You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. – John 15:9-17

Today’s reading from John continues Jesus’ “I am the vine, you are the branches” saying. Joined to Jesus, you are a fruitful branch; apart from Jesus you can do nothing. The “fruit” which Jesus is speaking of is “love.”

Follow the flow. From the Father to the Son to you. As the Father loves the Son, so the Son loves you. And now the invitation: Abide in my love. Stay there. Rest there. Dwell there. Hang in there. Be loved by Jesus as Jesus is loved by the Father. This is where “love” begins – not in our hearts, not in our decisions and choices, not in our initiative. It begins in the heart of the Father and His love for the beloved Son. It flows to you from the Son by way the cross, the font, the altar, His Word.

To abide in Jesus’ love is to “keep His commandments.”’ Be careful now. Very careful. If you hear that the wrong way, you are going to turn this into a Law instead of a gift. The word “keep” is not the word “obey” but “cling to,” treasure, hold fast to. Like a “keepsake,” something that you value greatly and won’t ever trade away or let go of. “Commandments” are not like the ten commandments of Moses. Jesus didn’t come to give commandments. In the end, He only has one: Love. But the “commandments” we are to keep are the very gifts that bring His love to to us. Baptism, the Supper, His Word. Those are His “commandments,” His tangible gifts that join us to Him in love, and through Him to the Father’s love. And they are “not burdensome” as John says, not the way the Law of Moses is burdensome.

So to put it all together: To abide in Jesus’ love is to cling to His mandates, to trust His Word and cling to His promise in Baptism and Supper, and in so doing to abide in His love for you. When you abide in your Baptism, that is, by daily contrition and repentance you drown and die to self in Jesus’ death, when you abide in Christ’s word of forgiveness, when you abide at the Supper of His Body and Blood, you are abiding in His love. And there’s a promise from Jesus: His joy will be in you, and your joy would be filled up to overflowing.

It helps to think of yourself here as old man and new at the same time, the way Luther said, “simultaneously righteous and sinner.” The old man hates anything that has to do with God’s love in Jesus. The old man wants everything His way. When someone says, “I don’t need Baptism to be loved by God,” or “I don’t need the Lord’s Supper to abide in Jesus’ love,” that’s not the new man talking. It’s the old man, who does not love God or wish to be loved Him. And that’s what we fight all the time. And it’s why Jesus has to put it in the form of a mandate or commandment, because our old sinful natures know only commandments. And so Jesus needs to say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” even though the new man, our new natures in Christ, don’t need to be told this, and don’t really need to do anything to remember Jesus.

We need to understand this about ourselves, that we are under constant tension between our sinful flesh, our outer man who does not want to be loved in this way, and our new, inner man in Christ, the “new you” who delights in the gifts of Christ. Our old sinful natures need to be subdued, disciplined, told what to do, instructed, and ultimately mortified, killed by the Law. But it’s not so that we die, but that we live, that our fruit might abide forever, that we might abide in God and His love forever.

Jesus sits with this group of His chosen disciple in an upper room around a table on the very night that He is going to give His life for the life of the world. He knows them and how it is with them, even better than they know themselves. He knows they will deny Him, betray Him, abandon Him. But He loves them. He lays down His life for them. He calls them not “servants” but “friends.” Friends. He reminds them that they are not sitting around that table because they made all the right choices and chose Him. He chose them. He took the initiative. It may have seemed to them at the time that they chose Him, but in reality Jesus chose them long before they ever knew or met Jesus.

And that’s how it is with us as well. We may think we chose Jesus and decided to believe in Him. For many people, that’s how it subjectively feels. For some us, myself included, we have no conscious moment when we decided to follow Jesus. We’ve just always been doing it since our Baptism which happened at a time we don’t consciously remember. In fact, I would say that the baptized baby is one of the greatest illustrations of what Jesus is saying here, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” The little baby who is brought to Baptism by his parents did not choose Jesus, rather Jesus chose him. And even those of you who came to faith in Christ as adults were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, so any choices you made came after God’s choice of you in Christ, His chosen and beloved Son.

That’s the heart of God’s love. He takes the initiative. He chooses. He loves. He loves the loveless, His enemies, sinners, and calls them His friends and shares His table with them. He lets them in on the “inside story,” the intimate conversation between Father and Son. “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” This isn’t something the Twelve did but something they received. Access. Privilege. Friends of Jesus status. Whatever they ask the Father in the name of the Son, He will grant it.

That love of God comes to us too. We aren’t sitting in that upper room with the disciples , and in hearing this text, we are eavesdroppers on this conversation between Jesus and His chosen apostles. But you and I have been incorporated in that intimate conversation between Father and Son as well. We’ve been baptized into it; declared to be children of God, members of the family, “friends of Jesus” with the same access to the Father in prayer. And the same love from Father to Son to disciple to one another.

When we say that word “love” we automatically think of feelings and romance. But love is far deeper than that. The Greek word is agape, and it’s not really a feeling but an act of will. The apostle Paul wrote a wonderful description of it in his first letter to the Corinthians. He says agape is patient and kind. It isn’t jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on getting its own way; it isn’t irritable or resentful; it doesn’t rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Agape bears all things, trusts all things, hopes all things, patiently endures all things.

This being Mother’s Day, one might think of a mother’s love for her child. She endures all the changes in her body for nine months and the pain of childbirth all for the sake of her child. She quite literally lays down a significant portion of her life to bear, feed, and nurture her child. She may not always feel like doing it, in fact, there are times when she doesn’t feel like doing it at all, but a mother she is and mothering is what she does. Thank God for mothers, not only today but every day of our lives. At her best, she is a visible sign of what agape looks like. She is a sinner too, in case you’ve forgotten, so in love forgive her where her love has failed to make through to you. She loves through the sinful flesh just as you do. Only Jesus can love perfectly.

With all this “love” talk the past two week with love being the good fruit of faith, you might be tempted to think, “I’ve got to get to work on loving others,” and that would be true. We all fall terribly short in the harvest of love, precisely because we’re asking the old Adam infected by Sin to love with the love of Go, which is a tall, and in fact an impossible order.

Jesus knows that, which is why He says to His disciples, “these things I command you so that you love one another. In other words, don’t focus on your love, because the harder you look, the less you’ll see, the less loving you will be. Instead, focus on Christ and His love for you and for those around you. It’s one of the oddities that seems counterintuitive at first. We think that if you want to improve in some area, you focus on the area you need to improve and practice and work on it. And that’s generally true when you are talking about mastering skills such as free throws or putting or almost anything we do. But love isn’t a skill one masters. Love is the fruit that forms on a branch that is joined by faith to the Vine and draws is life from Jesus.

In other words, fix your eyes on Jesus, His love for you. Abide in His love. Keep yourself in the stream of His forgiveness. Realize what a wretched mess your life really is, and how utterly failed your attempts at love have been. Receive the tokens of His love, His death and life, His body and blood, His Word and Spirit. All this without any merit or worthiness on your part.

In the rite of private confession, there is this sentence: “I have not let HIs love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed.” This is how we love with the love of God, by letting His love first have its way with us and then having that love, which knows no bounds, overflow to those around us. And when love fails, it’s because we’ve gotten in the way, our old sinful natures have clogged up the flow of love from God through us to others.

I have great patch of olalleberries this year. I finally got it right and built a strong trellis and raised them vertically. I now have a literal wall of olalleberries. That wall of vine and branch doesn’t look like much. Just a bunch of green leaves and very prickly, thorny branches. But when it’s bearing fruit, there’s nothing more lovely (and tasty) than that wall of olalleberries. Usually I try to avoid it so I don’t get snagged or scratched, but when its bearing fruit, that corner of my garden is the most wonderful place to be. Most berries never make it into the house. I just enjoy them right there on the spot.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. You are ever a child of God. But when the fruit of Jesus’ love, when agape appears, when you love one another with Jesus’ love for you, you are seen for who and what you really are. A disciple and friend of Jesus. Chosen in love to abide in His love and to love one another.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Have you ever been afraid to go outside? So afraid that you find yourself hiding behind locked doors with the shades pulled and curtains drawn? So afraid you want to hide? Don’t take phone calls. Don’t answer the door. Don’t engage the world.

One of the most remarkable reactions to the resurrection of Jesus is fear. In Mark, the women who went to the tomb early that Sunday morning and heard the news of the resurrection from the angel ran away in fear and told no one. In John, the disciples are hiding in the upper room, probably the same upper room where four days before Jesus had told them not to fear. The doors were locked tight. The disciples were cowering together in fear.

Is this any way to celebrate the resurrection? Where is the shout of victory? Christ is risen! Where is the celebration? He is risen, indeed! Instead the disciples are huddled together, locked up in fear.

When you stop to think about it, it makes sense. The rumors were already thick as fog. The tomb was empty. The guards were bribed and disappeared. Mary Magdalene has seen Him, touched Him. Every street corner was buzzing in whispered tones about how the tomb of Jesus was empty. His grave clothes mysteriously folded neatly. The religious authorities were probably conducting a frantic door to door search. They had crucified Jesus. They were aware of His predictions. They would stop at nothing to squelch this rumor now. And so the disciples were afraid. They circled their wagons, huddled together like frightened cats, and locked the doors.

Their fear is also understandable in that they knew that dead men don’t ordinarily rise. Maybe they feared the worst, that the religious leaders or the Romans had taken the body of Jesus and were now going to come after them. Or maybe they didn’t know what to think. What really is the appropriate response to the resurrection?

Jesus came and stood among them. He doesn’t knock on the door or slip in through a window. He simply appears among them. He can do that. He’s the Lord. He can be wherever He want, whenever He wants. He isn’t limited in any way, even though He’s still very much a human, still flesh and blood, albeit risen from the dead, still the same Jesus the knew and loved. And now He is with them again.

“Peace be with you,” He says to them, showing them the wounds on His hands and sides. Yup. That’s Jesus all right. You can tell Him by His wounds. Don’t accept any other. Those are the wounds by which you are healed. Those are the wounds that bring you peace. From His wounds come the peace that He speaks – peace with God and with each other. Their fear melts away. There is gladness and resurrection joy.

A second time Jesus says it. “Peace be with you.” Why a second time, I wonder? Didn’t the first one take? Or can you ever get tired of hearing it? The first peace was to clam their fears. The second peace was to prepare them for what they were going to do. Jesus was sending them. He was making them apostles, “sent ones,” ones who were going to go with His authority to proclaim the kingdom and His forgiveness. They weren’t going to be locked up forever. They were going to go to the ends of the earth. They were going to endure persecution and hardship and even the loss of their lives. And they were going with Jesus’ peace and His victory over death.

Jesus is the apostle of the Father. The Father sent His Son to be the world’s Savior, to incarnate His love for the world. And now the Son sends His chosen disciples to be His apostles, to speak in HIs stead and by His command. He ordains them with His breath. Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In the same upper room, Jesus had promised them the Spirit, the Paraclete, the Comforter, Guide, and Counselor who would lead and guide them into all truth, who would bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had said, who would convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, who would testify of Jesus and bring glory to Him. And now He gives them the Spirit He had promised with His breath and words. And he sends them. That’s what the word “apostle” means. Sent.

Their work is to deliver Jesus’ words and breath and wounds to the world. Today we call it apostolic ministry. The Office of the Keys. The authority on earth to forgive sins. Jesus once healed a paralyzed man in order to demonstrate that He Himself had the authority on earth to forgive sins. It’s easy to understand how Jesus has this authority. He has all authority in heaven and on earth granted to Him by the Father. But the fact that He authorizes men to forgive sin in His stead and by His command, by virtue of their office, that’s something new and important.

Forgiveness in heaven does us no good. We’re not in heaven, except in Christ, but in Christ we have no need for forgiveness. We’re on earth. We’re in this sinful body of death. We sin constantly, even when we are doing good works, because we do those works through our old sinful natures. Every thought, word, act, breath needs to be forgiven. It’s nice that it’s forgiven in heaven, but we need to be forgiven where we are. On earth. Sin tends to be rather “earthy,” doesn’t it. And it’s right here, on the earth, in the middle of our fearful locked rooms, that Jesus drops a big forgiveness bomb. “For you.”

Imagine ordering something online but never receiving it. Imagine ordering a take-out pizza and never having it delivered. Imagine winning the lottery and never cashing in the ticket. That’s what the cross of Jesus is like without the Office of the Keys. It’s gift without delivery. It’s like God saying, “I bought a gift.” And you say, “Great! Where is it?” And God says, “Well, I have it. I think you’ll like it.” And you say, “But I haven’t received it, so how can I like it.” And God says, “Well, just think about it and imagine how good it is. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

There’s this great paragraph in the Large Catechism on the third article of the Creed, the article about the Holy Spirit and the church and forgiveness:

“Neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe in him and take him as our Lord, unless these were first offered to us and bestowed on our hearts through the preaching of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit. the work is finished and completed, Christ has acquired and won the treasure for us by His sufferings, death, and resurrection, etc. But if the work remained hidden and no one knew of it, it would have been all in vain, all lost. In order that this treasure might not be buried but put to use and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to be published and proclaimed, in which he has given the Holy Spirit to offer and apply to us this treasure of salvation.” (LC III.38)

Did you catch that? “In order that this treasure, the treasure of Jesus’ sacrificial death and His glorious resurrection, the treasure of His victory over Sin and Death and the power of the Law to condemn, in order that this treasure might not be buried but put to use and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to be published and proclaimed. For this saving and justifying faith, Christ established the Office of the Holy Ministry, authorized it with the keys of His authority, and gave it as a gift to His Bride, the church like a wedding present. Jesus so wants His church to hear forgiveness and enjoy it and live in its freedom that He created an office in the church and He put men under holy orders to forgive.

“If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven.” If you look at the history of that text, you find that some versions read “have been forgiven” while others read “will be forgiven” and the majority read “are forgiven.” And all three are true. Absolution holds past, present, and future. Sins forgiven have been, are, and always will be forgiven.

“If you withhold forgiveness….” Well, our translation seems compelled to add some words that aren’t there. Permit me a Greek moment: Whatever of theirs you bind, it is bound. Sins aren’t mentioned. Just whatever of theirs you bind. In the Bible you are bound by Sin and Death. Jesus binds the devil and He releases people from their bondage. A better way of understanding this passage is not about withholding forgiveness, although we do that when people don’t ask for it. A better way of hearing this verse is to think of both sides in the positive, as one Gospel gift thought. Sins are forgiven, Sin, Death, and devil are bound. The prisoners are set free, and their captors are bound.

The doors are unlocked. The disciples are free. And so are you. Last Sunday we heard about the gift given – Jesus crucified and risen. Today we hear about the gift delivered and received. Jesus crucified and risen for you, for your forgiveness, for your life, for your salvation, for your freedom. It’s safe to go out again.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The resurrection of Jesus is both a matter of fact and a matter of faith.

It is a matter of fact in that it is a fact of history. A pivotal fact of history. It is the fulcrum around which all of human history pivots and has its ultimate meaning. It is a matter of fact as any other fact of history from the Ming Dynasty to the Greco-Roman empire. The tomb of Jesus is empty. The body of Jesus is risen. That is a matter of fact.

It is a matter of faith in that the entirety of what we believe rests on the fact that Christ was put to death for our sins and raised for our justification. We don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, we believe because Jesus rose from the dead.

Here are the facts.

Fact: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Fact: The tomb was empty. The burial linens were folded and neat. The guards were bribed to say the disciples had stolen the body.

Fact: Jesus was seen by Mary Magdalene, by Peter and the Eleven, by Thomas who confessed “My Lord and my God,” by two disciples on the Emmaus road, by seven disciples who ate fish with Him, by over 500 brothers at one time, by James and all the apostles, and by Paul on the road to Damascus.

Fact: These were credible eyewitnesses. Sane, sober, rational people who did not initially believe that Jesus had risen from the dead even though He had told them this would happen. They had everything to lose and nothing to gain from their testimony. Many lost their lives professing the fact of Jesus’ resurrection.

Fact: The people in power, the religious authorities, the Roman rulers, Pontius Pilate, the chief priests and scribes had a vested interest in a dead Jesus. They had the means and the ability to produce the corpse of Jesus and parade it through the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday night and Monday morning. But they did not. Why not? Because there was no corpse. Jesus had risen from the dead, jsut as He had said.

But what if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? What if it’s all made up, a myth, a fantasty, a lie? What if there are bones of Jesus buried in some tomb outside Jerusalem? Does it matter? Isn’t His life still inspiring? Aren’t His teachings still relevant and meaningful for our lives? Isn’t just important that we believe Jesus rose from the dead, kind of like believing in the Easter bunny or Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?

Well, here are some facts if Christ isn’t raised.

If Christ isn’t raised then our preaching is empty and so is your faith. Our preaching is nothing more than a blast of religious hot air and your faith is based on nothing. If Christ isn’t raised than Christianity is like a soufflé or a meringue – a little fluff and a lot of empty air.

If Christ isn’t raised, then the New Testament is a lie, the apostles are liars, and every Christian preacher for the last two thousand years including the two standing in front of you are first class liars who are grossly misrepresenting God and deserve to be ignored if not run out of town. We are charlatans, thieves, scoundrels, which is pretty much what society thinks of preachers these days, and it would be completely true if Jesus Christ were not raised.

If Christ isn’t raised, your faith is futile, worthless, a waste of time. You are wasting your precious time being here this morning. You are wasting your time reading your Bible and praying and worshipping. And you are kidding yourselves if you think you are right with God, because if Christ isn’t raised then the promises of God for forgiveness in Jesus’ name are worthless and you remain in your sins.

If Christ isn’t raised, then we all are back to square one when it comes to God. We need to start working to perfect ourselves. We need to get on our path to enlightenment and climb the spiritual ladder to God. We need to balance our karma, atone for our sins, make amends, fix ourselves, and work on our holiness because there is no mercy, no forgiveness, no grace if Christ is not raised from the dead.

The Scriptures are clear. He was put death for our sins and raised for our justification. If Christ isn’t raised, then we are not justified before God and there is no justification for us.

If Christ isn’t raised, then those who have died believing Christ, trusting His promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation are lost. They’ve perished. In fact, if Christ isn’t raised then we have no concrete proof that there is anything resembling bodily life beyond the grave. If Christ isn’t raised then we have as much evidence for the resurrection as we have for reincarnation. If Christ isn’t raised, then we have nothing whatsoever to say about the dead except that they are gone.

But someone will still say, “But even if Christ isn’t raised from the dead, being a Christian makes me feel better, it helps me cope with my problems, it gives me strength and courage to face life’s problems.” That’s nice. The apostle Paul says that if for this life only we have hope in Christ, if all that Jesus is good for is a little inspiration to get us through the day like a cup of strong tea or coffee, then we are the most pitiful group of people who have ever walked the face of the earth.

But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. And this fact is the ground of our faith.

Because Christ is raised from the dead we believe that we too shall rise with new and improved bodies. Jesus is the “first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” He is the first harvest of the resurrection. There is more to come, and you and I are the more to come on the Last Day.

Because Christ is raised from the dead, we believe that there is genuine bodily life after death. We don’t just go on as spirits or memories or energy or what have you. We rise with bodies to live with God eternally. Because of sin, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Our bodies are not suited for eternal life. They wear out, they get sick, they break down. But what is buried in weakness will be raised in power. What is buried in dishonor will be raised in glory. What is buried a physical body will be raised a spiritual body designed for eternal life with God.

Because Christ is raised from the dead, we believe that we are justified before God. His sacrifice is acceptable. His “it is finished” from the cross holds. His word is true, His promises are certain. When He says, “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die forever,” this is as certain as Jesus risen from the dead is certain.

Because Christ is raised from the dead, we know that Death has lost its power. “The sting of Death is Sin, and the power of Sin is the Law.” Sin is the condition, the Law is the poison, Death is the result. The wages of Sin is Death. Christ took the sting. He succumbed to the poison. He was killed by the Law that always accuses and kills the sinner. Christ became the sinner for us, for all of humanity. And now in the resurrection, He is the cure, the antidote, the medicine, the anti-serum to the sting of Death.

Because Christ is raised from the dead, we know the destiny of our humanity. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” Death is not the last word; life is the last word because Christ is the last Word. We are born to die, this is true. And in Christ, we die to live. This is true too, because Christ is risen from the dead.

“Listen, I tell you a mystery, a secret hidden for the ages but revealed on this glorious first day of the week. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” The perishable shall become imperishable. The mortal shall become immortal. Death will be swallowed up in victory.

And we are sure of this, and we believe this, and we live and hope and die trusting this, because Christ is risen from the dead.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Palms and Passion. They hardly seem to go together. Palms are for victory and triumph. Passion means suffering and death. Shouts of Hosanna! and cries of Crucify! They don’t fit. Welcome to the beginning of Holy Week, a week of contradictions and paradoxes that end with a death and a burial.

Even though Jesus predicted it at least three times and told His disciples plainly that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and rise, they didn’t believe it. Things were going too well. Jesus was popular and powerful. The moment was right. The kingdom God on earth was within reach. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem atop that donkey and the people cried out “Hosanna to the Son of David” and “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” they were familiar messianic lines from Psalm 118. This is how you greeted the king as he rode into the city. With tree branches and palms and coats laid out on the road. Hail King Jesus! Now let’s get this show on the road and bring the kingdom of God to the earth.

Palms are a sign of victory and triumph. In the Revelation, the worshippers of heaven wave palm branches and declare the victory of Christ. I’m sure those people waving their palms and shouting Hosanna! to Jesus were expected big things. A revolution. The kingdom of God on the earth. Israel back on the map again. The Son of David on His rightful throne reigning supreme.

It didn’t work out that way, though. There is conspiracy and bribery and betrayal. Jesus is arrested and tried before the religious and civil courts in a mockery of the vaunted Roman system of justice. He’s a blasphemer! they cried. He calls Himself the King of Jews! they charged. He’s the Son of God in the flesh. He’s the Messiah of Israel, the fulfillment of Moses and prophets. The verdict from both Religion and the State is guilty. Guilty of blasphemy, for He called Himself the Son of God. Guilty of treason, for He made Himself a king. This is how the world welcomes its Savior. Not with Hosannas and palm branches but with shouts of Crucify Him!

Through it all, Jesus is silent. A lamb before the slaughter. No word in self-defense. His silence appears weak, but it is the silence of strength. He knows where He is going. He knows what He is doing. This is His Passion to do, and in dying He obtains the victory for us all.

There is a swap, an exchange of prisoners. Barabbas for Jesus. Barabbas’ name means “son of the father.” Perhaps it was a name he took on when he became a revolutionary. Don’t think of Barabbas as some common criminal or as the Mel Gibson movie depicted him, as a drooling, raving maniacal killer. Barabbas was a key figure in a recent insurrection. He was a terrorist, a jihadist, one who would use force, kill if necessary, to bring the kingdom of God and purge the land of the Roman infidels.

So which will it be: Barabbas, the son of the father, or Jesus, the Son of the Father? The world picks Barabbas. The world picks Barabbas every time, because the world thinks the way Barabbas thinks. Kill or be killed. Live by the sword or die by the sword.

The uncomfortable truth is that Barabbas is us. You are Barabbas. An insurrectionist against God’s kingdom, a rebel against the rule of God. A sinner. What happens on Pilate’s stage is an enactment of what happens on Jesus’ cross. The murderer goes free, the Innocent One goes to His death. The sinner is pardoned, the Sinless One condemend. Christ was made Sin for us. He is your sin, and you in Him are His righteousness.

He is robed in purple, crowned with thorns, mocked, spit upon, beaten. This is how the world welcomes the King of kings. It’s the only time in the Gospel where Jesus is hailed as a king. The only time he wears the purple of royalty, the only time when He is crowned. His throne is a cross. The charge against Him proclaims the truth: The King of the Jews. He is mocked by those crucified with Him, by the religious bystanders and passersby. This is religion and politics, the twin beasts of power, at their worst, turning against the Christ, the King, the Lord, the Savior.

There is darkness from Noon to three. In the darkness, Jesus prays Psalm 22, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” The psalm of the forsaken sufferer. His Father is with Him, but not hidden, as He is hidden also from us. He asks the “why” question we all ask in our suffering, and He hears the awful silence of His Father. Where is He in His time of need? The One who declared Jesus to be His beloved Son in His Baptism is silent.

They give Him wine to drink. A courtesy to the dying man. Jesus spoke of His death as a cup from which He must drink. And now He drinks of the sour wine of our Sin and the Law’s wrath. The people thought He was calling for Elijah, who was supposed to come before the great day of the Lord. Maybe they held out hope for a last minute rescue, Elijah swooping down from heaven in a fiery chariot to rescue this Jesus from the cross. But there is no Elijah, no voice from heaven, no Spirit descending, no legions of angels to tend to Him. Only Jesus bearing the Sin of the world.

He dies with a loud cry. To read it in Mark, it reads like an exorcism, what Jesus did with all the demons. This is the final exorcism of the world. It’s as though everything that Jesus had done, indeed, everything that had gone wrong with the world was now drawn into Jesus and with a loud cry He puts it all to death in His death.

The curtain of the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest is torn violently in to from top to bottom, just as the heavens were torn violently open when Jesus’ was baptized. The time of the temple was done. The purpose of the temple was fulfilled. The new and final temple is this crucified Body. The new and final sacrifice, His Body and Blood.

A centurion, one of the soldiers, sees and believes. “Truly this man was the son of God.” All through Mark it’s a secret. No one is supposed to say it out loud. “Tell no one,” Jesus insisted. But now, here, in the darkness, in death, there on the cross, the secret is out, the mystery revealed: This is the Son of God. If you want to know what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God then look to Him on the cross. This is where He is most Son of God, most Lord, most King, most Savior.

This is the last the world gets to see of Jesus. He would appear for forty days to over 500 disciples and all the apostles, and then He disappeared. The world would not have the privilege of seeing Him. The world will see Him again enthroned in splendor and majesty, but for now, the view “from below” of King Jesus is crucified. That’s the image He would set before your eyes.

He is buried in haste. The time was short. The day is almost over. The Sabbath was about to begin, the high Sabbath of the Passover. Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Council who had convicted Jesus, as disciple in secret, steps forward to receive the body, otherwise He would have been thrown into the dump. One wonders. What did Joseph do as the Council convicted Jesus of blasphemy? Did he vote “no”? Did he abstain? Was he silent? There comes a time when we must “take courage” and stand up before the world and lay claim to the body of Jesus. That time is now.

The Creed summarizes it so succinctly: He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. All of it to save you. To rescue you from the power of Sin, Death, and the Law’s condemnation. You were the joy set before Him that He endured this. You were the object of His passion to save. All this He did that you may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Never was there such a King. Never was there such love. Never was there such a Passion. Hail King Jesus! Hosanna in the highest!

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

This is what Jesus said to His disciples on the road to Jerusalem just prior to our Gospel reading this morning. Jesus predicted His death and resurrection, and James and John start angling over who is going to get the honored seats at the heavenly banquet. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Imagine that!

We wouldn’t do something like that, would we? Pull strings for the good seats while the Lord is contemplating His own crucifixion? Worry about our own status and position in the kingdom while Jesus goes to His kingly sacrifice? Or not even hearing what Jesus just said because we were too busy looking out for number one and looking over our shoulder for number two? No, not us! Perish the thought! We would never miss out on Jesus’ word because we weren’t listening. Or skip out on the meal of His sacrifice for something “more important.” And we would never try to bargain for the favored seats in the kingdom, we’ll be content with the bleachers and the back row. We poor, miserable sinners certainly don’t deserve any more than that, right?

Church history is littered with attempts to take over the kingdom of God, or at least co-opt the good seats. Whenever you see politics taking over from prayer, and programs taking over from Word and Supper, and kingdom building instead of kingdom proclamation, you can know with all certainty that the ego of the old Adam is asserting itself again. What’s in it for me? What will I gain from all this? Surely I deserve a seat in the luxury boxes!

The self-serving old Adam wants nothing to do with the cross but everything to do with glory and looking out for old number one. “Give us the best seats in the house in your glory,” the Zebedee brothers ask, putting in the bold power move. Forget about Peter, Andrew, and the rest of those losers. We’re your A-team, Jesus, and we’d look great in the beatific vision, one on your right, the other on your left. We’re not going to quibble over which is which. We’ll let you decide, Jesus. You’re the man in charge, after all.

They are thinking earthly kingdom stuff, here. The way the Gentiles and rulers and lords think. The way we think in our world of politics and power. James and John want the power positions in the kingdom, to the right and to the left of the King. That’s where his most trusted advisors sat. James and John are thinking kingdom of God on earth and see themselves with key positions in the new administration when Jesus takes up residence in Jerusalem and sets up the throne of David again. Chief of staff and Vice-president. And why not? They were among the first of the disciples, after all. They had left their father’s fishing business and faithfully followed Jesus for three years. They deserved this. They earned it. Who could argue, except perhaps Peter and Andrew, but hey, they got to Jesus first.

Jesus does not come to establish the kingdom of God on the earth. His kingdom is not of this world, and His power is made perfect in weakness. The glory of His kingdom is a cross and a death. That is all of the kingdom of God the world will get to see short of the Last Day. Think about it. The world did not see Jesus rise from the dead. It saw Him crucified, but only a select group of followers saw Jesus risen from the dead. Yes, over 500, but not the world. And only for forty days. And then Jesus disappeared to take His throne at the right hand of the Father in glory. But from the earthly point of view, the glory of the kingdom looks like a cross and a crucified Messiah. Not quite what James and John had in mind.

“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized,” Jesus asks them. “We are,” they said, having no idea what they were saying or what Jesus was talking about. Jesus’ cup and His baptism are His death, where He drinks the poisoned cup of Sin and Death, the cup of God’s wrath ;poured out against sinful humanity. It is where He is baptized into Death for us, washed with our Sin, drowned in the Flood of God’s wrath poured out on the world reduced to this one Man from heaven. His death on a cross is a cup and a baptism, His alone to drink and be baptized with. Only He can drink this cup, only He can endure this baptism which immerses Him in the depths of our sin and suffering and misery.

“You will drink, and you will be baptized.” They will have a share in His suffering and death. They will drink from His cup at His table, when He gives it to them and says, “Take and drink. This is my blood of the covenant shed for you.” He drinks the cup of wrath so that they, and you, may drink His cup of forgiveness. He drinks the accursed cup so that you might drink the cup of blessing. With the cup and the bread of His Supper, Jesus gives you a share in His death and life, in His suffering and sacrifice. And in His glory.

So also with baptism. Jesus is baptized into our death so that we might be baptized into His death. His baptism puts Him on a cross where He dies for our sins. Your Baptism joins you with Jesus into His death and life so that you may live in Him now by faith and in the age to come by the resurrection of the dead.

But the reality of both Baptism and Cup is that the glory is hidden, buried deeply beneath the weakness of humble elements, revealed only by the Word. There is no glory to be seen with the eye. What infected James and John was what Luther would call a “theology of glory.” Wanting it all now. By-passing the cross and going straight for the glory of the kingdom. But the glory of the kingdom of God always looks weak and defeated to this world. It always looks like dead Jesus on a cross. That Cup and Baptism that bring life and salvation look so weak, so insignificant, so unimportant, so irrelevant that were it not for the Word which tells us otherwise, we wouldn’t see the point of it.

We constantly need to be reminded of this. Our perspective is not the same as God’s perspective. What we perceive is the underside of things, the view “from below.” God’s view is “from above” and He reveals to us what we need to know of that “from above” point of view by His Word. From below, Jesus appears as nothing more than a religious figure among many. A man who does the works of God. From above, He is revealed to be the Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity enfleshed in our humanity. From below, the kingdom of God looks crucified; from above it is glorified. From below we see ourselves as sinners; from above God sees us as saints in Christ. From below we see bread, wine and water. From above God reveals to us that this bread is Christ Body, this wine is His blood, this water is His Baptism, and that here all that He died on a cross to win for all become yours.

James and John wanted to sit at the power positions, at Jesus’ right and left. And yet Jesus says, “To sit at my right and my left is not mine to grant, but it s for those for whom it has been prepared.” It is for the Father to grant, and for the Son to do His Father’s will. We have no idea who is to sit at Jesus’ right and left in the heavenly kingdom. We do know who was on HIs right and left when He came into His glory on earth. Not James and John. Not Peter and Andrew. But two nameless thieves. Too convicted terrorists. One who turned to Him in faith. And one who mocked Him to His death. That’s who was at His right and left when Jesus came into His glory.

What a picture that is of the kingdom! It isn’t about power or achievement but forgiveness and mercy. It isn’t about getting a good word in with Jesus, but hearing God’s good Word to us in Jesus. It isn’t about prestige and who gets the honored seat, but about trust in the One who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

The kingdom of God is not about power to control and the exertion of authority. That’s how the kingdoms of this world work. We call it “politics.” Power politics. The Gentiles and their rulers lording their authority over others. The power to control and get others to conform by sheer force. You see it on the news and in the headlines every day. And Jesus has a stern warning to His ambitious disciples and to His church and ministers today. “Not so among you.” Whether it’s clergy domineering over laity or vice versa or majorities tyrannizing minorities or whatever other exercise of power we can cook up, Jesus simply says, “not so among you.”

He comes as a suffering Servant to serve. His followers, His disciples, His baptized believers who share His cup are here to serve, to lay down their lives. Greatness in His kingdom is not about power but about sacrifice. “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant; whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” That’s how the kingdom of God looks in this world. Humble, self-giving servants of the Servant of all, who endured the baptism of His cross and drank the cup of God’s wrath in order to save you, me and the world.

There’s a handy rule to test whether what you are asking is in line with the kingdom that Christ brings. Try to say it before a picture or image of Christ on the cross. “Jesus, grant us the favored seats in your kingdom, one on your right, the other on your left.” Do you think that James and John would have said these things while standing at the foot of Jesus’ cross? Would you?

Do you want to be great in the kingdom of God? Be a servant of all. Do you want to be first? Then be last and be a slave of all. Do you want a seat near Jesus? Then go sit among the least and the lost and the lowly and the losers of this world and you will find the Savior of all. He has a cup for you, drink it. He has a Baptism for you, be baptized into it. He has forgiveness, life and salvation for you. Believe it.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“How do I love thee, let me count the ways.” When it is the Father talking to His world, you need only count to one. His only-begotten Son. The Father loves the world in His beloved Son. This is the exclusively inclusive love of the Father. God is love. He can’t stop Himself. That’s what He is. Love isn’t simply something God does; it’s also something God is. Love is His very essence. God is love and God loves. The Father loves the Son, and He loves the world in His beloved Son. And He loves you in the same way.

Love is expressed, made known, manifest, shown in action. You can’t keep it bottled up inside. It must be expressed in words and actions. We reveal it in words. We say, “I love you.” Maybe you remember that first time you said those words to someone. Often those words come with great trepidation, anxiety, a tinge of fear. Rightly so. That’s a powerful sentence that can put into motion big plans and actions. She longs to hear him say, “I love you.” He breaks out into a sweat just thinking about saying it for the first time. Or other contexts too, not quite so scary. A father and mother to a child; a child to a parent. Good friends who have been through much together. Many of us don’t say it often enough, and none of us can hear it often enough.

Love is expressed in action too. A bouquet of flowers, a nice card, a box of chocolates, preferably dark. Or shiny little rocks set into rings and bracelets, tokens and trinkets of love. More significantly, love is expressed in giving yourself away in acts that have no return in view. This is the love that the Greeks called agape. They had other words for other kinds of love. Philos for the warm bonds of friendship. Eros for the heat of passion. Storge for comfort of nurture and care. But agape was the love that pointed back to its Source, to God. God is agape. Self-giving, self-sacrificing love.

God does agape in this way: He gave. Agape is giving with no regard for receiving. Agape does not ask “what’s in it for me” nor does it seek to have the needs of self met. Agape is wholly focused on the other, the Beloved, the object of agape. Agape expresses itself in giving. God loved the world in this manner: He gave His only-begotten Son. The Father loved the world by giving His Beloved Son to the world. Christ is the token, the sacrament, the sign, the gift of the Father’s love. Of the Father’s love begotten from all eternity. Of the Father’s love given to the world.

God gave the Israelites a sacramental sign back in their wilderness days. The Israelites had rebelled yet again, and grumbled and complained against Moses and against God. In judgment, God sent snakes into the camp, fire snakes that caused horrific wounds and death. In mercy, God gave an curious antidote, an image made of bronze (something ordinarily forbidden), a bronze serpent, the very image of the disease, raised up on a pole so that all the eyes of Israel could look on it. And in looking on it, they would live.
That bronze serpent on a stick, rather hideous to look at, and were it not the direct command of God Himself, idolatrous as well, was a tangible token of God’s love for His people, rebellious, stubborn, and sinful though they were. To look on that image trusting in the promise of God was to live, to survive the venomous bite of the fire snakes. And it was the only way to survive. There was no other.

It’s a picture of humanity and of us. Snake-bitten with the venom of Sin coursing through our systems. It’s killing us and in the process bringing on a destructive delirium some mistake for life. We are born this way, born with the fangs of the ancient serpent sunk deep into our veins, injecting that fatal lie that begins with a question “Did God really say?” ringing in our ears and in the back of our skeptical minds and ends with disbelief, disobedience, and death. We are born into this world snake-bitten.

In mercy and love, God gave His Son. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. In His death on the cross, Jesus is the bronzed serpent on the pole, the Antidote, the Cure, the Medicine of Immortality. To look on Him is to believe in Him, that is, to trust Him. Taking any medicine is an act of trust. We trust our doctor when he or she ways, “Take this three times a day.” You look at the data sheet that comes with the drug. If you’re like me, and you know a thing or two about chemistry, you cringe at the molecular structure of this drug and wonder what it will do to you. I heard one doctor describe drugs as poisons with some potentially beneficial side-effects. And what about that list of side-effects ranging from bad dreams to depression and death. And yet the good physician said, “Take this three times a day,” and so we do in trust.

God have His Son, lifted up on a cross, marred and disfigured almost beyond recognition. And He says, “Look on my Beloved Son in faith and you will live.” Look on Him, and don’t avert your eyes. He is your Sin and He is your Salvation. The Cure looks terribly much like the disease. That’s why the cross is so hideous, so painful to look at, so macabre. Why would anyone want to look at this? We’d rather look at flowers and sunsets and kittens and puppies. We’d rather seek the signs and tokens of God’s love somewhere else, something more uplifting than being lifted up on a cross. But this is how God loves the world, and He loves the world in no other way than to give His beloved Son into death for the life of the world. This is the Father’s agape. This is God’s love for the sinner enfleshed. And this is all there is to look at. Every other image is idolatrous. No other image can save you save this One. Jesus is the image and icon of God come to down to us. He is the love of God incarnate, in human flesh, dwelling among us. He is God’s love for the world, and God loves the world in Him.

This agape of God, God’s love is an inclusive world. It is for the world. Not simply the respectable, religious, lovable parts of the world but the world in toto. It is a cosmic love that loves the cosmos to death and in so doing saves it. Does that mean that everyone is saved? Well, it depends how you look at it. From the point of view of God’s agape, the answer is “yes.” God loved the world. God have His beloved Son to the world. God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world. You can’t any more inclusive than that. And you can’t divide up the world into the saved and unsaved parts. As far as God is concerned, the world is saved and loved in His beloved Son.

But it is only and exclusively in His beloved Son. There is salvation in no other. There is life in no other. There is no other revelation of God’s love for the world. No other sign, sacrament, token of God’s love but the one act of self-sacrifice: The Father sending and giving His Son into the world, knowing that men love darkness rather than light, knowing that this Love Incarnate would be rejected, knowing that He would be lifted up in the darkness and evil of this world, knowing that this is the only way to save this snake-bitten world.

“Every one who practices evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed.” We come kicking and screaming. We need to understand that or we won’t understand what’s going on with us spiritually speaking. Our old Adam, our snake-bitten sinful nature hates the light, hates the truth, hates the law, and yes, hates the Gospel and Christ. It’s the new man in Christ who delights in the Law, who rejoices in the Gospel, who “does the truth” and comes to the light in order that it may be seen that his works have been wrought in God and not in himself.

Our old Adam needs to be crucified, to be mortified, to be put to death. The new man, the new you, in Christ needs to live, and this is a work that is worked in God by the Spirit of God working through the Word. Sometimes you will observe this. People will come to church for a while, they’ll get all religious for a while, they’ll be all enthusiastic for a while. But then some issue comes along, some sin comes to light, the Law begins to do its killing work, and they turn away and go back into the cover of darkness again. And it can happen to you too. That’s why the resistance, that’s why you’d rather run off to brunch than extend your Sunday in Bible class, that’s why you can’t wait for the service to end. It has less to do with the music and the preaching and whatever other excuse we make. It has to do with our old Adam who hates the Light, who prefers the darkness, who loves the practice of evil, and must be coerced and forced to go through the motions of doing the truth.

I’m sure their were many Israelites who preferred their own homeopathic treatments, their own alternative medicines, to that bronze serpent on a stick. I’m sure there were many who refused to look and live. They died rejecting a promise of life that was intended for them.

The coming of Christ, the preaching of Christ, the knowledge of Christ precipitates a crisis. “Crisis” is the Greek word for “judgment.” “This is the judgment, the crisis, that Light has come into the world.” The coming of Christ is a game-changer. The death and resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Your hearing of the death and resurrection of Jesus is a crisis. You can never be neutral about it again. Your knowledge of Baptism and of the Lord’s Supper and it’s true nature and meaning precipitate a crisis of faith and unbelief. It’s one thing to turn your back on Christ, on Baptism, on the Supper, on the Church, on His Word, if you do not know what they are. But once you do, once you have been “enlightened,” once the knowledge of salvation has to come you, you can never be neutral or apathetic again. Now it is faith or unbelief; there is no middle ground.

We worry sometimes about those who have never heard the Gospel, and what about them and how will they be judged? But that whole question is misplaced. If you know the cure and you know someone who is diseased with Sin (and you don’t have to look too hard for that), how much do you have to hate your fellow sinner not to tell them? That’s the crisis. You might say, “Well, I’d have been better off had I not heard,” and the answer, “Too late. You’ve heard. Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Now is the moment of your salvation.” You have no excuse. You have no choice in the matter. God has ordained it that you hear the Word of Christ.

God loved the world in giving His Son. The Son loved the world by giving His life. God loved you by bringing you to Baptism, by joining you to His beloved Son in His death. God loves you in His beloved Son. The Son loves you in giving you His Body and Blood to eat and drink. He loves you in putting His Word into your ears to hear. To reject these whenever they are offered to you is to refuse the token of His love.

His is a wondrously inclusive love. No one left out. It is also a terrifyingly exclusive love. Only in Jesus, the beloved Son, and no one else. Apart from Him, there is only the nothingness of darkness and death.

You are baptized. You have been brought to the Light. You are loved in the Beloved Son. Look on Him, lifted up for you. Look on Him in faith and live.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In the Gospel of John, everything tends to mean at least two things. John is chock full of double entendres, double meanings all over the place. Today’s Gospel is a prime example: the temple and Jesus’ body.

John pushes this episode from Holy Week right up to the front. That’s how important it is for John. This episode of Jesus’ clearing the temple of the money changers and sacrifice sellers sets the tone for the entire Gospel. It comes immediately after the inaugural sign of Jesus’ changing washing water into wedding wine at a feast at Cana.

The Passover was at hand, John tells us. That means that the money changers and sacrifice sellers would be busy. It was the busiest time of the year for them. Pilgrims were streaming into town from all over Israel. The common coin would have to be exchanged for temple currency. And they would have to buy lambs for the Passover. Business was brisk.

