Last Saturday, I watched an old video of the moments right after my son’s birth. Right after the delivery, the nurses took him to a table near the bed, cleaned him off, and put medical tags around his wrist and around his ankle. Do you know why they did that? So that no one at any time would get confused about who this baby is.
I recently read about two men who were born on the same day in the same hospital in Canada 67 years ago (source, source). A few years ago, the men discovered that the hospital sent them home with the wrong families. At this point, all of the parents have passed away never having learned that their real child was taken from them. And now, these two elderly men and their families are dealing with the emotional aftermath of this shocking revelation about who they are and who they aren’t. Why? Because someone 67 years ago in a hospital in Canada got confused about who these children were.
Mothers, after you gave birth, did it matter to you that the baby you delivered be the same one that you took home with you? What if hospital personnel told you as you were leaving for home, “Things got a little hectic back in the nursery this week. We think this is your baby, but we can’t be sure. But we know that we owe you a baby, so you go ahead and take this one.” Would that be acceptable to you? Would anyone in their right mind find that acceptable?
Husbands, think back to your wedding day. You run out to the car after the reception, everyone is throwing rice and cheering, a lot of confusion. But you get into your side of the car and she gets into hers. And as you are driving away, you look over and discover a woman in a wedding dress in the passenger seat, but it’s not the woman you just married. There was another wedding nearby, some kind of crazy mix-up occurred, and somehow you are driving away with the bride from the other wedding. And the groom from the other wedding is driving away with your bride.
Do you say to yourself in that moment, “Well, at least I got a bride. Let’s go!”? No one in their right mind says that because it makes all the difference in the world whether the woman you are driving away with is in fact the woman you married. The identity of the bride matters.
These illustrations are absurd because everyone knows that the identities of babies and brides matter. No one needs to be told these things. The covenants we make with one another very much depend upon whether we have correctly identified the members of the covenant. These people that we bind our lives to are not interchangeable with other random people. Their identities matter to us not just on birthdays and wedding days but on every day afterward.
If common sense makes us scrupulous about the identities of babies and brides, why is it that so many people are less scrupulous about the identity of the God that they worship? Would you be horrified to find out that the child you are raising is not your own and that someone else is raising your child? How much more horrifying will it be for those who spend a lifetime worshiping a “god” that in the end turns out to be no god at all? How horrifying will it be for those who discover at the end of their lives that the “god” they were worshiping bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?
How is it that so few take care to make sure that the God they are worshiping is in fact the true God? How many people glaze over and become bored or disinterested when they hear teaching aimed at making sure that the God they are worshiping is in fact the God of the Bible—the triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Does it not matter whether we are worshiping the true God versus a false god? You better believe it matters. It matters eternally. And it will make all the difference in the world to you on judgment day whether or not you have rendered worship to the true God rather than a false one.
This is why we confess together in the Athanasian Creed:
“Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that one also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ… This is the true Christian faith. Anyone who does not believe faithfully cannot be saved.”
[Hear the rest of the sermon at the Spotify or Apple links below.]
