrine by which the church stands or falls.

In baptism, God bestows his promise given in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection to each and everyone of us. In baptism, the old, unbelieving Adam in each of us is put to death, and the new creation in Christ is raised to newness of life. That is God’s promise. St. Luke’s Theological Academy (SLTA) and all of our parish education at St. Luke’s serve the singular purpose of enriching our understanding of this promise not only for our own lives but for our mission as a church. As our regular parish educational opportunities resume in September, please be encouraged to avail yourself of the opportunity to take a refresher course, so to speak, not only to gain greater depth as to “what’s the matter” but to understand and then to communicate why God’s promises really matter to all sinners like us.