Jesus goes up to Jerusalem, heads straight for the temple and encounters an emporium of money changers and sacrifice sellers. This doesn’t sit well with Him, and He makes a whip out of a bunch of cords and starts driving sheep, oxen, together with their sellers out of the courtyard. He overturns the tables of the moneychangers, spilling out their coins on the ground. He knocks over the cages of pigeons being sold and tells their sellers, “Get these things out of here; you shall not make my Father’s house into an emporium of trade.” His disciples, including John, later recalled Psalm 69 – “Zeal for thy house will consume me” and they realized that this psalm written centuries earlier was actually about Jesus.

There is a lot going on here, in many layers. First, the temple was the place of sacrifice, and the money changers and sacrifice sellers were actually providing a useful service to the out of town pilgrims. So why was Jesus upset about this? The synoptic writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke might give us a clue. They have Jesus say that His Father’s house has been turned into a “den of thieves.” The word for “thieves” here is the word for “robber,” or even “insurrectionist.” Terrorist. Perhaps the proceeds from these sacrifice sellers and coin changers were going to finance insurrectionists and messianic wannabes. Makes sense. And so instead of being a house of prayer and the place where one went to confess his sin and offer his sacrifice, the Jerusalem temple had become a hotbed of terrorism and insurrectionists. Which is not the sort of messiah Jesus came to be.

This would also explain the last set of verses, where John tells us that many people believed in Jesus, that is, they put their trust in Him when they saw the signs He did, but Jesus Himself did not trust anyone, including those who believed in Him, for He knew all men and knew what was in man. In other words, Jesus was not about to be co-opted into becoming some sort of messianic leader who was going to lead the revolution to put Israel back on the map and establish the throne of David.

Second, the people expected that when messiah came, he would purify the priesthood and cleanse the temple. And so when Jesus does exactly that, on His own authority, when He drives out the money changers and turns over their tables and when He chases out the sacrifice sellers with their sacrifices, He’s pushing on all the messianic buttons of the people. This is precisely what messiah was supposed to do.

But as usual with John, there’s more, another layer of meaning to this story. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John has already introduced that in chapter 1. Jesus is the ultimate Sacrifice, the once for all atoning sacrifice for sin for which all the lambs, rams, bulls, goats and pigeons were a prototype and picture. And so Jesus with this action not only turns the tables of the moneychangers, but He turns the tables on the whole religious system of Israel. God’s Lamb had come to His temple. And God’s Lamb brooks no competition. He alone offers the perfect, atoning sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world. The blood of bulls and goats and pigeons cannot cleanse from Sin, but the blood of this Lamb does. In driving off the sacrifice sellers, Jesus is showing that the time of sacrifice was coming to its appointed end. He was about to put the whole system out of business and turn the tables on it once and for all. And if this is actually the same incident as the one in Holy Week, then it would be a matter of days when the Lamb of God would hand on a cross for the life of the world.

The cross comes with the next sentence. “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up again.” Again, one thing means at least two. Those who heard Jesus thought He was referring to the building. “It’s taken 46 years to build this temple,” they said, referring to Herod’s reconstruction project which he undertook to curry favor with the Jews. The scaffolding was still up all over the place. It wouldn’t come down for another 30 years or so, and when it finally did, the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. At the time Jesus spoke, the destruction of the temple was unthinkable. Though it happened once at the hands of the Babylonians, the Jews could not believe that God would let it happen again.

What Jesus says sounds like utter nonsense. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it? How on earth is He going to do that? Of course “temple” here doesn’t mean the building but Jesus’ body. And this is why John wants this episode early in his Gospel. The temple Jesus was speaking of was His body. The temple was the dwelling place of God on earth, the sacramental presence of God among His people, the place where He caused His Name to dwell. Jesus was shifting attention away from the building to His own body. He is the Word incarnate, the Word made Flesh, God dwelling among His own. His body is the temple par excellence, the place where heaven and earth meet, where divinity and humanity are united, where God and Man are reconciled and made one.

The lesser temple gives way to the greater temple. The prototype to the antitype. Most religions have temples, buildings by which men try to reach God. But only this one has a temple that’s a human body, God reaching down to us. Only Christianity claims a temple not made with hands but a Man who is the Son of God, who took on our humanity, who became bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh that He might die in our place, rise from the dead, and give us eternal life in His Name. All other temples in the world reach up to try and touch God; only Christianity has a temple that God HImself builds, build out of our human flesh and bone and blood, a temple where the Son of God reaches down from heaven to touch our humanity and forgive our Sin.

So where do you go with your sins? And you have them. You heard the litany of the ten commandments this morning. How is it going with your idolatries, with your use, misuse and non-use of God’s Name, with His Word and worship? How is it going with your repect and honor for authority, with your care and concern for the welfare of your neighbor, with your sexual purity? How is it going with thefts both grand and petty, your care and concern for your neighbors reputation, the contentment of your heart? The commandment reveals our Sin and our need for a temple. You can’t get away from that part. Sins demand sacrifice, sacrifice demands a temple. So where do you go?

You go where Christ is, where His Word is, where the Supper of His Body and Blood is. You go the body of Christ, His Church. That is His temple. Not a building, but a gathering. Not a building, but a living, breathing body, a spiritual temple fashioned out of reborn living stone knit together by the Spirit in Holy Baptism. Not a temple that is present wherever men build it, but a temple that is present wherever and whenever two or three are gathered in the Name of Jesus around the Word and the Supper. There is the new temple of the new Israel of the end times. There is the once for all time, once for all people sacrifice, the Lamb that takes away the Sin of the world.

In the first century, if you were to go to Ephesus or Antioch or Corinth and ask where the church was, people would not point you to a building. There was no dedicated building with a sign out front. Instead, they would tell you a meeting place and a meeting time. Go to this street, to this house, at sunrise or at midnight, or whenever it was that the church is gathered. There you will find the church, the body of Christ, the temple of the living God.

We may think of this building in terms of “temple,” as we do the great cathedrals of Europe, but in reality they are not temples. They house the temple but they themselves are not the temple. The true temple of God is the body of Christ, which, like everything in John means two things at the same time. It is the body born of Mary, the body that walked in our soil for some thirty three years, the body nailed to the cross and raised from the tomb. And it is the body of Christ the church. It is a temple where Jesus Himself is both High Priest and Lamb, the offerer and the offering. And it is a temple where you and I serve as priests in His priesthood, offering our bodies as living sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise in service of Him who served us.

Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand this until after Jesus had risen from the dead, after the temple of His body had been destroyed and in three days He raised it up again. Your body too is a temple, a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It too will be destroyed in death. And like the body of Jesus, He will raise you too, as He Himself rose. The Sin and Death destroy this body of yours, nevertheless Jesus will raise it up again. Not in three days, but on the Day of His appearing.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Jesus and His band of disciples enter the region of Caesaria Philippi, a Roman city sitting on the southwestern base if Mt. Hermon on what today is known as the Golan Heights. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. The region was known to the Greeks as “Panion,” named after the Greek god Pan. The city was dedicated to Caesar Augustus and had a large temple dedicated to him where Caesar was acclaimed “Kaiser Kyrios” – Lord Caesar.

And so it’s fitting that Jesus should spring two big questions on His disciples. The first question is the question of popular opinion – Who do men say that I am? What’s the buzz on the street? What are people saying about me? Jesus asks them this not because He wants to know, but because He wants them to see and say the difference between the world’s perspective on Jesus and the disciples’ perspective. It’s the difference between faith and unbelief, between confessing Jesus and denying Him. It is ultimately the difference between life and death.

Who do men say that I am? They answer Him, “Some say you are John the Baptizer come back to life again. The people loved John and respected him. Some thought he was the messiah and were ready to follow him. But he wound up in Herod’s prison and had his head cut off for the crime of criticizing King Herod’s shack-up arrangement with his sister-in-law. Others said that Jesus was Elijah come back again. The prophet Malachi said that Elijah would come before the great and terrible day of the Lord, and so many people figured that’s who Jesus was. Elijah come to signal the end. Still others thought that Jesus was a prophet in line with the great prophets of old.

What does the world say of Jesus today? Who do people say that He is? Opinions vary. Some say that Jesus was a great teacher, a great philosopher, an example of true godliness and humility. Even Islam calls Jesus a great prophet, second only to Mohammed. Some Jews even say that Jesus was a true, obedient Jew who did the works of God. Others today think that Jesus is more or less a figment of our religious imagination, that perhaps there was a “Jesus of history” who walked around two thousand years ago but the “Christ of faith” that is promoted in the Gospels and the church bears little resemblance to that Jesus of history. There are some who consider Jesus to be nothing more than a myth or legend, a kind of pious religious fairy tale figure.

You can understand that. Jesus does stand out as a unique figure in human history. No one else quite like Him. Born of a virgin. Power to cast out demons, heal diseases, multiply bread and fish, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, calm storms. He teaches like no other rabbi ever taught. He shines on the mountain as nothing else in this world shines with blinding glory. Can you blame people if they are a bit skeptical about all this? If they have a hard time believing it? If they think what we are reading in Mark’s gospel is something made up?

No matter what men say about Jesus, it always falls short. He may be a great teacher, philosopher, moral example, religious leader, prophet, and whatever other title you try, but until you get to Savior and Redeemer and Lord, you really haven’t scratched the surface of Jesus’ question. And no matter what nice things people try to say about Jesus, it all falls flat as an overcooked soufflé if you don’t acknowledge His death and resurrection from the dead. It’s Jesus’ death and resurrection that stand out most of all, and if that didn’t happen, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then He is either a world-class liar or a stark raving lunatic.

Then comes the second question to the disciples from Jesus: Who do you say that I am? And Peter delivers the answer: You are the Christ. As usual, Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone, lest everyone get the wrong idea, because when you said “Christ” it meant revolutionary, and the last thing Jesus needed was a bunch of armed jihadists looking for a revolution.

Jesus’ holy war was a different sort of holy war. He began to teach them something that previously He had only hinted at – that He must suffer many things, that He must be rejected by the religious authorities, that He would be killed and after three days rise again. Remember now, that if Jesus is a great prophet and teacher and these things didn’t happen, then He is anything but a great prophet and teacher.

Now this doesn’t fit Peter’s profile of what the Christ should be. I suspect that Peter, like so many of his day, is operating with that revolutionary model, and so this talk of dying and rising doesn’t fit the mold. Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke Him. “Are you kidding? What are you saying here? We didn’t leave the fishing business to watch you die! This is not what we signed up for, Jesus. That’s the last thing that should happen to die. May it never be! Why, we’ll draw swords to defend you, and whack the ears off of anyone who so much as tries to lay a hand on you. Don’ you worry, Jesus. We’ve got you covered!

Jesus sees His disciples out of the corner of His eye. And He knows they’re thinking the very same thing. And He rebukes Peter, the same Peter who had made that glorious confession moments before. “Get behind me, Satan!” Satan? That’s right. Satan. Peter the great confessor had in short order and a moment of unbelief become the spokesman for Satan. See how easy it is! And don’t think for a moment that you aren’t prone to the very same thing. As the apostle Paul said in Romans, “When I do good, evil lies close at hand.” Peter the confessor and Peter the denier go hand in hand, just as we are both sinner and saint in one and the same person. Peter can make the great confession in one breath and the great denial in the next. And isn’t that how it goes with you, with all of us? We are capable of great faith and great unbelief, of great confession and of great denial, of speaking on the side of God and then speaking against God, sometimes even in the same sentence.

Jesus calls the crowds to draw in closer. What He has to say is not only to His inner group of disciples but to all. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” This is much more than a little Lenten denial of a small guilty pleasure like chocolate or a glass of wine. This is denial of self, denial of everything that we are and have, denial of our whole life as we hold it. If you try to save your life and hang on to it, you will lose it. And if you lose your life for Jesus’ sake and for the Gospel’s sake, you will save it.

This doesn’t necessarily mean martyrdom, but it might. Don’t kid yourself. The winds of persecution are variable and unpredictable. Don’t think they can’t blow across this country. But more than that what this means is that the only way to live is to die in Jesus. The only way to live is to take up your cross, that is, your death, and follow Jesus to His cross and His death. Your cross won’t save you; His cross will. Your death won’t save you; His death will.

What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can man give in return for his life? We struggle, we strain, we toil to make a profit, to acquire wealth, to gain whatever it is we seek to gain. We look to leave a legacy, make a mark, leave a significant footprint somewhere. But what is it all worth if your lose the one thing that makes it all possible – your life? And Jesus isn’t talking here about dying. Dying is a given. Dying is inevitable. He’s doing to His death too. He’s going to lay down His life to literally gain the whole world. He’s going to give His life in return for your life.

Jesus is talking about eternal life, our connection with God. He’s talking about our eternal destiny, to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And so think in terms of “temporal” and “eternal.” Nothing in this temporal life lasts forever. It either corrodes, decays, dies. But life with God and life from God is eternal, it never ends, it never dies. You go on, and what use is there for all the gain in this temporal life if in the process you forfeit eternal life?

Jesus speaks of being ashamed of Him. “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” Jesus wasn’t simply speaking of His own generation when He called it “adulterous” and “sinful.” Ours is no better and probably worse. I’m not going to use the usual preacher’s device to list all the adulteries and sins of our generation. You know them well enough, and we all participate in them more than enough.

But the sadness and grief is that we’re not ashamed. Our generation least of all, has a sense of shame. What once shamed us to the point where we didn’t talk about it and hid it and blushed when it was mentioned, now we brag and boast and justify ourselves. And what are we ashamed of? What do we keep hidden and personal? Not our sins but our Savior. Not our sins but the cross of Jesus. Not our sins but the One who takes away our sins, who justifies us, who washes our Sin away with His blood.

You can see why Jesus said this. He was going the way to His death. Peter wanted nothing to do with it. Peter, who made the bold confession to Jesus’ face would deny even knowing Jesus to a humble servant girl. He was ashamed of Jesus. Embarrassed for being seen in His company. Ashamed of the One who lost His life to save the world, who endured the cross, scorning its shame, all for the joy of saving you.

I remember a hymn from my childhood. It always made me stop and think. You’ll find it in the old hymnal; it’s not in Lutheran Service Book. I hope we weren’t ashamed of it. It’s called Jesus! And Shall It Ever Be by Joseph Grigg. Many churches use it.

Jesus! and shall it ever be,
A mortal man ashamed of Thee?
Ashamed of Thee, whom angels praise,
Whose glories shine through endless days?

Ashamed of Jesus? Sooner far
Let evening blush to own a star.
He sheds the beams of light divine
O’er this benighted soul of mind.

Ashamed of Jesus? Just as soon
Let midnight be ashamed of noon.
‘Tis midnight with my soul till He,
Bright Morning Star, bids darkness flee.

Ashamed of Jesus, that dear Friend
On whom my hopes of heav’n depend?
No; when I blush, be this my shame,
That I no more revere His name.

Ashamed of Jesus? Yes, I may
When I’ve no guilt to wash away,
No tear to wipe, no good to crave,
No fear to quell, no soul to save.

Till then – nor is my boasting vain –
Till then I boast a Savior slain;
And oh, may this my glory be,
That Christ is not ashamed of me!

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

One can only imagine what was going through Father Abraham’s mind and heart that day he trudged up the mountain with a knife, wood, a fire, and his son Isaac, the son of the promise. One can only imagine the heartache, the grief, the anguish when he heard his son Isaac ask his father innocently, “Where is the lamb? Here is fire and wood but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham knew what God had said, he knew what he was prepared to do. And yet Abraham is faithful, full of faith, and says, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for burnt offering my son.” One can only imagine how those words must have rung in his ears with each step up the mountain. “God will provide. God will provide. God will provide.”

Abraham’s faith was being tested. Isaac, his son, was the son of the promise, conceived and born when Abraham and his wife Sarah were well beyond child-bearing years. A miracle baby, and you know how it is with miracle babies. They are uniquely precious to their mothers and fathers. What did Abraham tell Sarah, if anything? Did he lie to her and tell her that they were just going out for a little father-son outing, a hike in the mountains? This was the son that God had promised on oath. This was the son that served as tangible, living proof that God was true to His word. And now God was acting like Molech, the god of the pagans, to whom the Canaanites sacrificed their children. What on earth was God doing? What was He thinking? What could possibly be gained by this?

If I’m walking in Abraham’s sandals, I’m thinking that I must have had the wrong divine number, that this wasn’t God talking to me but the devil himself. And yet somehow Abraham knew that this was the same God who had promised a son in the first place, the same God who had given him the name “Father of nations,” the same God who had said that through Abraham’s seed, all nations of the earth would be blessed. Abraham believed God, he was faithful, full of faith in the promise of that singular Seed that would bless all nations, of whom Isaac was the tangible evidence. And it’s out of that faith that Abraham could say, “God will provide the lamb. He has to. He promised.” And so up the mountain they go, father and son. With the wood, the fire, the knife and nothing more but faith. God will provide.

In the Gospel according to St. Mark, everything is rather abbreviated and happens “immediately,” so much so that you are liable to miss the details. Jesus is baptized by John. The heavens are torn open violently, the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove, and the voice of the Father bears witness, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

And what happens next, “immediately,” upon Jesus’ baptism, what does the Spirit that descended upon Jesus in the water do immediately thereafter? He drives Jesus into the wilderness. Drives him. Literally forces Him violently to go into the wilderness for forty days. Forty days of fasting, no food and drink. Forty days with no visible means of support, where all there are are the wild things, the scorpions, snakes, coyotes, jackals. Forty days of temptation by Satan, the accuser, the liar, the enemy. That’s where Jesus’ baptism takes Him, to direct confrontation with the devil on his own turf, in the wilderness, with no visible means of support, where even the Father and the Spirit appear to be absent, where Jesus has nothing but the Word with which to defend Himself.

Why do we expect the life of faith to be easy? Why do we expect the life of the baptized to be privileged, as kind of soft and easy romp through spiritual suburbia? Why are we surprised when even the slightest interest in God stirs up trouble? I’ve come to warn people to expect trouble when Jesus is involved. I’ve told adults who come to Baptism to watch out for the trouble that will soon follow and not be surprised by it. In fact, you should welcome it with open arms as proof that God is indeed at work in Baptism and that the devil, the world, and your own sinful self utterly hate this whole business. Even if you attempt some sort of renewal and revival of your faith, you can expect trouble. Your spouse, if he or she is unbelieving, will get suspicious of this renewed interest in “religion.” Your children may start to act up. Your friends will give you that squirrel eye look. Oh, yes, you know what I’m talking about . You’ve seen it.

Start praying more, reading your Scriptures more, going to church more regularly and faithfully, putting into practice what you confess and believe, and there will be trouble. I know this isn’t a good way to advertise the faith, but I’m not going to stand up here and lie to you like the TV preachers who promise a life of favors. Tell that to Abraham walking up the mountain fully prepared to put the knife to the throat of his son. Tell that to Jesus, still dripping wet from His baptism left to wander the wilderness and endure the full blast temptation of the Evil One without so much as a divine finger of support.

Why do we even think for a moment that the life of faith in Christ is an easy life? There is a man named Yousef Nadarkhani, a young Christian pastor with a wife and 2 sons who stands convicted of apostasy and is sentenced to die in Iran for the crime of being a convert to Christianity. He was arrested in October 2009 for refusing to put his children into an Islamic school as ordered by the government. His wife was also arrested and tried without an attorney and sentenced to life imprisonment, but she was later released on appeal. They threatened to take his two sons aways from him. They have forcibly tried to get him to convert to Islam to save himself and his family. And yes, I know the Iranians are big on show and want to make a political statement, but the fact is that this man’s death sentence is real and he can be executed at any moment. Tell this man that the life of the baptized is an easy one, that the road of faith is a smooth and easy path paved with the promise of one divine favor after another.

The truth is that the road of faith leads into the wilderness, the place of testing and temptation. It leads up that mountain way where everything you are and have hangs in the balance and you have no good answer to give except “God will provide.” Luther says, when these things happen to you, when you find yourself in the wilderness being tempted by the devil and tested by God, rejoice. God is exercising your faith. God is at work here.

The apostle Paul, no stranger to suffering and hardship, said the same thing in Romans. “We rejoice in our sufferings because suffering produces patient endurance and character and hope that does not fade away.” The wilderness is a place of formation, a place where patient endurance is honed, where character is formed, where hope is annealed in the fire of testing. Christianity is no armchair religion, no idle philosophy, no contemplative escape from the realities of life.

Martin Luther said that when we are attacked by the devil, when we undergo times of trials and temptations and testing, we should rejoice and be glad because God is at work to strengthen our faith. That’s what the wilderness is all about. God led Israel through the baptism of the Red Sea into the wilderness. It turned out to be forty years, an entire generation, in the wilderness. That wasn’t plan A but that’s how it worked out. In the wilderness, God formed His people as a nation and brought them to full maturity so that they were prepared to take possession of the land. The prophet Elijah went through the wilderness back to Mt Horeb in a journey that lasted 40 days and nights where he was sustained completely by heavenly bread and water. And today we hear about Jesus, doing the “Israel thing,” going from baptism in the Jordan to the wilderness for forty days, being driven there by the Spirit, to undergo the same time of testing and temptation.

Mark doesn’t go into the details of Jesus’ temptation, but Matthew and Luke fill it out for us. Jesus was tempted to use His divine power to serve Himself a helping of bread, to turn stones into bread, to do precisely what the Son of God does not do, namely destroy something to make something else and to serve Himself. Jesus was tempted to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple and put to test the Scriptures that said the angels would break His fall. Jesus was tempted by all the temporal power and glory of this world, to make His kingdom the kingdoms of this age, all in exchange for a bended knee before the devil. He was tempted as we are tempted, and yet He didn’t sin, even in thought much less word and deed. Three times Jesus was tempted with a full blast assault of the devil, and three times He responded with the Word that put the devil in his place. “One little word can fell him.”

You will be tempted too. Tempted to forsake Christ for something else. Tempted to satisfy your own hunger and appetites. Tempted to test the Word of God. Remember how Eve was tempted. First there was doubt. “Did God really say?” Then she was tempted by her appetites. She saw that the forbidden food was beautiful and delicious and oh so satisfying. Then she was tempted by her reason. It could make you wise, and who wouldn’t want that. And then she bit into the notion of good and evil and being like God sounded like a good thing to her and to Adam and to us.

Alone we would be doomed in our wilderness. We’re no match of the devil. In fact, our old adam, our natural inclination, is to be on the devil’s side. That’s why God must “make enmity,” God must act, God must intervene. That’s why the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness after His Baptism. Not for Jesus’ faith but for ours. Not for Jesus’ sake but for ours. This was the prelude to the cross where the battle was waged in earnest. This was the opening round of a war that would end in Jesus’ hunger and thirst on the cross in the wilderness of Sin and Death where with one last word “it is finished,” He put an end once and for all to the works of the devil.

You too must walk the wilderness way, the way of testing and trial, the way when the devil seems so real and God seems so hidden you would think He was absent. You and I must walk this way to the promised land of eternal life. It’s called the way of faith. And you do not walk it alone. Your Savior, our Lord Jesus, has gone the way ahead of us and will lead us through it. The snakes and scorpions and wolves and jackals pose no threat.

“Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

And Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God having come with power.” (Mark 9:1)

The some “some standing here” were Peter and James and John. Sorry, no Andrew. He got left out. Three is more symbolic than four, so three disciples it is. Not four and certainly not six. Seven would be the next acceptable number. Or all twelve, but one of them was rotten. Andrew and the others would see the kingdom of God having come with power in Jesus’ death and resurrection. But for now, here in what is almost the exact middle of Mark’s Gospel, it is given only to Peter and James and John to see this “sneak peek” of Jesus’ glory as the Son of God.

Jesus led them up a high mountain. No need for an LA Fitness membership for these disciples, what with all that walking and now hiking up a high mountain. High mountain recalls images of Sinai, Moses’ mountain and his face to face encounters with the Lord as the people of Israel encamped at the base and Moses coming down from the mountain with face glowing like a glow in the dark watch that has been left out in the sunlight.

The Lord is on His mountain, a high one, and you know something big is going to happen. Adn ti does. “He was transfigured before them.” Changed in appearance. His clothing became whiter than white, as they used to say in the laundry soap commercial, whiter than anyone on earth could bleach them, as Mark puts it. Matthew and Luke add that Jesus’ face also shone like the sun. Not the sort of Jesus Peter and James and John were accustomed to see. But then, there was always more to Jesus than met the eye.

We’ve had plenty of hints. He casts out demons like He’s chasing the neighbor’s dog off the front lawn. He heals sickness with a word or a touch. He cleanses the leper by touching him. He does it all – everything that God does and only the way God can do it, because, after all, He is God in the flesh, and the miracles testify to that. But now, here, on this mountain, in view of Peter and James and John, Jesus is momentarily transfigured. His divinity literally shines through His humanity with a heavenly brightness. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, God and Man joined inseparably together as one Person. And we learn something: Jesus’ divinity always works, always shines, always acts through His humanity. Being human doesn’t limit Him; it enables Him to touch us at the level of our humanity. And even though the disciples go up to a high mountain, He nevertheless comes down from the heights of heaven to dwell with us. His divine glory shines through His humanity just as the power of God’s Word to forgive and heal is spoken through His mouth and applied with His touch.

He’s not alone. Moses and Elijah are with Him. Moses through whom came the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Mr. Torah himself who died in the wilderness and was buried by God on an unknown mountain outside the promised land. And Elijah, Mr. Prophesy, the lead prophet of Israel who was whisked from this earth with the fiery horses and chariots of Israel. And here they are, quite alive and well, talking with Jesus. Luke tells us they were talking about Jesus’ “exodus” that He was about to do in going to Jerusalem to die. Moses and Elijah, who with their lives and their words pointed in type to Jesus in His coming, now stand on either side of Jesus to bask in His glory and to bear witness once again that this is the One they were pointing to.

It’s all too much for Peter and James and John to take in. Shining Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Peter blurts out that he wants to build three booths – one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. Why? Who knows. Maybe he wanted to preserve the event. Maybe the weather was changing and he wanted to make sure that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah had a roof over their heads. Maybe it just doesn’t make any sense at all because they were terrified at the sight of all this, and would you be as well?

We think we want to see the “beatific vision.” We sing “Shine, Jesus Shine” and have no idea what we are asking for. We think, “Wouldn’t it be great to see the glory, to be up on that high mountain and to get this glimpse of heaven?” And the reality is no, it wouldn’t be great. It would be terrifying. And we’d be blurting out silly things too. We can’t take this vision. Not as sinners. We can’t look on God and live. Not as children of Adam. The sight is too great; the light is too brilliant. It’s like looking directly at the sun; the sight of it would blind us.

That’s why Jesus must come to us hiddenly, humbly, “in, with, and under”-ly. Words, water, bread, wine. The voice of a fellow sinner. That’s how we must be dealt with. Forget the mountain top. We’re not ready for that yet. Forget the shining Jesus. We can’t handle it. We need an ordinary, humble, lowly Jesus whose divinity, though there, is buried. The baby in the manger. The man on the cross. That kind of Jesus. The Jesus that comes to us in Baptism and Supper and sermon. He’s the One we need.

A cloud descended. On Sinai, the cloud signaled God’s presence. The glory is hidden. A voice is heard. “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him.” It’s a familiar voice. The voice of the Father. We heard it at the beginning of this Epiphany season at Jesus’ baptism. “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” Now we hear it again on the mountain. Baptism, mountain, cross. They all go together, one leading to the next. From His Baptism to His mountain of glory to His glory on the cross.

They saw no one but Jesus only. No more Moses and Elijah. They were the warm-up acts; Jesus is the main event. No one but Jesus will do. He alone has the words of eternal life that will save them. He alone has the blood that will cleanse them. He alone brings together divinity and humanity and reconciles us to God.

No one but Jesus only. Moses with his commandments can’t save you. His glory fades like that glow in the dark watch after a few hours. Elijah can’t save you in spite of his own spectacular departure from this world. There is salvation and life in only One: this Jesus, whether shining like the sun or handing dead in the darkness, it’s the same Jesus. Listen to Him. Hear Him. His words are spirit and life and bring you eternal life.

It was a great vision but they couldn’t stay up on that mountain. They had to come down again. You know that great stretch of beach that you fantasize about when you want to get away? That endless stretch of sand and surf with no one as far as the eye can see? It sounds great, doesn’t it? And for a week or two vacation, it is great. But if you are stuck on that beach with no way to get off, it isn’t so great anymore, because you’re not made for that. People spend big money to go to Hawaii for vacation. There are people who live in Hawaii who want to get off the island.

We’re not made for the mountain and the glory. Not yet. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom, nor can it bear the glory. For Peter and James and John, and for us, this is a little sneak peek, a glimpse of the glory, but not a permanent place. It’s not a place to pitch your tent. They came down from the mountain and on the way down, Jesus charged them: Tell no one until He rose from the dead.

And they wondered what it mean, His “rising from the dead”? What on earth was He talking about? Rising from the dead? That’s the greater glory. Not shining Jesus but dead and risen Jesus. Not Jesus on the mountain flanked by Moses and Elijah, but Jesus on a cross flanked by two common criminals. That’s His glory. That’s His power. That’s when He is most Savior and Redeemer and Lord for you.

The glory is not in the shining but in the darkness and the dying. That’s the backside of God’s glory, the hidden strength cloaked under weakness, the power of God to save sinners from Sin and Death. And so it’s not “Shine, Jesus Shine” but “Die, Jesus Die” and “Rise, Jesus Rise” and “Reign, Jesus Reign” and “Come to us, Lord, in the mysterious hiddenness of water and words and bread and wine where you and we can meet and not be terrified, where we poor sinners can find refreshment. He meets us not on the high mountain top but on the level plain of our day to day existence.

And one more little thought. That vision given to Peter and James and John who did not taste of death until they saw the kingdom come with power, was also a sneak preview of the glory that is ours in Jesus. We too, the apostle Paul says, are being transfigured “from glory to glory.” Even now, in Christ, you are seated in glory at the right hand of God. Even now, in the spiritual realm, you are with Moses and Elijah, the angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. And on the coming glorious Day, you too will see the glory.

But for here and now, just listen to Jesus. He is the beloved Son and in Him you are beloved. Listen to Him and look to nothing and no one but Jesus only.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Leprosy was a dreaded disease. Don’t think necessarily of the specific disease we call “Hanson’s Disease” but it could be any of a family of skin diseases. Leprosy isolated people. It forced them to live in isolated colonies. It rendered them “unclean” and cut them off from access to the temple and their families and communities. The leper was forced to warn others who approached by shouting “Unclean, unclean” lest anyone come into contact. To touch a leper was to incur the same uncleanness. You would never think of touching a leper, which makes Jesus’ actions all the more remarkable.

Jesus has demonstrated the absolute power of His Word over the demonic realm and over sickness. He cast out a demon from a man in the synagogue with a word, He healed Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever with a touch, He healed all sorts of diseases and ailments. As Jesus’ fame spread, He was forced to retreat to the wilderness, away from the crowds clamoring for more. At one point, Jesus says clearly to His disciples that He didn’t come to do miracles but to preach the Word, that same Word that cast out demons and healed the sick.

Along comes a leper. He foregoes the usual protocols and doesn’t keep his distance shouting “unclean! unclean!” No, instead He comes right up to Jesus, kneeling before Him and pleading, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” He believes at least this much: Jesus is able to cleanse him of the uncleanness of his leprosy. Jesus is able to do what the priests cannot do. Jesus is able to restore him to congregation and community, to rid him of the label of being “unclean.” Jesus is able to cleanse him. That’s what he believes and what drives him to his knees and take the risk. He believes that Jesus can help him, if He wills.

But does He? Does Jesus will to heal him. Of that he can’t be sure until he hears a word from Jesus directly. And so he knees before him, pleading, waiting, wondering. Mark doesn’t tell us how long he waiting, how long the silence was, though it seems as though there was a long pause, a long moment of silence. And in that long silence, Jesus is moved to compassion. He has compassion on this man. While the rest of the world covered its mouth and ran from this man the way we tend to run from diseases we are afraid of catching, like AIDS, Jesus looks on this man with compassion.

He could have refused. Jesus was clear. He had come to preach. The miracles were incidental. Jesus did not wish to be known as a wonder worker or healer. He seemed to shun the publicity. He didn’t want to be followed by hordes of people demanding favors and miracles. He silenced any attempts to broadcast who He was or why He came or what power His words had. But this poor man’s humble and desperate plea moves Jesus to compassion.

And out of that compassion Jesus does something that would have made the disciples and onlookers gasp with horror. He did the unthinkable thing. He reaches out and touches the man! In the OT, to touch something unclean was to become unclean. To touch a leper was to put yourself in the same category of unclean. But with Jesus, the very opposite thing happens. The unclean becomes clean! With simply a word, “Be cleansed” the man’s leprosy disappears, evaporates.

Again, as always, Jesus sternly charges the man to tell no one. He does not want to be known as a healer. He wants to be known as the Redeemer and Savior. Not a quick cure for every ailment, but the Source of eternal healing, redemption from Sin, deliverance from Death. He sends the man to the priest who served as the public health inspector and commands him to offer the sacrifice of cleansing that Moses mandated as a proof of his cleansing. And, as usual, the man disobeys, and tells everyone he meets what happened, creating such a ruckus that Jesus has to withdraw again into the wilderness. And even there, people came out to Him from every quarter.

Paired with this Gospel reading, our OT reading tells of Naaman the Syrian commander who also had leprosy, whose leprosy was cleansed in a most remarkable way: by washing seven times in the Jordan River. Washed by water and the Word. Does it make you think of anything? I hope so! Though it’s not technically a “baptism,” it is a picture of Baptism, in which by water and the Word we are cleansed from a disease far worse than the disease of leprosy – the disease of Sin.

Leprosy forms a good picture of Sin as a condition. It is systemic. It isn’t a bunch of little local symptoms but a systemic disease that affects the whole body. Sin is not simply a bunch of little sins – here a sin, there a sin – that we can somehow touch up with a few little lifestyle changes aided by a couple of good books. Sin is a systemic disease of our humanity, a deep corruption that goes to the core. Like leprosy, it renders us unclean before God. The ripple of Sin reaches far and wide and deep. The sins of the fathers reach down to the children for three and four generations. Sin divides us from each other. It sets us against each other. It infects everything that we do, so that even our best works are unclean and unpresentable before God.

Here’s the good news: Jesus reaches out to touch the sinner. You. He brings a watery Word like the Jordan for Naaman, a cleansing water that washing away Sin, the cleanses us from the leprosy, that restores us to community and congregation, that births us into the family of God so that you stand before God sinless and holy and righteous, not on your own, but covered with the sinlessness and holiness and righteousness of Jesus.

We in our sin are very much like Naaman, enemies of God by nature, set a war with God and His kingdom. Leprous and without hope or resources. And none of our wealth, our power, our influence can cleanse us. Only the Word can do that. That humble, simple, hidden, powerful Word of God that comes to us through means. You notice how offended Naaman was at the humility of God’s Word. He doesn’t even speak directly to the prophet Elisha but only to his servant. And then he’s sent to dip himself in the Jordan seven times, which is a complete insult to someone from upstream Syria because surely the rivers there run cleaner than that old, muddy Jordan which couldn’t clean a load of laundry much less a case of leprosy. But when that water is combined with the Word of promise, watch out. Big things happen! A leper is cleansed and renewed and his skin became like that of a young boy.

That same word emanates from the mouth of the Word Incarnate, Jesus, and with His cleansing touch drives out the leprosy just as the water of Baptism and the Word of Absolution drive out the leprosy of Sin and wash it in forgiveness.

There is also sacrifice. Jesus ordered the man with leprosy to go to the priest and offer the mandated sacrifice for cleansing. The sacrifice was a reminder that there is no such thing as a free lunch, or in this case, a free cleansing. Every healing, every demon cast out, every miracle that Jesus does comes with a price. Jesus isn’t doing “magic” here. He is ordering a disordered creation. He is undoing the decay and destruction that Sin has brought to the cosmic order. He is absorbing all the evil, the decay, the degradation, the disease, everything that has gone wrong in the world, in our bodies, He takes into Himself the way a dry sponge absorbs a toxic liquid. And He takes all that to His death on the cross and buries it all in His grave.

That is your healing, your cleansing, your peace from the devil, from the demons, from your conscience that accuses you or attempts to excuse you. That man who came to Jesus with his leprosy left with much, much more than he came for. He came to be healed. He left with a Savior. He knew whom to trust the next time he got sick and when he died. He knew the power of Jesus word and touch to heal and to save. He knew the compassion of the One whose Passion brings our ultimate and final healing.

One thing is very different with us than with that man. He was told to tell no one. Jesus time had not come. People were prone to misunderstand. Jesus did not want to be known as a miracle worker or healer. But you and I are in a very different time and place. Jesus has died and risen and reigns. The kingdom has come. The news can now be told to the world. The cleansing and the healing are here for anyone and everyone who desires it. God’s will in Jesus is that all be cleansed from the leprosy of Sin. All without exception. And to that end, He has provided a water, a word, and a medicine. The water of Baptism. The word of forgiveness. The medicine of immortality, the Sacrifice that brings our life in the Body and the Blood of Jesus.

There with His Word and Body and Blood, He touches you in His compassion, His love to have fellowship with sinners, His passion to seek and to save the lost. He touches you with His Word, and you are healed. Go and tell the world.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Straight from the synagogue, Jesus returns to the house of Simon and Andrew, along with James and John. From demons to disease. And for Jesus they are the same thing. Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. She hasn’t been feeling well of late. They told Jesus about her. Would you please look in on her? She’d like a visit.

It seems almost trivial, doesn’t it? Compared with the spectacular confrontation with the demon in the synagogue, this little incident seems unimportant by comparison. A fever. Serious perhaps, but likely to pass in a few days. A 48 hour bug. Rest in bed, drink plenty of liquids, feed a cold, starve a fever, I’m sure she’ll be back on her feet in no time. But Jesus came. He went to her in that little moment of need.

Sickness can be a very spiritual moment, a time of great insight, vulnerability, dependence. We are reminded of our mortality, even with the little flus and sniffles. We are reminded that “dust we are and to the dust we will return.” Our sicknesses point to also to a greater and more glorious day of resurrection, when these broken bodies of others will rise to new life in the resurrection of Jesus and we will be changed into bodies suited for eternal life.

Sin and sickness go together. Not in the way many people think. We don’t get sick because we have sinned, at least necessarily. Yes, some sins have intrinsic health effects. Drunkenness will cause a deterioration of health. Immorality and promiscuous sex brings dire health risks. True. But God isn’t necessarily trying to tell you something when you catch a cold or the flu. Think of Job, who suffered terribly, not because he sinned but because he was righteous! So we can’t say that sin and sickness are linked in that way. Simon’s mother-in-law wasn’t necessarily sick with a fever because of any particular sin in her life. Jesus certainly doesn’t mention any.

But sin and sickness have something in common. They are alien to us. Foreign to our bodies. The result of bacteria and germs. Even our cancers are the result of our own cells turning against us and becoming a consumptive invader in our own bodies. That makes sickness and even things like demon possession pictures of Sin. Sin is a spiritual sickness, a systemic virus, something that has invaded our humanity and we can’t seem to shake it no matter how hard we try. Sin is a disorder of God’s order that has taken over resulting a destructive chaos that brings death. Sin is an inevitably fatal disease for which the only cure is to die and rise in Jesus. And so even that little case of the sniffles, even that little 24-hour fever, is a reminder that there is something wrong in our bodies, in the world, in the cosmic order of things. And that’s what Jesus came to set right.

Jesus came to her, this poor woman on her sickbed. And He comes to you in your time of weakness and sickness too. Never doubt that. He doesn’t only come to you when you are well and healthy and active and feel that joy in your heart. He comes to you when you down, weak, sick. The old Lutheran prayers for the sick used to speak of “this time of your visitation.” They viewed illness as a special time of God’s visitation to us. Jesus came to her.

He doesn’t say a word here. He simply takes her hand in His hand, and He lifts her up, and the fever melts away at His touch. There’s a little resurrection. Jesus reaches down and takes our dead hand and lifts us up, and in lifting us up we are healed, raised from the dead. He lifts us up. That’s what Jesus does. He lifts up from Sin, from Death, from the despair of shame and guilt. He lifts us up from all the things that would drag us down to our grave. You heard the prophet Isaiah this morning:

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall fain and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” When the Lord lifts you up, you don’t just get up, you rise to new life.

Being lifted up, she began to serve them. Don’t skip that little sentence. She began to serve them. She put on some tea and set out a little lunch for them. She went back to the mundane chores of her life, her own day to day grind, but it wasn’t a day to day grind because she had been lifted up by Jesus. And now she lifts up her little sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. She offers herself. She offers her lifted up self as a living sacrifice, and she serves them in her vocation.

And you too. You aren’t lifted up to lie down but to live under Christ in His kingdom and to serve Him and others in His name. At our Thursday Bible study, we had a little discussion over those words that end some liturgical services: “Go in peace, serve the Lord.” Some object to that and say, “But that’s Law and we must never end on Law!” So I generally say, “The liturgy is ended, go in peace.” Yipee, we’re done so now we can take the rest of the day off! But what’s wrong with going in peace to serve the Lord? Isn’t that what the new man in Christ wants to do? And isn’t that what the old man needs to be told to do against his will? And isn’t that what Simon’s mother-in-law did? And why are we so afraid of that? We’ve been lifted out of the condemnation of the Law so that we might serve without fear of judgment! Go in peace and serve the Lord in that peace you have received. She served them.

And Jesus served many more. That evening as the sun was going down, the whole town showed up at this woman’s front door. It’s good she was well. She probably served them as well. The day started with a slight fever, it ended with a huge crowd on the front porch. And Jesus did what He always does – He healed the sick of all sorts of diseases, cast out all sorts of demons, and He silenced them as He did in the synagogue. The demons knew who He was and why He came. They were eager to preach it and let the secret out before its time. They wanted Jesus to rise in popularity and to circumvent the thing they feared the most: His death. They knew that if He died, they were done for. They knew that He had come to destroy the works of the devil by dying. They knew that all these healing and His power of the demonic realm came from the power of His cross. And they would anything to keep Him away from that cross, even serving up the untimely truth of who He was and why He came.

All Jesus had to do was set up shop at that front porch, and He could have wiped out disease in the middle east. He could have set up a kind of healing center at Simon’s mother-in-law’s house. She wouldn’t have to work again. The pilgrims would have paid down the mortgage in no time. And in short order, every disease could have been wiped out. But Jesus didn’t do that.

Early in the morning, before the sun came up, he snuck out of town and went to a place in the wilderness by Himself to pray. The disciples went looking for Him to remind Him that He had a waiting room full of patients and it’s time to get back to the business of healing. But Jesus says something utterly remarkable to our ears. “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And that’s what He did. He left all those sick people behind at that little house in Capernaum, also those demonized and distressed people, all those nice little old ladies with their fevers and worse, He left them all behind to go on to preach. Couldn’t He have sent the disciples?

Healing disease and casting out demons and lifting little old ladies from their sick beds was not why Jesus came. He came to preach. The miracles were signs that attested to His preaching. They showed that His words had the authority of God with the power to heal and silence the demons. The miracles were not an end in themselves, but signs, pointers to the Word that He spoke, the Word of Life, the Word of forgiveness.

Simon’s mother-in-law would get sick again. Jesus granted her no special immunity from illness. One day, she would get sick and die. But she knew, she knew, whom to trust. She knew that Jesus would lift her up, even from the grave. She knew that this Word and His touch are the Word and touch of God Himself in our humanity.

