Title: Rooted in Christ

It is amazing how trees can weather storms and high winds. How can they defy so much, and remain planted, remain growing, remain alive? You know the answer: they are deeply and securely rooted in the earth. If trees were not deeply and securely rooted, when even a small wind swept in, they would be ripped out as quickly as the last piece of pizza from the box.

It should not surprise us that the Word of God uses the language of being rooted, as we heard from Paul’s epistle to the Colossians: "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith . . ."

God’s concern for His children follows in the next sentence: "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."

How can a Christian be blown over by the winds of the world, the philosophies and human traditions which God calls "empty deceit"? Christians can be blown over, pulled up, and destroyed when they are not rooted and built up in Christ, established in their faith in Christ.

Can a person be a Christian and not know what the Word of God teaches? Can a person be a Christian and not know God’s commandments—how God wills him to live? Can a person be a Christian and not be able to give a reasonable definition of what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is? Can a person be a Christian if he does not worship the Lord on a regular basis? Can a person be a Christian if he does not eat and drink with his God, often and joyfully, in Christ’s feast of victory Holy Communion?

To put this in the language of trees, can a person be a Christian if he does not have deep roots in Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible? How quickly, how easily, will that one be blown away by some empty deceit of human tradition or philosophy?

Often, it’s as simple as this common notion: I can be a Christian and not go to church. Sometimes, it’s more specific, like when the daughter of one of our faithful couples, in Iowa, was sucked into Mormonism when the two people, who had knocked on her door, suggested, "Let us pray with you. If you feel a burning in your heart when we pray, then you will know that the Mormon faith is true." She let them pray. When they were done, she enthusiastically announced that she had, indeed, felt something glow in her heart, during the prayer. She left her Lutheran church and became a Mormon.

The human heart is not the source of knowledge and wisdom, yet, that’s exactly where the philosophers of empty deceit and human tradition send you looking for knowledge and wisdom—for the truth that everyone is looking for.

The Lord Jesus says, go ahead, search your heart and see what you find—the opposite of knowledge, wisdom, and truth. You will find temptation ticking—the throbbing beat of the sinful nature which drives you to live for yourself, first. When you look deep into your heart, it tells you that you deserve happiness, so have that second piece of pie; you should have fun, so squander your money on gambling, money that could be put into savings; your life is your business, so go all the way with the object of your affection to whom you are not married.

Tell that lie. Repeat the juicy gossip. Bear your grudge. Take what doesn’t belong to you. Convince yourself that you are better than those idiots. That’s what you will find in your heart—everything that makes your life the way you want it to be, so that you can take the easy road, so that you don’t have to trouble yourself with others.

But, you are brothers and sisters in Christ. God the Father has called you to be those who belong to His Son. As He had Paul write to the Colossians, so He writes to you: "In [Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands."

Here, circumcision is a spiritual action done upon both males and females, and done upon the heart. Your sinful nature has you hard-hearted. The Word of Christ cuts open your heart. To circumcise means to cut around. The Holy Spirit, through the Word of Christ, has cut around your hard heart in order to open it up—to drain from you all of those empty deceit, evil desires of which we heard the Lord Jesus speak, and then to refill your heart with that which is good: love, peace, faithfulness—everything that is rooted in, and built up by Jesus Christ.

This circumcision of your heart was the surgery worked on you in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Again, from today’s lesson: "In [Christ] also you were circumcised . . . having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead."

Now, there’s something you will never find by searching your heart: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By looking into yourself, you won’t come across the need to be baptized into something—someone—outside of yourself. By looking into your own heart, all you hear is Oprah telling you what a fine specimen of a human you are.

Only by looking away from your heart, toward Jesus, will you find true knowledge and wisdom, for only Jesus Christ comes from God. Even more, Jesus Christ is God. Again, from today’s epistle, the point is made for you, so that you know that you are in the right place, by being in this church: "For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily."

Jesus Christ is deity: God the Son. God the Father sent His Son into your human flesh. In the person of Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, the eternal and perfect God dwells bodily.

Just like you, He has a heart. But, because Jesus is God, He has a heart, not filled with empty deceit, but filled with love—love for you, for you are the work of His hands and the object of His affection.

That’s why He died for you. That’s why God became one of you—a human being. Not because you were loveable, but because He is love; not because you were pure of heart, but because He is pure of heart.

Before Christ took on your life and, upon the cross, died your death, you were—to, again, quote from our lesson—"dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh." But, God made you "alive together with [Christ,] having forgiven [you] all [your] trespasses . . . This he set aside, nailing it to the cross."

The cross. The tree. The place to root your faith, so that you are able to withstand the winds of empty deceit; so that you can remain planted in the truth when human tradition tries to sweep you away.

The cross. The tree. The place to root your heart, so that when your heart ticks with the temptations of your selfish desires, you crucify your temptations with the love of Jesus Christ poured out upon the cross—the heart of God, circumcised by your sin, when He bled and died so that you could be healed and come back to life.

The cross. The tree. The place to root your faith, as you humbly walk to His altar to eat and drink of His flesh and blood in remembrance of Him—remembering that He had to bleed and die so that you could be healed and resurrected from the death of your sins—remembering that He was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven, from where He has baptized you into His death and resurrection, so that your death will lead to your own resurrection.

The Word of God. Holy Baptism. The Lord’s Supper. These are your roots in Jesus Christ. Walk in these, in Christ. Walk to eternal life. Amen.