Think of every healing you experience, whether it be getting over a cold or the flu, or something even greater, as more than “dodging the bullet” or getting a little favor from God. Think of it as a little resurrection. A little instance of being lifted up by the hand of God. Think of it, not as an end in itself, but a little sneak preview of a greater coming attraction, the day that Jesus comes to you and extends His hand to you and lifts you up from death to eternal life.

When I pray with the sick, I always remind them that Jesus is the ultimate Source of every healing, and that every prayer for healing finds its “yes” and “Amen” in Jesus. You will be healed. Maybe not from this particular illness, and certainly not from dying. But you will be healed, lifted up, raised from the dead. And in a most important way, He lifts you up and heals you every time you hear the words “I forgive you” and every time you take that “medicine of immortality and forgiveness,” His Body and Blood into your mouths, He lifts you up. That’s what Jesus does.
Go in peace, and serve the Lord.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers – it is to him you shall listen.” Deut. 18:15-20

Moses foretold the coming of Christ. Even before the Israelites set foot on the soil promised to Abraham, Moses spoke of a Coming One, a Prophet who would speak the Word as Moses had spoken. The people didn’t want to deal with God directly. They said, “We don’t want to hear the voice of the Lord anymore, or see this great fire. It’s killing us. You go, Moses. You talk to God and tell us what He said. We can’t take the sound of His voice anymore. It’s killing us.”

God agreed. As much as we’d like to think that we can deal directly with God and avoid the middle man, we can’t and God won’t. It’s the hubris of the old Adam who thinks we’re still on those cozy and comfortable terms when God walked with man in the cool of the garden. But those days are long gone. No one may look on God and live. No one may hear the voice of God directly. All these notions we have about seeing God in His glory and dealing with God directly and not needing an intermediary – those are nothing else than the deluded pietism of our sinful nature calling the shots, telling God how to be God for us.

Moses stood between God and the people as a mediator, a go-between. He would go up to the mountain to talk with God, and then he would return to speak what he had heard. He actually returned glowing, kind of like a glow in the dark watch that absorbs the energy of the sunlight and then glows for a while. Moses would return from the mountain with this weird, unearthly glow that had to be covered up as it faded. Deal directly with God? Who would want to?

Moses was not the only one. God had His go-betweens, His agents, His instrumentalities, the means through which He spoke – the priests and high priest of the tabernacle, the teachers of Torah, the prophets who spoke in God’s Name. The voice of God was always heard as a human voice, the voice of Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all the other prophets the Lord sent. God put His Word into their mouths, so that when the people heard them, they were hearing God Himself, as though God Himself were there speaking to them. No one may ascend to see or hear God, but He descends to us, He causes His Word to dwell among us, He puts His Word into our ears in very human terms. That’s the way God works. It’s the way He’s always worked, always through means and never directly.

But couldn’t we just go up the mountain for ourselves? Couldn’t we just have our little “shine, Jesus, shine” moment? Couldn’t we just get a peak at the glory? No. Not good for us. We’d be toast. Moses wanted a glimpse, but God hid HIm in a cave as He passed by. Isaiah saw the Lord enthroned in glory and thought he was as good as dead. St. John saw the glorified Christ in his vision on the island of Patmos and he also thought he was as good as dead. No, you want God to work through means. You want Him to speak in human terms, in a human voice. You want Him to come hiddenly and humbly and gently, in ways you can receive and hear.

The stakes are high. To speak the truth in God’s name means the hearers must listen. To speak lies in God’s name means the speaker must die.

Jesus is the Prophet of whom Moses was speaking. He arose from among God’s people. An Israelite. He spoke the words of God, what He had been given by the Father who sent Him. He is the Word of God in the flesh. The Father testified at His Baptism saying, “This is my beloved Son.” He testified again on the mountain of transfiguration when He said, “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.” Hear His words, they are the very words of God Himself.

Those words come with authority, the authority of the Father who sent the Son, the authority of the Lord Himself. When Jesus taught in the synagogue, the people were amazed at what they heard. There was something different about this Jesus. He didn’t teach the way the other rabbis taught. They always referred to Rabbi So and So who was taught by Rabbi So and So, etc. all the way back to Moses, and of course Moses was the greatest there was. Kind of an “apostolic succession” going all the way back to Moses. And somehow that credentialed their teaching and guaranteed that it was true, kind of the way a bunch of framed diplomas on the wall are supposed to mean that the person whose name is on them knows a thing or two.

Jesus didn’t teach that way. He taught “as one who had authority.” He said things like, “You’ve heard it said by the teachers of old…but I say to you.” And that perked up people’s ears because no one around at time dared to simply speak on his own authority. It’s like writing a paper with no footnotes as though all the ideas were your own.

Jesus had been wowing the teachers since he was a young boy at the age of 12 in the temple, answering the questions of the teachers with such depth and insight that they wondered out loud where He got all this wisdom. And it was the same in the synagogue at Capernaum. To hear Him speak was to hear the very Word of God, with authority, and not just a man’s interpretation or opinion.

That authority also came with power. That Sabbath day in the synagogue, a man stood up in the middle of Jesus’ sermon and yelled out in a loud voice, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God.” Now that wasn’t the man speaking, but a demon, an unclean spirit who had taken possession of the man. I suppose, in our skeptical age, we might say the man was crazy and we would have had the ushers firmly show him to the door.

Jesus just tells the demon to “shut up and come out of him.” And he does, albeit with an impressive show of convulsions and lots of screaming and yelling. Now you have to admit that this is pretty impressive, and I’m sure they were talking about it on the way home. In fact, the people were asking each other, “What is this? A new teaching with authority, such authority that He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!”

He’s the devil’s Lord too, and the demons have no choice in the matter. When Jesus says, “Shut up!” they do. He doesn’t want them preaching who He is. Even though what they say is true, it is truth in service of the Lie. Jesus is the Holy One of God, this is true. But He knows and the devil knows that this can be used in all the wrong ways by people who want to exploit Jesus for their own purposes and power. Jesus is the Holy One of God come to die. He is the Holy One of God come to do battle with Death and Sin and devil. He is the Holy One of God who not only drives the demons from people but who casts out the devil from this world.

Jesus’ death on the cross is the exorcism of the world. It has all the same marks of an exorcism. You might even picture it this way: Jesus was going around collecting all the unclean spirits, as well as all the diseases, the maladies, the death everything and drawing them all into Himself so He could take them into His death.

Which brings us to you and me. As unsophisticated as it may sound to our ears, the devil is still alive and well today, a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He’s on a leash now and restrained, but that doesn’t mean he still can’t work great mischief. And the greatest mischief he can work is unbelief, doubt, despair. He’s the one who says, “I know who you are, and you can’t possibly be a Christian. I know who the Holy One of God is and you’re definitely not holy.”

That’s the devil’s best work. He’s in the doubt business. He’ll use anything to create doubt – your reason, your conscience, sickness, adversity, evil. He’s like the kid who subversively starts fights on the playground and then runs to the principle to report all the fighting that’s going on. He loves to play games with your conscience, your inner critic, reminding you of how much of a religious failure you are. And it’s all largely true, just as it was true that Jesus is the Holy One of God. But in the devil’s mouth, even the truth becomes a lie.

You are a sinner. Yes, this is true. The Law of God tells you this clearly, and so that you don’t miss it, the Law even magnifies your sin. But that doesn’t mean you are not holy. The devil hates paradox, by the way, and loves to make you decide. Which is it? A or B? Are you a sinner or a saint? Are you a child of Adam or of God? Come on, one or the other, you can’t be both, that’s nonsense. That’s devil talk.

The good news is “one little word can fell him.” In this morning’s text, the word is “shut up.” I know you parents want your kids to be polite and not say that, but the devil doesn’t deserve politeness. Luther did lots of impolite things to the devil, including tossing inkwells at him, though far more effective was the ink Luther put to paper proclaiming Christ against the devil.

We are engaged in a war on terror, a spiritual war on the powers and principalities and forces of darkness. It’s not a battle for the world. Christ is Lord. It’s a battle for your soul, your life, your faith. Christ has claimed in Baptism and the devil hates that and will stop at nothing to drive you from Christ, keep you from His Word, get some distance between you and the Lord’s Supper, estrange you from the company of believers, isolate you in your feelings and guilt and shame. There is nothing more vulnerable to a wolf than an isolated, straying sheep.

The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. “Resist him,” Peter says. He is resistible. Resist him. How? “Standing firm in the faith.” Not resting on your believing, but standing on the faith that is built on Jesus Christ, on the solid rock of His death and resurrection, on the forgiveness of sins by His blood, on the certainty of salvation in Baptism, on the assurance of forgiveness in His Body and Blood. Resist him, for he is quite resistible. One little word can fell him, when that word is the Word of God that comes with the authority of the Father.

“As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by His authority, I forgive you all of your sins.” What does this mean? It means that when the called servants of Christ, your pastors, deal with you by Christ’s command, that is as valid and certain as if Christ Himself were speaking to you. This is God’s great “shut up” to the devil, to your trouble conscience, to the Law that condemns you rightly for your sins.

So the next time you are troubled by the devil, by the world, by your own conscience and you begin to doubt your holiness in Christ, you just tell them all to shut up in the name of Jesus and go away. Jesus Christ is Lord, the Holy One of God, and He says you are forgiven and holy and justified. That’s a Word you can count on. That’s a Word you can die with. That’s a Word with authority.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

A reluctant court prophet who gets swallowed by a very big fish. Eschatological urgency on the part of the apostle Paul. And four fishermen who are called by Jesus to become fishers of men. Today’s three readings are the homiletical equivalent of a basket of mystery ingredients on the Food Network show Chopped where contestants are given a basket of four unmatched ingredients like balsamic vinegar, limburger cheese, chocolate peanuts and cucumbers and are expected to create a palatable appetizer, main course, or dessert in 20 minutes. Hopefully, I won’t get “chopped” at the end of the hour.

Let’s start with Jonah in our OT reading. Jonah was a court prophet, with a nice cushy job advising the king. God had other plans. He wanted Jonah to go and preach to the Ninevites, the avowed enemies of Israel who were known for such cruelties as skinning their enemies alive. You can understand why Jonah decided that a little trip to Spain might be more to his liking. And then came a storm, stirred up by the hand of God, and Jonah gets pitched overboard by the sailors as a kind of sacrifice to the gods of the Deep, and the storm quiets and Jonah gets “rescued” by being swallowed whole by a very large fish who subsequently unceremoniously barfs Jonah on the beach. And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. “Nineveh is that way, Jonah. Go and preach there.”

When the Lord calls, you had better listen, and don’t plan any cruises to Spain.

So Jonah scrapes the seaweed out of his hair and heads off to those awful Ninevites and gets only about a third of the way through the city when lo and behold the whole bunch hear the Word of the Lord and repent, which really gets Jonah hopping mad because he was hoping to see a major whooping from heaven. And all he gets is repentance and God’s turning away His anger from His enemies and the perennial persecutors of His people.

Now the glorious take home lesson from all this is that sincerity really doesn’t seem to count for much when it comes to preaching the Word of God because the Word is not dependent upon the personality of the preacher much less his mood or general love for people. If that were the case, I’d be doomed. And so would you. Let’s face it, if we waited until actually loved people in a a religious way before we spoke even so much as a syllable of Gospel to them, then there wouldn’t be very much Gospel spoken, would there? And, if we waited for them to become our friends and like our religion, then what really is the point of outreach since they would have already been reached?

Or to put it in the terms of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, if you love only those who love you, how exactly is that any different from the pagans and the atheists who do exactly the same thing?

You see, it’s the devil’s big trick that he likes to play on us that we need to be “sincere” in order to be effective. And the old Adam in us goes right along with the program. “I’ll pray when I feel spiritual.” “I’ll tell someone about Jesus when they appear to be ready.” “Oh, I don’t want to tell those Ninevites the Gospel! What if they repented, believed, and starting coming to our church?” It’s like the pastor who decided to go to the local biker bars in his town to evangelize all the bikers. “Couldn’t you go where the nice people are, pastor?”

We think we need to be sincere, and that our sincerity will help God along, help His Word get through. So, if we don’t really feel like doing something, then we shouldn’t do it, right? That would be “hypocritical” and “insincere,” and we know that God’s Word can’t work unless we have our hearts completely in it, and so it would be better perhaps if we booked a ship to Tarshish rather than preach to those nasty Ninevites.

The story of Jonah reminds us that the living and active Word of God does not return empty, even when the prophet’s heart really isn’t into it. So don’t hesitate to speak the truth of Jesus even if you’re not feeling particularly “evangelical.” And don’t hesitate to pray even when you are not feeling particularly prayerful. In fact, pray especially when you aren’t feeling prayerful. Insist on it. Stop whatever you are doing and pray against your piety, which is coming from the old Adam. And when you don’t feel like going to church and feel like you’re “just going through the motions,” go anyway. Go especially then. Go ahead and go through the motions, because the motions that count are God’s motions, not yours, and the Word never returns empty.

The time is short. The urgency comes in the second reading. We think we have all the time in the world. The old adam is a great procrastinator when it comes to the things of God. I’ll pray later. I’ll worship tomorrow. “The appointed time has grown very short,” the apostle Paul wrote. The Day of the Lord is closer today than last week, and creeping ever closer. Paul says, “From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none.” And stop right there, I know what you’re thinking. He doesn’t mean go and act as though you were single, though unfortunately a lot of people, Christians included, seem to think that. He goes on to say that those who mourn should live as those who were not mourning, and those who rejoice as those who were not rejoicing, and those who trade as though they had nothing, and those who deal with this world as though they had nothing to do with this world.

And the point is this: The present form of this world is passing away. We see it. The evidence is all around us. The old is passing away. The new has already come in Jesus. That means a different set of mind. Minds set not on earthly things but heavenly things. Hearts up, as we say in the Liturgy. “Lift up your hearts.” Looking past the things temporal to the things eternal.

Again, it’s the old Adam in us who is glued to the things temporal, and so we will let nearly anything get between us and Jesus – from baseball practice to Tupperware parties to whatever else occupies our present moment. What shall we wear? What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Do I have enough shoes? Even the pagans run after these things, and your Father in heaven already knows that you need them too. But you, dear disciple, you baptized child of God, you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things, these temporal, passing away things, will be given you as well.

Think of those four young men – Peter and Andrew, James and John – two sets of brothers working for the Zebedee family fishing business. One day Jesus turns up on the beach while they are tending their nets and says, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Did they feel like it? Did they know where the words “follow me” were going to take them? And what about Father Zebedee who was left there high and dry with his servants to run the family business while his boys went chasing off after this rabbi from Nazareth with questionable credentials?

It’s odd that Jesus should choose fishermen. Why not rabbinic scholars? (Oh, that would come later with Paul.) Why not civic leaders or people with great influence and power? But fishermen. Really? What kind of apostles would they be? Patient? Well, remember James and John, the Boanerges Brothers, the “sons of thunder” who wanted Jesus to call down fire and brimstone on a town that didn’t roll out the red carpet for them? Odd. As odd as Jonah, the reluctant prophet. As odd as you and me with all our quirks and foibles, not to mention our sinfulness, called to be a disciple of Jesus. It would seem He can use most anyone. He can use anyone. He’s the Lord, and the power of salvation resides in His Word, not in these men.

We need to make an important distinction between disciple and apostle here. A disciple is a follower, an apostle is one who is sent with authority by another. Jesus says two things to the fishermen. One is an imperative: Follow me. Those are the disciple-making words. The other is directed toward their future as apostles: I will make you become fishers of men. You are now fishermen, but you will become fishers of men.

I say this because you will probably hear interpretations that lay these passages on you in the same way, as though these words applied to us in the same way as they applied to Peter and Andrew, James and John. If we took those words literally and to heart, we’d all leave our jobs and families and go wandering around like a bunch of itinerant preachers. And that would be a mistake.

We are not so much fishers of men as we are fish caught in their apostolic nets. Peter and Andrew, James and John were destined to become apostles, sent with Jesus’ authority to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Jesus was weaving His own net, the dragnet of God’s kingdom that is cast to the ends of the earth and literally hauls everything ashore to be sorted out at the Last Day. Jesus was going to die and rise, and Peter and Andrew, James and John were going to follow Him, to be eyewitnesses of what He was doing, and to be sent by Him as His authorized representatives, the Twelve, the foundational pillars of His church and His holy ministry.

What about Pa Zebedee and the servants? Are they not saved because Jesus didn’t call them? Of course not! He just needed the boys. Zebedee and the servants could take care of the fishing business and the Lord would provide. Zebedee too had to trust Jesus enough to let the boys go, even if it put the family business at risk. Discipleship is always risky business when it comes to the temporal things of this world. That’s why the apostle Paul says we are to live in this world as if we are not of this world but looking forward and ahead to the coming kingdom.

We are as fish caught in the dragnet of the kingdom of God, a net woven out of Jesus’ own death and resurrection, and net in which we die in order to live. And maybe that’s the best common theme among these three disparate texts this morning. Dying in order to live. Jonah died in the belly of the fish in order to rise and live as God’s prophet to the Ninevites of all people. Jesus Himself pointed to Jonah as the pattern for His own death and resurrection. “As Jonah spent three days in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man must spend three days in the belly of the earth.”

The apostle Paul counseled the Corinthians to live as though dead to the things of this world, because that’s what they truly were in Baptism. Dead to Sin and Self but alive to God in Christ Jesus. That means that we hold the things of this world, and yes, even our marriages, with a loose dead hand of faith Just like Father Zebedee let the boys go on their little adventure with Jesus. He held them and his fishing business with the loose dead hand of faith. What do the dead have to lose? Nothing. They are completely free. “Take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, let these all be gone. They yet have nothing won. The kingdom ours remaineth.”

Peter and Andrew, James and John, died that day to their vocation, their family ties, their comfort zone, to embark on a journey whose end they could not foresee. When Jesus’ said “Follow me,” they had no clue as to where He was going.

To be baptized to is have the call to discipleship spoken to us. “Follow me,” Jesus said to you in your Baptism. And there in the water you were caught in the net of God’s kingdom, caught by a love that will not let you go, caught in a death that means freedom and life. All fish struggle to get out of nets. And rightly so. The net means their death and doom. Our old Adam always goes with a struggle. He doesn’t want to be netted, he wants to be “free” meaning enslaved to Sin and Self. But the believer in you knows that this is a Gospel net, a good news net, that leads not only to death but also to resurrection and life. Jonah illustrated it with his life. Jesus did it with His.

The kingdom of God is at hand. The call has never been more urgent, my friends. It is more urgent than when Jesus first said it. More urgent than when the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians. More urgent than the day you first heard that kingdom call and believed. Hear it again. Take it to heart. Repent and believe the Gospel.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Today’s Gospel might very well be called “The Gospel for the Skeptic.” For that reason, it’s rather near and dear to my own heart. I tend to be a rather skeptical person. If you want to convince me of something, a logical argument with charts and graphs will go a lot further than an emotional narrative with a complicated plot line. I look at things analytically and scientifically; I appreciate hard data and sound analysis. I don’t readily attribute unexplainable events to devils, angels, or a miracle from God. I tend to think that when things go “bump” in the night, they are more likely to be the result of bad plumbing, a small earthquake, or a loose floor board than anything remotely supernatural.

I think I come by this honestly. All those years in the science classroom and lab shape how you think, and I was thinking that way long before I chose science as my major in college. I think God just wires people that way when He doles out our “reason and all our senses.” There is such a thing as healthy skepticism. It guards against superstition and generally wards off strange ideas and mistaken notions in addition to a lot of bad religious ideas. Skeptics are like the control rods in a nuclear reactor, cooling down the fevered pitch of enthusiasm with some cool, of not boring, analysis. Of one thing you can be sure: skeptics are not going to be the first to dive into the pool without testing the water.

There is something that happens, though, when Sin gets into that act. Sin turns healthy skepticism into a deeply hardened cynicism. It stunts the imagination and blinds us to the “things that are above.” Man does not live by hard evidence alone. While it’s true that our technologies rely on hard data, and our courts rely on hard evidence, and when I make a decision as to whether it is safe to cross the street or not I do not simply close my eyes and pray, nevertheless some of the most important things in life are held without hard evidence in hand. For example, when someone dear to you says, “I love you,” I sincerely hope you don’t respond, “Can you show me the evidence for that?” I can assure you that if you do that, you won’t be hearing the words “I love you” very much.

Things like beauty, justice, mercy, and love go far beyond our measurements, charts and graphs. If I try to understand why a piece of music is beautiful by analyzing the wave forms of the sounds, I will no longer have the music in all its beauty. Higher still is the transcendent and holy, what goes beyond the limits of space and time. Eternity and heaven, the angels and archangels, what the Bible can only deliver in pictures that only faintly sketch the outlines of holiness. When Isaiah saw the Lord on His throne, high and exalted, he could only describe what he saw around the Lord, the “negative space.” He could not describe the Lord in His glory, for “no one may look on God and live.”

Skepticism fueled by Sin simply becomes unbelief and atheism, a blanket denial that there a god at all or that there is anything above and beyond this natural world. We human beings who are made in the image of God are made to think above and beyond ourselves, and God Himself comes down to meet us on that humble plane of our reason and senses. The eternal Word became Flesh and dwelt among us, hung out with us, lived with us, pitched His own tent among us.

When I think of skeptic, I think of Phillip’s friend Nathanael. Phillip, by comparison, seems downright impulsive if not a bit reckless and even irresponsible. By John’s account, Jesus decides to head north to Galilee, encounters Phillip and says, “Follow me,” and without so much as a word or a question Phillip does exactly that. He follows Jesus. Andrew was pretty much the same. He heard John the Baptizer say of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and he followed John’s gaze and pointing finger and followed Jesus. He even went and found his brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” and brought Simon to Jesus.

Now at least Simon got some sort of a sign from Jesus that there was more to Him than me the eye when He seemed to know Simon’s name even before they were properly introduced. “You are Simon son of John. You shall be called Cephas, that is, Peter.”

Like Andrew, Phillip rushes off and gets his best friend Nathanael to come and meet this Jesus whom he is now following. “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Torah and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Phillip is all excited. He’s found the Messiah, the Christ, the One everyone has been waiting for. He’s the man named Jesus from Nazareth, the son of the carpenter Joseph. He precisely he knows all this, I’m not sure. Perhaps he got it from John the Baptizer. Or maybe he was with Andrew the day before and spent some time with Jesus. But regardless, Phillip is all gung ho about Jesus and can’t wait to tell his best friend.

Nathanael is a bit more skeptical than Phillip. “Nazareth, you say. Ha! Ha! Nazareth. That’s a good one! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asks his friend. Nazareth, hardly the place one would expect the messiah to come from. Nazareth was a nothing town way up in the north country, a garrison town watching over the northern highlands. Nazareth is never mentioned in Moses or the Prophets. Bethlehem is, but not Nazareth. Besides, Nazareth has a reputation, what with all those soldiers hanging around in the middle of nowhere. Honestly, can anything good come from Nazareth?

I love Phillip’s answer: Come and see. Never mind your preconceived notions, your prejudices, your skepticism. Just come and see for yourself. And I absolutely love Jesus’ initial encounter with Nathanael. Before they even shake hands and are introduced, Jesus says with tongue fully planted in cheek, “Why look. Here is a true Israelite in whom there is no guile. This one tells it exactly as it is.”

This catches Nathanael off guard. Jesus seems to know him, and yet they’ve never met. “How do you know me?” Nathanael asks. “I saw you under the fig tree before Phillip called you.” Now that doesn’t seem like much, but it sure impressed Nathanael, so we have to assume we’re missing a few details. Augustine makes a great comment about how Adam sinned under a tree and now a son of Adam finds salvation under a tree, which is pretty cool but not really to the point. Some scholars think that Nathanael may have been reading Torah under the fig tree, which people were wont to do at that time, so that he encountered Christ in the Torah. It may be as simple as there was no one around when Nathanael was having his little fig tree moment, and now Jesus claims to have seen him.

Whatever it was, those words of Jesus cut through Nathanael’s skepticism and draw his confession: Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. He saw and heard and believed, which is the pattern throughout John, culminating in the word to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” which would include the likes of you and me.

Jesus hints at much more to come. “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. That was nothing, Nathanael. You haven’t seen anything yet. You will see heaven open and the angels of god ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus identifies Himself with, of all things, the ladder in Jacob’s dream. A ladder connecting heaven with earth on which the angels ascend and descend. It’s not a ladder of our ascent to God but of God’s descent to us. “He came down from heaven” to be Immanuel, God with us, to die for us, to conquer Sin and Death for us, to rise for us, to bring us to His Father and to be the sole Mediator between God and Man. Oh, Nathanael, greater things than these you will see.

In the synoptic gospels, Nathanael is historically identified with Bartholomew, among the least known of the disciples. History and church tradition tell us the Nathanael brought the Gospel to India and to Caucasian Armenia. He is revered as the patron saint of the Armenian church to this day. There are three legends about his martyrdom. One says that he was kidnapped and drowned at sea. Another says that he was crucified upside down. A third, and the most enduring, is that he was skinned alive. One thing is certain. He now sees greater things than he ever saw that day under the fig tree.

The skeptic becomes the believer, all because he came and saw Jesus. That’s really what we call “evangelism” is all about. The invitation to “come and see.” You’ll note that Phillip didn’t even get all of his i’s dotted and t’s crossed about Jesus. But it was sufficient. A simple invitation from a good friend. “Come and see.” And what you will see and hear are greater things than can be seen and heard anywhere else. People reborn and renewed in Christ. Sins forgiven. Sinners justified. Men and women made right with God.

Skeptics still wonder today, “Can anything good come out of the church?” The church’s reputation isn’t always very good. There is word on the street of corruption, immorality, hypocrisy. There are skeptics today who wonder whether any of it is even true or is it all just a bunch of silly wishful thinking. Can anything good come out of Christianity? I can assure you of this – skeptical men like Nathanael don’t get skinned alive for silly wishful thinking.

Come and see. Come and hear. Hear what God in Christ has done and is doing. Invite your friends to do the same. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Come and hear the forgiveness of your sins. Come and receive what God in Christ has done and is doing by His Spirit. And you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the Deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said….

Baptism. Right there in the first three verses of Genesis is Baptism. Water, Word, and Spirit. That’s what makes a baptism. So you might rightly say that light and life are the the result of the whole world being baptized. And you would be correct. And you would also immediately understand what Jesus meant when He said to Nicodemus that one must be born from above by water and Spirit in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. One must be born spiritually, “from above.” One must become a new creation by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, washed with water and the Word. Where water and Word and Spirit, there order, light, life, creation.

It’s easy to overlook that critical point in the first chapter of Genesis. We’re usually busy defending “6 days” of creation and we miss the fact that everything, the heavens and the earth, were created in that instant called “The Beginning.” But light and life came through water, Word, and Spirit. The Bible begins with Baptism.

Today we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord, the day our Lord Jesus Christ stood before his cousin John in the Jordan River and submitted to John’s baptism. It’s a bit of a chronological leap. Two Sundays ago we celebrated Jesus’ birth; last Sunday His Name and circumcision. On Friday we rejoiced in the the visit of the Magi when He was just a toddler. If this were a movie, this would be the place where the writing appears at the bottom of the screen that says, “Thirty years later….” Jesus stands in the Jordan River, elbow to elbow with repentant sinners, to be baptized by John.

Initially John wanted nothing to do with it. This stood against everything that John had been preaching. John said that the Coming One was so great and mighty that he was not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals straps. He said, “I baptize you with water, but you haven’t seen anything yet. The Coming One is coming with another baptism, far greater than mine. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And then comes the Coming One, Jesus, standing before John, and bowing His sinless head like a penitent seeking to be washed in this bath of forgiveness. Jesus stands there in the water next to tax collectors, prostitutes, rejects, and all manner of “sinners” as though He is one of them.

John is outraged initially. Mark doesn’t record the outrage, but Matthew does. John says, “No, Jesus. You’ve got it backward here. I need to be baptized by you, but you’re coming to me. That’s upside down, inside out, and totally backward. That’s not how a respectable messiah is supposed to behave. So get out of this water and back on dry land before anyone notices that you’re here, because when they do, they’re going to get all the wrong ideas. This is no way to start a religious revolution, you getting baptized.”

But Jesus answered John with a very telling sentence that explains exactly what was going on in this baptism: “Let it be so now, John. Let it be. Let go of any notions you might have of who I am or how I am supposed to work. It is fitting, proper, the right thing for us to fulfill all righteousness.” This is how it goes down, John. I get baptized like a sinner. I become Sin for you, for all these people in the water with me, for the world. This is how “all righteousness” is fulfilled. And John consented.

The sinless Son of God is baptized as a sinner to fulfill all righteousness. In a world that lives in denial, among people who insist they have no sin, Jesus comes to be treated like a sinner. It’s been going that way all along – from His birth and circumcision, to His presentation in the temple when He was forty days old, to here in the water of the Jordan, Jesus is walking our walk, the way of the penitent, the way of a sinner in need of forgiveness. This is how He fulfills all righteousness. The Sinless One becomes our Sin so that in Him, baptized into His death, we might become the righteousness of God.

Before we go to our Baptism, let’s stay there in the Jordan with Jesus. There at that moment, a new creation dawns. Water, the Word Incarnate, the Spirit descending. The chaos of Sin is ordered by forgiveness. The Spirit hovers over the water, the Son who is the Word is immersed into the Deep of Death itself, the heavens are torn wide open, and the Father voices His approval. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

The “beloved Son” is the beloved Servant of Isaiah, the one who suffers for the sins of the people. “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen One, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” “Behold my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted….He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” That Servant, God’s Son who came not to be served but to serve and lay down His life “to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus’ baptism lays a cross upon Him. Jesus said, “ I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” His Baptism as a sinner among sinners takes Him to Calvary’s cross where He dies bearing the Sin of the world in His own body. For this He is anointed with the Spirit, visibly and tangibly, and approved by the Father who sent Him. This is His Father’s delight, that His Sinless Son should stand in solidarity with sinners in order to save them. When He dies, the curtain of the temple is ripped open in the same way that the heavens were at His Baptism. It is finished, accomplished, all righteousness is fulfilled.

Baptism brings the cross, and all that the cross will bring to bear upon Him. And so you, steeped in sin and condemned by God’s Law. There is no way for you to save yourself, nor is there any hope that you can improve beyond a bit of superficial rehab. Your righteousness cannot fulfill all righteousness. In order for you to enter the kingdom of heaven, your righteousness under the Law must exceed that of the scribes and the pharisees, and rest assured it does not. You must be perfect, complete and holy in every way, even as your Father in heaven in perfect. Not simply on the outside, but also on the inside. Not only in action, but also in word and thought.

You are born in Adam’s sin and held captive to it. You are born a prisoner of Death that turns your life and you in what is formless and void. Dust you are. Sin is our lord and master by birth, and no matter how “free” we may believe ourselves to be, the fact is that we are held captive to Sin and cannot free ourselves, even if we wanted to.

For this Christ came, was baptized, died and rose. He was baptized into your Sin so that you might be baptized into His righteousness. He was baptized to become the sinner in this world, so that you might be baptized a saint in His kingdom. “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death.”

By Baptism. Don’t overlook that. It’s always so easy to overlook the water. Baptism is the active agent here. Anyone who says that baptism is some symbolic religious ritual needs to run that by this verse. By Baptism we were joined to Jesus in His death. Buried with Him. Sin is drowned in forgiveness. And you through water and Word and Spirit are born anew, from above, a new creation in Christ Jesus, so that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, you too might walk in newness of life. A new life. A new creation. A new you in Christ.

Paul goes on to say that our old self, the old adam, was crucified with Christ so that the body of Sin might be brought to nothing. We have been declared legally dead to Sin. Your Baptism is the death certificate of the old Adam. As far as God is concerned, you are legally dead to Sin but alive to Him in Christ. Now mind you, this is forensic, an act of God’s Word, a judgment laid on you. Your old adam is still very much alive, but now he is to be daily drowned and die. Mortified. Drowned in forgiveness. And a new man, the new you, who you really are in Christ, is to daily rise to live before God in the righteousness that Christ has given you.

God has declared it to be so by His Word. And when God says it, it is so, just as when God says, “Let there be light,” light there is. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to Sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

That’s what it means to live baptismally, to live as one of Christ’s baptized. You must reckon yourself, think of yourself daily and constantly as dead to Sin but alive to God in Christ. Yes, you do sin. That’s true. You are still old adam in the flesh. But as St. Paul reminds us, that’s not you doing it but Sin that dwells in you. Drown that damned thing in Baptism! When your sins bother you and oppress you and cause you to doubt, say with Luther, “Dennoch! Nevertheless, I am baptized.”

The water of creation’s Deep. The water of Jesus’ baptism. The water of your Baptism. It’s so easy to overlook, to diminish, to make some less of it than it actually is. But where water and Word and Spirit get together, watch out! Great things happen. The heavens are torn open, the Father approves, the Spirit descends, light and life are spoken, a new creation has come.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold the old has gone the new has come. And how do you know you are in it? And how do you know that you are in Christ? And how do you know that you have the Spirit and the Father’s approval? How do you know that heaven is opened to you?

You are baptized into Christ.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Luke 2:21 

It’s one little verse in Luke. Easily overlooked in Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ birth and infancy. But the verse demonstrates Luke’s attention to detail. Up until this verse, he does not refer to Jesus by name. In Bethlehem’s manger he is simply a baby, a swaddled newborn with no name. When the shepherds visit, they don’t ask what most people ask when a child is born, “What’s his name?” He didn’t have a name a week ago, until today. Today He gets His name Jesus, and with His name He gets the mark of the covenant: circumcision.

It’s really an odd day. The Name and Circumcision of Our Lord. While the rest of the world is nursing it’s new year’s hangover and wishing one another “Happy New Year!” and settling in for some college bowl games and parades, the Church sets aside January 1, the eight day of Christmas, to celebrate the Name and the Circumcision of Jesus. And unless you are Jewish by background, this seems like a really weird thing to celebrate.

We’re not sure precisely when the naming custom came in, though clearly it was observed at the time of Jesus. The 8th day is prescribed in the Levitical law. There was no notion of waiting until the child was old enough to decide for himself. There was no sense of an age of accountability or any such thing. On the eighth day of every baby boy born in Israel, he received the sign of the covenant and became a son of the covenant, an Israelite. And with his identity, he now gets a name.

And so it went with Jesus, as it went with every baby boy born in Israel. He is given the name Y’shua, Jesus. Yahweh is salvation, “for He will save His people from their sins.” And how will He accomplish this? How will be save His people from their sins? By becoming obedient to the Law, by becoming a son of the covenant, by becoming an Israelite, by shedding His blood under the Law to redeem those who were under the Law, those held captive by sin and death. This is precisely why the Son of God became Flesh and was born. He was “born of a woman, born under Law, to redeem those under the Law.” And here is His first act of obedience.

The sweet little Christmas lullaby speculates, “but little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.” I doubt that was true when He laid in a manger. I doubly doubt it was true on the eighth day when He experiences in His own infant flesh what it means to be “under the Law.” Think of this as a prelude to the cross. “Neither crib nor cross refusing, all He suffers for your good. To redeem you by His blood.”
In order to understand this day and the significance of Jesus’ circumcision, you need to understand fully who Jesus is as the Incarnate Son. He is the second Adam. He’s all of humanity in one Person. He is the Stand-in for the entire human race, and He embodies all of humanity in His own body.

The apostle Paul works this out for us in his letter to the Colossians. Now this is a point that many people miss entirely, so listen closely and try to catch what he’s saying:

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 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. (Col 2:9-12)

What’s Paul saying? First, that in Jesus the fullness of divinity dwells bodily. That means that even that even as an 8 day old baby boy, Jesus if fully God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. Fully divine as well as fully human. And that union of divinity with humanity makes some things possible that otherwise would be impossible of a human being. It means that He is able to embrace others into Himself so that what happens to Him also happens to them in Him. It also means that He, though He may be a helpless Baby or a dying Man on a cross, is the Head of all rule and authority, and being the Head, He embodies the whole creation and all of humanity in Himself.

Now if you get that, then you get the next sentence. In Him, all of you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands in the circumcision of Christ. That includes the boys and the girls. And it wasn’t done on you, it was done on Jesus, and being done on Jesus you were included. In other words, you might say that when Christ was circumcised and became a son of Israel, so did you in Him. And that’s why circumcision became a free thing in the New Testament, something completely free, optional, and religiously unnecessary. It’s because when Jesus was circumcised, the whole world became a Jew.

You also see what it represented – the putting off of the body of the flesh, the mortification of the old Adam. Adam has to die. Our adamic flesh needs to be put off. Circumcision signified that. And there’s more. You were buried with Christ in Baptism. So not only did you become an Israelite in Christ, you were also joined to Him in His death and burial through Holy Baptism. And even more. You were raised with Him through faith. And if I may borrow a bit from Colossians 3, you are even exalted, seated and glorified at the right hand of God in Christ. Always in Christ. Don’t forget that. You are still in you, in this body of death, in this old Adam that needs to be threatened, punished, disciplined, and bribed to do the will and works of God. But you are you are in Christ are perfectly free, perfectly alive, justified, sanctified, and even glorified in Christ.

Today two gifts of Christ are extolled: His obedience under the Law and His Name. His obedience is precisely the undoing of Adam’s sin. As Adam brought all of humanity into Sin and Death, so Jesus takes all of humanity into justification and life. As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive. He kept the Law perfectly in your place. He filled the Law to overflowing with Himself. And that perfect obedience is yours, your clothing, your covering, your justification before God. God has done justice to your sin in the flesh of Jesus, and for His sake, and His sake alone, you stand before God as though you hadn’t sinned and Adam hadn’t sinned.

Now that doesn’t translate into your doing nothing. You do nothing for your salvation. You do nothing to earn God’s favor. You do nothing to be justified before God. But you are free to be who you really are in Christ, you are free to do the goodness and mercy of God for your neighbor, for those around you. You are free to lay down your life in service of others, not to please God nor to earn His favor and forgiveness, but because in Christ it’s already all yours and you have nothing in this world left to lose.

Oh, if we’d only believe this, it would really be a happy new year, regardless of what happens.

The second gift of this eighth day of Christmas is Jesus’ name. The name that is “above every name.” An ordinary, common human name. (There were lots of babies named Y’shua in Israel.) But joined to His divinity, that name becomes the uniquely saving name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we are saved.

With HIs Name comes the promise of His presence, that where two or three are gathered in His Name, there He is in their midst. With His Name comes the mandate to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to the ends of the earth. With His Name is the promise of prayer, that whatever you ask in His Name, HIs Father and your Father in heaven will grant it. With His Name is the promise of forgiveness, of life, of salvation, of peace.

The changing of the calendar and the start of a new year is really more of a numeric convention than anything else. We have to get used to writing 2012 instead of 2011. I still haven’t really adjusted to the “20” part. The new year reads pretty much like a blank piece of paper waiting to be filled with some event, whether good, bad, or perhaps even ugly. In the Bible, the new year was not really a major event since Israel operated on a lunar calendar, so the new year was more of a convention. The day and the week were much better defined, and, in my estimation, a much better way to live. We can wrap our minds around days and weeks. Years just seem to slip by, and we don’t really notice until we’ve come to the beginning of another one.

The Mayan calendar ran out at 2012, or so we’re being told. That’s about as significant as the fact that the dates of Easter run out at 2050 in our hymnal. It’s a presidential election year, so we can brace ourselves for another season of promises, expectations, and mud-slinging amounting to much ado about little to nothing. For our congregation, 2012 is our 50th year of gathering together around Word and sacrament, so at least we can look forward to that party.

None of us knows what the new year will bring in terms of health, wealth and love. The days and the seasons are the Lord’s, and everything we do always has “If the Lord be willing” written across it as James rightly says.

But we do know this and have it as our certainty in the midst of uncertainty: We have Jesus’ obedience under the Law, His perfect righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. And we have His Name, the Name by which we are saved, “for He will save His people from their sins.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Note:  I am indebted to a 1964 sermon by Rev.  Alton F. Wedel for many of the thoughts and words expressed in here.  This sermon is dedicated to his memory. – WMC

The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us.

This one sentence captures the heart and essence of Christmas. This is more than a miracle; this is a mystery. A profound revelation full of meaning. When you get past the angels and the shepherds and the stable and the manger, when you peel back the soft sentimentalities and the holiday expectations and the nostalgic remembrances of Christmases past, there remains this infinitely deep Mystery that goes to the very depths of our existence: The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us.

The Word who was with God. The Word who was God. The Word by whom all things were made and in whom all things have their being. The Word that is the wisdom of God, the ordering intelligence of the great Designer of the universe. The Word spoken at creation. The Word who was before the foundations of the world, the eternal Word who was, who is, who is to come. The Word who called forth light and life. That Word, in the fulness of time, was conceived in the womb of a Virgin and born to dwell among us.

When you grasp this, you have grasped the breath-taking thrill of Christmas. The eternal Word has entered time. Time and eternity embrace, God and Man are reconciled. The omnipotent Holy has deigned to dwell among us as a tiny, helpless gurgling newborn swaddled against the cold of night and nestled hungrily at His mother’s breast.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. But what does this mean? We could spend all day, even the twelve days of Christmas expanding and expounding on what this means and still not plumb the depths. The shepherds who were there could scarcely take it all in. Mary herself was left to ponder things in her heart that surely must have nearly burst. And you and I? Oh, we barely have the time to scratch the surface of this Mystery so deep.

No religion in the world ever had such a thing as this Mystery. Yes, there were myths of gods appearing as men. Yes, there is the false hope of men becoming gods. Religions have prayers, miracles, commandments, creeds, codes of conduct, worship. But only Christianity claims the God who actually becomes human. You could not make such a religion up and pass it off as true, even in the 1st century. But it happened. In the Bethlehem of Judea. At the time of Augustus and Herod and Quirinius. It happened in time and place as all events of history do. The Word became flesh.

The Word became flesh because that’s what we are. Flesh. While we try to evade and avoid our flesh and all the implications of our humanity and pretend to be “spiritual” with our false pieties, the Word took on our humanity. We strive to be more than human, “supermen and superwomen,” and God deigns to become a Baby. content to play in the lap of His mother and gaze into the eyes of wondering shepherds. We are human, sons and daughters of Adam. The Son of God became human to be what we are, and being what we are without our sin, He came to save us.

He came to be with us under the Law, the Law that condemns us, that shuts our mouths, that wells up in terror at the judgment of God against our rebel sin. He came not to judge us but to save us, not to take us captive but to set us free, not to bring more rules for us to follow but to fulfill the Law of God to overflowing with Himself. He came to save sinners, of whom each of you is chief. He came to seek and save you in your lostness, in your despair, in your sin, in your death. He came to be your Shepherd, to lay down His life for you. The Word became flesh to save you.

We beheld His glory, glory as the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. John was not at Bethlehem. He came to know and follow Jesus much later. He was eyewitness to His transfiguration where this Word in flesh was glorified with Moses and Elijah in attendance. He heard the voice declare Him to be the Son of the Father. John was there to see Him die in the darkness. And he was among the first to see the open and empty tomb. He beheld Jesus’ glory enveloped in our humanity.

In Jesus, the Word made Flesh, our humanity is glorified. The image of God, so marred and tainted by Adam’s sin, is now restored again. We are fully ourselves in Him because He is fully us without sin. This is the Lamb of God’s provision, the substitute Sacrifice baptized for us, being obedient for us, living for us, dying for us, rising for us, and all the while taking us along for the ride in His humanity all the way to His glory at the right hand of the Father. In Him you have been crucified, raised, and even glorified!

The Word became Flesh. There is no need for you to go to Bethlehem, except perhaps as a curious tourist. You will not find the flesh of Christ there. Only the remnants of that wondrous day when He was born. But do not despair! You are not sent to a manger and an infant. He is mangered for you in Word and Sacrament, swaddled in water and Word, bread and wine. There you must seek Him, and there He will find you and embrace you anew.

The Mystery of Christmas, the Mystery of the Word made Flesh comes to bear on us in the Word that rings in our ears, in the Holy Supper on our tongues, in the baptismal water. There the Word made Flesh encounters our flesh, there sins are forgiven, there we die and rise to new life in this Christ Child. The Word became flesh means that we don’t go groping about for God in heaven (as if we could even do that!) but that He comes down to us, yes, even today, to dwell with us.
The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. He dwells among us in Word and sacrament to save. He dwells among us in the least, the lonely, the unloved, the hungry, the thirsty, in the least of these He dwells among us to serve. We dare not disregard this, for as we have done it to the least, we have done it to Him. As we bend down in service to others, we serve Him who bent down as the suffering servant of all to save.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is what endures of Christmas, long after the gifts are opened, the decorations are gone and packed away, and the holiday joy gives way to the new week of work. God is with us in this Child Jesus born of Mary. He dwells among us that we too might behold His glory, now hidden, soon revealed.

Christ, by highest heaven adored
Christ, the everlasting Lord
Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see.
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as Man with men to dwell.
Jesus our Immanuel.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“For nothing will be impossible with God.” Luke 1:37

We’ve come to the 4th Sunday in Advent and our readings take a kinder and gentler turn. Gone and past are the big eschatological texts warning of the approaching last day. Gone too is John the Baptizer, that strange almost creepy, figure appearing in the wilderness, that voice calling us to repentance and to the water of Baptism. We go from the Jordan wilderness to an obscure town in northern Galilee named Nazareth. It’s a garrison town in the high country, a watchtower over Israel standing guard over the north. It was unknown in the Old Testament. There we meet a young girl somewhere between 16 to 18 years old, planning her marriage to a man named Joseph.

John challenged our religion, our repentance, our whole outlook and world view. But this sweet and humble girl seems to be so opposite to John. So non-threatening, so gentle, the opposite of everything that John has been for us the past two weeks. Yet no less challenging. Mary challenges us too. She challenges our reason and our senses. She challenges our skepticism and our need for evidence. She challenges what we know of biology, what we know of how babies are conceived. And she challenges our expectations of how God should work, at least if we called the shots and ran the show. So don’t let this humble and faithful young girl fool you. Her faith in the Word will challenge you.

It is the “sixth month,” that is, the sixth month of Elizabeth’s very unlikely and unusual pregnancy. Elizabeth and her priestly husband Zechariah are very old, decades beyond childbearing years. And yet, by the Word of God spoken through the angel Gabriel to Zechariah, this couple somehow conceives a son in what amounts to a biological impossibility. This is the sort of thing that would make the front page of the National Enquirer. Elderly couple conceives. Wife Elizabeth is in her sixth month. Mother and child are doing fine. Imagine it, if you are able. A woman who would have been a grandmother or even a great-grandmother being in her last trimester.

For nothing will be impossible with God.

The angel greets her. Angels are polite that way. “Greetings, O favored one, graced by God. The Lord is with you.” Nice! But what does it mean? What does it mean to be “graced” by God, to be favored by Him? Understandably, rightly, Mary is troubled. Wouldn’t you be? It’s not every day you see an angel. I wouldn’t expect to see one in a dozen lifetimes. I’m not that special. Nor are you. Nor really was this Nazarene girl who was busy planning her wedding.

To be graced is to be on the receiving end of undeserved kindness. That’s what grace is, undeserved kindness, without any merit or worthiness in me. There is no need to make of Mary any more than she was. No need to make her sinless or to turn her virginity into some sort of credential with God. She is “graces by God,” the recipient of a gift undeserved, an honor unmerited, that fallen daughter of Eve though she is, she is nonetheless chosen by God for this unique dignity. Mary wants to know “what does this mean?” And the angel tells her.

“You have found favor with God,” Gabriel says. She is the object of God’s favor. Undeserved, unmerited. No need to fear. God is good and gracious. And here’s the kicker: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

I’m sure that once she calmed down, Mary heard echoes of the prophet Nathan. She knew her Bible. She knew the promise to David, that a son of David would sit on his throne and establish his kingdom forever. What she just found out was that she, of all the girls in Israel, of all the daughters of Zion, had been chosen by God to be the mother of the Promised One, the Son of David, the Son of God.

Mary’s question is almost funny. She’s just heard that the child that she will conceive is going to be the Son of God, the son of David, and she wants to know, “How exactly is this going to happen since I have not as yet known a man.” You have to love a question like that! She doesn’t doubt it’s going to happen, she just wants to know the mechanics because let’s face, everyone including this young girl from Nazareth knows that virgins don’t conceive. She may not have known what we know about reproductive biology and genetics and fertility, but she knew what we all know, that virgins do not conceive, and when one does show up pregnant, we and world say “Uh huh” and go our doubtful way.

For that matter, if you turn to Matthew to get Joseph’s side of this, you’ll discover that he didn’t believe it either and set the wheels in motion to call off the wedding and free her so she could marry the rightful father of her child. Joseph also know this very basic fact of life, that virgins do not conceive.

But nothing is impossible with God.

The angel offers an explanation, which was the best given the circumstances. How exactly do you explain this? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will shadow over you.” That’s about it. Not much of an explanation, but it will have to do. This is the Spirit’s doing. He who delivers the Word to our ears, delivered the Promise to Mary, and the Word became flesh in her womb and made His dwelling among us. And there, my friends, is the mystery of Christmas.

The infinite God, the almighty Word, the Word through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together, takes up residence in the Virgin’s womb and becomes man. The Creator becomes the creature. God becomes Man. The fullness of Deity deigns to dwell in the womb of a human mother. And our humanity in its most basic and helpless form, is embraced by God.

He didn’t have to do it this way. He’s God. He can do the incarnation thing however He wishes. He could have appeared in the wilderness like his cousin John. He could have dropped down from the clouds. He could have magically appeared in the Holy of Holies in the temple. He could have done this any way he wanted. And what he wanted was to embrace our fallen humanity every single step of the way. Not simply from cradle to grave, but literally from our womb to our tomb. There is nothing of our humanity that is not touched and redeemed by Jesus. He sanctifies the womb, He sanctifies the tomb. He is God with us every step of the way. And though this cuts against every notion we have about how God should work and all that we know about how our biology does work…

Nothing is impossible with God.

It is said that Mary got pregnant through her ears. It sounds strange, I know, but it’s true. She heard the Word and conceived. And here she stands in counterpart to another woman, the first woman Eve. Eve hearkened to the Lie, and she was deceived. The one who was named “Life” brought Sin and Death and darkness by her hearing. Now Mary stands in juxtaposition to her. She hears the Word and she conceives the One who is Life and Light and forgiveness and grace and mercy.

In a way, Mary is also a picture of every baptized believer, and so also then of the Church. You too are graced by God, a recipient of His undeserved kindness. The Holy Spirit has come upon you in your Baptism, and the power of God working through the Word has shadowed over you. And while you don’t conceive Christ (that was uniquely Mary’s to do), nevertheless Christ takes up residence in and among us. He dwells with us by His Word as we dwell in Him by faith.

And we don’t need angels to bring the good news to us. God has appointed pastors to fill that task. And the sign that He gives us to ponder is not some pregnant distant relative who happens to be a senior citizen, but the humble and simple signs of water and Word and bread and wine. That water is a Baptism, a washing away of sin, that simple words spoken by one to another can convey the forgiveness of sins, that bread is the Body of Christ and wine is His Blood is as marvelous and wonderful and out of the ordinary as an old woman conceiving in her seniority or a young woman conceiving in her virginity.

And what it means for each of us is that we stand before God justified, graced by His undeserved kindness, and with Mary, we say, “Let it be to me according to your Word.” And we believe this not because we can measure it, taste it, smell it, sense it, rationalize it, or understand it. We believe this for nothing is impossible with God.

In the Name of Jesus,
Amen

Last week we heard the preaching. Today we consider the preacher. “There was a man sent from God, who name was John.” Who was he, this strange man of the wilderness, dressed like an Old Testament prophet, subsisting on wilderness food? In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John is a prophet, sent in the spirit of Elijah. In fact, he is Elijah, says Jesus, if you believe that Jesus is the Christ. He is Elijah come to prepare the way of the Lord.

But it’s different in the Gospel according to St. John. John puts the question right up front in the opening verses. Why? Many think that it’s because John was written at a time when disciples of John the Baptist were still around, even claiming that he was the messiah, or at least one of the messiahs, a prophetic one. That would kind of make sense. But John sets the record straight. The word that tags with John in the Gospel according to St. John is not prophet but witness. John was sent from God as a witness, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.

John was a witness. The Greek word is martus, from which we get the word “martyr.” A martyr bears witness with his life and death. And that’s what John did. John the evangelist is very clear about John the Baptizer. He was not the light. He had no light of his own. He came to bear witness to the light that was coming into the world. He came to point to Christ and get out of the way. He came to say, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and then recede once again into the background.

Jesus called John “the greatest ever to be born of woman.” He said that he was no less than Elijah for those who believe. But John would never claim any of that for himself. When the delegation from Jerusalem came to inquire as to who John was, he could only put it in the negative. “Who are you,” they asked. “I am not the Christ.” “What then, are you Elijah?” No. “Are you the Prophet foretold by Moses?” No. “So then who are you John? We have reports to filled out, we have people at headquarters waiting for an answer. Tell us what you have to say about yourself.” And John said only this, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.”

A voice. Nothing more. Just a voice calling out in the wilderness, whether people listened or not. A God-sent voice in the wilderness with a single, focused message “Make straight the way of the Lord.”

John was a witness. A witness, by definition, does not draw attention to himself, but to the person or event to which he is testifying. When we think of the word “witness” we usually think of the person on the witness stand in court, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And that’s really the idea behind this word. A witness is one who tells the truth about what he has seen and heard. This isn’t some “personal testimony” about what God has done for me lately and will do for you if you follow these steps or jump through these religious hoops. It’s about telling the truth.

This is a far cry from the religious celebrity and expectation that we tend to have. We tend to make things personal. We have to like a person in order to trust his word. I recall my episode of jury duty, serving as a foreman for a civil trial. We heard from a lot of witnesses, some of them paid professionals, some of them eyewitnesses. We listened to a lot of testimony and took a lot of notes, at least some of us did. What was surprising in our deliberations was how many people based their conclusion on whether they liked the person on the witness stand. You’d hear that over and over again. “I didn’t like that person, therefore I have a hard time believing him.” Some even made a big deal over how a witness was dressed or how he combed his hair or his tone of voice. It had little or nothing to do with the facts of the case. It just had to do with the person and the impression he or she made.

Imagine John in his camel’s hair and leather belt, hands sticky with wild honey, munching on a grasshopper. Unkempt, unbathed, uncouth, uncivilized. Jesus calls this wild man of the wilderness “the greatest man ever born of a woman.” He had no family, he had been raised as an orphan in a wilderness community, what little following he had were all running after his cousin Jesus. He eventually got into trouble with King Herod for criticizing Herod’s personal life and his illicit relationship with his sister-in-law. For that he lost his head. And Jesus calls this “greatness.”

“Are you the Christ,” they asked him. Many people were looking for a messiah. Their idea of a messiah was a strong man, a rebel, one who would come with power to establish Israel again and reestablish the throne of King David. Some thought John fit the bill. He could have started a movement, he could have made headlines, he could have made a name for himself.

“Are you Elijah,” they asked. The prophet Malachi had said that the prophet Elijah would reappear before the coming day of the Lord. Maybe this was Elijah in camel’s hair and leather. He kind of looked like Elijah. He even preached and baptized at the place where Elijah was taken up to heaven. Jesus even said that John was Elijah for those who believed. John could have said yes and made a profound theological point about OT typology and his role in the coming kingdom. But instead, when asked to talk about himself, he confined himself to simple sentences: I am not.

“Are you the Prophet,” they asked. Moses had prophesied that a great Prophet would one day arise from Israel, one greater even than he. People were waiting and watching for such a prophet. And surely John was a prophet, come in the spirit of Elijah and the words of Isaiah. He actually was a prophet sent by God to prepare Israel for the coming of her messiah. But John’s answer again is a simple and direct “No.”

He was nothing more than a herald voice crying out in the wilderness. All he brings is the Word of God and a baptism of repentance. Water and word. What can you accomplish with that? Water and word. Are you kidding? Is this any way to start a revolution, a religious movement? Well, when the word is the Word of God and the water is a baptism with God’s command and promise, it most certainly is.

John challenges us deeply. We want to be somebody. We want to leave a legacy behind. We want recognition, fame, celebrity, our fifteen minutes. We crave the standing ovation, the engraved plaque, the prize, our name on the marquee. We live in a culture of celebrity, where people will do outrageous things simply to be noticed. The celebrities complain about the paparazzi and the pesky crowds of fans and admirers, but when the crowds disappear, they’ll do almost anything to gain attention again.

The old Adam in us, that inner sinner of ours inherited from Father Adam, wants to be noticed, craves the spotlight. Each of us in our own way wants to be the center of our world, even in a small way. And here comes John, the greatest man ever born, who says of himself that he is nothing but a voice calling in the wilderness.

John spoke two memorable sentences. One we say in the liturgy every Sunday. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The sentence came by way of John pointing to Jesus. And in one simple sentence, he summarized Jesus’ entire mission: to be the sacrificial Lamb, the substitute Sacrifice, the vicarious Victim, whose blood atones for the sin of the world. That sentence is John’s legacy. It’s not about John, but about Jesus. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John the witness would have every eye and ear focused on Jesus.

The other memorable sentence from John was spoken when John’s disciples were all leaving him to follow after Jesus. The world perceives this as a failure, but John the witness saw it as what must happen. “He must increase and I must decrease.” John meant that his fame and celebrity had to decrease. He was not the center of attention. He was to Jesus what Ed McMahon was to Johnny Carson, if you remember that. He was the warm-up act but not the main event. He was the moon to the sun. The moon reflects the light, the sun is the source of that light. That was John to Jesus. “He must increase and I must decrease.”

But in saying that, John also wittingly or unwittingly articulated the Christian life. You must decrease, Jesus must increase. The old Adam, the old you, must daily drown and die in Baptism. You must become smaller and smaller. And every day the new man in Christ must daily rise up. Christ must increase, you must decrease. That’s the way of the kingdom of God. And that’s the way of God’s Word with you. Dying and rising is where the action is. Every day we must die to our selves and rise in Christ. That is the way of the Lord prepared for us. That’s John’s way.

Traditionally, this Sunday is the “pink candle Sunday” of Advent. I’m told by those who have a better eye for color than I do that it’s actually rose colored, but to me rose is a flower not a color, so I call it “pink candle Sunday.” It’s supposed to be a Sunday of rejoicing in Advent, a little break from the Advent somberness. You catch a bit of that in the epistle reading: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
When we decrease and become nothing and when Jesus increases and becomes everything, we will find that we have not lost ourselves but we’ve found ourselves anew in Jesus. John’s greatness was Jesus. And He is our greatness too. We too are not worthy to stoop down and untie His sandals, and yet He bends down to save us. He stoops down into our death and rescues us.

When we become nothing and Christ becomes everything, there is cause for rejoicing, not just occasionally, not just for the holidays, not just for one pink Sunday in Advent, but “always,” as the apostle Paul says. Always. Even in the midst of sorrow, there is cause for rejoicing in Jesus.

When we become nothing and Christ becomes everything, there is prayer without ceasing, not because we’ve become some sort of Mel Gibson Braveheart “prayer warriors,” but because the Spirit is interceding for us with His own sighs and groanings that go far beyond our words.

When we become nothing and Christ becomes everything, there is thanksgiving in all circumstances. All circumstances! Not only when we feel thankful and count our blessings, but especially when we don’t feel so thankful and have few blessings to count. Whether in plenty or in want, in good times or in bad, as Paul says, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”

The cause for rejoicing today is that like John, we are nothing and Jesus is everything 0 our Light, our Life, our Salvation, our Hope, our Joy.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Last week, a coming King. Today, a prophetic voice. The second Sunday of Advent brings the prophetic voice of Isaiah and the prophetic person of John the Baptizer. You know it’s Advent when John makes his appearance in the wilderness, calling Israel out away from temple and synagogue back into the wilderness. John is a figure straight out of the pages of the Old Testament. Camel’s hair, leather belt, locusts, wild honey – he’s the complete package, looking like Elijah and appearing where Elijah had disappeared.

John was the bridge between the old and the new, between prophesy and fulfillment. He has one foot in the Old Testament and the other in the New. He came preaching and baptizing, preaching repentance and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Proselyte baptisms were known. When you became a convert to Judaism, you were washed of your former life. But John wasn’t preaching to converts. He was preaching to Israelites, the insiders, those who were called God’s people. The call to repentance begins not with the outsider but the insider, not with the world but with us.

As rough around the edges as John seems to be, he came to bring God’s comfort and peace. “Comfort, comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, her iniquity is pardoned, she has received double from the Lord’s hand for all her sins.” Not just enough forgiveness, but double forgiveness, forgiveness overflowing like a baptismal flood, forgiveness that overflows even to those who have sinned against us. That’s what God sent John from the wilderness to proclaim: forgiveness, pardon, peace, a baptism that brings forgiveness, and even more: one is is mightier, whose sandal John was not worthy to untie, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

John’s task and purpose was to point prophetically to Jesus. “Behold the Lamb of God.” And having pointed to Jesus, his job was to get out of the way. “He must increase, I must decrease,” John said.

The advent voice calls out, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” Advent is a time of preparation. Not so much a preparation for the holidays and holy days of Christmas and Epiphany, thought it is that too. It is a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus in glory and power and might. The progressing light on the advent wreath is not only a countdown to Christmas but a reminder that the dawn is here and the Day is coming like a thief in the night. “The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” This is certain and sure for this one reason: “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

God speaks and it is so. The Word is the event itself. God said, “Be light” and light there is. That’s how the Word works. It make take a thousand years or more to happen but once the mouth of the Lord has spoken it will happen because in the speaking it has already happened. “A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day with the Lord,” Peter reminds us. It’s not “slowness” on God’s part but patience. We’re the ones in a hurry, wanting instant everything, now more than ever. If we have to wait for anything we lose interest and more on to something else. But God is never in a hurry. His is time, and his eternity. From his eternal perspective, it’s all a present moment called “now.”

God’s slowness to act is really His patience. He wants all to repent and not to perish. He’s willing to wait it out, to put up with the weedy wheat field. He’s willing to pull out the backhoe and the bulldozer of His Law to level the mountains and fill in the valleys and carve a highway of holiness through the wilderness of your life and mine. That may not be pleasant, just as John was not a pleasant character, certainly not someone you would want to run into on the street corner. No, if John showed up, you’d avoid him and cross over to the other side. But we have to deal with him because he is God’s voice preaching to us from the wilderness to get ready for the Lord.

The voice cries out again. “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Only the Word stands forever. This past week we saw how even the tall, sturdy tree is easily toppled by the wind. The grass withers, the flower fades, even the beauty of the created order is transient, passing away. We see the same thing going on in our bodies, on our faces, in the world. Things that once seemed so strong and sturdy now appear so fragile. Things that once appeared to stand forever now lay toppled like so many trees and power lines. Don’t underestimate the breath of God when it blows. It makes a canyon wind seem like a summer breeze by comparison.

But that breath of God is the Spirit of God that blows over baptismal water to make new and alive in the death and life of Jesus. It is the breath that blew over the disciples in the upper room from the lips of Jesus and upon the whole church at Pentecost. It’s wind that consumes and refines, that burns up and purifies, the kills and makes alive. If we don’t understand this, we cannot understand what is happening around us and in us. God kills and He makes alive. He brings down to the depths of Sheol and He raises up.

Peter reminds us that the coming day of the Lord that sneaks in on the world as a thief in the night is a day of destruction. The heavens will pass away with a roar, the heavenly bodies will be burned up, the very elemental things will be dissolved in the blast furnace of God’s judgment, and the earth and the works that are done in it will be exposed. But there is a promise in all of this destruction: a new heavens and a new earth, a new creation in which righteousness dwells.

To the unbeliever, which is also the unbeliever in each of us called the old Adam, this means terrible destruction. Much worse than any natural disaster. But to the believer, that fiery destruction is a refining fire, burning away the dross of sin and leaving behind the pure gold of holiness and righteousness. The blast furnace is always bad news for the impurities but good news for the gold.

It’s always that way with God and His Word. Death and life. Destruction and creation. Wrath and mercy. In our Baptism, we die and rise. In baptismal repentance, we die and rise. At the Lord’s Supper, we partake both of Jesus’ death and His life. The grass withers, the flowers fade, and we wither and fade along with them. But the Word of our God will stand forever. And in the power of that Word you will stand forever. Not by your doing but by God’s doing, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Your mouths too are called to speak. When Jesus commissioned HIs disciples to make disciples by baptizing and teaching, He was sending them into the wilderness in the way of John the Baptizer, to prepare the world for His coming. You are part of that as you are part of the church. The church is John the Baptizer of the end times. We have one foot in the present age and the other foot in the age to come, straddling old and new creation. In Christ, we are already a new creation, and yet we live in this body of the old. The call is the same, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” The means are the same: Baptizing and preaching. Word and Sacrament.

We are the first in the pool at the brink of summer, inviting the rest of the world to hop in the water with us. Summer is near. Day is at hand. The Lord is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord.

The world will view us much the way many people viewed John the Baptizer as being weird. Not of this world. Crazy even. Yes, many people today think that those of us who actually believe in the actual coming of an actual Jesus are deluded if not downright crazy. As I said last week, many people think we are like Linus sitting in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive .

In the verses immediately preceding our epistle, Peter said there would be scoffers who follow their own passions and deliberately ignore the fact that by the Word of God the heavens and the earth were formed and by the water of the Flood the world that then existed was destroyed. And by the same Word, the heavens and the earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. I’m sure the neighbors laughed at Noah until the water came.

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

That prophetic voice is speaking as much to the church today as it once did to Israel of the Old Testament. The Church is God’s Israel of the end times. His chosen people, His royal priesthood, His holy nation, His city set on a hill. We are to be a beacon reflecting the light of Christ into the ever-darkening world. We have good news in a world filled with bad news: The Lord God comes with power and might to save. He came by virgin mother, crib and cross. He comes by Word and water and Supper. He is coming in glory to raise the dead, to bring life and a new creation. He is making all things new. He comes as a shepherd to tend His flock, to carry the lambs in His arms, to lead those with young. He comes as the Good Shepherd with goodness and mercy that we may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The advent voice calls us to be put on the scratchy camel’s hair of John, to take up the kingdom cry, “Repent,” to see in ourselves our need for God’s forgiveness, to have the mountains leveled, the valleys filled, to proclaim the goodness of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

There is nothing sure and lasting and certain in this world. Not the trees, not the mountains, not the grass or the flowers. Only this: The Word of our God stands forever. You can be sure of that. And by that Word you are forgiven, you are justified, you are sanctified, you are glorified all in Jesus, all for Jesus‘ sake.

It is sure; it is certain; it will happen. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Come on down, Lord! Come on down! Tear open those heavens and come down and make the mountains shake. Kindle the fire, boil the water, make those heathen quake in their boots at the sound of your name! Do like you used to do back in the good old days when you used to shake things up in a big way! Show yourself for who you are, God, and come down to save us!

Don’t you feel like talking like that sometimes? Don’t you feel like having an Isaiah 64 moment and look to heaven and say, “Come on down, Lord, and stir up some trouble!”

It’s Advent, in case you can’t tell. The season before The Season, though judging by the sales figures over the weekend, the season has already begun. But Advent is different from December madness. Advent is edgy, sober, watchful, expectant, hopeful, longing. Today the mood is urgent. The King is coming. Will you be ready? And how do you get ready?

Isaiah serves as our teacher for our Advent preparations. “You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.” There are echoes of “Do this in remembrance of me” in that verse. To “work righteousness” and to “remember the Lord in His ways” is a matter of faith. The one who believes, who trusts that he or she stands righteous before God for Christ’s sake is the one who “does righteousness.” And he is the one who remembers the Lord in His ways.

Advent is really a celebration of three kinds of advents, comings of our Lord. It’s a backward glance at His first advent in humility, coming by way of the Virgin, the manger, and the cross. That’s why we hear the Palm Sunday Gospel again on this first Sunday in Advent. This is the King you are waiting for. The One who rode into Jerusalem atop a borrowed colt, whose throne was a cross and whose crown was made of thorns. This is the King who wages war on behalf of His people, yes, even on behalf of His enemies! The world have never known such a king or any such leader. One who literally lays down His life to save the world.

As glorious and triumphant as the Palm Sunday advent was, it was an advent of humility and weakness. This King had come to His city to die, to be crucified at the hands of religious and political men. This King was willingly going to battle alone to conquer our sin by becoming our Sin, to conquer our death by going into Death.

Whatever we have to say about Jesus’ last day advent, and His coming again with glory to judge the living and the dead needs to be lensed through this advent. Jesus came to do justice to God’s law. To do the righteousness of God for us. To establish the way of salvation that is through faith in Him and not in works of our own which do not and cannot work the righteousness of God.

Isaiah admits as much and confesses it. “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Even our most stellar good works, our greatest acts of charity and self-sacrifice, our most noble altruism, our greatest religious works, all of these are like a filthy, soiled garment, says the prophet. Here is the true heart of confession and contrition. It’s not simply about feeling sorry for yourself, feeling bad about what you’ve done, feeling guilty, or really feeling anything it all. It’s recognizing that everything you do is so tainted with Sin that even what appears to the eyes as a “righteous deeds” is like a horribly soiled garment when held under the light of God’s Law.

Think of the Law as a kind of “black light,” a UV light that reveals the hidden stain of Sin and shows our righteousness to be more contaminated than we ever could imagine. It shows our lives to be the crime scenes that they really are. We are like a fading leaf in fall, blown away by our iniquities. We are in the same boat with all of humanity in that no one naturally calls upon the Name of the Lord, no one rises up to take hold of the Lord. It’s simply not in us, not since the Fall.

God hides His face from us. He refuses to look at our filth, He turns away from Sin and leaves us to “melt in the hot hand of our iniquities.” What an image that is! And it points directly to the cross of Jesus, to His forsakenness, to His taking the heat of the Law in our place, to His melting in the hand of our iniquities.

To recognize the depths of our sin, to confess the inadequacy of our righteousness, is only the prelude to advent preparation. It is also a plea, a cry for mercy, a renewed call of faith’s trust in the mercy and promise of God. “Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever.” Isaiah teaches us to plead the mercy of Christ over and against our Sin. Yes we have iniquities and sin beyond measure. Yes, our righteousness is like filthy rags in dire need of laundering. “Don’t remember it, Lord.” “Forgive our iniquities and remember our sins no more, as you have promised.” We are your people. We are baptized. You have claimed us with your Name. You have marked us as your own possession. Now don’t forget us.”

God remembers us, but He chooses for Jesus’ sake to remember not our sins. That’s the deal, and it’s the only deal the Lord makes. Our Sin for Jesus’ righteousness. Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem was not a victory lap. It wasn’t the conquering King coming home in triumph after defeating His enemies on the battlefield. It was not a ceremonial parade. It was “to fulfill all righteousness.” The King of righteousness had come to do justice to our sin once and for all. And while the crowd of disciples were correct in shouting Hosanna to the Son of David, they really had no idea what this meant or why He had come. They would by week’s end, and it would take a bit longer for the importance to finally sink in.

That was Jesus’ first advent in humility, being humbled under the Law to redeem humanity under the Law.

What sustains us is Jesus’ second advent, the advent of His coming in hidden glory. This is the advent of His sacramental coming by Word and sacrament, an advent sometimes tragically overlooked. We sometimes think and act as though Jesus had come and gone and will come again one day. And as we watch and wait in Advent anticipation, we sometimes look to the world much like Linus waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. And the world, much like skeptical Lucy, laughs at the silliness of waiting for Jesus to return.

But the notion of “return” doesn’t really do justice to Jesus’ presence. He has withdrawn His visible presence, but not in a way that makes Him absent. He is more fully and completely “with us” as He was with His first band of disciples. He is “with us” by His Word in all its sacramental forms – in Baptism, in the Supper, in the spoken Word of forgiveness in His Name. He is with us as He has promised, “I will be with you always until the end of the ages.” And so Jesus hasn’t really gone anywhere in going to heaven. Rather, He’s returned to His former glory at the right hand of the Father in order that He might be “all in all” and “fill all things in every way.” That means the One we are waiting for is the One who is already here. The kingdom we are waiting for is the kingdom that has already come. The glory we are waiting for is the glory that is already here, now in a humble and hidden way, but still very much here.

That’s how to understand our epistle this morning, the opening paragraph of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian congregation. He says, “You are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There were those in Corinth who thought they were lacking the necessary spiritual gifts to survive. And there were those in Corinth who thought they were overflowing with gifts. And Paul assures them that they are not lacking anything, for where the Word is preached, where the Body and Blood of Christ are, where there is Baptism, there is every spiritual gift needed to prepare the way of the Lord.

You may not always feel Advent ready. You may not always feel “spiritual.” I have to smile at those who say they are “spiritual but not religious” people. I sometimes say that I am “religious but not terribly spiritual.” I say that because most of the time I don’t feel terribly spiritual, nor do I feel “close to God,” nor do I experience faith as any kind of emotional thing. What most people call “spiritual” is a sense of the transcendent or the numinous or some vague notion of inner peace. I’m too much of a skeptic to be swayed by any of that.

Those things are not to be confused with saving, justifying faith. Faith is trust in a promise of things to come. It is a certainty of things not yet seen. Advent is a time of faith. Looking into the darkness and seeing the Light. Looking at the end and seeing the beginning of a new creation. Looking at the humility of water and human words and bread and wine and seeing through faith the power of God to save you and sustain you to the end.

Whether you feel it or not, you lack nothing, spiritually speaking. You have every spiritual gift you need, because you have Christ. His Baptism, His Body and Blood, His Word prepare you for His Day.

That day is the third Advent. The coming of our Lord in great glory to judge the living and the dead. The day of Resurrection and Life. The day when faith is vindicated. Jesus gave a little preview of that Day on the Mt. of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John in attendance. And He gives us a foretaste of the Feast to come in His Supper.

There is a coming Day, when sin is no more, when Death is finally ended, when Life reigns, when the Lordship of Jesus is made visible to all. That’s what Advent is really all about. Not shopping days until Christmas. Not preparing for the holidays. Not cooking and baking and eating. Though we do all these things, and there is nothing wrong with any of those things, there is something more going on. The Day is coming. The Light has dawned. Get ready. The One who came in humility and who comes by Word and Sacrament will come in glory. Get ready. The Day is coming.

God is faithful, by whom you were called in the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is faithful. He will sustain and keep you. Trust Him.

May He grant each of you a joyous and watchful Advent.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“And He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.”

We believe and confess this. We believe and confess that Jesus Christ, whom we do not now see, who reigns over all thing at the right hand of the Father, will reappear on the Last Day in great glory to judge the living and the dead. The Last Day is a day of judgment.

We have come to the end of the church year. The last Sunday. Next week, should Jesus not appear in glory, we will start it all over again with Advent and the preparations for Christmas and Epiphany. Today, judgment. But first, a little surprise. Resurrection. The Last Day is, first of all, a day of life. If Jesus is to judge the living and the dead, he must raise the dead and the change the living so that the mortal would put on the immortal. You can’t have a judgment with a resurrection.

What surprises about the resurrection is that all rise. Not just a chosen few or an elect fewer but all. Every last one. You might think about the Last Day as a Sunday where no one sleeps in, but every last dead rise to greet the coming Lord at the sound of the trumpet call of God. That includes the unbelieving dead, the agnostic dead, the atheist dead and every other sort of dead. “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” And what a surprise that will be! Surprising to those who thought this Jesus thing was a bunch of fairy tale nonsense. Now they stand before Him will newly resurrected bodies, all in the power of Jesus’ resurrection. The Lord gets the last laugh. Even those who have spent a lifetime refusing and rejecting Him and encouraging others to do the same all rise from the dead.

The Last Day brings to light who Jesus actually is – He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He’s not simply the Savior of some but the Savior of the world. He is not simply the Good Shepherd of a select few but of the inclusive many. In His flesh, He embodies all, just as Adam embodied all into disobedience and death. When Adam fell, we all fell, and were born fallen in Adam’s fall. But Christ in His humanity is the second Adam, Adam 2.0, Adam set right before God. In the first Adam, you die, in the second Adam you live. In the first Adam you are condemned, in the second Adam you are justified and forgiven.

And so this death on the cross of Jesus, the second Adam, is really the death of all of humanity in one Man. “Christ died for all, and therefore all died.” If that’s the case, then it’s also the case with Jesus’ resurrection. It is the resurrection of all humanity. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive.” Christ is the first first harvest of the resurrection with the promise of more on the way. And the more on the way is the harvest of the resurrection of all humanity on the Last Day. In this way everyone is the beneficiary of Jesus’ victory over sin and death, whether they believed it or not, wanted or not, received it or not.

It’s like having that million dollars sitting in the bank with your name on it. You can trust it and live accordingly, or you can deny it and live in that denial. But on the Last Day, when the accounts are opened, everyone gets to see the victory over death Jesus has won for them in the resurrection of their bodies.

And then comes the judgment and the second surprise of the day. You expect the judgment to be about works, the things you’ve done that you shouldn’t have done and the things you should have done that you didn’t do. Sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of thought, word, and deed. Whenever anyone talks about judgment, it’s always in those terms. “He’ll get his in the end.” “I’ll have to answer for this on the last day.” All the ways we have of saying that when the Lord comes to judge the living and the dead, He’s going to judge us on the basis of what we’ve done.

Here we need to listen to the parable of the sheep and the goats carefully. First there is a sorting, a separation. Only then is there a discussion of what they did. First the sheep and the goats are separated. Sheep on the right, goats on the left. During the day, the sheep and goats grazed together as one flock under one shepherd. Now, as we speak, the world grazes all together under the reign of Good Shepherd Jesus, who now shepherds the world from God’s right hand.

At the end of the day, as the sun is setting, the shepherd sorts the sheep and the goats into their respective pens. Sheep to the honorable right; goats to the dishonorable left. It’s not what they did or didn’t do, but what they are. What they did or didn’t do merely reflects what they are. “Make a tree good, and the fruit will be good,” Jesus said.

I’ve been spending a little time in the shop trying to find my workbench under ten years of residue. I have a half dozen containers of assorted screws, bolts, clips and fasteners that have collected over the ten years’ worth of projects. Some of them I purchased because I didn’t know I already had them. I borrowed an old cookie sheet from Karen and dumped out all the containers onto the sheet so I could see what I had. It was kind of amazing. It brought back memories, some fond, some less than fond, of over ten years of home improvement and repair. I even found a missing piece that had shot off something I was taking apart and mysteriously disappeared from sight. It had landed in one of those containers and would have been lost for another decade had I not dumped everything onto the cookie sheet.

I’ve started the sorting process. It’s a great way to take a brain break from other things. Sort screws, bolts, washers, etc. At this point, the sorting is binary. Keep or throw away. Two buckets. On the right the keepers, on the left the tossers. The choice between the two doesn’t depend on what the screw or bolt was once used for. They were all useful in their own way at one time or another. And it’s not really whether it will be useful one day, because who really knows? The decision to keep or toss is essentially on what the thing is. Is it a screw, bolt or washer? I’ll keep it. Is it some plastic fastener or nail? I’ll toss it.

Sheep and goats. They grow up together. They pasture together. They’re even interchangeable in the old testament sacrifices. They have the same shepherd. The sheep go to an eternal kingdom prepared for them from before the foundations of the world. The goats to an eternal fire prepared not for them (!) but for the devil and his angels. Not on account of what they did or didn’t do, but on account of what they are.

The sheep are the “righteous,” that is, the justified, those who are accounted righteous by grace through faith for Christ’s sake. The difference between “sheep” and “goat” is the difference between faith and unbelief. Without faith it is impossible to please God, no matter how much good you do. The faithful receive what has always been theirs since the foundation of the cosmos – the kingdom. They are blessed by the Father.

And their works are praised. “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; thirsty and you gave me something to drink. A stranger and you welcomed me. Sick and you visited me. Imprisoned and you came to me.” The surprise is not that they did these things. Of course they did! What surprises is that these things were done to Jesus. You saw only a poor man, a lonely woman, the least, the lost, the lowly, the despised. But hidden “in, with, and under” the least of these, is the Lord of all. And that’s the great surprise.

He is the broken man in the ditch who fell among the thieves. He is the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the poor, the imprisoned, the persecuted, the sick. He is all these things and He endured all these things in order to save you.

Christ is always hidden. The glorious Lord of all, the Shepherd of the world enthroned at the right hand of the Father is always hidden in this world. He is hidden in the Word, in the water of Baptism, in the Supper, there to save you, to be your Savior, to rescue you from your sin and death. And He is hidden in the neighbor, in the least and lost and lowly and despised of this world, not to save you but for you to serve. Only faith can see that.

The goats, the unbelieving, are also surprised. “I was hungry and you gave me no food; thirsty and you gave me no drink; a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you didn’t clothe me, sick and you didn’t visit me, imprisoned and you didn’t come me.” “When,” they say, seeking to justify themselves. When did we see you hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, sick and did not serve you? Oh, you can be sure that they would have waited on Jesus hand and foot had they known it was Jesus. It doesn’t take any faith to do that. If you see Jesus walking down the street, and you know for a fact that it’s Jesus, and He asks you for a dollar, you wouldn’t hesitate to give Him a dollar! In fact, you’d give Him the entire contents of your wallet, if you knew it was Jesus.

Today is the second to last Sunday in the church year. Hard to believe it, but we are coming to the end again. And with the end comes some thoughts about the End, that is the end of all things. The Last Day. The Judgment. The coming of Christ in glory. Eschatology. Last things.

With thought of the end comes a note of fear. What will happen to us? Will our Lord deal with us graciously or harshly? Will our faith be vindicated or will be ashamed, or worse, at the coming day? Will the Last Day be a day of wrath or a day of mercy? The prophet Zephaniah declared a day of wrath against God’s own people for their complacency, their lack of trust. He called it a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, ad day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness a day of trumpet blast and battle cry.

Yet the apostle Paul paints a somewhat different picture of the Last Day. It’s comes suddenly and without warning, like a thief in the night there is no warning. People will complacently lounge in their “peace and security” only to find destruction. And yet notice the metaphor Paul uses. Labor pains. The destruction of the end are the labor pains. He might have used death throes or some other death image. But he uses an image of birth and life. The pain of labor gives way to the joy of birth. In the same way, the death and destruction of the old creation gives way to the life and salvation of the new. It’s just like Jesus’ parable of the budding fig tree. When you see its branches bud, you know summer is near.

The Last Day comes suddenly and quickly, but it doesn’t come unexpectedly, at least to those who hear the words of Jesus and take them to heart. His last words to His Church in the Bible are “I come quickly” to which the Church replies “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!” Christians have been living and praying in that expectation for 2000 years. Every generation, from the apostle Paul, to the early church, to Luther, to our day, has thought that the end would come in their lifetime. Paul says as much in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 when he speaks of “we who are alive at the day of Christ’s coming.”

For Paul in Thessalonians, the coming of the last day is the end of night and the coming of the Day. The world’s night is ending. The dawning light has already appeared on that glorious first day of the week when the tomb of Jesus was revealed to be empty. The new creation had dawned with the defeat of Death in Jesus’ resurrection. The early church called Sunday “the Lord’s Day” for that very reason. Whereas the Jews of the old covenant worshipped on the seventh day, the last day of the old creation, Christians worshipped on the 8th day, the first day of the new creation, signifying that all had been fulfilled in Jesus, and even now by faith we live in what is coming soon.

Christians are “children of the day” living in the semi-darkness of early dawn. The world perceives it as darkness and so it does the works of the darkness. But you, baptized believers, are children of the light and of the day. While the unbelieving world sleeps in a drunken stupor, you stand ready, like a soldier on watch – sober, vigilant, watchful, with the breastplate of faith and love protecting your heart and the hope of salvation protecting your head.

And here’s the point: God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake (that is alive) or asleep (that is dead) we might live with Him. That’s what the Last Day is about for the baptized believer – not a day of wrath but a day of salvation, not a day of death but a day of life. That is what we now must believe, and what we do not yet have in ourselves.

The time in-between is the time of faith, which brings us to Jesus’ parable of the three servants. Each is entrusted property in form of talents. A talent is large sum of money, about a thousand day’s wages or more. So 5 talents is over 15 years’ wages for a common laborer. No small piece of change. Nor is five or even one.

A rich man entrusted his wealth to three servants. To one five, to another two, and to a third one. And then the man went away without so much as a word of instruction as to what to do. The first two doubled the investment. The one who had five traded with them and made five more. The one who had two did the same. But the third one took a different approach. He dug a hole in the ground and hid it.

After a long time, the master returns to settle accounts. The Last Day. Judgment Day. The day when the books are opened and the accounts are settled. The two who turned a profit are praised with a hale and hearty “Well done” and get to share in the joy of their Master. The third is condemned to outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth for bringing back his buried talent all safe and sound.

On the surface, the parable sounds like a judgment of works. The one who made much received much and even got the talent from the third servant. And so do all that you can do for God, hope for the best, and pray that you show some sort of profit at the close of business or you’ll be joining that third servant in the eternal unemployment line.

But the third servant is the key to understanding the judgment. Why didn’t he turn a profit? Why didn’t he do business? Why didn’t he transact with the world and invest with money that wasn’t his in the first place? He really had nothing to lose, after all. It was his Master’s money, not his. And his Master gave no instructions, made no demands, set no profit margin goals. He simply sent out his servants to do business with his property. And he knew his coin was good. He knew there would be a profit and his servants would have a share in his joy. So why didn’t the third servant do anything? Why take that shiny talent and bury it?

Why do we? What keeps us from doing things, from taking risks, from going outside our own comfort zones? Fear. In a word, it’s fear. Fear of failure, fear of punishment, fear of loss, fear of our father’s (or mother’s) disapproving gaze. Fear is the great paralyzer that prevents us from even getting off the starting line.

I spoke with a young mother recently. She was so proud of her son. He got such good grades, and she told me that she always praises him for his grades and rewards him. I asked her if she ever praised him for trying something he wasn’t good at and failing. Which received more praise, the easy A or the hard-earned C? She smiled as she thought about it and said she was going home to praise him for taking that advanced math class that was just a little beyond his ability.

If you’ve grown up with hard to please parents, a demanding father or mother for whom it was never good enough, then this parable is likely to strike a raw nerve. Fear. You can hear it in the servant’s voice: “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”

That’s you and me under the Law, my friends. The Law is a harsh taskmaster. The Law demands perfection. If you offend in one point, you’re guilty of the whole thing. The Law demands obedience but it cannot produce a single obedient work. All it can produce is fear, dread, terror of the final day of reckoning when our works will be put through the fire of judgment.

Fear kept the priest and the Levite from helping the beaten man in the ditch. They were afraid of becoming unclean, of having to endure the judgments of the Law, the criticism of their community and family. If you want to know the life of fear, read the life story of Michael Jackson whose life revolved around one theme: It’s never good enough. And the harsh voices of his judges – the critics, his father, his own inner critic, judged him and left him unable to sleep. It always had to be better, more perfect, and it was never good enough. Someone would notice.

And if that’s your view of God as your heavenly Father, and if the Law is the only way to deal with Him, that’s where you’ll wind up too. Cornered by the critics. Paralyzed in fear.

But the good news is that Christ has set you free from that. What matters is not the abundance of your works, because they are not your works anyway. They are God’s works worked in you. How can you take credit for something that isn’t yours in the first place? What matters is trust, trust that Jesus settled your account on the cross with His perfect life and death so that you can transact in this world without fear of failure. And like the servants in the parable, there are no rules. Simply faith toward God and love toward others.

What was lacking in that third servant was not a profit but faith. He believed that his master was harsh, demanding, and cruel. And he got what he believed. Had he believed that his master was happy go lucky and carefree, that so long as you did business with the world and spread the master’s good name around he didn’t care what you made, that servant would have gone out and boldly done business as one who had nothing to lose.

You have nothing to lose. Salvation is yours. Eternal life is yours. The treasures of heaven are yours. The judgment ends in Jesus, and Jesus was judged in your place. You are free in Jesus to do what God has given you to do, knowing that in the doing it is God at work and He never fails. And even through your failings, your shortcomings, your weaknesses, His will is always done.

Yes, our works will be judged. They need to be cleaned up. The dross of our sin needs to be burned away. The fingerprints of the old Adam need to be wiped off so that we can clearly see that what has been worked in us has been worked by God Himself. Our works will be judged, but we will not be judged by our works but simply by faith.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. (John 3:16-20)

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In the life of the believer, there is both the now and the not yet. What is seen is now, what is not yet is not yet seen. There is the now of faith and the not yet of sight. All Saints Day is about the now and the not yet. The now of this life and the not yet of the life to come.

In the Revelation, St. John was given to see what is not seen, a kind of sneak peek into the heavenly realms to perceive what no eye has seen and to hear what no ear has heard. What he heard was the number 144,000 – a perfected Israel. Twelve times twelve times a thousand. A perfected 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of an Israel not known in the old testament. The tribe of Dan is missing. The rabbinic tradition held that the anti-messiah would come from Dan. In Dan’s place, the tribe of Joseph. In OT Israel, Joseph is represented by his two grandsons. But in this heavenly Israel, Joseph now takes his place with his brothers. The Israel that John saw is no Israel that ever was or ever will be in this life. That’s what John heard.

What John saw was a great multitude that no one could number. This is how that perfected Israel looked to John. People from every nation, tribe, people, and language of the earth. An inclusive Israel. A catholic Israel. Standing before Christ the Lamb, waving palm branches in an eternal feast of tabernacles, crying out with one voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And with them angels and elders and the four living ones who represent the whole created order worshipping God with the perfected seven-fold praise: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

The question that surrounds this vision is “Who are they?” Who is this perfected Israel? Who is this great white-robed multitude of worshippers with palm branches? And the answer: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

For John’s hearers, they were their fellow believers who died confessing Jesus to be Christ and Lord. Members of the seven congregations of Asia Minor who were suffering persecution, hardship, even death for the Name of Jesus. The vision is intended for comfort. They died in great tribulation, but they are fine. Safe. Sheltered by God Himself, shepherded by the Lamb whose blood cleanses them. Every sadness and sorrow is ended for them. Every tear has been wiped away by the hand of God.

And yet for John’s readers, for those who received this strange letter we call The Revelation”, the time of tribulation continues, as it continues for us today. We need only think of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, a 34 year old Christian minister imprisoned in Iran and being pressured to renounce Christ and embrace Islam or face death under Islam’s anti-apostasy laws. His parents are Muslims, making him a de facto Muslim. And he is not alone, especially in the Middle East. And he won’t be the last in a region of the world that forgets its Christians and the fact that our Lord HImself walked on middle eastern soil.

Don’t think we are immune or safe in a secular America. It’s not about personal safety, nor is it about political clout. It’s about the cross of Jesus, and the suffering that necessarily comes with the confession of His Name. When Jesus stood on His mountain to teach His disciples, He was preparing them for the realities of living in the in-between time of the now and the not yet. When he pronounced His nine benedictions over His disciples, they are all couched in the form of now and not yet.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, those who are now poor before God, who have nothing to offer God, who are beggars before Him are blessed. But wait, there’s more: The kingdom of heaven will be theirs. Now they are poor, then they will inherit the kingdom.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Now the disciple mourns, living under the weight of sin, of death, of suffering, of loss. But wait, there’s more. They will be comforted. But not now. Now they must mourn and grieve with hope for the day when God will wipe away every tear from their eye.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Now is the time of meekness, humility, lowliness, of turning the other cheek, of blessing the enemy, of enduring harship. But wait, there’s more: They shall inherit the earth. Not now. Now they must endure.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Why do they hunger and thirst? They don’t have any righteousness. They can’t cook up any righteousness for themselves. This is precisely the same as the “poor in spirit.” They are hunger, thirsty beggars. Now. But wait, there’s more. They will be filled. Their emptiness will be filled, but not now. Now they must feel the pangs of hunger and thirst for a righteousness that only God can supply.

“Blessed are the merciful. Now. Who give without gain. Who look with compassion on the other and not to themselves. But there’s more. They will receive mercy. More than they could have ever given, they will receive. But not yet.

“Blessed are the pure in heart,” who seek God and HIs kingdom which they do not now see with the promise, “they will see God.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” those who stand in the breach and take the crossfire, those who reconcile enemies and bring shalom, they will be called sons of God, just like the Prince of Peace who is blessing them.

“Blessed are the persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” Seriously. The persecuted are “blessed.” Now. But wait, there’s more. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But not yet.

Then the ninth benediction, and it’s as if Jesus turns His eyes and looks directly at you. This last has you in the crosshairs. “Blessed are you.” Yes, He’s speaking to you. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad.” Yes, you heard that right. Rejoice and be glad when you’re treated like that pastor in Iran. Remember that, Glenn. You’re now a marked man, marked by the cross as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You can expect trouble.

And I say this to everyone. To the person coming back to church after a long absence. To the curious seeker looking for something that he or she does not know that will fill that empty void. To the person coming to Holy Baptism. You will be blessed. That is sure. But that blessing will come hidden in, with, and under trouble. Just as Christ appears in this world weak and crucified, so His church appears in this world weak, persecuted, deluded losers.

Don’t expect this life to be easy. Don’t expect a divine bailout for your problems. Don’t expect a miracle lurking around every corner. Expect to feel your spiritual poverty, expect to mourn, expect to be treated like a doormat by this world, expect to be persecuted in response to your mercy and peacemaking and purity of heart. They don’t give Nobel Prizes for being a disciple of Jesus. Oh, the world will praise the likes of Mother Theresa for her work among the poor and leprous of India, for her renouncing her rich upbringing and living a life of poverty. But not for her confession of Jesus Christ has Lord and Savior.

The prophets before you were persecuted. Nearly every prophet of the old testament died a martyr’s death, some at the hands of their own people. All but one of the apostles, John, were martyred. Expect trouble, now. In fact, be suspicious when things are going peaceful and well. It’s the quiet before the storm. But know this: “Great is your reward in heaven. Yours is the kingdom of heaven. You will inherit the earth. You will receive the righteousness you hunger and thirst for. You will receive mercy from a merciful God. You will be called sons of God. Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

Those who have gone the way of faith ahead of us, who have died in the faith, now have all this in a way we do not yet have. Their now is our not yet. And yet, in a wonderful and mysterious way, we are united with them in Christ. They and we together worship the Lamb whose blood washes our sins and makes our robes of righteousness white as new fallen snow.

We had joy of a Baptism today. Another martyr has been made by God. Yes, a martyr. Baptism is your death certificate. Or don’t you know that those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized in His death? In Baptism, God declares you dead. Dead to Sin, dead to Death, dead to the Law. But alive to Him in Christ Jesus. Death is simply catching up with your Baptism. And the not yet of faith becomes the eternal now of life in God.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” (Romans 3:19-28)

It doesn’t get more basic than that, does it? This is the heart of the Christian faith. In fact, this is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world. A sinner, condemned by the Law, sentenced to death and damnation by God’s own law is justified, declared righteous by a forensic act of God’s Word, by faith, trust in Jesus Christ and His atoning blood shed on the cross, apart from works of the law. How much clearer could Paul have been?

If you want a single verse that summarizes and encapsulates the “Gospel,” the good news of Christianity, it is this verse from the book of Romans. And yet, it’s overlooked, or marginalized, or made into one of many truths or tenets, or it gets buried under a long list of dos and donts, things you must do and not do in order to stand before God justified. With a single sentence, the apostle Paul turns his entire religious past and training, everything he had learned at the feet of the rabbis, upside down. “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

And yet it took a Reformation to bring this sentence to light. It is very often the most basic things that we forget first or overlook in view of everything else. That’s why we have a Reformation Day in the church. Reformation Day is a reminder day for the church, remember what is most basic and essential of our faith lest we forget.

When Martin Luther discovered this verse, he was searching for clarity and comfort. He was looking for confidence that he, a poor miserable sinner, could stand before an all holy and righteous God. He knew the way of his teachers, the medieval scholastics who had trained him, who said that one did the best one could and then God would reward those efforts with grace so that one could do even more and better. But Luther knew the awful truth. There was no more and better. He lived in a monastery as a friar. He devoted himself to the study of religion and to the disciples of prayer and fasting. He isolated himself from the temptations of the world. And there was nothing to calm the fear that everything he did was not good enough, and indeed he wasn’t getting any better but worse.

It’s a wonderfully happy coincidence that a man named Paul went through the very same struggle 1500 years earlier. Paul, a trained Pharisee under the greatest rabbis of his day, including a man named Gamaliel who was considered the best of the best, could find no rest or peace from the Torah. He was trained to believe the Torah, the teaching of God handed down from Moses, was a Torah of works, a way to do the righteousness of God in order to become righteous before God. This is very similar to the scholastic tradition that Luther encountered. We shouldn’t be surprised that Luther grabbed on to what the apostle Paul was saying in Romans and wouldn’t let go. It was the same struggle.

It’s a natural mistake for us to think that God-given rules and regulations are intended to make us better. We are inveterate self-improvement junkies. We can’t resist the notion that we can improve ourselves through self-discipline. We’re literally drunk on the idea, and religion feeds this notion that the answer to all our problems lies inside of us rather than outside, and that the way to God is like climbing a stairway up to heaven. Two steps up, one back, two more steps up, working ever higher and higher until we attain that lofty goal of being “righteous” before God.

It’s a natural mistake for us to look at the law as a means to an end. Why would God give us a Law if He didn’t intend for us to keep it? Why would He give us commandments if He didn’t think we could do them? Aren’t the commandments the way out of dilemma? We’re sinners, and what better way to get the sinner in shape than to give him or her some biblical, divinely inspired principles, right?

Go to the self-improvement aisle of any Christian bookstore or even your local Barnes and Noble and you’ll see it in book after book. Book after book of principles, gleaned from the Bible. They must be biblical because they quote the Bible, right? Things for you to do. Disciplines for you to undertake. Programs for you to follow. All with the purpose of doing the righteousness of God. Luther knew all about that. More than any of us in this room. The apostle Paul knew what that life is about, climbing up the ladder of holiness, keeping the Torah by one’s efforts.

And then comes the big insight that changes everything. First, the true nature of the Law. God’s Law isn’t intended to make you better, but to reveal how bad things actually are. To amplify sin and make sin utterly sinful. You see, that’s what happens when you take the commandment and you mix it with Sin. Sins multiply. Paul said he didn’t even know what coveting was about until he read the law and then began to covet like crazy. Tell a child don’t do something, and that something, whatever it is, becomes the center and focus of their existence. And we wonder why rules don’t work? Oh, they can keep things in check and keep a lid on things, but rules don’t make better people, any more than a commandment that reads “Thou shalt produce apples” will bring apples from an orange tree. It’s not going to happen.

Whatever the law says, Paul says, it speaks to those who are under the law, which he has just shown is everyone, whether Jew or Gentile, whether you have the written Law or simply the Law written in your heart. The law exists so that every mouth would be silenced before God and the whole world be held accountable to God. That’s the purpose of the law. To shut us up before God. To silence all the ways we have of using religion to butter God up. To bring to light what we’d rather not talk about, the true nature of our selves as sinners. You see, through the law comes the knowledge of Sin.

I know it’s written in small letters in the text, but you should capitalize that word Sin. As in sinful condition. It’s naming the condition. Like cancer or measles or whatever. Sin. Not simply “sins,” what we are preoccupied over, but Sin, the condition that causes us to sin. That’s the problem. Through the law comes the deep diagnosis of the symptoms. You have Sin. It’s not simply that you sin in thought, word, and deed, by things done and by things not done. You have Sin. You have a deep systemic condition that can only be cured by Jesus’ death and resurrection and your baptismal dying and rising in Jesus. You cannot deal with the Sin that infects our humanity. You can mitigate some of the symptoms, yes. You can put a bandaid on some of your sins but you can’t cure the disease of Sin. That’s the first great insight. That through the law comes the knowledge of Sin.

The second great insight is that there are not one but two ways of God’s righteousness. The first is the one you do. The righteousness of works, and it is precisely what the sinner because of Sin cannot do. But the second, ah, the second way. That’s the ticket. Not what you do but what Christ does. Not your perfection but His perfection. Not your sacrifices but His perfect sacrifice, His blood shed on the cross, His obedience to death under the Law in your place. Not by your works but by faith in Christ’s work, trust that what Jesus did justifies you before God.

I used a little poker analogy at Jim Legro’s funeral yesterday out in Temecula. Those of you who knew Jim and Patsy while they were here knew that Jim loved to play poker. I used this analogy and had a chance to refine it a bit. Poker is part luck and part bluff. There is the luck of the draw and your ability to lie, that is, bluff the others at the table. You may be holding nothing more than a pair of twos or even less, but you can bluff everyone into thinking you’re holding a lot more. And that’s kind of how it is with our life under the law. The law reminds us that we’re holding nothing, even as we bluff our way through this life and act as though we’re holding a winning hand.

But every poker hand comes to an end, sooner or later, and the truth is revealed. And then you see who’s been bluffing. The Law calls the hand on all our religious bluffing, and we lay our hand down before the judgment seat of God knowing we’re holding nothing. Oh there may be an ace or some other high card of our accomplishment, but the hand amounts to nothing, and we know it. And one by one the cards are turned over. But they’re not the cards you were holding. Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten. And you stare at them and say, “Hey, wait a minute! That’s not my hand!” And the Lord smiles and says, “Of course not! You’re hand was a loser. Around here, you win with my hand, not yours.”

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

Where is the religious boasting and bluffing and all the ways we try to put on our Sunday best before God? It’s excluded. In fact, the only way to keep the Law is faith. Trust that God in Christ turns losing hands into winners, justifies sinners, and declares you and me to be righteous in His sight. And works? They’re to serve your neighbor and show your faith since no one but God can see faith anyway. And they’re done in the freedom of being justified.

But we hold that one is justified before God by faith apart from works of the law.

It doesn’t get more basic than that.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.”

The parable of the king’s son’s wedding clearly takes place in an entirely different cultural context. In Jesus’ day, weddings were run by the men, not the women. The character at a wedding was not the bride but the groom. And you can tell that men were in charge because the most important thing about a wedding was lots of barbecued meat and wine to drink. “Rich food full of marrow and aged wine well refined.” The only thing missing is bacon, but remember the context is still Old Testament and Jesus’ hasn’t yet died to fulfill the law of Moses.

The story goes like this. A king throws a wedding party for his son. The kingdom’s A-list has received their invitations, but as the RSVPs come in, it becomes painfully clear that they have other plans. The king even sends his servants out to go door to door and say, “The steaks are on, the prime rib is smoking, the wine is poured, the feast is ready, come to the feast.” And you would think that the combination of an invitation and a personal reminder, not to mention lots of free food and drink would cause people to drop whatever they were doing and come running to the feast. But you would be wrong.

They paid no attention, either to the invitation or to the servants. One went off to his farm to work, another to his business. Some actually seized the servants and beat them up and even killed them. And these were the invited guests! Remember now, they had a place the feast. The king had invited them; he was expecting them, he had prepared for them. And the only reason they wind up in outer darkness grinding their molars is they would not come to the feast. They would not. It’s not that the king would not have them or didn’t want them or never invited them. They wouldn’t go.

I know how the king feels. I’m not much of a party person. My idea of a big party is having two other people over for dinner. My parents weren’t party people either. There were those kids in school who organized parties all the time. You remember them, don’t you? I do. They thought nothing of inviting 50 kids over for a party. That would have been unheard of in my house. We didn’t even have birthday parties. We got to call the shots for dinner and pick our favorite cake. That was it. Happy birthday. I didn’t really mind, because I didn’t like parties. I was always worried that if I threw a party and invited my friends, no one would show up. I go through the same anxiety every Sunday morning. I have dreams about that. You can analyze that all you wish, but it’s why I don’t like organizing events. I’m afraid no one will come.

Imagine how it is from God’s perspective. This divine service is a party, prepared by the king. The feast is ready. The lamb is slain. The wine is poured. Come to the feast. And then all the invited guests have more important things to do: brunch, football, change the light bulbs, mow the lawn, wash the car. And when the king sends his servants out to track down the invited guests who are too busy and distracted to come, watch out. They can be a nasty bunch. And all of this of free food and drink, free forgiveness, life, salvation. You’d think this was a colonoscopy appointment or something.

Turns out you don’t want to get on the bad side of the king. He’s nice and generous when it comes to wedding feasts, but not so kind when you blow him off and beat up his servants. So the king sends out his troops and destroys them and their city. See what happens when men run a wedding? It turns into something resembling Braveheart. And who’s fault is that, anyway?

You will notice a pattern in Jesus’ parables. The unforgiving servant is condemned even though he is forgiven at first. The invited guests become enemies even though they have a place a the table. And it’s all their own fault. They refused the king’s goodness and so they get the king’s wrath. Turn away from the Gospel, and all that’s left is the Law with its attendant outer darkness and gnashing of teeth.

Now let’s clear up a common misunderstanding. You don’t earn your salvation by your perfect church attendance, but you do practice your being saved by coming to church to hear the Word of forgiveness and receive that foretaste of the feast to come. Similarly, you don’t get condemned for your absence from church, but by your absence you are practicing for the day of your damnation. Even worse if you are holding an invitation, says the book of Hebrews. So be careful about saying “no” when the Lord’s gifts are offered to you. Those nos to God’s grace are little proleptic rejections that culminate in the big rejection on the Day of Judgment. Or to put it another way, what are you practicing for: salvation or damnation?

As Jesus tells the parable, the A-list, of course, is Israel and its religious leaders who were actively rejecting Jesus and in so doing forfeiting their seat at the feast. “He came to His own, but His own people did not receive Him.” “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone and cornerstone.” Jesus, the rejected Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world. In His rejection is our acceptance.

The king now has a bit of a dilemma. The A-list is not only not coming to the feast, they are quite dead. The feast is still ready. The only thing missing are guests. And so he sends out his servants again, this time out onto the roads and the alleyways, and he has them invite anyone and everyone, the good, the bad, the ugly, reputable and the disreputable. The least, the lost, the lowly, the good as dead. Two-bit hookers, tax collectors, zealots, you name it. The feast is ready, come to the feast. And the wedding hall is full of guests. Of course, this crowd represents the church, the Israel of the end times, a gathering of all sorts of the good, the bad, the ugly, sinners of every stripe.

Pause the movie for a second. At this point is there anyone who is not invited? Is there anyone who is left out? No. For all intents and purposes, the whole kingdom is invited. This king is no Calvinist. And do these guests “deserve” to be there? Not in the least! In fact, the A-listers, who are now quite dead, would probably have been mortified to be at the same party with this bunch of losers. It’s grace, gift, Gospel. Unearned, unmerited. The worthy are found unworthy, the unworthy are declared worthy. Remember that.

Back to our movie. The king looks over the crowd, and what a crowd it is! They’re eating and drinking and having a great time. And then he spies a man off in the corner who’s no wearing a wedding suit. Remember that these people were just rounded up off the streets with no time to change, so we have to assume that the king is handing our Armani suits at the door. He’s crazy good and gracious. But for some reason, this man isn’t wearing the wedding suit. The king confronts him. “Hey, buddy. (That’s what “friend” actually means.) How did you get in here without a suit?”

Now the translation we have says the man was “speechless.” But what it actually says is that the man was silent. Speechless implies he was stunned at getting caught, kind of like a wedding crasher. Silent suggests that he refuses to even acknowledge the king’s presence much less talk to him. As in most of these parable, what should the man have said? That’s right, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” That always works in this kingdom. But instead he refuses to speak to the king and insists on being at the feast on his own terms. Not a good idea.

He winds up bound and unceremoniously tossed into outer darkness where he can spend an eternity weeping and gnashing his teeth. And to this, Jesus adds the summary clincher: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” The called many are all who have heard the great good news: Christ has died, Christ has risen. The feast is ready. Come to the feast. The chosen few are those who in faith are gathered at the marriage Supper of the Lamb in His kingdom, who are clothed with the wedding garment of His righteousness in Holy Baptism.

To be included is by God’s grace, His gift to you. To be excluded is entirely your doing, your refusal, your turning away. He will compel you, lavish His gifts upon you, put the wedding suit on you, seat you at His table and feed you. But he won’t force you to stay. The guests at this table are free, they are not imprisoned. Luther once quipped that the doors of the church swing in both directions so that those who wish to come to feast may come, and those who wish to leave can leave. But be careful. The alternative to the wedding feast is outer darkness, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth. And it’s so entirely unnecessary.

You are invited. You are clothed. The feast is ready. Come.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In the increasingly silly world of religion and popular Christianity, today has been declared “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” in some circles. This is supposed to be a Sunday dedicated to our freedom to use the pulpit for political speech in defiance of the IRS and in view of our tax exempt privileges as a 501c3 non-profit religious entity. The organizers would have us review the qualifications of the candidates in view of the Scriptures and declare which ones are the godly choice. Suffice it to say that our churches in the LCMS do not participate in such stunts. Oh we are perfectly free to criticize the government on Scriptural grounds on any given Sunday and all the other days in between. And we are also free to pray for those in government office. And, if we were to evaluate all the candidates in the basis of Scripture, we’d have to toss the whole lot of them and get a new batch.

Instead, we will use our freedom in the pulpit this Sunday to speak about freedom, the freedom we have in Christ. Whether that is legal or illegal in this country, or whether it jeopardizes our tax-exempt status with the IRS or not, I really could not care less.

I’m drawn to the epistle this morning from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Paul wrote this letter during one of the many times Paul was in prison. The Philippian congregation, which Paul had founded, had sent a nice gift to Paul by a man named Epaphroditus, and now Paul was sending back a letter of thanks and encouragement. The letter to the Philippians. It’s a joyful letter, probably one of Paul’s most upbeat and joyous letters we have. The word “rejoice” occurs over and over again, Paul can’t seem to say it enough. Aside from a couple of women who are arguing over something, there doesn’t seem to be any major problems in the congregation. Hence, a joyful letter.

Chapter 3, our reading this morning, has been victimized by the hack and slash of the editors who have unceremoniously lopped off the first three verses, so let me fill them in for you. Phil. 3:1   Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. (There’s that “rejoicing” word again.) To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Phil. 3:2   Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.

And so you see what the danger is. There are those lurking around the congregations telling people that they must be circumcised in order to be true blue Christians. Baptism was nice but not enough. Now if you were a Jewish believer, no problem. Circumcision was taken care of before you knew any better. On the eighth day of your life as a baby boy in Israel. But if you were a Gentile, one of the goyim, now that’s another story. And so Paul refers rather derisively to those “mutilators,” hardly a nice politically correct way of referring to things. And he goes on to say that we, baptized believers, whether circumcised or not, are the true circumcision, that is, God’s true Israel, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ and put no confidence in the flesh.

“Confidence in the flesh” refers to the things we do, because what we do happens “in the flesh.” Those who live by the Spirit live by faith and not by works, they glorify in Christ and not in themselves and what they do, no matter how good and religious it might be.

And then Paul engages in what amounts to quite a rhetorical flourish, calling up his entire past in Judaism, and what a past it was. If you want to put confidence in the flesh, well Paul would have even more reason. He was a card-carrying Israelite. Circumcised on the 8th day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. In a day when people’s genealogical records were a bit muddy, Paul had the papers to prove it. He was a certified “Hebrew of Hebrews,” a son of the covenant, the real deal. As to Torah, a Pharisee. And what a Pharisee he was, trained at the feet of the great Rabbi Gamaliel, advancing far ahead of his class. And talk about zeal, he was a persecutor of the church. When Jesus found him on the road to Damascus, he was going with arrest warrants to round up Christians in the synagogues and haul them back to Jerusalem. As to righteousness under the law, blameless, he says. He kept Torah, at least the Pharisaical version of it with its 613 dos and donts. He was a good man, a zealous man, a religious man.

And now listen to this: “What gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” His whole past – his training, his religion, his upbringing, his education, everything, the feast, the fasts, the festivals, everything he had as a pharisaical Jew he counted as loss for the sake of Christ. “Indeed,” he goes on, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Torah, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith and not on works, on what God does and not on what we do, on what Jesus has done for us and not on what we do for Jesus.

I’m not sure that those of us who were born into Christian families, even nominally Christian families, can begin to appreciate what Paul is saying much less what he went through. This man lost his religion. He lost everything he had that defined him. He thought he was doing the will of God by rounding up people who confessed Jesus to be the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel. He thought he was doing the will of God by keeping the rules and regulations that the Pharisees extracted from the Torah. He thought he was an upstanding, card-carrying, obedient son of Israel and that God was pleased with him. And he discovered on the road to Damascus that he was persecuting his Lord and Savior. He was wrong. His religious beliefs were wrong. His worldview was wrong. No wonder he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. The Lord wanted to show him just how blind he was.

Paul’s life was changed. He was being groomed for the highest rank among the rabbis. He was one of the promising young up and coming teachers of the Torah. He was going to be big, maybe as big as Gamaliel himself. And now he sits in prison and has people coming to him with gifts. This Hebrew of Hebrew, this Pharisee of Pharisees was now a prisoner for Jesus. And he counts it all as rubbish, dung, garbage, that colorful Greek word skubala, which was likely a word that you taught your kids not to say.

That’s what all the religion in the world amounts to. Garbage. Dung. The raw sewage of our attempts to justify ourselves. The effluent of our attempts to atone for our own sins and be right with God on our terms. It’s not about what we accomplish but what Christ has accomplished. It’s not about us covering ourselves, but our being clothed with Christ, with His righteousness that He won for us by His perfect obedience, His suffering and His death. It’s about knowing Jesus and being known by Him, of knowing the power of His resurrection, knowing that not even death itself can separate us from God’s love in Christ. It’s about sharing in Christ’s sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. Forget all this nonsense you hear about living the “victorious life.” This is the victorious life, that you share in the sufferings of Christ and become like Him in His shameful and despised death.

In our Gospel parable this morning, the wicked tenants killed the son in the hope of inheriting the land. The tenants represent religious Israel. They rejected their messiah, the cornerstone God had laid for His temple. And so they also lost their land to other tenants. And have you noticed? Even today, the Jewish people cannot maintain their hold on the land. It’s been let out to other tenants including some Palestinian Christians. And no amount of political maneuvering and military might and US dollars are going change that. Hmmm. I seem to have made a political point. Oh well, it’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday, isn’t it?

It’s hard to lose your religion. To shed your cherished beliefs. Think of how upset we get when we find out that one of our favorite religious songs is full of bad theology. Or that one of our fine and venerable traditions is off the mark and in need of reformation. Imagine Paul. He believed the Torah was a Torah of works by which you became righteous before God. He discovered that it is a Torah of faith and that we uphold the law not by doing but by believing, not by our works but by our faith in the atoning, sacrificial blood of Jesus.

Now Paul could have wallowed in the past. He could have beat himself up. He could have agonized over all those people he had unjustly arrested thinking he was doing the will of God. But instead, he simply leaves the past behind. He’s like a runner pressing on toward the finish line. Runners don’t look back over the shoulder to see where they’ve gone. If they do, they’ll trip over their own two feet. “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

How many of us here today are chained by our past? Past sins, past failings, past grievances. To let the past rule the present is a harsh form of slavery. Paul may have been in prison, but he was a free man in Christ because Christ freed him from his past, not only the shackles of his religion but the chains of Sin and Death. We all have a past. Wrongs we have done. Injuries inflicted on us, injuries we have inflicted on others. Our Sin in so many indescribably ways. We have things in our past that we are ashamed of, that we avoid talking about, that we never want even brought to the light of day.

But running the race of faith is not running away from the past. It’s letting go of the past. Forgetting what lies behind because God in Christ has forgiven it and remember it no more. You are free from your past in Jesus. That’s what His death and life have done for you. You are free from everything of your past. You are not defined by who you were or what you did. You are free to live in Christ, to be found in Him, to know the power of His resurrection, to share in His suffering, to be like Him in His death, and finally to attain to the one thing that holds forever: the resurrection of the dead.

That’s finish line. You are free in Christ to run the race that is set before you, not looking behind, not running away from your past, but running toward a sure and certain future filled with resurrection and life. Don’t let your past define your present. Let the future define your present. And the future is defined by the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Leave the past for what it is – a big steaming pile of skubala. Instead, press forward, keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of your faith. You won’t go wrong and you won’t stray off course with your eyes fixed on dead and risen Jesus. And that’s not Jesus in your thoughts, feelings, and prayers. But Jesus in the preached Word, in the sacrament, in the gathering of His church, where two or three are gathered in His name. That’s what you can see and hear. Keep your eyes and ears fixed on that Jesus.

To know Christ, to know power of His resurrection, to share in His sufferings and be like Him in His death, that’s true freedom. True pulpit freedom. And compared to Jesus Christ, everything we do amounts to so much skubala.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” The question of authority is on the table here this morning, and the religious leaders have put it there. The chief priests and elders of the people, the guardians and stewards of the religious institutions and traditions of Israel were challenging Jesus’ authority. Who did He think He was? Riding into Jerusalem like some kind of Messiah? Turning over the tables of the money changers and calling the temple “His house.” “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” Literally, a haven for terrorists. Who did this Jesus think He was, walking around the temple and teaching the people as though He owned the place? As though this really was “His house”?

It’s a matter of authority. “By what authority are you doing these things.” We need to understand the question before we can understand the answer. The key word is “authority.” We tend to think of “authority” in terms of power. The power to do this or that. And that’s true, but there more to it than that. Authority is a matter of permission, permission granted by another to do certain things. So the president of the United States is authorized by the people to be the chief executive officer of the nation. Or a judge sitting on the judicial bench has permitted to judge cases. To have authority is to have permission from someone greater to say and do certain things. When I forgive sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I do so in the stead of our Lord Jesus Christ and by His authority. His permission. It’s OK with Him. He approves of it, delights in it, recognizes it and stands behind it. It is permitted.

We would be outraged, and rightly so, if someone simply assumed authority without having received it. Without being duly authorized. When the authorities knock at your door, they have to present evidence in the form of a badge and legal papers that they have the authority to search your house. Someone just doesn’t decide to be president one day. Or mayor of the city. Or head of the city council. Or pastor of a congregation. It is granted, permitted, authorized. That’s what call and ordination are all about. That’s why we don’t just stand anyone up here on Sunday morning even if they could do a creditable job, or even a better job. If you decided to enforce the law and presented yourself as having the authority of a police office, no matter how great the need or how good a job you were doing, you would be promptly arrested for impersonating an officer. You don’t have the authority to do this.

All of this lies behind the question of the temple authorities. By what authority, do you Jesus, come in here and stir up all sorts of trouble? Who authorized you? Who sent you? And it’s a very good question, because Jesus claims the kind of authority no one one dare claim for himself. The people were amazed at the words of Jesus, because He taught as one who had authority in himself, someone who didn’t need to reference another, unlike their own teachers or the temple authorities who questioned him. Jesus actually had the audacity to stand up before a crowd of people and say, “You have heard it said by the teachers of old, but I say to you.” No one dared speak this way. And no one dared turn over the tables of the money changers and sacrifice sellers or criticize what was going on in the temple.

Jesus’ own words and works gave witness to His authority. He told them as much. If you don’t believe His words then look at His works. Healing the sick, casting out demons, stilling storms, walking on water, casting out demons, raising the dead. These are not run of the mill good works. These are the works that God does, and only one who is authorized by God can do these kinds of things. The miracles of Jesus are His badge of authority.

His words and works were well known. There was no one walking around Jerusalem who hadn’t heard about Jesus, least of all the religious leaders. This is chapter 21 in Matthew’s gospel. This is holy week, the week Jesus enters Jerusalem one last time to die and rise. This is the late season, nearing the playoff, it’s not the preseason warm up. The cards have all been laid on the table since John’s baptism, where Jesus was visibly and audibly approved by the descent of the Spirit and the voice of the Father. “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”

The religious authorities would have none of that. They refused John’s baptism, and understand why. John was calling them to repent of their religion. Baptism was for proselyted, for newbies coming into the faith, not for lifers. It was an insult to their authority. Who did John think he was? And that’s precisely the point of Jesus’ question: The baptism of John. Where did it come from? Until Jesus got an answer for that question, there would be no answer from Him.

You can’t debate unbelief. You can only corner it. Box it in with nowhere to go. You can’t reason someone into believing, nor can you logically convince someone that Jesus is the One to trust. Nor can you answer every question that unbelief and denial throws in your face, because there is no end to the questions. Jesus doesn’t answer their question but backs them into an extremely uncomfortable corner.

That’s also how it’s going to be with us when we approach God with our endless questions looking for some trap, some loophole, some way to negate and neutralize this Jesus. He’ll box you into a corner every time with no way out except to deal with Jesus. No one come to the Father except through Jesus. No one receives the Spirit except by Jesus. You can talk about God all you want, but Jesus is where the action is.

From where did the baptism of John come? Great question! Notice how Jesus has them cornered. There’s no neutral ground, no safe way to answer this question. And they knew it. If they said, “It’s from heaven,” they knew exactly what the next question was going to be. “Well, if it’s from heaven, why didn’t you believe him? Why did you refuse his baptism, if it came from heaven?” And they would be left in a puddle of their own unbelief.

They were also shrewd and tactical. They were aware that John was incredibly popular and that the people revered John as a prophet sent from God. So if they said that John’s baptism was from men, the crowds would turn on them. So they went that soft, beige, say-nothing way of political correctness. They went agnostic. “We don’t know.” That’s what the word “agnostic” means – don’t know. John came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in preparation for the coming Messiah and the dawning of the kingdom of God and the best the religious leaders can come up with is “we don’t know.”

The same might be asked today of Holy Baptism. Is it from God or from men? Is it my God’s mandate and authority or is it from men? Is it, as some say, an outward sign to show that you are a Christian, a way to actualize your commitment to God? Or is it the power of God for salvation? Is it the washing of rebirth and renewal, the means by which the death and life of Jesus come to you? But “we don’t know” is just not going to cut it.

Unbelief is incredibly stubborn and it’s not a self-healing condition. It’s unreasonably resistant, which is why we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to Him. He must come to us, engage us, deal with us by Word and Spirit, baptize us, forgive us, feed us. He must break down those walls of skepticism, atheism, agnosticism, our darkened thinking, our stunted imaginations, our unwillingness to go beyond the realm of what we can see or comprehend. That you believe at all is a gift of God’s undeserved goodness.

You and I are prone to the same sort of questioning. I’m not talking here about the normal questions of faith, questions borne out of genuine curiosity and a desire to learn more. I’m talking about the questions that challenge God and who He is. The question that challenges Jesus’ authority in His Church and in our lives, when you and I think we know better than the Lord how to save us and how to deal with us. When we become our own lords and work our way through the faith “cafeteria style,” picking and choosing the parts we like and leaving behind the parts we don’t. When we preface our statements with the words “God can’t…” or “Jesus wouldn’t…” or “Jesus couldn’t….”

It’s time for a repentance, a turning back, a return to the font of Baptism, to the word of forgiveness, to the Supper of Jesus’ body and blood. You won’t get the answer to every question of your curiosity. You won’t have every intellectual itch scratched or every doubt addressed. But you will know this for a certain fact: Jesus Christ died for you, rose for you, reigns for you lording His death and life over your sin and death. And that nothing in this life can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God has laid His baptismal claim on you. He has justified you in Jesus, His Son, whom He sent with divine authority to be your Savior and to take away the sin of the world.

“Why will you die, O house of Israel,” says the Lord through the prophet Ezekiel. “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God, so turn and live. Trust the Lord of your Baptism and you will live. He is authorized by the Father to save you, and He has done it. Trust Him.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

The kingdom of heaven is not fair. It’s just but it’s not fair. And that’s good because grace isn’t fair. Fair is the law; grace is the Gospel. If it’s fair, it’s not good news. If it’s law, then it’s all up to you. If it’s fair, the first come in first, the last come in last, survival goes to the fittest, the race to the swiftest, the kingdom to those who achieve it. But if it’s grace, gift, then the first are last, the last are first, and the deadbeat sinner gets justified in the same way as the righteous saint. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go the parable.

A man had a vineyard and needed laborers. He went to the union hall at 6 AM and negotiated with the union boss for some laborers at a denarius a day and off they went. At 9 AM, he noticed he was a bit shorthanded, and so he went to the Home Depot and found some idlers standing around doing nothing so he said, “Come work for me and I’ll pay you whatever is just.” Just. Not fair. Just. Same word as “justified.” Remember that.

He did the exact same thing at Noon and at 3 PM. He found some idlers hanging around and hired them for some unspecified just wage. And they agreed. At 5 o’clock he saw that the sun was setting, there was still work to do, and he needed more help. So he goes to a local bar where some deadbeat losers were hanging out all day doing nothing because no one hired them and who could blame them? “You go into my vineyard too,” he says, not even promising to pay them a dime. But they figure, “What the heck, it’s only an hour, we’re running low on beer money, so why not? How hard can it be, anyway?” And off they go.

Six PM hits and it’s Miller Time, as they say. The workers head for the foreman with the money. This is where the fun begins. The vineyard owner has them line up in reverse order, from last to first, from the eleventh hour losers to the first hour union workers who agreed to work for a denarius a day. When they eleventh hour workers opened they pay envelope, what do you suppose they found? A shiny denarius! Wow! One hour’s work and a full day’s wage. Such a deal! But the truth is, there was no deal. There wasn’t even any promise of their being paid. He could have paid them nothing. Or he could have paid a twelfth of a denarius. That would have been fair. But they get a whole denarius.

The word start to trickle back in line. “He’s paying a denarius an hour!” The twelve hour union boys at the end of the line are giddy and rubbing their hands together. At this rate, they’re going to get twelve denarii, the equivalent of twelve days work for one day. Such a deal! But the vineyard owner had made a deal with them. One denarius. And as the workers are paid, the reality settles in. Everyone gets one denarius.

So who’s the happiest and who’s the least happy? Of course, the happiest are the eleventh hour hires. No promises of pay were made at all to them for their measly hour of work. And yet they got a whole day’s wages, a bright shiny denarius. The third, sixth, and ninth hour workers don’t have too much to complain about. All the owner promised was to pay them “what was just.” And in his justice, that was a day’s wages. They were probably pretty happy too, so long as they didn’t think too much about those eleventh hour deadbeats.

But the first hires, the union guys, the ones who had worked the full twelve hours, they would be the ones to grumble the loudest. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. Not fair!” Yet they have the least to complain about. They were paid what they agreed to, union scale, a denarius a day.

And then the vineyard owner pops the Gospel cork and pours a strong one. “Friend.” That’s not a friendly kind of “friend.” That’s more like, “Hey, Buddy.” I’m doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius a day? Take what belongs to you and get out of here. It’s my money and I do with it what I please. If I choose to give these losers a full day’s wage, what’s that to you? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

I like the way the original Greek text puts that last question: “Or is your eye evil because I am good?” Do you cast an evil eye on my goodness?

One of the toughest pills for religion to swallow is the idea that God justifies the ungodly and that our salvation at the world’s Miller Time is not based on our works, achievements and accomplishments, but the sheer grace of God in Jesus Christ who doles out a denarius of salvation to everyone alike, whether a lifer Lutheran or a deathbed convert. Religion turns an evil eye to all this. God may be good but He’s not that good, say Religion’s union bosses. Besides it’s not fair, is it? The last being first, the first being last. It’s bad enough that people are trying to take the competition out of kid’s sports so that there are no winners and losers. But imagine a league where the last place team gets the same big trophy as the undefeated first place team, in that order! Yikes!

A day’s wages for a day’s work. That’s fair. That’s what we expect in this world, and that’s right. This world runs by the rule of law. In fact everything we do is run by the rule of law. There’s no way around that. But, as Isaiah reminds us, God’s thoughts aren’t our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways. He deals with us not according to what’s fair but according to His goodness.

“The wages of Sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Wages are what you earn; gifts are given and received freely, unearned, without any merit or worthiness on the part of the recipient. If you want God to be fair, to deal with you according to your works, your achievements, your accomplishments and all the things you do, then you will be damned. That’s fair. Those are the terms of the Law.

Equality. That’s the name of our game. I think we learned it from the French Revolution. It’s almost a mantra with us. Equal pay for equal work. Equality of the sexes. Equal protection under the law. Everyone’s equal. Treat everyone the same. But that’s the way the Law works. In fact, when people want to enforce their equality, they turn to the law. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with grace and gift and goodness.

The mother who treats all of her children the equally loves none of them. To deal in equalities, you have to apply measurements, the way my brother and I always checked across to the table to see who got the bigger piece of pumpkin pie. Equality means measurement and measurement means law. But with God, the rule is equal salvation for unequal work. A denarius just for being there, regardless of what you did.

In our parable this morning, everyone got paid equally but there was no equality. Nor was it fair. But it was “just” in the sense that it was justified and righteous. The ones who most lived by the law were the first hour workers, who worked all day for an agreed-upon denarius, got precisely what they deserved. They were also the least joyful, the least grateful, the least aware of the vineyard owner’s goodness, the most whiny and complaining about fairness. That’s how it is with those who live under the Law. They are bitter, resentful, always comparing, always measuring, always justifying themselves by how much they’ve done and how little everyone else around them has done.

The later workers had no such labor mt_20.1-16_agreement, but fully expected to receive “what was just,” whatever that was. But the eleventh hour workers had no reason to expect anything. No wages were even promised. Let’s kick the parable up one more notch, shall we? What if the vineyard owner went out into the streets and alleys after he had paid his workers their denarius apiece, and gave everyone he met a denarius for no work at all. Now that would have been pure, unadulterated, 24-karat grace!

And that, my friends, is precisely what God does in His Son Jesus. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were still ungodly, He justified us. Before we so much as lifted a finger to work in His vineyard, He already tucked a denarius of salvation in our pockets. Jesus labored the full twelve hours under the heat of the Law’s sun. And at the close of the day, He put the denarius He earned into your account. And that’s not fair. And it’s not equal protection under the Law. And for us, it’s not Law at all. It’s what we call Gospel. Good news. Grace not works. Gift given and received, not wages earned.

Religion is deeply offended by this. Tell people that this is how God works. He’s like a crazy vineyard owner who pays his last workers the same as his first. Better still, he pays before they’ve even so much as worked. The last are first, the first are last. And in the end everyone gets the same death and resurrection, the same Baptism, the same Body and Blood, the same forgiveness. All by grace through faith for Jesus’ sake.

Outrageous? Oh, you bet it is! “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts,” says the Lord. And thanks be to God that they are! Because if God thoughts were like our thoughts, and His ways our ways, none of us could be saved.

It isn’t fair, but it’s just and good and gracious.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Joseph had every reason in the world to get even with his brothers. And a great opportunity. They had dumped in a pit and sold him to slave traders and told their father he had been attacked by wild animals. Joseph wound up in Egypt, and in classic rags to riches fashion, he went from Pharaoh’s prison to being in charge of Pharaoh’s granary, the food supply of Egypt. When famine hit the land of Israel, his brothers came to him hat in hand to buy grain, not knowing they were dealing with Joseph. Instead of getting even, Joseph forgave his brothers, took them in along with their father Jacob, and took care of them.

And then father Jacob died, and the boys got worried. They thought payback time had come. With Jacob dead, Joseph would get even with them for what they did. So they invoked the name of their dead father. “Your father gave this command before he died. Say to Joseph, ‘Forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.”

Joseph wept when he heard these words. He could have taken advantage. He could have gotten even. But instead he forgave them. “Do not fear,” he said, “for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” They meant to do evil. They wanted to kill Joseph. They sold him into slavery. They lied to their father. God used it for good. He saved the sons of Israel from the famine through Joseph.

And so Joseph became not only the savior of his brothers, but a picture of our Savior Jesus by whose death comes life, by whose blood comes forgiveness, by whose cross comes salvation. It was meant for evil. An innocent man going to the most cruel of capital punishments. Crucified. It is hard to conceive of greater evil done against someone. God meant it for good. The salvation of the world. Your salvation and mine.

This is about forgiveness. Peter came up to Jesus with a question. He had heard Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness and prayer. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” “If you do not forgive you brother, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you.” Peter wondered, as we might wonder. “How often? When is enough enough? How often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” Peter remembered what his teachers in the synagogue taught him. They said three times. Three times you were obligated to forgive. But not a fourth. Peter raised it to the next biblical “lucky number” – from three to seven. Surely seven times was enough. Who could ask for more than that?

“No,” Jesus said, “not seven times. I’ll see our seven raise you seventy times seven.” The point: If you’re counting and keeping book, you’re not forgiving. “Love keeps no record of wrongs,” remember?

To underscore the idea, Jesus tells a parable. It’s linked to the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the one in which Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness in the same way as we forgive. “Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wants to settle accounts with his servants. There was a servant who owed an outrageous amount of money to the king, more than he could possibly pay in 10,000 lifetimes of work. Kind of like the national debt, though he couldn’t print money. The servant pleas for mercy, and the king is merciful. He wipes way the entire debt. Clears the books. And what does this forgiven servant go out and do? He finds a fellow servant who owed him a couple hundred buck and wraps his fingers around the man’s neck and demands payment in full. When word gets back to the king, he’s not happy. And he summons the forgiven servant and condemns him to prison until his debt is paid in full. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Think about that the next time you pray that. Forgive us in the same way that we forgive. Deal with us as we deal with one another. Hmmmmm.

“…if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” It’s about the heart, which is not the seat of emotions, it’s not about your feelings but about your will. Forgiveness is an intentional act. From the heart. The heart is the place where Sin has had its way. From the Sin-infected heart proceed all sorts of sins – murder, theft, adultery, gossip, slander, you name it. If we are going to forgive from the heart, then our hearts must be changed, and we can’t do that. God does.

Forgiveness begins not in our hearts but in the merciful heart of God. In the heart that seeks and saves the sinner. In the heart that beats with compassion for the least and the lost, the heart that reaches out to the ungodly and the enemy. The heart of God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish in Sin, desiring everyone to turn and live. It’s the heart of Jesus who prays, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing,” as Roman soldiers drive nails through His hands and feet to crucify Him. “You mean this for evil, but God meant it for good.”

The source of forgiveness is the cross of Jesus, pouring out forgiveness on the entire world. Our forgiveness is nothing else than His forgiveness, the overflow flowing over to the neighbor. The King has wiped away your debt. More than you could ever repay. The Law with all of demands and threats and punishments has been fulfilled, paid in full by Jesus your brother. You are forgiven.

Never say, “I can’t forgive.” Tell the truth. “I won’t forgive.” That’s the honest truth. Forgiveness means letting go. Releasing. Leaving something be. Which is easier? To hang on to something or to drop it? Imagine a 50 pound weight. Which is easier, to hold on to it and carry it around or to drop it? Don’t say, “I can’t forgive.” Admit it. Confess it. Repent of it. “I won’t forgive.”

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Today is September 11th. 9/11. Remember that day, ten years ago? It was a Tuesday. I remember that because our circuit pastors had their monthly meeting here. I remember my wife calling me from work. “Turn on the TV. We’re under siege.” I remember seeing the second jet hit the Trade Center. Remember that day? Remember the anger, the outrage, the desire to lash out, get even? In the ten years since we killed Osama bin Laden and lots of Al Qaida. We dismantled Iraq. We’re still fighting in Afghanistan. Considerably more people, including the number of our own soldiers, have died than died in the past ten years than did on 9/11. And I’m not saying that at least some of this wasn’t necessary. It was and still is. Some things can only be restrained with a strong swift sword and the inevitable shedding of blood.

But the question is this: Does any of it change your heart? Does getting your pound of flesh from your enemy change who you are? Does it bring back loved ones who were killed? Does it fill the empty place of their absence? Does it make you feel more secure? Are you more free?

“You meant it for evil; God meant it for good.”

Do you believe this? Do you believe that God can and does work good out of evil? Not that He trumps evil with good but that He works good in, with and under evil? We like to quote Romans 8 all the time. “God works all things together for good to those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” We like to quote that as comfort to others to assure them that God will work good somehow. But do we hear what this is saying? That God works all things together for good – all things. Good things, bad things, ugly things. Evil. The hurricane that wipes out your home. The drunk driver that slams into your car. The terrorist who attacks your country. The person who sins against you and hurts you and want to harm you.

We don’t forgive because we forget what debtors we are. The parable Jesus told is intentionally absurd. No one but the federal government could amass such debt as the first servant. But the point is in the comparison. How small the second debt is by comparison. How small the sins against you are compared with your sins before God. And yet we act as though our sin is nothing compared with the sins of others against us. That’s why we need to come back to the source, again and again. We need to confess the truth of what we are – poor, miserable sinners. We need to hear that word of forgiveness drummed into our ears yet again before we got out into that forgiveness-starved world.

I tell all the couples preparing to get married that there are three words that are crucial to their marriage. Three words they must say to each other intentionally, whether they feel like it or not. Three words that must be said and heard frequently. “I forgive you.” They always think it’s “I love you.” And those are important words too. But without forgiveness there will be no love. “Love keeps no record of wrong.”

The servant who was forgiven much could have been a reflection of the King and his mercy. He could have tracked down his fellow servant, the one who owed him, and forgiven his debt. And in so doing, he would have enjoyed a big glass of the outrageous freedom of forgiveness. Letting go is liberating. God in Christ has let go of your debt, your sin. He let go of it. He dropped dead to it. Instead of reforming you and rehabilitating you, He simply forgives you. You are free.

Forgiveness is an act of freedom. The prison doors have been thrown wide open. You are free to walk out of that tiny little cell as free men and women in Christ. The books have been wiped clean. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Freedom. You are free to step out into this glorious land of liberty, the kingdom of heaven. But remember, this is a free kingdom. And the King is a bit crazy and has this outrageous tendency to forgive. And so you live in His freedom and the freedom of His forgiveness by forgiving others.

Who suffers when you refuse to forgive? The person who has sinned against you or you? Who is imprisoned? Who’s actions and feelings are held captive? You or the person who sinned against you? You see, to refuse to forgive is to go back the prison cell again, like that forgiven servant who wound up in prison. The kingdom of heaven is about free people forgiving freely for Jesus’ sake.

“You meant it for evil; God meant it for good.”

That’s faith talk on the part of Joseph. That’s how a free man in Christ deals with his brothers who sinned against him.

For freedom Christ has set you free. You are free to forgive.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Interesting question. I wonder what the disciples had in mind. Were they thinking of themselves? They would be later on in the upper room on the night Jesus was betrayed to death, the same night in which He gave them His Body and Blood in the context of the Passover. There they argued about which of the was the greatest. They’d argued about it on the way.

How would you answer that? How do you measure greatness? We usually think of greatness in terms of achievement and accomplishment. Great men and women accomplish great things, they make a great difference, they make a significant contribution. In sports we think of the ones who are at the top of their game, the ones who dominate, the ones who make the difference between winning and losing. In business the great ones are the titans of industry, the ones who build huge companies, employ thousands of people, make billions of dollars. In politics, the great ones are the ones who change the course of history, the ones who make history.

Greatness is about power and influence. Great people don’t simply live in the world, they rearrange the world. That’s greatness, at least among the kingdoms of this world. But what about the kingdom of heaven? What about this kingdom in which the last come in first and the first wind up dead last, this kingdom that begins almost imperceptibly small and insignificant like a mustard seed or a bit of yeast. What about the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus calls over a little child. We tend to think of children as cute and innocent. We idolize childhood. In Jesus’ day, children were thought of pretty much as losers, liabilities until they could work the land or the family fishing business, or if you were a girl, get married and have babies. Childhood was apprenticeship in Jesus’ day, training to get to the serious business of adulthood and the sooner the better. There was no time to waste on childish fun and games.

It must must have struck the disciples as very strange to have Jesus stick a little kid in their midst and say, “There’s greatness for you. This little one. And unless you turn (that is, repent) and become like this little guy, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” It’s kind of like the opposite of Disneyland. At Disneyland you have to be this big or bigger to go on the cool rides. In the kingdom of heaven, you must be this smaller or smaller or you will never get in. We think you have to be big to be great. Isn’t “great” just another word for “big?” In fact, they even go together. “Great big.” We don’t say “great little” or “little great.”

Unless you turn and change your way of looking at things, unless you become little you cannot know the greatness of the kingdom of heaven. It’s the greatness of humility, of being humbled, of becoming as nothing. John the Baptizer, whom Jesus called “the greatest to be born of woman,” said pointing to Jesus, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Greatness in the kingdom of heaven is the humility of a little child.

It’s not about achievement. It’s not about your religious works and accomplishments. Little children don’t have achievements or works or accomplishments. They live by grace through faith (trust) in another. They have little to give. They are “giveable to,” on the receiving end of things. Which makes them perfect pictures of faith. And faith is the point here. The greatness of faith, trust in Jesus and what He has done for you and what He gives to you, that’s greatness in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus is zealous for faith. He guards the little ones of faith closely with dire warning to those who would cause them to stumble. I prefer to translate “cause to sin” as “cause to stumble” like sticking your foot out in front of someone to trip them, or putting a rock in their path that they trip over. The Greek word is “scandalizo” from which we get “scandalize.” A scandalon is a stumbling point, something that causes someone to stumble or trip. Jesus says that whoever causes one of the little ones who believe in Him to stumble in their faith would be better off having a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.

This makes more sense of the next paragraph. The world is full of such stumbling blocks, Jesus said. Almost everything you see and hear in this world is a potential trip point to faith. And that’s how it must be, Jesus says. That’s the nature of faith that trusts not in the seen but unseen and the heard. If your hand or foot causes you to stumble in faith, Jesus says it would be better to chop it off and enter life maimed than go whole hog to hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble in faith, it would be better to gouge it out and enter life with one eye than be cast into hell with both eyes wide open.

This isn’t moral improvement through dismemberment, otherwise there would be church loads full of one-eyed, one-handed Christians. Jesus’ point is that if what you do with your hands or where you go with your feet or what you see with your eyes causes you to stumble in your trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection and His Word that delivers these to you, you’d be better off crippled, maimed and blind so that you couldn’t see or do anything. If you doubt for a second that you don’t earn your way into kingdom greatness but what you do, then look at that sentence again. It’s better to be blind than to trust your eyes; better to be without a foot than to trust your walk, better to be without a hand than to trust your works.

You see, that’s what the world finds scandalous. The world expects religious people to be moral, and it goes out of its way to point out where they fail. Just look at the way religion is treated in the papers and on television and on the campaign trail. The world looks for the hypocrisies and inconsistencies. And the world will judge you and criticize you and tell you what it means to be a good Christian. It will point out that you don’t keep the 10 commandments, you’re not nice to other people, you don’t do the Sermon on the Mount. And the world would be right. And it’s even worse than that.

But what the world cannot stomach or fathom, what flies in the face of reason and senses is that fact that a sinner stands justified before God by God’s undeserved kindness, through nothing more or else than trust in Jesus’ perfect righteousness and His sacrificial death. What the world cannot fathom and is utterly scandalized over is that God actually forgives His enemies and justifies the ungodly. And that’s precisely where the scandal is, the stumbling block, the tripping point.

And we join in that worldly chorus when we begin justifying ourselves, or telling others to shape up and get with the program or they won’t make it in the kingdom. And when we measure kingdom greatness in terms of the world’s greatness and not that of the little believing child. It’s not about doing but trust. It’s not about chopping of hands and feet and gouging out eyes in order to become pleasing to God, it’s about how there is nothing you can do to become pleasing to God but you don’t have to. God has done what it takes for Him to be pleased with you.

Jesus drives the point home with a parable. “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes away, doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go searching for the lost one?” Well, what do you think? The world would tend to write that one sheep off as a dead asset. What do we say? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Ninety nine sheep safely in the flock are worth a lot more than one chronically wandering sheep. And yet it is the joy of the Good Shepherd to seek and to save. It is precisely the sheep in its lostness that draws the seeking and saving attention of the Lord’s shepherding, and He is restless until we are found safe and sound, not wanting one of these little ones to perish.

You won’t understand the love of God in Christ until you understand this shepherd who is willing to lose all in order to save one who doesn’t deserve to be saved. You’re that sheep. He came to save you. Yes, the world, that’s nice. You. Specifically. You in your helplessness, your lostness, your death. For the joy set before Him, for the joy of returning you to the Father’s fold, for the joy of forgiving you, for the joy of your salvation, Jesus endured the cross and scorned its shame. He became Sin for you, He entered our wilderness of Sin and Death. He became the stumbling block to Religion, the stone the builder’s of Israel rejected. He died the cursed death so that you, baptized and believing as one of His little ones, might enter the kingdom of heaven through the small and narrow door of His death and resurrection.

He sought you in His death and He found you. He baptized you. He absolved you. You feeds you. He sustains you. He carries you to the flock of His Father’s kingdom with the joy of a shepherd who has just found His favored, lost sheep.

That brings us to the last thought of today’s rich Gospel text and to the Church. The Church, as Luther put it, is a “mouth house of forgiveness.” A place where this seeking, saving love of God in Christ comes to bear on sinners. We have a charge. If your brother or sister sins against you, go to him. The world would have you go to get even. Christ would have you go to forgive as you have been forgiven. Go to him. Tell him with the intent and purpose of forgiving. If he refuses, bring a couple of others. The whole church, if necessary. Can you imagine congregational life if we did this? Can you imagine the impact of the church in the world if we actually forgave one another and sought out opportunities to forgive? Sadly, it doesn’t happen all that often. We leave. We check out. We go somewhere else. We avoid. And in the end, we only cheat and hurt ourselves.

Go to him. Go to your brother or your sister who has sinned against you. Conflict avoidance is not a good thing here. Forgiveness is at stake. This isn’t about getting even or gaining your “pound of flesh.” This is about forgiveness, freedom and life. This is what the Church is to be about – binding and loosing. Binding Sin. Liberating sinners. Getting rid of every obstacle to faith, every stumbling block. Forgiving; being forgiven. With the confidence that what goes on here on earth also goes on in heaven with God. Jesus is bound to His Church as Bride and Groom. They are one flesh. What she says in His Name, He says. What she does in His Name, He does. And even as small a gathering as two or three in the Name of Jesus has the promise that He will be there too, right there in the midst of them.

Two or three may not seem like much of a congregation. Certainly not a great one by today’s mega-church standards. But it is a holy quorum in the eyes of the Lord. Jesus is fully present there in the humblest of gatherings with the fulness of His gifts. A congregation as few as two or three gather together in the Name of Jesus has the promise of His presence.

We learned something about greatness in the kingdom of heaven today – it’s a little child, a lost sheep, a congregation of two or three, a crucified Savior who comes in the humility of simple water, spoken words, bread and wine. All for the joy of seeking and saving you, a sinner redeemed in Jesus.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:21-28

The moment that begins with “from that time” marks a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. Peter had just made the great and glorious confession you heard last week when he declared of Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And that confession was extolled by Jesus as a revelation of His Father and the foundation of His Church. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Jesus was, and is, the Christ, the promised and prophesied Messiah of Israel, and He is the Son of the living God, the only-begotten of God, Yahweh, the Lord in the flesh.

Up until now it has been about the crowds – celebrity and popularity – healing the sick, casting out the demons, preaching the kingdom, one upping the religious types at their game. This was popular Jesus and the crowds flocked to Him the way we do to celebrities at their peak. But now a reality begins to settle in, the true nature of Jesus’ mission comes to the surface. He must go to Jerusalem, to the seat of religion and power. He must suffer many things at the hands of the religious leaders – the elders of the people, the chief priests and the scribes. Temple and synagogue would turn against Him. He must be killed. Jesus doesn’t simply say that He would be killed, but it had to happen. He must be killed. And on the third day be raised.

Jesus predicts His own death and resurrection. It’s one of the two great prophesies of Jesus. This and the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem within a generation. These two prophesies are the internal validation of Jesus’ words. You’re not supposed to listen to a prophet whose word does not come true. Jesus actually did die and rise, and the temple actually was destroyed, just as Jesus had said. His words are sure; He speaks the truth.

Here Jesus reveals the true nature of His mission. This is why He came virgin-born. This is why He was baptized in the Jordan. This is why He performed all the miracles He did. This is why He came – to suffer many things at the hands of those who were looking for the Christ, the religious leaders of His own people. To be killed – not accidentally but intentionally, not in some sort of tragedy but in a gross miscarriage of justice in an act of brutality, to endure the worst of deaths, a death that we would deem an atrocity. Imagine the outrage if crucifixions went on today!

And on the third day rise again. Don’t neglect that last sentence. It’s the most audacious of predictions. No one had ever risen from the dead on His own. Yes, it happened a couple of times in the OT when a prophet would raise someone from the dead, notably Elijah and Elisha. Jesus would raise three people from the dead in His ministry. But no one in His right mind would make the claim that he would be killed and on the third day be raised. That’s simply insane. Or insanely true, in the case of Jesus. And it’s the one thing that sets Jesus apart from all other christs, all other messiahs, all other potential saviors and lords and teachers. He actually did die and was raised from the dead three days later.

Peter would have none of it. He was indignant. Angry. He pulled Jesus aside and rebuked Him, yes, rebuked Him. “Are you out of your mind? That’s not how you roll, Jesus! Suffer, die, rise. Are you kidding? That’s the last thing in the world that must happen to you! You need to get with the program. You need to start flexing your divine muscle. You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ’s don’t suffer; they end suffering. The Son of the living God doesn’t die. How can men kill God? That’s preposterous Jesus! No one’s going to buy that, least of all me and the other eleven. We’ve left everything to follow you. Everything! The family business, our homes, our friends. People are going to think we’re nuts. So no more talk like that, Jesus! Not another word about suffering, dying, and rising.”

We’d say the same thing if we’d been there. We’d have been just as outraged as Peter. Maybe even more. Who wants to hear about suffering, dying and rising? That’s not our way of doing things. That’s not what we expect God to do when He comes in the flesh. Look at what an embarrassment the cross is! Oh, we might turn it into a trinket or a pretty piece of jewelry, but depict a dead Jesus on it and people start getting a little nervous. There was good reason why the church didn’t use the symbol of the crucifix for several centuries. People were still being crucified and the memory of the sight was fresh in the minds of people. It was a horrible thing. In fact, Jesus doesn’t mention it at first. He just says He would be killed. He spared them that detail at first. They couldn’t handle it.

We don’t want to deal with the reality of Sin in this world or in ourselves. Suffering and death are the result of Sin. We are reminded of our own mortality, and we don’t like it. And we certainly expect any respectable God to be above all this, not to get Himself mixed up in our suffering and death. And we certainly don’t expect the way of salvation to be the way of suffering, death and resurrection, but that’s precisely the way.

Peter the confessor became Peter the denier. Peter the spokesman of the Father became Peter the spokesman for the devil. This was not the Father talking, as it was when Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. This was the devil talking. “Get behind me, Satan!” Satan. That’s right. Satan was talking through the apostle Peter, tempting Jesus as he once tried three times in the wilderness. “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

In other words, you are not looking at thing as God sees them but as man sees them, and that’s precisely the way the devil wants you to see things. Man’s way. Your way. The devil would have you trust your eyes rather than your ears, to trust your reason rather than God’s Word, to trust your senses and sensibilities rather than the One who came to save you.

It’s not just about Jesus, my friends. No. This is not about how Jesus suffered, died and rose so you don’t have to, so you can go on your merry way without a care in the world and have everything handed to you by some invisible hand from above. No, this is about your suffering, dying and rising too. This is about your cross too. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” “Follow me” Jesus says. The way we used to play follow the leader when we were kids. Follow Him. That doesn’t mean follow His rules (He didn’t give any). It means follow Him through suffering and death and resurrection to eternal life.

A disciple is a follower. That’s what the word “disciple” means – one who follow another. Usually, it meant one who adhered to the teachings of another. But that only scratches the surface when it comes to disciples of Jesus. Being a disciple of Jesus is not about attending Jesus school. It’s about suffering, dying and rising. It’s about denying one’s self and confessing Christ. It’s about losing in order to win, dying in order to live. It’s about holding everything in this life with the open, dead hand of faith, to be dead to Sin about alive to God in Christ.

To follow Jesus is to be baptized into His death and life, to be joined to Him by Baptism in His suffering, death and resurrection. Your suffering and death can’t save you. They are the just wages of Sin. They are what Sin pays out in you. There’s no life there. But Jesus’ suffering and death lead to resurrection and life. And baptized into His suffering and death, you come into a life you can’t have on your own.

We had a Baptism today. Remember your own Baptism. Trace that sign of the cross that was made on you. You don’t get to pick your cross. You take up the cross that was given you in the water with the Word. In Baptism you were joined to Jesus’ suffering. His wounds are now your wounds for your healing. In Baptism you were joined to Jesus’ death. His death atones for your sins; don’t you try to atone for them with your sacrifices. In Baptism you were joined to Jesus’ resurrection and life. In Baptism you were given a new mind, the mind of Christ, set on the things of God not on the things of man, given to embrace the mystery of salvation.

What does that look like in this life? The apostle Paul wrote a paragraph on this in his letter to the Colossians. We usually pick and choose a verse or two, but I’ll let the passage speak for itself:

Col. 3:1   If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Col. 3:5   Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you once walked, when you lived in them. 8 But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices 10 and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.

Col. 3:12   Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, 13 forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That’s what Jesus means when He says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Live as though dead to this world. You have died; your life, your true life, your whole life, is hidden now. Buried in Christ with God. Your job is to die each day to Sin, all that idolatrous stuff that is in you – immorality, impurity, anger, wrath, slander, lies. You are clothed with Jesus, with His compassion, kindness, lowliness, meakness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness. It’s all yours in Jesus.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

It’s the only way to live.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

It was a city known for its temples.  The Sellucids had built a temple to Pan, the goat-footed god of victory in battle, there.  Herod built a temple to Zenodorus there too.  Philipp II dedicated it to Caesar Augustus and had just struck a coin with his picture on it, which the Jews considered idolatrous.  Caesaria Philippi was a city of many gods and many lords.  Little wonder then, that Jesus asks His disciples the decisive question in the region of Caesaria Philippi.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  That’s a general question, one for the opinion polls.  Opinions varied, even with the rabbis.  The Son of Man is a rather mysterious figure in the OT.  Sometimes the phrase just means “human being,” the son of a man, as it does in Ezekiel.  In Daniel, the Son of Man sits at the right hand of the Ancient of Days and receives from Him all authority in heaven and on earth.  Son of Man came to be codeword for Messiah, or at least had messianic overtones.

Opinions on the street were mixed.  Some held that Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets was the Son of Man.  Some believed John the Baptist to be the Son of Man.  He had the right look, the right temperament, the right message of repentance.  But he also died in Herod’s prison.  As for Jesus, well, the jury was still out as far as the public opinion polls went.  He’d done some impressive miracles, preached up a storm, and cast out demons, stilled storms, fed thousands, even walked on the water at 3 AM.

“What about you?”  Jesus turns His attention to His disciples.  “Who do you say that I am?”  Notice He doesn’t ask them, “Who do you say the Son of Man is’” but “Who do you say that I am?”

Peter answers for the group, as usual.  The question was addressed to all of the disciples, but Peter is usually the one to jump in, like the student that always sticks up his hand with the answer.  “You are the Christ,” Peter says, the Son of the living God.”  More than simply Son of Man, the Christ – the Messiah and the Son of the living God.”  Of all the things you can say about Jesus, nothing really matters until you say that He is the Christ, the messiah of Israel foretold by the prophets.  And that He is the Son of God.

People are inclined to say nice things about Jesus, and to lump Him together with the great religious figures of history.  A moral example.  An obedient Jew.  A miracle worker.  An exorcist.  A teacher of righteousness.  Anything less than the Christ, the Son of the living God only scratches the surfaces of who Jesus is.  Since Albert Schweitzer in the 19th century, it’s been fashionable to speak of the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith” as though these two were distinguishable.  There is the “Jesus of history” the carpenter from Nazareth who became an itinerant rabbi, gathered a following and got crucified.  And then there is the “Christ of faith,” the One the church made up, the One who rose from the dead and is worshipped as the Son of God and Savior.

This question from Jesus confronts the disciples with the very essence of the Christian faith.  Who is Jesus?  Who do you say that Jesus is?  And not just “for you,” as if He is one thing to one person and another thing to someone else.  Who is He objectively for the world, for all?  Peter’s answer is our answer too.  He is the Christ, the Son of God.  The “historic Jesus” is the “Christ of faith.”  They are one and the same thing.  This is what Peter confessed and this is what you confess in the Creed.  In fact, you might say that Peter uttered the first “apostles’ creed” in saying “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  That was an actual creed from the actual mouth of an actual apostle.

“To confess” means to say back what you have heard, to say the same thing.  Jesus reminded Peter that he didn’t come to this conclusion by his own reason, strength, or intuition.  In fact, he couldn’t have learned it on his own.  “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.”  We say the same thing in our catechism when we confess, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him.”  Yes, you can know that Jesus existed.  You can know what He said and did.  You can even know that some believed Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God.  But to believe that for yourself and to confess it, is not your doing.  It is beyond your reason and strength.

“No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit,” the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians.  They were hyper concerned about who had the Spirit and who didn’t.  Paul was clear to say that no one who has the Spirit can say, “Jesus be cursed” (as the Roman government demanded on pain of punishment and even death) and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.  The civic thing to do was to say “Caesar is Lord” and offer your pinch of incense to Caesar at his temple, like the one at Caesaria Philippi.  But no one with the Holy Spirit could do that.  No one with the Spirit could deny Christ or curse Him.  In fact, what you believe in your heart must also come from your lips.  “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Romans 10:9

Believing and confessing, the heart and the lips, go together.  That’s why we recite the Creed.  We say it out loud.  Our lips move.  Words come out of our mouths.  Those words come from the believing heart that has been given faith by the Holy Spirit.  In fact, your confessing the faith is one piece of evidence God gives you that the Spirit is at work in you.  No one can say that except by the Holy Spirit.

Now I know there are people who will say, “But anyone can mouth those words, even if they don’t have the Spirit or believe.”  Yet the fact is they don’t because they won’t.  When given the freedom to confess or deny Jesus, the unbeliever will quite naturally, willingly, and easily deny Him.  Peter couldn’t stop himself.  He had to confess what the Father had given him to say.

And that confession was not for Peter alone.  It was for the whole Church.  In fact, the Church is built on the foundation of what Peter confess that day.  “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”  Confessing Peter is faithful Peter who is built on the rock who is Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And built on that confession, he is immovable, standing on rock solid ground, so that not even the gates of Hades can prevail him.  Or you.  Or the whole church, which is why it has survived all these years.  Our Confessions quote the church father Hillary who wrote, “On this rock of confession, therefore, the church is built.  This faith is the foundation of the church.”

The opposite of confession is denial.  To deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God is to deny the very thing that the Father said of Him at His Baptism in the Jordan, the very thing that His death and resurrection testifies to, the very thing the Holy Spirit preaches into our ears.  It is to make God into a liar and to call all those early Christians, many of whom laid down their lives in martyrdom to confess the creeds we say with such comfort and ease.

We deny Christ both with our lips and with our lives.  With our lives by our attempts to justify ourselves, to be Christ for ourselves, to live as though God did not matter and as if all that mattered was Me.  We deny Christ with our lives when we seek to atone for our sins with our own blood, or at least with our own guilt, or the blood of others, when we offer to God bargaining sacrifices attempting to get in on His good side and merit His mercy.

We deny Christ with out lips when we refuse to sing His praise, to confess His Name, to pray, praise and give thanks for what He has won for us.  When we sit in stony silence refusing to confess and yet claiming to believe as though heart and mouth were disconnected.  We deny Christ when we make His Word into nothing but a human opinion, His sacraments into nothing more than a religious ceremony, when we deny His presence among us in the Word, in the bread and cup, we are denying the very Word of Christ that is intended to bring us life and salvation and will open the kingdom of heaven to us poor, miserable sinners.

Jesus said to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”  Keys are authority, the authority to open and close, to bind and set free.  “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Jesus wasn’t making Peter the Pope, as the Roman Catholics claim.  Jesus was making Peter, the confessing disciple, an apostle, sent with the authority of Jesus Himself, whose confessing mouth would bind the devil and free men from bondage to sin and death.

What Jesus is saying to Peter and to us is this:  “You need not look grope around in heaven, in fact, you cannot now even ascend to heaven.  Your flesh and blood, infected with Adam’s sin, cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  Don’t look to heaven; listen here on earth.  Listen to my Word.  Listen to the preaching that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God who has come to save you.  Those words are the keys to the kingdom.  With them, the gates of heaven swing wide open to those who hear.  Sinners are freed from their sins.  The devil and his minions are bound.  Sin and Death are no more.  So open your mouth, Peter, and preach it.  Confess it before the world, even as they crucify you upside down, because the gates of Hades cannot contend with my Word.”

We need to cling to these words, my friends.  The faith we confess is not our own.  It is not the invention of clever men seeking to exert their power.  It comes from the Father Himself, through the Son who died and rose to establish His kingdom and to include each of you in it, by the Holy Spirit who lays these words on your ears with the full authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.

It has become fashionable these days to make much of the Pledge of Allegiance.  It’s become a kind of litmus test of one’s patriotism and even one’s religious beliefs, whether one says the Pledge and recites the phrase “under God.”  People take immediate note when the Pledge is missing or the phrase is skipped.  Letters are written, boycotts are threatened.  The symbolic value of the Pledge, written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister who also happened to be a Christian socialist, cannot be underestimated.  Anyone who thinks “words are just words” needs to ponder the Pledge and its place in our society.

How much more the Faith and Creed we confess in words delivered from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit!  Words that flesh and blood cannot know on its own, or teach.  Words that must be taught by God and heard and confessed.  Not recited.  Confessed.  We recite the Pledge; we confess the Creed.  And I hope we know the difference.

Peter confessed Jesus as Christ and Lord that day in Caesaria Phillipi, the citadel of idolatry and paganism.  We confess the same Lord Jesus Christ today in the midst of not only idolatry but also atheism and skepticism.  We confess it knowing that our confession does not originate with us but by the will and Word and Spirit of God.  We confess knowing that by these words heaven is opened, the devil bound, and we are set free from Sin and Death.  We confess and we are blessed.

“Blessed are you, Simon, Bar-Jonah!  Blessed are you, dear baptized believer!”

In the name of Jesus,

Amen

She was desperate. She had no one to turn to. Her daughter was deeply oppressed by some sort of demon. No description of the symptoms, but the woman is at the end of her hope. Jesus is all she has left. She heard He was coming into her region, the district of Tyre and Sidon, the far north coast county named after the great grandson of Noah. Canaanite territory. The Canaanites were the inhabitants of the land before the Israelites came. They were the people the Israelites were to supposed to have driven from the land but didn’t. Needless to say, Israelites didn’t have much to do with Canaanites. The rabbis even called them “dogs,” which was about as low as it got. Filthy, garbage picking scavengers. A respectable Israelite wouldn’t even talk to a Canaanite if one came up to them on the street.

This Canaanite woman comes up to Jesus. Strike one. Canaanites don’t come up to Israelites unless a fight is about to break out. She’s a woman. Strike two. Women don’t approach men much less rabbis. She cries out to Him. Strike three. Women are not to address men in public. But Jesus is her last resort. She knows who she is; she knows who Jesus is. She’s a Canaanite; He’s an Israelite. So she does her best Israelite imitation: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David.”

“Son of David” is Israelite talk; messiah talk. “Son of David” is what the Israelites were looking for in a messiah. Perhaps Jesus wouldn’t notice who she was. Perhaps He wouldn’t care. Perhaps He’d be sympathetic and compassionate. “My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.”

What would you have expected Jesus to do? Most of us would have expected Jesus to heal that woman’s daughter. He’d done that for others, including non-Israelites. But Jesus didn’t say a word to her. Didn’t even acknowledge her presence. Turned a hard, stony gaze away from her. And so she turned to his band of disciples. Maybe they had some influence. You know, if you can’t get to Jesus talk to His friends, right? Have them put in a good word for you. “Please, please talk to Jesus for me. Tell Him my daughter is sick. She has a demon. I know He can heal her. Please talk to Him for me.”

But the disciples are Israelite men too. Same three strikes against her. Instead of interceding for her, they beg Jesus to get rid of her. “Send her away, she’s a pain. She’s causing a scene. She keeps on crying after us, Jesus. Tell this Canaanite to get lost.”

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” Jesus answers. Answers whom? The woman or the disciples? It looks like Jesus is talking to the disciples in her hearing. He’s agreeing with them. “You’re right, boys. These bothersome Canaanite needs to get lost because I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Right?” “Yeah, Jesus. That’s right. Messiah is supposed to clean up this place of people like her. You’re pro-Israel. You’re going to put Israel on the map. You don’t have time for this Canaanite. So let’s get back with the program, Jesus.”

But she’s persistent. She won’t take silence for an answer. She comes and prostrates herself before Jesus, literally touches her forehead to the ground in deep humility and worship. And she loses all that “Son of David” talk and speaks it straight from her broken heart: “Lord, help me.” It doesn’t get more broken that that. Imagine all this happening on a public street in front of onlookers.

This time Jesus speaks to her directly. “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” She’s down and He appears to kick her. How utterly cruel, heartless, uncaring, unsympathetic, unfeeling Jesus appears to be. Oh sure, you can check in the Greek and find that Jesus uses a diminutive and calls her a little lap dog instead of a big nasty dog, but a dog is a dog nonetheless and in the ears of a 1st century Canaanite that would be heard as an ethnic slur no matter how delightfully diminutive it might have been. Jesus used the “D-word.”

What would you have done? Leave in a huff? Find another savior? Tell Him off to His face? What do you do when Jesus appears to give you the cold shoulder? When He seems to turn His gaze away from you? When He treats you like a dog? This hits hard on our sense of entitlement. We feel entitled to things. We think God owes us just for showing up and for trying hard. Luther once commented that we easily say that we are poor, miserable sinners. The words come out of our mouths easily enough. But when someone dares to rebuke us for our sin we get all defensive and self-justifying. “How dare you call me a sinner!” Even more so when God treats us like sinners that we say we are. “How dare He ignore my prayers! How dare He turn His face from me! How dare He close His hand of blessing! I’m His child; I’m entitled.”

The Canaanite woman didn’t do any of that. Instead she did something utterly remarkable and unpredictable. She heard something in Jesus’ harsh words that faith could grasp. Something that she could hold Him to. It was in that deeply insulting word “dog.” And all she had to do was admit that that is who she was. A dog. And from that place, which seems to our eyes to be utter humiliation and disgrace, she finds the hidden blessing. “Yes, Lord, a dog I may be. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” She holds Jesus to His words and won’t let Him go, even when those words seem to scream out “no!” She seeks His “yes” inside of His “no.”

Luther preached it this way:

What a superb and wonderful object lesson this is, therefore, to teach us what a mighty, powerful, all-availing thing faith is. Faith takes Christ captive in his word, when he’s angriest, and makes out of his cruel words a comforting inversion, as we see here. “You say,” the woman responds, “that I am a dog. Let it be, I will gladly be a dog; now give me the consideration that you give a dog.” Thus she catches Christ with his own words, and he is happy to be caught. “Very well,” she says, “if I am a dog, I ask no more than a dog’s rights. I am not a child nor am I of Abraham’s seed, but you are a rich Lord and set a lavish table. Give your children the bread and a place at the table; I do not wish that. Let me, merely like a dog, pick up the crumbs under the table, allowing me that which the children don’t need or even miss, the crumbs, and I will be content therewith.” So she catches Christ, the Lord, in his own words and with that wins not only the right of a dog, but also that of the children. Now then where will he go, our dear Jesus? He let himself be made captive, and must comply. Be sure of this: that’s what he most deeply desires…

Jesus speaks to her again; but now she’s honored by Him. “O woman,” He says. An honorific title. It’s the same title He gives to His mother. “O woman, great is your faith!” Great indeed! Last week we heard Jesus chide Peter for his “little faith” because he stopped believing that he could walk on water by the power of Jesus’ word. But this woman trusted Jesus even when Jesus appeared to turn His back on her and reject her. That’s the picture of faith’s tenacity, my friends. That is great faith, the kind of faith that can only be worked by the Spirit. And take notice, please, that it is the outsider, the Canaanite “dog” who is in possession of this great faith. Not the Israelite. Not the disciple. This despised Canaanite. It is all by grace, undeserved kindness.

From that very hour, her daughter was healed. The demons are no match for Jesus. No big deal at all, really. Just a word will do it. “Let it be done as you desire.” That’s all it takes from the lips of Jesus. The darkness and demonic realm have no choice but to obey Him. Even from a distance. Jesus had come to do battle with the devil, with the darkness of Sin, with Death. He came to deal the decisive blow on the cross. And even here, the power of His cross is evident. A simple word from a distance is all that it takes. Israel had its exorcists, but none like this. This is the Lord, and what He says goes.

The healing is not so much for this woman or for her faith as it is for Jesus’ disciples and for us. He’s training them in what great faith looks like. It looks like a broken and desperate Canaanite woman who embraces her “doggyness” and doggedly pursues the promise hidden under Jesus’ seeming rejection. He’s teaching the disciples, and us, to hang on to His words and trust them and look for the promise in them and not to trust our feelings or even how God seems to be treating us. Cling to Jesus’ words and run with them. If He says “you’re nothing but a hound dog” then embrace it and run straight to His table for the richest of crumbs that fall from it.

And if He says you are a dog of a sinner in need of forgiveness, then like the apostle Paul claim the top dog and be “chief of sinners” and come to the Word of forgiveness and the Lord’s table to receive not crumbs but the bread of life and the wine of heaven, the Body and Blood of Him who went to the dogs to save you.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Well, Jesus finally gets a chance for some solitude to pray. He’s been trying for a whole chapter to get some peace and quite but the crowds keep following Him. Word of cousin John’s death in prison has just reached the ears of Jesus, and understandably He want to take some time by Himself to pray to His Father. So after feeding the 5000 plus and ordering the disciples off in their boat, Jesus finally gets some alone time up on the mountain.

By sunset, Jesus is there all all by Himself. The crowds are long gone. The disciples are busy rowing their boat. A notorious wind kicks up, as winds are prone to do in the evening on the Sea of Galilee. White caps and wind chop kick up on the sea. The disciples struggle hard against the wind and the waves. They seem to get nowhere. The harder they pull the oars, the more they seem to stay in the same place. Ever feel that way about life? The harder you try the less progress you seem to make?

They row and row and row through the night. Past midnight. Probably taking turns to ward off fatigue. “Here John, you row for a while. These blisters are killing me.” It’s now three in the morning. That’s right. 3 AM. The “fourth watch of the night.” The last call before the dawn. They look out on the water and they see a figure of a man. And he’s walking on the water!

Now these are sane and rational men. At least four of them are fishermen, acquainted with the ways of the sea and how the light on the water can play tricks on you. They were terrified. Understandably so. Who wouldn’t be? They knew that men can’t walk on water. They assumed it was a phantom, an apparition, a “ghost” as we sometimes say. They cried out in fear. Again, who wouldn’t? You’re there in a boat, all alone on the water, at 3 AM, and you see a figure walking toward you on the water. I don’t know about you, but I can sense the heart rate increasing just thinking about it.

Well, seeing isn’t believing, but hearing is. As the apostle Paul reminds us, “faith comes by hearing the word of Christ.” Jesus speaks to them. “Take heart. Chill. It is I. Do not be afraid.” It is I. Ego eimi in Greek. The reason I mention this is that the full import of what Jesus said gets lost in translation. He’s not simply saying, “Hey, it’s me, boys” though that’s part of it. He says “It’s me” in such as way as to evoke the divine Name Yahweh. I AM. The one who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. I AM who I AM. Yahweh. Ego eimi was how you said I AM in Greek. And Matthew, speaking to a Jewish audience, is rather reluctant to use the phrase “ego eimi” unless he really wants to make a point. And here, he doesn’t want us to miss the point. Jesus is saying, “Have courage. I AM the Lord. Don’t be afraid.”

Well, it’s about time you showed up, Jesus. What took you so long? We’ve been pulling oars for over nine hours here and getting nowhere. How about lending a hand and pulling an oar. And could you possibly do something about this wind and these waves?

Peter wasn’t quite so sure. The others probably weren’t either, but Peter tends to speak up first and say what’s on his mind. “Lord, if it’s you, command me to come to you on the water.”

That’s pretty definitive. Phantoms may speak, but they have no real power to do anything, much less make a man walk on water. And Jesus says, “Come.” One word. Even in Greek. “Come.” But this one word is no ordinary word. It is the Word from the Word Incarnate, the Word in the flesh, the Word through whom all things were made, the Word that laid the foundation of the earth, that shut the sea behind its doors, that made the clouds, and said to the proud waves of the Deep “thus far shall you come and no farther.” The is the same Word that said “be light” and light there is. So when Jesus says to Peter “Come” that’s all it takes to bring him out of the boat and walking to Jesus on the surface of the deep.

I say “deep” here to plumb the greater depths of this miracle. Miracles are not, as some people describe them, “suspensions of the laws of nature.” Miracles are extraordinary events with no natural explanation that mean something or that teach us something. They are “signs” filled with meaning. The sea is a personification of Death. The fishermen feared the sea; the superstitious ones even sacrificed to the sea. The sea was filled with all sorts of creatures – Leviathan, Behemoth, Rahab – the great sea monsters. It was a picture of death that swallowed you up whole and didn’t spit you out again. (Now, I hope you have a slightly deeper meaning behind Jonah, but that’s for another time.) The Deep is what covered the earth in the beginning when the Spirit of God hovered over its face and God spoke the creative and ordering Word over it.

So when Jesus walks on the water, He is showing not only His lordship over creation but also His lordship over Death. He’s walking on the back of Leviathan, treading the old serpent underfoot. And when Peter does it, he’s doing the same. Defying Death itself and walking on its back as though it were solid ground.

Peter does it not in the strength of his own buoyancy, but in the power of that one little word Jesus said to him. “Come.” One word carries Peter from the boat, across the water, right up to Jesus.

Now don’t try this in your own swimming pool much less in the ocean. You have no such word from Jesus. And anchored by your own piety and wishful thinking, you’ll drop like a rock. You have a different word spoken in the water of your Baptism. Justified. Declared righteous before God. Forgiven. Holy. And that word too does what it says. You don’t walk on water, you live in the water of your Baptism. Drowned in forgiveness. Buried with Jesus into His death. Living with Jesus in His life. And that is as sure as the word that propelled Peter out of the boat to Jesus across the choppy Sea of Galilee.

Oh yes, it was choppy. Windy too. Remember? Rowed all night. 3 AM. Wind and waves. And now Peter is standing there next to Jesus, defying everything that Archimedes ever said about things that float. He looks around at the white caps, the chop, the wind. And fear creeps in. He’s just walked across the water to Jesus and only now realizes, “Hey, wait a minute! You can’t walk on water!” And starts to sink.

See what happens when you lose the bead on the Word? You sink into Death itself. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. That’s where Peter’s eyes need to be – on Jesus. Not the wind, the waves, the boat. Jesus. Nothing but Jesus. Same with you. Look around you at the world, look inside yourself, and doubts will rise, fear will grow, and you’ll sink like a stone. That’s why we’re here every Sunday to hear the Word, to receive the Supper. There are so many ways this goes wrong. So many distractions, so many causes of doubt. When we lose sight of Jesus, and I don’t mean Jesus in our hearts or Jesus in our thoughts or Jesus in our prayers but Jesus in the Word, in the Supper, in that unique gathering of two or three come together in His Name, when we lose objective sight of Jesus, we drown.

We drown in despair, in guilt, in fear. We drown in our doubts, our skepticisms, our failings and weaknesses. We drown in Sin and Death.

Now this is not to say, Believe in Jesus and you can walk on water. Or do anything you set your mind to, no matter how improbable it might be. This is not about the power of positive thinking or positive believing, so never mind what you may see on TV or read in one of the “Christian bestsellers.” This is about the power of Jesus’ word to do what it says over and against our doubt, our fears, yes even our unbelief. If Jesus could make Peter walk on water with nothing but a little word, imagine what He will do on the last day when He says to the dead “arise.” What do you think will happen? The Word of Jesus does what it says.

The episode ends with a nice little flourish. Peter looks around at the wind, the waves, and starts to sink. And he prays the one prayer we all have at our disposal. Hosanna! Lord, save me! That’s faith’s little prayer. Peter was probably a big, bold man. A “man’s man,” as we like to say. Fishermen were like that. I can’t say the same for the tax collector. But fishermen were not wimps. “Lord, save me.” Jesus is all that Peter has at that moment. And Jesus is all that people needs to save him.

That’s our prayer. That’s the prayer out of our Baptism when it seems as if we are going to drown and there’s nothing to hold on to but Jesus. “Lord, save me.” And immediately (immediately!) Jesus reached out His hand and took hold of Peter. Freeze that moment in your mind. Peter sinking, panicking, praying “Lord, save me.” Jesus reaching out His strong and sure hand and grabbing hold of Peter. Who’s grip matter at that moment?

“O you, little faith one, why did you doubt?” Why do you doubt? Why do I? Simply this: We don’t trust the Word. We think we need to add something to it. It’s deep within us, that horrible, doubting question, “Did God really say?” Adam and Eve let it in to our humanity and it’s been rumbling around ever since. Doubt. Did God really say? Does His Word really work? Am I really forgiven? Justified? Holy before God? How can I be sure?

I wonder what Peter thought about when they were safely back in the boat. I also wonder how Peter got back to the boat? Did he walk next to Jesus with Jesus holding on to him? Did Jesus carry him? By the time they were back in the boat, the wind had died down, the waves were quiet, and the disciples were staring at Jesus and worshipped Him. What else can you do at that point but worship Him? And confess Him: Truly you are the Son of God.

And that He is! No one but the Son, the eternal Word, can pull this off. The prophets did miracles like healing and even raising the dead. No one ever walked on water or caused another man to do the same. The power of the Word that does what it says.

Jesus comes to us in the fourth watch of our day, when we are weakest and most exhausted. When we can’t pull our oars any longer. When the depths of Death have had their way with us. And He speaks a sure and powerful Word to us: Forgiven. And you are because He says so. You are God’s own beloved child because He says so. You stand justified before God’s judgment seat because He says so. And that Word is sure and certain. It’s the same Word that caused Peter to walk on the water will raise you up to dance on Death and the grave. You can count on it, dear friends. The Word always does what it says.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” wrote economist Milton Friedman. And he’s right. Someone has to pay. Somewhere, sometime. Free lunches went out with Genesis 3 and the curse against Sin. Before that all lunches, as well as breakfasts, dinners, and snacks, were free for the plucking. Fruits and nuts, all you can eat. Then came Sin and the terms changed. The free lunch was over. Now it was cultivated plants and sweat and work. No more free fruits and nuts. Now costly bread, working against the weeds by the sweat of your brow until you drop dead into the dust. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

The miraculous feeding of the 5000 in this morning’s Gospel was both free and costly. Free to the people, costly to Jesus. Jesus had just finished teaching in parables from a boat. When He came back to the shore, He was mobbed by a crowd who followed Him on foot. It was getting late. The people were hungry. They were in a desolate place. The Greek text says “wilderness place” which, of course, makes you think of Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness, which is precisely what Matthew wants you to think.

There was no food. The disciples were concerned. Rightfully so. There solution was sensible and reasonable. “This is a wilderness. No food in sight. Dismiss the crowds and sent them to the nearby villages where they can buy some food for themselves.” The disciples knew enough to know that there was no such thing as free lunch or dinner. You either grow your food or pay someone else. Bread doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. You’ll recall that Jesus was tempted to pull that trick in the wilderness, and He declined. No turning stones into bread. That’s not the way Jesus does things.

“They don’t need to go away. You give them something to eat.” That’s how Jesus does things. He takes our meager offering and does something big with it. Imagine the disciples, looking at each other, saying, “Huh? Peter, what did you bring? James? John? What are we talking about here? Five loves and a couple of dried fish. Jesus, you’ve got to be joking. Send them away. They’re going to riot. Or pass out from hunger. We don’t have anything. What can you do with five loaves and two fish?”

It’s a kind of action parable. Jesus is teaching His disciples, and us, something about how He operates. He works through means. Ordinary means. Creaturely means. He could have just zapped everyone so that they weren’t hungry. But where’s the fun in that? And where’s the fellowship? It would be like popping a nutrition pill three times a day instead of sitting down to a meal. Food as fuel rather than fellowship.

He takes there little offering – five little barley loaves and a couple of dried fish. He orders the crowds to sit down on the grass. Yes, you heard it. On the grass. Do you hear it? Psalm 23? “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Good Shepherd Jesus is tending His flock in the wilderness, the way Moses tended Israel.

He takes the five loaves and two fish, raises His eyes to heaven from whence He came, where His Father is, and He thanked His Father for the gift. “The eyes of all look to you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.” Though it came from the disciples, He thanks God, from whom all blessings flow. And then He breaks the bread and the fish, gives it to His disciples and His disciples give them out to the people. And this goes on and on and on. The five loaves and two fish just kept producing more and more pieces at the hand of Jesus. So much that everyone ate until they were full. And there were leftovers. Twelve baskets full, one for each disciple!

Five thousand men plus their women and children ate from five loaves and two fish from the hand of Jesus. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread (“not-bread”), and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

God sounds like a middle eastern water carrier, or a merchant in the open air market. Boy, does he have a deal for you! Food and drink for free. Wine and mile without cost. Bread for nothing. Milton Friedman never had it this good.

Now if you’re not careful, you might fall into the Joel Osteen, prosperity preacher ditch and this notion that if you play your cards right, your bread and fish never run out, and your wine and milk will overflow, not to mention your IRA and stock portfolio. The lure of money for nothing is what keeps the Vegas casinos running 24/7 and the idea that God is an infinite vending machine of favors to the favored isn’t far behind. But we need to read on in Isaiah.

“Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.” This free feast is a feast of words, a Divine Service of His Word. This is the kind of food you eat through your ears.

And that’s precisely the point. Jesus, the Bread of Life, Jesus the Source of all bread, Jesus who is our Manna in the wilderness comes to us through His Word, through baptismal water, through our humble offerings of bread and wine. He is our “daily bread.” Our other daily bread we work for, sweat for, labor for, die for. It’s still God’s gift in that without God we wouldn’t have a crumb much less a loaf. But living Bread, Bread that comes down from heaven, Bread that you can eat for free – that is bread that only Jesus can provide.

John tells us that the 5000 at this feast wanted to make Jesus king on the spot. Of course! Who wouldn’t? A free lunch and breakfast and dinner. A chicken in every pot. Bread for every table. The end to world hunger, poverty, and half a dozen other world social issues. Just get Jesus into public office, put Him in charge of the government, and watch what happens. National debt? No problem! Multiply those dollars! Oh, wait a minute, the Federal Reserve already does that. But printing money is no miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. It’s just bankrupting the future. Wouldn’t it be great to have Jesus in charge?

That’s what the people thought, and it’s precisely what Jesus sought to avoid. His kingdom is not of this world. In the end, this miracle is not about filling empty bellies with bread and fish. World hunger can be dealt with easily enough by this sentence: “You give them something to eat.” Jesus doesn’t need to multiply bread to deal with world hunger. We just need to distribute the bread that’s already there.

What Jesus is doing and showing is that the kingdom of God had broken in to this world with His coming. True and living bread had come down from heaven. The Good Shepherd had come to feed His flock. The rabbis said that when Messiah came there would be bread in abundance and God’s people would feast on the flesh of Leviathan, the great sea monster, the incarnation of evil itself. The Jews ate a course of fish every Friday night at their Sabbath meal in recognition of this. Jesus’ meal of bread and fish in the wilderness was a foretaste of the messianic feast to come, a feast that would be fulfilled in His own death on the cross, His giving His flesh as bread for the life of the world and His blood as wine to gladden the hearts of sinners.

There were plenty of hungry people in Israel like the beggar Lazarus whom Jesus did not feed. That was for the rich man to do. Jesus came that we might feast on the abundance of His life, His forgiveness. He came to be our Bread, our food and drink free, without cost to us.

Milton Friedman was right. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Including this one. It was free to the diners, it was costly to Jesus. Every miracle, the healings, the feedings, cost Jesus His life. He, the source of all bread, the One who gives seed to the Sower and bread to the eater, laid down His life to satisfy our deepest hunger and quench our deepest thirst. The sign of miraculously feeding 5000 men together with their women and children and leaving an Israelite twelve baskets of leftovers points to the cross where Jesus becomes our Bread, our Manna in the wilderness, our living Bread come down from heaven. Eat of this Bread and live forever. Drink of this Cup and be forgiven and gladdened and restored.

A greater miracle than that miraculous feeding takes place here, now, for you. Jesus fed 5000 in the wilderness once. He feeds millions every Sunday, including you. Without cost. By grace. Without your works. Through faith in Jesus’ words. He gives, you receive. Free to you, costly to Him. And more than enough Jesus to go around. With leftovers.

In the Name of Jesus,
Amen

I love a good fireworks show. On the fourth of July, a bunch of us were wandering around the Las Vegas strip on the rumor that one of the big hotels was going to have a fireworks display from its roof. Unfortunately, the only shows were on the street or inside the hotels, but no fireworks. I was greatly disappointed. A fourth of July without fireworks is like breakfast without bacon or a non-communion Sunday.

The things I like most about a fireworks show is the timing. It starts off with a bang, then proceeds to the main show in which the rockets go off one or two at a time. These are the big complicated ones that often have secondary or even tertiary explosions. And then comes the grand finale where boom! boom! boom! everything goes off at once and the whole sky is full of light, color, and smoke. When I was the kid, I loved the grand finale. I still judge a fireworks show by its ending.

Our Gospel reading this morning is something of a grand finale in a display of parable fireworks from Jesus. The entire show is chapter 13. The parables are all parables of the kingdom of God on the earth, how the reign of God works in, with, and under the history and things of this world to bring everything to their final consummation in the resurrection and judgment.

The show consists of two big parables complete with Jesus’ authorized interpretation and five little parables without interpretation. We’re on our own with these. Two plus five makes for a nice 7, God’s number, a good number for a collection of parables of the kingdom. Matthew never misses when it comes to numbers.

Here’s a quick recap of the show. Jesus begins with a big, flashy bang and the parable of the four kinds of soil, which deals with the various outcomes of the preaching of the kingdom and why the Word isn’t always fruitful. We heard about it two weeks ago. It turns out that the Word of the kingdom is only fruitful in soil that has been plowed under, so don’t complain when God grinds you into dust. He’s making good, fruitful soil out of you. And if the Word is not fruitful, don’t blame God.

Jesus follows that one with another big boom, the parable of the weedy wheat field. That was last week. A man sowed wheat, his enemy sowed weeds, and it all grew together until the harvest with no prior weeding. This one too comes complete with Jesus’ authorized interpretation lest His disciples miss the point. The kingdom of God in this world appears rather weedy, shot full of the devil’s work, and God isn’t terribly interested in cleaning it up. So much for God the Interventionist. Leave it all alone until judgment day when things get sorted out. Justified wheat goes into the barn, the unbelieving chaff into unquenchable fire.

Then follows two quick parables dealing with the kingdom’s apparent smallness in this world, how the kingdom is like the tiny mustard seed that turns into a big shrub in the end, or like a handful yeast that leavens a huge lump of dough. And so from the one, tiny death of Jesus on a good Friday comes a kingdom that universally covers the whole world. So don’t be deceived by the kingdom’s smallness, insignificance, or hiddenness in this world. Now it must be heard and believed, not seen. Now it comes to you as the hidden, leavening Word in your Baptism, in the Supper, and in the word of forgiveness.

Then follows Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the weeds as a kind of afterblast, and then a rapid fire final volley of today’s three parables in rapid succession with no interpretation – the hidden treasure, the priceless pearl and the dragnet full of fish. We are on our own with these, but by now, you should have the knack.

The kingdom of heaven, that is, the reign of God in this world that works like seed buried in soil and yeast buried in dough is like a treasure box buried in a field. You can’t see it. You have no way of knowing it’s there. Nothing in the field suggests its presence. For all intents and purposes it looks like a weedy, vacant lot until the hidden treasure is revealed and then all of a sudden the entire piece of real estate becomes worth owning.

The treasure box, I believe, stands for Jesus. He is the treasure buried in, with, and under this world and its history. He’s always been with the world, since Day One. But only for 33 short, and only three of those years in public, was He visible to the world. And to bring it into even more focus, the hidden treasure is the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection that works the world’s salvation. That’s the ultimate proof Jesus offers to the world – HIs own bodily resurrection.

The Easter open tomb and Jesus’ post-Easter appearances are the treasure unearthed for the world to see. It is Jesus, the mystery of salvation, the Word made flesh, that makes this world salvageable. This is what the kingdom of heaven is about – rising from the dead to live forever. Defeating the corruption of death that Adam’s sin brought to the world. To own it, you must die to your self, to your whole life, everything you are and everything you have. “Whoever would save his life must lose it,” Jesus said. You must buy the farm, in the terms of our parable.

This is not some “leap of faith” or some blind real estate speculation. The kingdom of God is a sure bet.. Jesus is risen from the dead. Five hundred plus people saw him. They ate with him. They touched him. They spoke with him. They saw his wounds clear as day. It would be one thing if Jesus had said, “Trust me, and you’ll live forever,” but never died and rose. What would be the point? How would be know? Would we wait for a feeling, a burning in the bosom, a religious experience? God doesn’t operate that way. He gives us salvation in Jesus’ death and resurrection, a glimpse of hidden eternal treasure, and He says, “You want this. It’s to die for.” And that it is.

Dying is the only way to own it. Not simply dropping dead but dying to self and Sin and all the ways we have to justify our own existence. It means baptismal dying and rising. Being declared dead to Sin and alive to God by God Himself. And it’s this same death of Jesus, hidden in this world and revealed by Word and Sacrament that brings value to this dead and dying world. This is precisely why and how God loves the world and you, as unlovable as you might be. He sees the world, and you, in light of the buried treasure of Christ and His life and death. What makes you precious and holy to God is not you but Christ who dwells in you and you as you are in Christ.

Again, the kingdom of heaven in the world is like a pearl merchant searching for fine pearls. Note here that the kingdom is not the pearl itself but the action of searching for pearls. When he finds that one priceless pearl he’s been looking for, he sells everything he has, and buys it.

Now you might chose to run this parable in parallel with the previous one and make the precious pearl the death and resurrection of Jesus, or simply Jesus, and conclude that He is to die for, to lay down your life for, to take up your cross and follow him to your death for. And as interpretations go, that’s not bad. Except that we don’t seek Him, He seeks us. He came to seek and to save that which is lost.

Let’s say the pearl is the world, this world as we have it. AFter all, the earth is a rather rare kind of planet, seemingly unique in the cosmos, able to support life and even position in such a place where we can observe the rest of the cosmos and speculate on it. When viewed from space, it’s a rather pretty pearl, but beauty is not the point. You are the point. For the joy of your salvation, of rescuing you from your Sin and Death, Jesus endured the cross and scorned its shame. He gave it all up for you and for the world. When the Son of God looked upon the world, this boatload of godless sinners, and He saw it as a priceless pearl He just had to own, and so He literally cashed in everything to possess it. That is His seeking love for you.

His kingdom is to die for because the King died for you.

And then we get that last firework, the parable of the dragnet full of fish. It was a familiar image. That’s how Peter and Andrew, James and John caught fish, by tossing out a net and dragging in everything to shore and sorting the catch. The thing about nets, as opposed to hooks and bait, is that nets catch everything – good fish, bad fish, snakes, boots, old tires, whatever.

The parable shows God’s universal, catholic, seek love for the world. He doesn’t simply love individuals in the world. He loves the world, and He sends His Son to save the world lock, stock, and barrel, the whole kit and entire caboodle. The world inclusively, bar none. Christ died for all, and therefore all died. In Adam all are condemned, in Jesus, the second Adam, all are justified. As far as the Sin and Death of Adam go, so far go the death and resurrection of Jesus. Every sin answered for; every sinner atoned. God was in Christ “reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them.” The world. Not just the salvagable parts, the redeemable parts, or even just the Lutheran parts. The world. Christ is the atoning sacrifice of our sins, says St. John, and not only ours but the sins of the whole world.

Or to put it in liturgically familiar terms,” behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

And so the seeking dragnet of the kingdom, Jesus’ death and resurrection, ensnares the whole world and drags it to the shores of the resurrection. In Adam all die, in Christ will all be made alive. Everyone dies, everyone rises. Everyone is caught up in the death and life of Jesus, whether they like it or not, believe it or not, or even want it or not. Some rise to eternal life, that is, those who believe and are baptized into Christ. Others rise to eternal condemnation, a fiery furnace, weeping, gnashing of teeth, etc. which is very unfortunate and highly unnecessary.

There is finally a judgment, a separation of good and evil, of wheat and weeds, of clean and unclean. There are those today who deny the existence of hell or that anyone winds up there. But that is the inevitable nature of the kingdom of heaven. If there is a kingdom of heaven that is by grace, a gift, through faith in Christ, then there is also a non-place, a non-heaven, for those who do not wish to be given to, who refuse the grace that is theirs in Christ, who would rather have it their way than God’s way, who pray “my will be done” rather “thy will be done.”

So then are you among the good fish put into heavenly vessels, or the bad fish cast off into the fire? The only way to answer that with any confidence and certainty is to refer to what God does and not what you do. You are baptized. God did that. He named and claimed you as His own. He become your personal Lord and Savior in Baptism so that you would not doubt your place in His kingdom. God is the God who justifies the ungodly in His Son Jesus. You are precious to Him. As precious as the most priceless of pearls.

What a precious Savior we have! And what a precious salvation He has brought us. It is all literally to die for.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10-11

So then what’s the problem? Why doesn’t the infallible Word seem not to work infallibly? Why does it seem to return empty or at least not pay returns much less dividends? Why do our baptized children fall away? Why are the churches in decline in America, and not just the Lutheran ones? Why are some apparently saved and not others if Christ indeed died for all? Why don’t I see more fruitfulness of the Word in my own life and the lives of the Christians around me?

Jesus’ parable of the seed and the sower goes to the heart of these questions.

Jesus is telling parables, and this is the first of them. Parables are clever little stories, earthly analogies about heavenly things. They’re not intended to make things clear but to obscure things. Jesus began teaching in parables when the people began to reject His teaching. He told the parables so that in seeing they would not see and in hearing they would not hear nor comprehend. That’s how you deal with know it alls who can’t be taught. You teach them in riddles so they realize how dumb they really are.

The parable of the sower and the seed is quite simple, and Jesus even gives the crib sheet to His disciples so they don’t get it wrong. They’re no brighter than the crowds, but at least they haven’t turned their backs on Him. Yet.

A man goes out to sow seed and he scatters everywhere. It falls on four kinds of places – hard pavement, shallow rocky soil, weedy soil, and good, plowed under soil. And of course, the only soil in which the seed produces anything is the plowed under soil, and it yields thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold what was sown. “He who has ears to hear, let him ear.”

“Ears to hear” are faith ears that hear things in terms of Jesus and His death and resurrection. They are ears attuned to the Word, listening for the voice of their shepherd.

Privately, the disciples ask Jesus about the parable, and He gives them the inside word. The seed is the Gospel of the kingdom, in a word the seed is Jesus, the promised Seed. The soils are various conditions of the heart. The hard pavement is the unbelieving, hardened heart. Though the Gospel is heard, it pings right off the hardened heart. This happens when people hear the word of forgiveness in Jesus, but they don’t think they need to be forgiven. The conversation runs something like this:

“Jesus Christ died for your sins.”
“Sins?” Are you calling me a sinner?”
“Yes, and Jesus died for sinners, you included.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not a sinner! I don’t smoke, drink, gamble, cuss, womanize. I’m kind to animals, recycle, and give to the United Way. What do I need forgiveness for?”
“Christ died for sinners.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then he didn’t die for me, because I’m not one of those sinners.”

The hardened heart, the refusing heart. The only unforgivable sin is the refusal to be forgiven. That’s why we need to be reminded on a weekly basis that “if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” The truth is that everything we do is so tainted by our sin, even our good works need to be forgiven. And if you don’t believe that, the Gospel is going to ping of your hardened little heart like seed off of hardtack. And then birds, that is the devil, comes along and snatches it away.

I suppose we don’t think about the Gospel of Jesus being bird food and being gobbled up like seed off the sidewalk. Luther recognized that. He said the Gospel is like a local rain that falls in a place for a while and then, when people tire of it, it moves on somewhere else leaving a drought behind. Pray that it doesn’t happen here, my brothers and sisters. We’re coming dangerously close to drought conditions. People are being conditioned to follow their hearts rather than the Word, to rely on their feelings rather than the Word of Christ, to feel good about themselves rather than die to themselves.

Some seed fell among the rocks. The shallow soil. This is the shallow hearing. The one who hears the Gospel of Jesus and is full of joy, joy, joy, joy down in his heart. Faith based on feelings is faith with no root, a shallow faith unable to endure the heat of persecution, hardship, and testing. This is what happens when you use your heart as a barometer of God’s presence and the Spirit’s working. History has proven it over and over again. Faith based on feelings and enthusiasms does not endure.

Unfortunately, American religious soil is particularly shallow. Our religious past is shaped by the two “great awakenings,” those traveling revivals that pushed an emotional response, that you had to feel forgiven, that you had to invite Jesus into your heart and have some sort of conversion experience. This is not to downplay feelings. Feelings are part of our makeup as human beings. We are emotional beings. But emotional is not the same as spiritual. Animals too display the same range of emotions as we have. In fact, one could argue that emotions are more the animal side of us. It’s the devil’s trick to link feelings with faith. It’s the basis of all religious enthusiasms.

Faith based on feelings cannot survive the test of persecution. This is not the kind of faith that can endure under the sword of Islam or the hammer and sickle of communism. For that you need an objective word – Baptism, Absolution, Body and Blood. Something outside of yourself and certain, no matter how you happen to feel.

Some seed fell among the thorns. The thorns are the cares and concerns of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. Anxieties such as what will we eat, what will we wear. Houses, investments, portfolios, retirement. It’s no coincidence that the two rich men that appear in Jesus’ parable both wind up in hell. The rich man who ignored Lazarus begging at his gate. And the man who dropped dead over the blueprints for his bigger barns to store his bumper crop of grain. St. Paul warned that some people, pursuing riches and gains, had forfeited their own souls.

One good test of how weedy your soil is is to ask yourself what keeps you from receiving the Word and the Supper every time it is available? What prevents you from worshipping? Whatever that is, you have identified the weeds that are choking the Word and preventing it from being fruitful.

Again, the American soil has not been conducive to the Word being fruitful. So many options, so many important things to tend to, so many ways to amuse ourselves literally to death. We are a nation of ABC Christians – anything but church. We teach our children to do the same thing. They learn at a very early age to put play and work ahead of worship. So why then are we surprised when the Word seems to return void in them and they so easily forsake their Baptisms? Even our churches have gone weedy, concerned more with property and programs than with repentance, forgiveness, and the world for whom Christ died.

If the church dies in this country, it will not be for lack of resources but for lack of repentance. It will have choked to death on its own riches.

And then there is the seed that falls on good soil, soil that has felt the blade of the plow. Broken and turned under soil. It yields a harvest – one hundred, sixty, thirty. It’s the only condition of the soil that is fruitful. Soil that is plowed. Dead soil.

Think about that for a second. Soil is dead. The life and vitalities and energies are not in the soil but in the seed. Seeds are embryonic life. Soil is dead. It’s made out of dead stuff. And death is the medium in which the seed springs to life and grows and yields fruit. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He was referring to His own death on the cross where He laid down His life for the life of the world. For your life too.

The only soil in which the seed of Gospel, that is Jesus, is productive is dead soil. Plowed under soil. Broken down soil. Soil that can say, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Our hearts must be broken. Our hands emptied. Our minds cleared before the Gospel of Jesus can bear fruit – 30, 60, 100-fold.

Soil can’t plow itself. Wouldn’t that be great? Self-plowing soil. Gardening made easy. But you gardeners know what you have to do – digging, turning, rototilling. Hardtack cannot turn itself into good soil. Rocks do not automatically clear themselves from a field. Weeds do not pluck themselves. Sinners, children of Adam steeped in Adam’s sinful condition, cannot make themselves receptive to the saving Word of Jesus. They will not let Him in no matter how many times He knocks. We do not naturally and willingly repent. We must be driven to it.

The rototiller of God’s law must plow us under. We need to be broken, turned six feet under, crushed if the Word of Jesus is going to be fruitful in us. This is why the apostle says, “We rejoice in our sufferings.” This is why you ought to rejoice and be giddy glad when someone confronts you with your sin, when you feel the pangs of guilt and shame, when you get caught red-handed, when you get the taste of your own death in the form of sickness and weakness, when you die to this world losing goods, fame, child, spouse, when the mirror of the Law holds up the ugly truth of what you are in yourself apart from Jesus.

When you find yourself afflicted, persecuted, suffering, whatever it is that plows you under and threatens to kill you, Rejoice! Rejoice! That’s right! Get down on your knees and thank God for your suffering and misery. You’re being plowed under by God. You’re being turned into good, productive soil!

No, it won’t make you happy. You won’t feel good about yourself. You won’t have anyone to blame but yourself. You won’t like it one bit when you come to the realization of how poor and miserable a sinner you actually are. I don’t think it was a happy moment when the apostle Paul wrote, “Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?”

The good news is that God does not leave the plowed field to lie fallow. The sower sows the seed. Recklessly. All over the place. The word is preached whether men like it or like it not. Whether they listen or listen not. Whether they believe it or believe it not. The Divine Sower casts the word of Jesus, the good news that in Jesus there is forgiveness, life, and salvation. That in Jesus there is no condemnation under the Law. That in Jesus there is peace and hope.

This parable calls for patience on the part of the church. We preach the Word. We baptize. We call men to repentance. Few seem to hear it. Most of it pings of hardened hearts. Some of it gets a shallow, superficial hearing. Some gets choked out by riches and cares. Hearts grow cold. People fall away. We get discouraged. We stop trusting the Word and start doing it our way instead of God’s way. We try to make the Word more palatable, more pleasing, more relevant, more entertaining.

Instead, we ought to pray that God stir up trouble. That He afflict them and us with a godly grief that leads to repentance. That He run the plow of the Law straight through their hearts and ours.

And the promise in all this is that Word of the Gospel, that Word who is Jesus, never returns empty but always accomplishes HIs purpose. You’re dead in yourself but alive to God in Christ. You no longer live but Christ lives in you. Dead soil and living seed means a good harvest – 30, 60, 100-fold come resurrection day. You can count on it.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” Matthew 11:25-26

We’ve caught Jesus in one of “those moments” in this morning’s Gospel. Driven by frustration over His own generation, His own people, folks who should have known better. He had just engaged some disciples of John, who was in Herod’s prison, who asked whether He was actually the Christ or if they should look for someone else.

He compares His own generation to a bunch of spoiled religious brats. “We played a flute, and you didn’t dance. We sang a dirge, and you didn’t mourn.” You never join the game, you just sit there on the sidelines with your arms folded and complain like bratty kids – it’s too hard, it’s too easy, I don’t like it. John came as a religious ascetic, a holy man who neither ate nor drank, and they concluded “He has a demon.” And then Jesus came, never missing a party, eating and drinking, and they concluded, “He’s a glutton and a drunkard, not to mention a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” I wonder where we’d fit in? The whiners or the complainers?

Jesus then chews out the cities He’d visited and done all sorts of miracles, saying that the cursed city of Sodom, the city that went up in flames at the time of Lot, would fare better in the judgment than the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and even Capernaum, His base of operations. All those miracles, all that preaching, all those mighty works, and not an ounce of faith to show for it. Even the Gentiles of Tyre and Sidon on the coast have more faith sense than the insiders of Capernaum and would have repented long ago.

I wonder what Jesus would say to us? Especially us “lifer-Lutherans.” I”m one of them. Baptized and raised in the Lutheran church. We’re sometimes like the grandchildren in a wealthy family. Grandpa and Grandma worked their fingers to the bone coming from the old country with nothing but change in their pocket. Mom and Dad worked to build on what Grandma and Grandpa built. And then the grandkids don’t have clue as to the value of a dollar. We’re the Paris Hilton’s of the religious world, surrounded by the richest Gospel treasure there is in this world, and we’re bored with it. You play a flute, we don’t dance; you play a dirge, we don’t mourn. The tune’s too hard. We’re not being fed. It’s all our parent’s fault. Anything but repentance.

It drives Jesus to prayer. Our text is Jesus’ outburst of prayer to His Father. “Father, Lord of heaven, thank you. Thank you for hiding the treasures of your kingdom from the wise and understanding who are so smart they think they don’t have anything to learn. Thank you for hiding your goodness and mercy from those who think they have you figured out. Thank you for hiding your wisdom under foolishness, your strength under weakness, your victory under defeat. Thank you for revealing these things to the little ones, to little children.”

Little children. Unless you become one of them, you can’t enter the kingdom. Not because God won’t have you, but because you won’t have Him.

Little children – receivable, giveable to, trusting, dependent. All those things you’ve grown out of. I saw a couple of videos this week that perfectly illustrate what Jesus is saying. The first video was of a little girl who liked to paint, or at least play with paint. Her parents were artists and she exhibited an interest in paints at a very young age, around 2. They gave her a corner in their studio, a bunch of huge canvasses, and all the paint she could brush, pour, or splatter. Literally thousands of dollars of acrylic paint.

The video showed her squirting paint out of plastic bottles, filling her little hands and clapping them together to see what happened, applying it with various kinds of brushes, pouring it straight out of the can in huge amoeba-like puddles. The look on that 4 year old’s face was quite unforgettable. It was the face of pure creativity, unadulterated by wise and prudent adult concerns. It was moving to watch her and amazing to see what she did with all that paint and canvass. There was intentionality to what she was doing in terms of color and form and texture. And joy. And fun. And play. And intensity. And oh, by the way, her canvasses sold for $10K.

The second video was of a little two year-old girl sitting on the floor singing the Sanctus from Divine Service 4 along with her father who is a Lutheran pastor. There is the same look of joy and absorption and discovery as she sings, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of Sabaoth adored….” She didn’t realize that many adults think it’s too hard to sing. She didn’t understand all the words, but that didn’t take away one bit of joy from her face or her voice.

“I thank you Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding, the practical and the pragmatic, the sophisticated and the opinionated, and have revealed them to little children.”

That’s how faith is with the kingdom of God. It’s a little child with buckets of paint and a big canvass and not worry about the cost of materials. It’s a little girl singing the Liturgy with her Dad. It’s dancing when the flute plays and weeping when the funeral dirge comes on, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep. Being open to the world. Letting your defenses drop. Having your heart and mind and eyes open to the world and to God.

If you want to experience that as an adult, the best way is to teach a little child the faith. Teach them the ten commandments, the Creed, the Our Father. Teach them the Bible stories about Jesus. Teach them the Sanctus from Divine Service 4, as well as 1, 2, and 3. They soak these things up like little sponges. They haven’t yet learned the cynicism of this world. They haven’t become bored in the presence of Mystery. I’m not saying they aren’t sinful, they are as infected by it as we are. But Sin hasn’t yet corrupted their curiosity and wonder. Little children are great theologians. Spend some time talking the faith to our day camp kids. They’ll pepper you with questions. A lot of them begin with “why?” Why is a theological question. Spend time with the little ones and you will understand why Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them.

God hides the mysteries of the kingdom from the worldly wise and understanding. He reveals them to the little ones of faith. He uses the foolish to shame the wise. He uses the weak to shame the strong. He uses the losers of this world (and little children were considered losers in Jesus’ day – can’t raise them fast enough) to shame the “winners” of this world. He tucks the Mystery of salvation under the deceptive simplicity of baptismal water, pastoral words, eucharistic bread and wine.

The fact is that we sinners don’t really improve with age. The apostle Paul was probably in his fifties when he wrote his epistle to the Romans. He had been a Christian for over a decade. In chapter 7, which you heard as the this morning’s epistle, Paul speaks of the reality of being a believer in the flesh of Adam, what it means to have the mind of Christ and the flesh of Adam, or as Luther termed it, to be simultaneously a sinner and a saint. The good he want to do with his mind, he does not do. The evil he tries to avoid, that he does. When he wants to do good, evil lies close at hand. And this isn’t some newbie Christian here. And certainly not any run of the mill Christian. And yet at the end, Paul must say, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And the only answer there is: “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Christ came to us. The Father sent the Son to be humbled under the Law for us, to put Sin to death in our flesh, to deal with this fatal and blinding spiritual disease that robs us of our innocence, our blessedness, our holiness. Jesus became the little one in our midst – lowly, despised, rejected. He embraced the little ones as pictures of faith not because they were innocent and sinless, but because they trusted, they received, they were open and teachable.

He comes to and says, “Come to me. Come to me, you weary and burdened, broken and miserable, anxious and despairing. Come to me, laboring under the Law, weighed down by the burden of your sin, Come to me where I have come to you. Come to me in Baptism where I make you an infant again. Come to m, in my Word, in the bread that is My Body, in the wine that is My Blood. Come to me, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke, the yoke of childlike faith and trust in me. I bore your burden on the cross so that you don’t have to. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and I will be there with you.”

The Christian life is like that of a little child walking with his or her big brother, carrying a heavy load. But we know who is carrying it, don’t we? Luther said it’s like a mule puling a cart with a flea on its nose and the flea pulling with all its might. Jesus bears the heavy oad and lets us walk with Him. His yoke is easy, His burden is light because He bears the weight, not you. He does the heavy lifting, and in Him you will find the rest you seek. Come to Jesus.

To come to Jesus you must become little again. You must be born again, from above, by water and Spirit. We baptize infants and adults alike, but in Baptism all become infants, little ones of faith in Christ, children of God to whom the mysteries of the kingdom, the hidden things are revealed.

For thus it is the Father’s gracious will.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” Matthew 10:34-42

Today’s Gospel reading comes chock full of seeming contradiction. Jesus, the Prince of Peace who promises “Peace, I leave you, my peace I give to you” says to His disciples, “I have not come to bring peace to the earth but a sword.” This kind of talk sounds so un-Jesus like. We bristle against this kind of talk, we who have lived through 9/11 and other acts of religious violence. Here is a passage that could be used against us. See, your Jesus says right here He comes to bring a sword not peace. Don’t you Christians claim to be peace-loving people? Isn’t Christianity a religion of peace? What’s this business of a sword?

These words sit hard in the ears. We almost equate the words “Christian” and family, though they don’t necessarily go together. Christians are supposed to “focus on the family,” right? Christians are known to be pro-family and family oriented, or at least we claim to be all that and vote that way. And yet Jesus says here that He has come to set son against father and mother against daughter. He’s going to divide families with His sword so that a disciples’ enemies will be the members of his own household. Wow! We make the family a near means of grace, and Jesus seems to brush it all off with one swift stroke of the sword.

And if that isn’t shocking enough, Jesus turns the volume up even more. “Whoever loves father or mother, son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me.” Yes, that’s right. If you were looking for a reason to turn away and run from Jesus, these verses would give you reason. He places Himself over every human relationship. Nothing can come between us and Him, because without Him we will lose everything, including our own lives. To love another more than Christ is to make that person, whether father, mother, son, daughter into an idol. Idols always crumble under the pressure of being our gods. They will disappoint us; they will fail to live up to our expectations; and ultimately they cannot save us.

And the sword of Jesus isn’t quite done yet. There is still more killing to do. The sword that brings division must divide us even from ourselves. “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Cross kill. They stand for our death. The cross is not simply the little bumps, bruises, and inconveniences of this life. The cross is our death. Jesus is telling His disciples and all who would follow Him that to follow Him means losing all in order to gain it all. Everything we are, and everything we have in this life, must be nailed to the cross with Christ. We must literally become nothing so that Christ might be everything.

“Whoever finds life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This is the key and the heart of faith. Where do you find your life? In yourself, your achievements, your abilities, your riches? You will lose it. to find life in the things of this world is to find a life doomed to die with the things of this world. But to lose your life in the world for the sake of Christ, to die with Him and be joined to His cross, is to find the one real life who is the Life.

Christ must be at the center. Not high on the list of priorities – Jesus, family, work, etc. Christ and His cross must be central in all things. Christ must get between father and son, mother and daughter, between each and every one of us. Christ must stand in the breach or there will be no true and lasting peace.

We want peace. We want peace in our world, in our communities, in our families. The trouble is we want peace in our terms, according to our agenda. We seek peace in the security of wealth, thinking that if only we had enough for tomorrow and the next day and the next year, we could have a measure of peace today. But there never is enough, and each new acquisition brings with it new anxiety.

We seek peace in solitude, in isolation from others, thinking that if we could just insulate ourselves from the negative impact and energy of others, then we could have some measure of peace within ourselves. We wall ourselves up behind gates and walls and closed doors. In office cubicles, in our cars, in a world that minimizes any meaningful contact with our neighbors. We wall ourselves behind computer screens or TV screens or little cell phone screens, ignoring the real world around us with its real people in favor of a virtual world we think we can control.

We seek peace within ourselves, urged on by the notion that peace means “feeling good about ourselves.” And wherever we turn, no matter how loudly the prophets of peace shout “Peace, peace” there is no peace.

Peace always comes with the shedding of blood. Peace always comes at the tip of a sword. This is no cheap peace that Jesus is speaking of here. No half-hearted, comfortably complacent peace worked out by calculated compromise. This is peace that comes with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, a sharp two-edged sword of Law and Gospel that both kills and makes alive, that opens the wound and heals it. Only in taking the sword to Sin, to the Law, to Death will there be peace with God and peace with one another.

The sword Jesus brings is a sword that touched Him. His cross comes first, then your cross. His death comes first, then your death. It was for the sake of our sin and our salvation that He came under the Law, that He refused the easy peace of compromise with this world. The sword divided Father from Son. The sword put His mother Mary at the foot of His cross and pierced her soul with grief. The sword caused Jesus to experience the God-forsakenness of our humanity, the darkness of God’s wrath, the suffering of our sin. He took up His cross to lead humanity through death to life. It’s the only way for a sinner to live before God and that is to die with Jesus. Not simply to die. Everyone does that sooner or later. But to die with Jesus. To take up your cross, your death, and follow Jesus in the way He goes, namely through death to eternal life.

The apostle Paul talks about this in regard to Baptism, an appropriate topic for this morning, given the baptism of little Charlotte Marie. In Baptism, we are buried with Christ in His death. We are forensically declared dead to Sin but alive to God in Christ. As St. Paul said in this morning’s reading from Romans, we have died to the Law in the body of Christ so that we may now belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

In his prior letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote this: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” “I died,” Paul said, “in the crucified body of Jesus on the cross. For all intents and purposes, I no longer live. Instead, Christ is my life. Christ is the one who lives in me. And the life I now have in this flesh as I daily take up my cross and follow Christ I live by faith in Christ, the Son of God who loved me and who gave HImself for me.”

That’s exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 7. He no longer lives. He has been declared by God dead to Sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. And that is something any baptized Christian can say. You have been declared dead by God. Dead to Sin, dead to the Law, dead to Death itself. You belong to another now. You belong to Christ who brings you to the Father, who pours out His Spirit on you.

The Law with its commandments cannot save you. It is a sword that will kill you. It is a magnifying lens that will enlarge sin and reveal it to be worse than you ever imagined. It is an amplifier that will crank up the volume of Sin to the pain level. It is an petri dish that will give rise to ways of sinning you haven’t even imagined. Paul says, “I didn’t even know about coveting until I read the law, and then I started coveting like crazy because Sin plus the Law equals Death.

The sinner must die. There is no way to rehab a sinner. We can take care of some of the gross externals and make them not quite so gross and not quite so external. We can discipline ourselves, with the aid of the Spirit, to not harm others and ourselves quite so much. But that’s a coat of paint on a condemned house. We must die and rise. The building must be raised and rebuilt as a new creation. We must take up our death and follow Jesus through His death, be joined to Him in baptismal faith.

Did you notice how completely Jesus identifies with you, His disciple? To receive the disciple is to receive Jesus. To give even the littlest baptized believer a cool cup of water on a hot day is to serve Jesus a cool drink. You are the body of Christ; He is your head. Your life is not your own. You belong to Christ, wholly and completely.

And only in Christ can there be peace in the family, peace in the world, peace in your hearts and minds. He didn’t come to bring the world’s notion of peace. He came to bring a sword, the sword of His cross. And by that sword, you have a peace the surpasses your understanding, a peace the world cannot give, a peace the goes on forever.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in three persons and three Persons in one God, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the Substance.

“Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-20

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, a feast day devoted to the mystery of the Godhead, a mystery that must be revealed in the Word and by the Word made flesh, a mystery that cannot be known by our own reason or senses. And let’s be honest here. If we were going to invent a god and a religion, we would not start with the paradox that God was three in Person yet one in Essence. It just doesn’t make sense. Or as the writer/apologist Dorothy Sayers put it: The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Spirit incomprehensible, the whole thing incomprehensible. And that’s how it should be. Any god that fits neatly inside of your head is not God.

This is the catholic faith. Not simply the Christian faith but the universal consensus of Christians from the beginning, from the teaching of the apostles. This is the faith confessed by all who hear the Word of God and keep it. And it is “catholic” before there even was such a thing as Roman Catholic. In fact, the adjective “Roman” betrays the word Catholic. Catholic means universal, and that means Rome doesn’t own it. In fact, the creed we confessed named after Athanasius (though not written by him), predates any notion of a Roman Catholic church by over a thousand years. And I’d be willing to say that this third and most comprehensive of the great creeds is scarcely known or even confess in the Roman Church. So yes, you can be a catholic Christian and hold the catholic faith without being Roman Catholic. Lutheran works quite nicely, confessing with the one, holy, and apostolic church without all the additions and accretions that came later.

I appreciate that the Athanasian Creed does not belong to a council nor does it belong to any person (it was written anonymously). It’s just there in all its glory, confessing over 400 years of theological reflection and often intense debate over what it means that God is both One and Three. How can Jesus and the Father be one and yet Jesus prays to the Father? How can the Son send the Spirit from the Father and yet there is but one God. Even in the creation narrative in Genesis, the first verses of the Scriptures introduce us to the Mystery – God, the Spirit of God, and the Word of God are all present and active in the creation. It’s hinted at in the way God speaks to Himself – “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” It’s there in the triad of Yahweh, and the Spirit of Yahweh, and the angel or messenger of Yahweh, who are all distinct and yet all bear the name of Yahwweh.

But nowhere is the Mystery expressed so plainly and clearly than in the baptismal mandate of our Lord: baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Not three Names but one Name, as “Yahweh, the Lord, our God is one Lord.” And yet three Persons – distinct but not divided, coequal yet ordered. The Son begotten of the Father, the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. Internally distinguished, externally undivided, so that where the Son is, there the Father, there the Holy Spirit. And It’s significant that the Mystery of God’s triunity is most clearly taught in the baptismal mandate of Jesus, since it is in Baptism that we learn who the triune God is and what He does to save us. Just as the Trinity was fully present and active in the baptism of Jesus – the Father speaking, the Spirit descending, the Son being baptized – so the same Triune God is present and active in your Baptism. In Baptism you are given the Name of God, and to have His Name is to have God as your God.

To our modern ears, the Athanasian creed seems unnecessarily ponderous, long, repetitive, overcooked. But that’s because our modern confessions are sloppy, subjective, and sentimental. We won’t be told what to believe. We want to be special, just like everyone else. We want to have our gods our way and fashion them in our own image and likeness. But this creed stands in the way and says, “Whoever wishes to be saved shall confess this catholic faith.” Christianity is not a roll your own religion.

We are reminded also of the antiquity of our faith. This is old stuff. This creed is the new kid in town from the 5th century. The Nicene Creed we usually confess is from the late 4th century. The Apostles Creed into which we are baptized is from the 2nd century. The catholic faith is not made up on the fly. It’s not composed on Saturday night for us on Sunday morning. There is nothing new in Christianity. There is nothing new in the catholic faith. The only thing “new” are the newly baptized who hear the Word and believe and confess this catholic faith along with us. The catholic faith is a tradition, handed down from one generation to the next, from one believer to another, from the Church in its ongoing mission to disciple all the nations by baptizing and teaching. This is how the catholic faith is handed on and came to us – discipling, that is, baptizing and teaching. There is no such thing as contemporary Christianity or emergent Christianity or post-modern Christianity or any of the other adjectives that are piled on to the Christian faith. There is only the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith, which except everyone keeps whole and undefiled, without doubt, he will perish eternally.

We are reminded today that Christianity is confessional and Christians are called to stand up and confess with their mouths what the Spirit has implanted by the Word in their hearts. There is no room in the catholic faith for such silly notions as “deeds not creeds” or “the Bible unites but doctrine divides.” The minute you utter a word that summarizes what the Bible teaches, you are doing “doctrine” and confessing a creed. Everyone who believes something has a creed; the only question is which one is it. Is it one of your own design or is it the catholic faith?

“Deeds not creeds,” as some people ignorantly say. But that is already a creed. And the first deed that flows from faith is to confess the faith one believes. A creed! Doctrine doesn’t divide, as some people say. Unbelief divides. Falsehood divides. Rejection of the truth divides. Doctrine is that work of love that love God not only with the heart and soul but also with the mind. And it that work of love for the neighbor that seeks to speak the truth of God in love. In other words, it’s precisely because the Christians of the past loved God and loved their neighbor that they hammered out creeds and confessed them.

Some object that the words “trinity” and “triune” are not found in the Bible and are therefore not biblical. For that matter, the word “incarnation” is not in the Bible, nor is “sacrament.” This is a common trick promoted in Jehovah’s Witness tracts. We get a lot of them left at our door because our congregation’s name is Holy Trinity. “Trinity” and “triune” are not in the Bible! Well, neither is the name Jehovah, except in the King James. Actually, one might argue that since we are quoting the Bible in English translation, none of the words we use are actually in the Bible but are translational equivalents of what the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic of the Bible say. In other words, we try to say precisely what the Bible says in our creeds and confessions.

What words would you use to describe these three Persons who remain but one Being? What analogies? Warning, they will all be wrong. Water/steam/ice – no. Father/husband/son – no, that doesn’t work. Lover/beloved/love (Augustine) – nice try, but not. There is no analogy for God, which kind of makes sense. After all, what kind of God can be imaged by analogies? Whatever you say, you’re going to make up a word or a term that tries to hold together these two seemingly contradictory things. It’s like juggling. You have to hold all three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as one God, distinguishing the Persons but not dividing the Essence. And the best way we’ve found to say it is to invent a term – “tri-une” – three and one at the same time. Nonsense? Sure! But who said God had to make sense?

So what’s the point? These things everything has to have a point, a life application, a lesson, as though Christianity were a school where you learn things about God. And the beautiful thing about a day like today is that there is no point, there is no application, there is no life lesson to be learned. All there is is God as He has revealed Himself to us. The God who created us, who redeemed us, who sanctifies us by forgiving us. The God who works through the Word. The God who is the Word. The God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into whose Name we have been baptized and caught up in the divine love of God.

If there’s one thing to be learned from this Sunday of the Holy Trinity is that God is not a means to some end, whether the improvement of the self or the betterment of society, or whatever you might dream up. God is the end as well as the beginning and everything in-between. The end of all things, the goal of our salvation, the reason the Son came to die and rise is that we might live in the life and love of God forever.

It may seem all quite confusing, as you ponder this creed with its implications. You may leave here today scratching your heads going huh? But in the end, our confession is not by our reason, our sense, our ability to put three and one together. Our confession is a gift of grace, of undeserved kindness on the part of God solely for the Son’s sake. We are undeservedly given to know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and to confess them in their triunity. We are undeservedly given to worship the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity. We are undeservedly given to confess the catholic faith, the faith of the apostles, the faith which the Holy Spirit works through the Word. We are undeservedly given not to understand or comprehend but to confess and believe faithfully and firmly. This is a gift of God Himself.

Luther taught never to mess with the hidden God. You won’t find Him and He won’t want to deal with you. Look for God in the manger and on the cross, in Baptism, in the Supper, the voice of Absolution, in the Word of Scripture. Look to the God revealed in His Son Jesus, who touches us by His human nature. And it is through Jesus, and Him alone, that we come to the Father and receive the Spirit and His gifts.

This is the catholic faith, the faith we confess, the faith we learned from the Scriptures, the faith once delivered to the saints and handed down to us.

Glory be to the Father,
Glory be to the Son,
Glory be to the Holy Spirit.
Glory to the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

In addition to the readings we just heard, I would add this verse from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Today is, of course, Pentecost, the day the Church celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as Jesus breathes on His Church from the right hand of God and gives His Church breath and life to proclaim the good news of His saving death and resurrection. It’s a day full of grace and gladness, a day of promises fulfilled.

Pentecost means “fifty,” Fifty days after the Passover came the harvest festival, the ingathering of the winter wheat. Fifty days after Jesus’ death and resurrection by which He passed over from death to life in our humanity comes the ingathering of the first harvest as 3000 hear the Word and are baptized. For the Jews of that day, Pentecost was also a day to celebrate the giving of the Torah to Moses on Sinai with the wind and fire of God. And so on Pentecost, Jesus delivers the “new Torah” to His Israel, His Church, with the same accompanying signs of wind and fire.

“I will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire,” Jesus had promised His disciples. And here is the fulfillment of that promise. A great rushing wind and tongues of fire resting upon each of the believers who were gathered together.

Pentecost is not the “birthday” of the Church. There was a church already, a gathered community of 120 faithful gathered together in one place. They were gathered. Together. In one place. Disciples, the twelve apostles, Mary. We’re reminded on the Day of Pentecost that corporate worship is the only kind of worship there is. Individuals may have “devotions” and prayers, but only the gathered congregation can worship. Jesus promised His presence to a congregation as small as two or three gathered in His name, but a congregation nonetheless. Jesus appeared to His gathered disciples and not to Thomas who was off by himself. The Holy Spirit came to the believers who were gathered together in one place. There is no notion in the Scriptures of believers being temples of the Holy Spirit apart from their being living stones built into a spiritual temple, priests in a priesthood, members of a household, parts of a body. The individualism of our day is a heresy against the gathering work of the Holy Spirit.

This was the grand opening of the church, the beginning of the time of the church, the day when the doors are opened to the world and the world hears for the first time the great good news of forgiveness, life, and salvation in the name of Jesus. It is the first day of the last days when God would pour out His Spirit and God’s priestly people would proclaim Christ and bring people to the washing of rebirth and renewal in the water of Baptism. It was a unique day with heavenly wind and Gospel fire that did not consume and the apostles preaching in languages and dialects that did not know. The ancient curse of Babel that divided humanity was partially lifted – the diversity of languages remained but scattered people were united through Baptism into Christ.

The wind and fire and tongues were one time, for the grand opening celebration. The tongues popped up once or twice more in Acts, but never again wind and fire. What remained was apostolic teaching, Baptism, the Breaking of the Bread, and the prayers of the gathered believers. That’s how Pentecost continues and how the Holy Spirit comes to you. Not as a rushing wind with tongues of fire, but in the water of Baptism and with the Word. Your baptismal day was your Pentecost. Every Sunday is a Pentecost.

So why don’t we see it? Why don’t we experience what those first Christians experienced? Wouldn’t that help us believe? No, it actually wouldn’t help. Seeing is not believing. Faith comes by hearing, and the work of the Holy Spirit is to preach, to broadcast Christ, literally to stick the Word of Jesus into our ears. The Spirit works hiddenly, “in, with, and under.” You won’t find Him shining the spotlight on Himself but on Jesus. He’s the UPS deliveryman of the Trinity, taking what Jesus has from the Father and delivering it to us through the Word.

To get the proper grasp on the work of the Holy Spirit, we best hear it from the Lord Himself. John’s Gospel is a sourcebook of Holy Spirit sayings of Jesus. Together they form a composite, a collage of the Spirt’s work:

John 14:15   “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

John 14:25   “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

26 But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; 27 and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16:12   “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Our problem is that we look for the Holy Spirit where He has not promised to be, and so we grieve the Spirit, in whom we were sealed in Baptism for the day of redemption. How do we do this?

We grieve the Holy Spirit when we seek Him apart from the sacramental Word – the Scriptures He has inspired, Baptism, the Supper, the preached Word. These are the instruments He uses to work faith in the hearts of those who hear when and where He pleases. While the Spirit is not bound to any place nor is He obligated to work whenever it suits us, we are bound to look for Him in the means He uses – in the Word of Holy Scripture, in the preached Word of forgiveness, in the watery Word of Baptism, in the Word of the Lord’s Supper. The Spirit always works through means, and apart from means He has not promised to work.

The true Pentecostal church is the church that clings to the apostolic Word, to Baptism, to the Lord’s Supper. We grieve the Spirit when we seek Him apart from the Word and look for him in our thoughts or feelings or the inner workings of our hearts. Or when we judge that the Spirit is not at work in spite of the fact the the Word is preached, the Baptism and the Supper are administered, that sinners are forgiven in the name of Jesus just because we didn’t feel it.

It grieves the Spirit when we fail to “test the spirits to see if they are from God” and assume that every spiritual burp and hiccup is of the Holy Spirit. When we justify our own agendas by claiming the Spirit’s inspiration, when we assume that just because the church said it or the preacher said it, it must be of the Holy Spirit, when we become so enamored with our words we no longer hear God’s Word.

It grieves the Spirit when we despise the humble preaching of God’s Word and look to the church to entertain us and make us feel good about ourselves. The Spirit’s work is to convict the world on account of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Where the Spirit is at work, you aren’t going to feel good about yourself. Those who heard Peter’s Pentecost sermon were “cut to the heart” and in despair. They realized they had killed the Messiah, the Lord of glory. They cried out to Peter, “What shall we do?” How much of what passes today as “spiritual” in our churches is really the work of the Holy Spirit and not simply the spirit of our age?

It grieves the Holy Spirit when we pay lip service to our confession, when we do not do as we say, when we claim to be “poor miserable sinners” and yet do not seek the word of forgiveness or have no time or use for the Body and Blood of Christ, when we can’t wait for our sweet hour of prayer to end before we get back to the “more important things” of work or play. When we needlessly delay in bringing our children to Baptism as though Baptism did not save, when we ourselves let anything get in the way of our hearing the Word and eating and drinking the Sacrament as though these did not matter.

It grieves the Holy Spirit when we see nothing more of the church than its manmade institutions, when we put our faith, hope and trust in synodical structures, church bodies, or men; when we assume that what works must necessarily be of the Holy Spirit, when we measure the Spirit’s work by how many or how much, when we equate worldly success with enlivening work of the Spirit, when we become so preoccupied with things temporal and things visible that we lose sight of things eternal.

It grieves the Holy Spirit when Christ crucified for the justification of the sinner is not central and preached, but where Jesus is preached as an example, a guide, a guru, a coach, a model. When the Scriptures He inspired are bent to conform to our agendas and purposes instead our being transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus. When our worship becomes a form of entertainment conforming us to this age instead of transforming us to the age to come.

The psalmist David prayed rightly in Psalm 51: “Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” We must pray the same. Penitently. We have grieved the Spirit of Christ, who once blew like a mighty wind with tongues of fire. We have quenched the Spirit and He would rightly blow in another direction.

But solely for Jesus’ sake, He doesn’t. He stays with us. He will not abandon His Church who clings to His Word. You are baptized, sealed with the mark of the Spirit for the day of redemption. God does not go back on His Word. Instead, He calls us back to His Word. Continually. Daily. Through daily baptismal contrition and repentance. Killing us and making us alive. He drills that Spirit-ed Word in our ears and says to us, “Listen and live.”

The traditional prayer for Pentecost needs to be prayed each and every day in the church and by every baptized believer. “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in them the fire of your love.”

Come, Holy Spirit, our hearts have grown cold. Warm us with your Gospel fire.

Come, Holy Spirit, our faith has grown dim. Blow on these dimly burning wicks of faith and ignite them anew.

Come, Holy Spirit, our tongues have grown silent. Loosen them to speak the good news of Jesus in the languages and dialects of our day.

Come, Holy Spirit, our love has grown cold in these gray and latter days. Bring us your love, the love of the Father who gave His Son for us, the love of Jesus who loved us to death on a cross.

Come, Holy Spirit, quench our fevered thirst for religion, drown our sin, fill us with your baptismal grace that from our faith-filled hearts might flow streams of living water welling up to eternal life.

Come, Holy Spirit. It’s your Day, a day full of grace and gladness.

In the name of Jesus, Amen

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. – 1 Peter 4:12-13

Suffering. We’d rather avoid the topic, I think, just as we’d rather avoid suffering. And yet suffering is the crucible of faith, the refining fire that burns away the silliness, the superficiality, the sugar-coated spirituality, and leaves behind the pure gold of Word and Spirit-created faith.

Suffering is the way of Christ. Jesus came to suffer as the “Man of Sorrows, acquainted with suffering.” His suffering was our suffering. Indeed, no man has ever suffered to the degree Jesus suffered. We suffer for ourselves. He suffers for us. We suffer for our own sins. He suffers for the sins of the world. We suffer as one man, one woman. He suffers as collective humanity, Everyman, all of humanity as one suffering Man. His suffering was the great necessity of His mission – it was the will of God, it was prophesied in the Scripture, it was necessary the Christ must suffer and enter into His glory. The way to the right hand of the Father was the way of the cross, of death, of the tomb, of suffering.

Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer. He understands human pain to His own bones. He experienced the anguish of God’s silence. He knows the darkness of facing one’s death alone. He knows our pain; He identifies with our suffering. He is one with our suffering and He is one with us when we suffer.

Christians have no special exemption from suffering. They are not spared the “great tribulation” of this life. Contrary to what you might hear from prosperity preachers with their pie-eyed optimism and their empty promises, to be in God’s favor does not mean that you are exempted from suffering. Baptism affords you no “get out of jail free” card, no easy detour around the valley of the shadow of death, no way to avoid the cross. It is a fundamental error of thinking and piety to believe that because Jesus suffered for us, we are not going to suffer. Jesus’ beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount tell us otherwise. It is mourning, the meek, the hungry, the thirsty, the persecuted are called “blessed.”

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it come upon you to test you.” Peter is writing to scattered, suffering Christians. His first letter is addressed to the “exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithinia.” We don’t know where they began but they were suddenly scattered all over Asia Minor, presumably by persecution. They were forced to leave their homes, their livelihoods, even their families. And even in exile they weren’t safe, but were easy targets as the outsiders, the refugees, those “Christians.” They literally had bulls-eyes on their backs.

The suffering that Peter is speaking of is not the general kind of suffering that humanity in general experiences as the result of living in a fallen world and our own inherent sinfulness. St. Paul talks about that kind of suffering in the book of Romans when he says we rejoice in our sufferings as Christians because suffering produces patient endurance and character and hope. As believers in a crucified and risen Savior, we know that suffering and death are not the last word, but our present sufferings do not compare with the glory that will be revealed in us on the day we rise from the dead and are seen in the glory of Jesus.

The kind of suffering that Peter is speaking of here is suffering for the faith. Suffering for being a Christian. It certainly meant the loss of their home and a hasty trip as refugees to another place. It meant inconvenience and hardship, living off the good graces of others. It may have meant arrest and imprisonment, torture, perhaps even death. Of that list of the first apostles we heard in the book of Acts, only John died a natural death at an old age.

They could have spared themselves all this trouble by simply going quiet. Publicly renounce the faith while having two fingers crossed behind their backs. Just kind of treasure Jesus in their hearts while publicly going with the pagan flow. But they really could not do that. And they would not do that. Their baptisms marked them as soldiers of the Crucified One, they would not betray their commander in chief, they would not go AWOL. They would not betray their Lord who had died for them. They would not betray their heavenly birth in Baptism that made them priests to God, holy, elect, chosen to declare the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.

With his letter Peter was preparing them for what lay ahead. There was a fiery ordeal coming to test them. They should not be surprised when it happens. Nor should you when your time comes to endure suffering, hardship, or loss because of the Name of Jesus. And it will come to us too, as crazy as that may sound today. We live in relative peace and liberty. We have the freedom to assemble here this morning. We have the freedom to express our views and beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. We have the freedom to practice the faith we hold. We don’t have to scurry off to church in fearful silence and hide behind closed, locked doors as they do in many countries around the world today. We don’t cast an anxious look at the stranger sitting next to us, wondering if he has a bomb or a weapon. In many parts of the world, the greeter at the door of the church is not there to make sure you have a bulletin and are greeted with a warm smile and a friendly handshake. He’s there to make sure that you aren’t armed and dangerous.

I don’t know if I will experience such things in my lifetime. The Christians of the next generation may. The looming clouds are on the horizon. But for the moment, the suffering we endure is more the suffering of insult, ridicule, loss of friendships, maybe discrimination, certainly loss of credibility. Even such light and momentary “sufferings” as those, if I can even call those suffering, have caused many to wilt and fall away. Jesus warned of the seed that falls on shallow soil, the Word that is heard in a shallow, emotional way, where initial joy and enthusiasm wilts under the noonday heat of persecution. Superficial Christianity cannot survive. Peter reminds us all that the devil is still a prowling lion, looking for someone to devour. The predators always go for the weak ones in the herd. The isolated ones who are separated from the pack.

The devil is resistible and the time of testing is survivable. Peter says, “Resist him, standing firm in the faith.” Not “your faith” as you have in the ESV translation. The Faith as in the faith once delivered to the saints. The objective and certain confession of our trust in Jesus Christ as Son of God and Savior. The Faith as in the creed we confess. The devil would use those times of testing as times of temptation to cause you to doubt and fear and waver and wonder if God is really in charge here or even if God actually exists. He will cause you to doubt God’s verdict in Christ, that you stand justified before Him on account of Jesus’ righteousness. He will cause you to doubt your Baptism, that it saves you through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He will tempt you to look inward instead of outward, to look to self instead of Christ, to fix your eyes on what you do instead of what Christ has done.

To suffer for being a Christian is a great gift. In the military, we give medals and ribbons to those who are valiant in battle. Peter says if you suffer for being a Christian, don’t be ashamed, glorify God in the Name of Jesus and entrust your lives to your faithful Maker and Redeemer. He will see you through your time of trial and testing.

Judgment begins with the household of God, Peter reminds us. Oh, we didn’t want to hear that, did we? We want to hear about how all the heathen, unbelieving masses are going to be judged and finally get what’s coming to them. We want to hear about God’s justice and how He is going to set everything square in the end and like the old western movies, the bad guys always get it and never live to the end of the movie. We don’t want to hear that judgment begins with us, the family of God.

God uses persecution and suffering. They are tools in His hand. He doesn’t cause it in the sense of stirring it up. The devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh do that. But God uses it. He uses the heat of persecution as a refining fire to burn away the junk, the superficiality, the trite and trivial, and go for the gold, the nuggets of genuine faith in Christ. In the book of Acts, persecution energized the church. When they were imprisoned and beaten for preaching the name of Jesus, the Peter and John rejoiced and gave thanks that they were considered worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. When Paul was plucked on the road to Damascus and made an apostle, the Lord said, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

In the book of Acts, persecution is the engine that drives the spread of the Gospel. The apostles and the believers are scattered and the Word of the Lord spreads like seed blowing in the wind. The Russian dictator Vladimir Lenin tried to get rid of Christianity and purge it from Russia. But he finally concluded that Christianity is like a nail. The harder you drive it, the deeper it goes. Suffering for Jesus’ sake drives faith even deeper. It galvanizes and tempers faith. It refines and purifies faith.

You will suffer for Jesus’ sake. You can expect it. Jesus suffered for you first. His suffering saves you; your suffering honors Him. His suffering is gold of your faith. Your suffering brings that gold to 24 karat purity. HIs suffering was for your sins; your suffering if for His name. His suffering sanctifies your suffering.

You will be humbled, you can expect it. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” You will be humbled. Jesus was humbled to death on a cross to save you. He humbled Himself for you, reaching down to you, joining His suffering life to you. He was humbled in order to exalt you to the right hand of God. And in your humbling, you will exalted. He will lift you up. He will raise you from death. He will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To Him be the dominion forever and ever.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 1 Peter 3:13-22

The word St. Peter uses is apologia, from which we get the word “apology.” But not in the sense that we commonly use it to mean I’m sorry for something and want to ask your forgiveness. Not that kind of apology. Apology here means explanation or defense, as in the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, one of our Lutheran confessional writings in the Book of Concord. It wasn’t that the Reformers were sorry for what they said in our confession at Augsburg; they wanted to explain more fully and defend what they confessed. Hence the Apology to the Augsburg Confession.

You often hear about Christian “witnessing,” telling everyone about Jesus, and how every Christian is a witness. That isn’t true, Scripturally speaking. The word for witness is martus, from which we get the word martyr. Witness testify, as they do in court. They tell what they personally have seen and heard. It’s noteworthy that nowhere in Scripture are Christians in general called “witnesses.” Perhaps one reason is that we don’t see anything and what we don’t hear directly from the Lord but through intermediaries – the prophets, the apostles, the evangelists. And so we don’t have much to witness to, except some “personal testimony” which doesn’t mean anything to anyone else because that’s your own personal experience.

It’s odd really. In the Bible, Christians are not “witnesses” or “evangelists” and they don’t go witnessing or evangelizing. You wonder where all that comes from. Christians are “priests” in the Scripture, baptized into Christ’s royal priesthood in which they declare the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into HIs marvelous light. And they are apologists. Peter is writing to newly baptized Christians when he says “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” Always be a ready apologist, ready to defend the faith, ready to give a clear answer to anyone who asks you why you believe what you believe.

Take Paul at the Areopagus in Athens as an example. Paul was a “witness,” in the sense that he actually saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. He had something to which to testify. And he was an apostle, authorized and commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself to bring the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the Gentiles, which is what brought him to Athens in the first place. But in Athens, Paul is the “apologist.”

The Areopagus was a kind of clearing house of new ideas. Paul was busy debating with the Jews in the synagogue and conversing in the marketplace with whomever happened to be hanging around. You get the impression that Athens was full of people with a lot of free time on their hands. Luke notes that all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. I suppose the modern equivalent of that would be the local Starbucks, Peets coffee, or Panera Breads. I recall fondly my days in Berkeley when we would walk to the local (and original) Peets Coffee around the corner from my apartment. On a Saturday or Sunday morning, the sidewalks were full of people sipping coffee, eating croissants, and debating philosophy, theology, or politics.

The Athenians got wind that Paul was preaching some new deities, gods they hadn’t heard about before. One was called Jesus, the other Anastasis (the Resurrection). It kind of made sense, since deities usually came in pairs. Jesus and Anastasis. And so Paul gets an invitation to the Areopagus where they judged whether a teaching was worthy of Athenian standards. That’s where Paul makes his apologia, his defense.

He begins by noting how religious the people of Athens were, more in a superstitious sense than any good way. Religious the way gamblers and athletes are religious. He had taken the Athenian temple tour earlier in the day and had noticed all the idols, which would have pushed every one of his Jewish buttons to the maximally offended point. As provoked as he was, he bit his tongue and didn’t spout of about their idolatry. Instead, he picks up on an empty altar with no statue inscribed to the “Agnostos Theos” the unknown god, the “agnostic god.” It was there just in case, to make sure they’d covered all their bases, in case they missed a god or two. The unknown and unknowable god.

And Paul senses a little nugget of truth. If you approach God from the perspective of idolatry where it all depends on you to figure out who God is and conjure Him up with your images and rituals, then you can never be completely sure you have Him. And so this altar to the agnostic god is just enough of a crack in the door for Paul to say, “What you worship as unknown, I will proclaim to you.” Sounds pretty brash, but then there is more wisdom in Jesus than in all the skeptical Athenian philosophers put together.

Paul points to the God the Creator, who made and ordered everything. He reminds them that we are made for God because God is our maker. He even quotes a couple of verses from pagan poets “In Him we live, move and have our being,” and “We are his offspring,” originally referring to Zeus, no less. That provides a bit of a challenge for us as apologists to look at the movies and music and poetry of our day to see where they get it right and to use it. We’re accustomed to demonizing Hollywood and rightly so, but there are times when they “get it,” and when they do we need to jump on it and use it.

Paul moves from idolatrous images to man in God’s image to Christ, the man who perfectly images God, who will judge the world in righteousness on a coming day fixed in the mind of God. And the clincher, the lynchpin, the basis for all of this is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This is the piece of evidence God sets before the world – crucified and risen Jesus. You see, it wasn’t Jesus and the Resurrection, but Jesus and HIs resurrection. That’s what Paul was preaching and what they misunderstood. And who could blame them? You didn’t have to be a smart Athenian full of new ideas to know that dead men don’t rise from the dead. At least, ordinarily.

When the Athenians heard what Paul meant by “Anastasis” that it wasn’t some new female deity by the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the reaction was mixed. Some sneered, others wanted to hear more. A few believed including a member of the Areopagus, a man named Dionysius. And that’s how it is with this business of being an apologist. Some will laugh at you; some will engage you until you literally get tired of talking, a few will believe.

You and I live in a time and culture that in many ways is similar to what Paul encountered in Athens. We live in a skeptical age, an age where ideas both old and new fly freely around the internet and you can tap into them whenever you like. You don’t have to go to the marketplace or to the Areopagus, you just have to go online. It’s all there. Religion in all its various flavors. Angry atheists. Skeptical skeptics. You name it. And we, as the baptized priesthood of Christ are given to be His apologists, to give a defense for what we believe and why.

And yet we don’t. We don’t because of ignorance, at least in part. We don’t know why we believe what we believe, and if surveys are even remotely accurate, we don’t know what we believe. And for that there is no excuse. We all have Bibles, we have Bible classes, we have the Confessions. Ignorance is no excuse.

We don’t speak in part because we think in terms of success and failure. We’ve bought into the world’s notion of performance, as though we were salesmen selling salvation out of our garages, notching souls for Jesus. Paul didn’t worry how many believed or not in Athens. That was God’s business. Paul’s business was to make a defense for what he believed. You can’t fail except not to open your mouth, when called upon, to speak. And that doesn’t mean making a big religious nuisance of yourself. If you live as a Christian, if you live as one who has hope because Christ has risen, people will want to know what makes you different, what makes you tick.

We don’t speak because we are afraid. Afraid of the ridicule and scorn of others. Maybe they won’t respect me anymore. Maybe they’ll laugh. It didn’t bother Paul. Some sneered at him. He didn’t care. Some treated his message like a piece of entertainment. He didn’t care about that either. The truth is still the truth even when people laugh at it or won’t give it the time of day. And you know the truth: That the ungodly stand justified before God because of what Jesus did – His perfect life, His death, His resurrection. Sinners stand forgiven. Children of Adam are declared to be children of God. Death is not the end of life but in Christ is the beginning of eternal life. You know where to find Christ to save you and for you to worship Him: in the preached Word, in the Sacrament, joined to His Body the church. You know these things.

People are going to ask you, “why?” Why do you go to church? Why do you believe in God? Why do you worship Jesus? Why do you call yourself a Christian and what does this mean? People want to know; you get to tell them.

You have failed; I have too. I’m supposed to be a pro. I ought to do this better than anyone, and yet I’m no better. The old Adam in us doesn’t like this business of apologetics one bit. Better to talk about sports or the weather or anything but the most important thing. I always find it amazing how couples can prepare to get married and never talk about their faith and how they practice it. Or people can live next to each other for years, decades, and spend hours eating and drinking together and never talk about the one needful thing, the one thing that means eternal life and salvation from Sin and Death. The old Adam hates it when Jesus is the topic.

Our silence is our sin. We have failed to give a reason for our hope. We have failed to do it with gentleness and respect. We have failed to do it with a good conscience, which is the very gift of Baptism according to Peter. Baptism is the appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are free, forgiven people. We have nothing to lose because we have everything in Christ. We have nothing to fear, because faith in Christ trumps all fear. We have no reason not to speak, because it’s not we who are speaking but Christ who works in and through us and the Spirit of truth He sends to us and the Father too. The Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – are with us.

Forgiveness means freedom. Freedom to fail, freedom to risk, freedom to worship, freedom to speak. Freedom to stand before the scoffers and the skeptics as well as the genuinely curious and tell them the reason for the hope you have in this life, that because of the sacrificial blood of Jesus your sins are forgiven, you are justified before God, you are covered with a righteousness not your own but that of Christ’s, that because He lives, you will live, and that not even death can separate you from God’s love in Jesus Christ, that in Baptism you have been joined to Christ in His death and buried with Him, that in the Supper you personally receive the tokens of His sacrifice, His own Body and Blood, that Christ speaks the words of forgiveness into your ears through the pastor He sent to you. And you believe this all because Jesus is risen from the dead and live and reigns to all eternity.

And what Jesus has done for you, He has done for all without exception.

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
In the name of Jesus,

Amen

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. John 14:1

Well, you’re here this morning, seeming to have survived the May 21st rapture madness. In case you hadn’t heard, Jesus was supposed to have come secretly to whisk off his believers yesterday, at least according to Harold Camping who was wrong about this in 1994 and was wrong again yesterday, leaving his followers looking like Linus in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin. In the OT false prophets were stoned to death, so they didn’t get a second chance to fleece the sheep. In our day, we just have to put up with it and try to convince our friends and neighbors that we are not like those crazy people who believe that the world is going to end and Jesus is going to come again.

The problem is that we actually do believe that the world is going to end and that Jesus will actually appear again in glory at at day and an hour no man knows and no man can know, to raise the dead and to give His believers eternal life. And we believe that not because someone found some hidden meaning in the Bible or worked out some crazy numerical scheme as if the Scriptures required some secret decoder ring to get at the true meaning. We believe in a last day and we believe that Jesus will appear again because He said so. He’s the one who also said He would die and on the third day rise again, which He did, which is why we believe that He will appear again in glory on the Last Day, on a day and at an hour no one can know.

I don’t know how the Scriptures could have been any clearer. There is an end to all things, and at that end there is a “parousia,” a coming of our Lord. We confess it in the creed, that He comes “to judge the living and the dead.” And since we don’t know the day or the hour, the only thing we can do is trust Jesus and go about our vocations right up to the very end. I know that kind of thinking is not going to sell a lot of books or make the headlines, but how would you like to be one of Harold Camping’s deceived followers this morning? Some left everything to follow a fraud, a deceiver, a false prophet, though as I understand it, some of the people that worked at his radio station didn’t buy a word of it and planned to be at work on Monday. I wonder if Camping will show up. He hasn’t been heard from since May 21 passed without much more than an Icelandic volcano popping it cork and a little rumbling here and there. He’s got a lot of explaining to do.

Our Gospel reading this morning ties into that sort of thing, coincidentally, (and it is a coincidence). Jesus is in the upper room on the night He was betrayed. He is at table with them, celebrating the Passover. This is the table where He institutes the sacrament of His body and blood and gives His disciples a share in His sacrifice even before it happens. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the supper. John records the sermon and the prayer that went along with it.

Jesus speaks of His imminent departure. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Jesus speaks of HIs going away and His return. In John, almost everything means at least two things. This is no exception. Jesus is about to “go away,” that is depart into death, being lifted up on the cross as the one atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, that like the serpent was lifted up on the wilderness by Moses, so Jesus would be lifted up in death so that all who look to Him in faith would live.

And He would “come again,” return to them three days later, bodily risen from the dead, that they would know with all certainty that He had conquered sin, death, and the power of the Law to condemn. They would see Him, hear Him, touch Him, eat with Him and know beyond all doubt that truly He was risen from the dead. And so for a little while, a short three days, they would not see Him; and then in a little while, they would see Him again, risen from the dead.

But there’s more. In John, there’s always more. Jesus would also depart in the sense that He would be elevated to the right hand of majesty, enthroned over all things at the Father’s right hand, and in that state of exaltation, no eye of sinful man may look on Him and live. So He would hide Himself, be enveloped by the cloud, and withdraw His visible presence from His disciples so that they would have to listen rather than look. And He would come again, return visibly on the Last Day to raise the dead and gather His believers to Himself.

Thomas, typically, is skeptical of the whole thing. “We don’t know where you are going, Lord, so how can we know the way.” Until Jesus dies and rises, none of the disciples get it. Thomas included. He’s thinking in terms of a trip, like going to Ft. Lauderdale or Bakersfield. But heaven is not a place and a GPS is not going to guide you there. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” Jesus says to Thomas.

Jesus is the Way, the only Way, and there is no other Way to the Father except through the Son. You can claim “God” up and down, and even call Him “Father” if you wish, but no one comes to the Father except through the Son. The way to life is narrow – one man, one death, one resurrection, one Baptism.

Jesus is not one way among many ways, one truth among many truths, or one life among many lives. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And there is no other. So put to rest this notion right now that there are many paths to God or many names of God or many gods. The only Way to the Father is the Son whom He sent. The only Truth about God is Jesus. The only Life that extends to eternal life is Jesus.

He doesn’t show the way, as though the way to the Father was to do certain things, to imitate what Jesus would do. Moses showed the way; Jesus is the Way. He doesn’t simply speak the truth; He is the Truth. He doesn’t simply give life, He is the Life.

Philip chimes in. “Lord, show us the Father, and we’ll be satisfied.” So much like us, those disciples. Slow to believe, focused on all the wrong things, seeking proof when you already have Jesus right there in front of you. Show us the Father. You say you’re going to bring us to the Father, well, show us. And yet that would contradict what Jesus had just said. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” You’re not permitted to see the Father. You’re sinful. You cannot look on God in His unattenuated glory and live. You must be shielded by the Son, covered with His righteousness, washed in His blood, justified by His word.

You can’t deal with the Father directly. Yes, you can pray Abba, Father and say Our Father but only through the Son. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It’s somewhat misleading to say simply “God accepts you as you are.” That’s true, but it’s only true in His Son. He accepts His Son Jesus just as He is, and He accepts you as you are in Jesus, joined to Him in baptism, trusting in Him in not in yourselves. So it’s better and more accurate to say that the Father accepts you just as you are in His Son Jesus.

To deal with the Son is to deal with the Father. You don’t get one without the other. And the Holy Spirit too. (He comes in the next verse.) The Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. Jesus’ words come from the Father. Jesus’ works are the Father’s works. That’s what are the miracles were about, to show the Father’s work in the Son so that you might believe, that is, trust Jesus and trusting Him would have life in Him.

Jesus goes on to say to them that they will do even greater works than He has done. He’s going to the Father by way of His own death and resurrection. He will send the Spirit upon His church, that gathered in His name greater works than all the miracles Jesus ever performed would be done. Sinners would be justified in His Name and stand before God’s judgment acquitted. Men and women from every tribe and nation and language would be baptized, washed in the rebirthing and renewing bath of water and Word and become new creations in Christ. God would, through the words and works of men, gather to Himself a holy nation, a chosen people, a royal and holy priesthood to declare the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.

That’s the work and message of Church, to proclaim Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness, life, and salvation of the world. Not to prognosticate the day and the hour of the Last Day. Not to tell people that believers will be “raptured” from this world and spared the sufferings of the end times. Not to set people’s sights on some millennial kingdom on earth when Jesus says His kingdom is not of this earth. But to set before the eyes of the world Jesus Christ and Him crucified, bearing the sin of the world as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And if you don’t hear that plainly and clearly, then turn the other way and run from it. It’s not Christian no matter how many Bible verses are quoted. Remember the temptation of our Lord. The devil loves to quote Scripture.

“What ever you ask in my name,” Jesus says, “this I will do.” “Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?” No, not that way. Not the way the prosperity, name it and claim it preachers preach it. God is not some permissive parent in heaven who gives his bratty children everything they want no matter how destructive it might be to them. Finish the verse. “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Those are the prayers that come with this guarantee. What brings glory to the Father in the Son.

And what glorifies the Father in the Son? In John, especially, it’s when Jesus is lifted up high on a cross and dies. That’s His hour of power, His moment of glory when the Father is glorified in Him. And that is your moment of glory too, when you died with Christ in His death, and through Baptism were buried with Him, and by the working of the Holy Spirit were raised with Him and seated with Him already now in the heavenlies. You don’t need to be raptured! You’re already glorified in Christ! And on the Last Day, Jesus will raise you so you can see it for yourselves.

Until then, let not your hearts be troubled, by your sin, by your death, by the devil, by false preachers, by anything in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust in Jesus His Son and your Savior. Trust HIm for your forgiveness, your life, your salvation. He is faithful. He will do it.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Imagine that you are one of those two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus that first Easter Sunday. It’s late in the afternoon, around 4 o’clock. You are on foot, walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus; it’s about a seven mile journey. You’re talking. It’s been quite a day. You’d been awakened early in the morning, before sunrise. The women who had gone to the tomb of Jesus to complete his burial had come running back with some astonishing news. The tomb was open. The grave was empty. There was some almost incoherent talk of angels who said he was alive. Peter and John had rushed to the tomb and saw the grave cloths folded up neatly; the head covering folded separately. Mary Magdalene was nearly hysterical, claiming that she had seen Jesus and that He had called her by name.

And then nothing more. You waited with the other disciples for more news, but nothing. You had a light meal, just a bit of lunch. Finally, you decide to go home, you and your friend, and you set out on the road to Emmaus.

A stranger joins you, a visitor to Jerusalem, and invites himself to walk with you. He seems safe and decent enough, though a bit clueless as to the events of the previous week. He asks what you are talking about, and you fill him in on the details. You tell him about Jesus from Nazareth, how he was a great prophet in word and deed, how he preached the kingdom of God and healed people, and how the religious leaders had condemned him to death and had him crucified at the hands of the Romans. You stop for a moment and walk in silence. Do you go on? Do you tell this stranger what you have heard? It’s crazy, you know that, and so you hesitate.

Finally, you summon up the courage, and lower your voice a bit. “We had hoped he was the one. You know, the Messiah, the one who was going to redeem Israel. He looked like the real deal. And now it’s the third day since he was executed. Some women from our group amazed us with the news that they’d seen angels who said he was alive. Some of us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”

The stranger listens quietly, attentively. You’re surprised that he doesn’t laugh at what you just said, but he does smile slightly and shakes his head. “O foolish ones! So slow of heart to believe what the prophets have spoken! Don’t you realize that it was necessary that this should happen? It’s all over the Scriptures, how the Christ should suffer these things and enter His glory?”

You wonder about this. What does He mean the prophets had spoken it? You knew the prophets and the Torah and the psalms. You had to memorize them as a child in the synagogue. You knew what the prophets said about Messiah. What did this stranger mean?

And then the stranger begins with Genesis and he goes through the whole Scripture, Moses and all the prophets, and he shows them how it was that the Christ must suffer these things and enter his glory. He talked about the promise of salvation to Adam, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. He talked about the Passover lamb and all the other sacrifices. He talked about the ram that stood for Abraham’s son Isaac. He talked about the tabernacle and the temple and the priesthood. He ran through the prophets, passages like Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant:

Is. 53:4    Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

As he spoke, your head was almost spinning as he wove together all these passages and images you knew so well into a single, seamless tapestry. It’s one of those prolonged “ah hah”moments when it all makes sense, when all the loose ends are neatly tied together, when everything seems to clear. Your heart is racing with excitement. You see it. You get it.

Time seems to have stood still, because all of a sudden, you are at the fork in the road, and this stranger who seems to know the Scriptures as though he himself had written them, is going the other way, away from Emmaus. The sun is setting, the day is almost over, and you want to hear more. So you urge him, “Stay with us. It’s almost evening. You are welcome at our house. Please, stay with us.”

The stranger joins you at the table. Strangely, he sits at the head of the table, not the usual place for a guest. And when it comes time for the meal, he takes the bread as though he were the head of the household. He lifts his eyes to heaven, gives thanks, breaks it and hands it to you.

And all of a sudden, in a flash, your eyes are opened to this stranger with the broken bread in his hands, and in an instant you recognize who he is. He’s Jesus! He’s alive. He’s here with you giving you this broken bread he has just blessed! And you’re about to say something, anything, and just as quickly, he disappears. Vanishes from sight. And yet somehow this doesn’t disturb you in the least because it all makes sense in some very profound way. It was Jesus on the road teaching the Scriptures. It was Jesus at the table, breaking the bread. And you’re heart cannot possibly contain the joy and excitement and you have to tell others, so you run all the way back to Jerusalem. You run that seven mile road to tell the disciples what you had just seen and heard. You had to tell someone. You can’t keep such things to yourself. And the disciples confirm what you had seen. “The Lord has rise indeed and has appeared to Simon!”

How did you hear about the news that Osama bin Laden was dead? The television, the internet, a phone call, a text? My Facebook friends started posting. That’s how I found out about it. Within minutes, everyone was talking about it, and they haven’t stopped talking about it. It’s kind of interesting to look at in this second week of Easter. A notorious terrorist is killed and we can’t stop talking about the good news. Two short weeks ago, we heard the good news that dead Jesus is risen and probably haven’t given it much thought.

By the Lord’s own assessment, the two disciples on the road were “foolish” and “slow of heart.” Foolish as in unbelieving, slow of heart as in hearts that were hardened to the Word. They knew what Jesus had said, but they didn’t believe it. That’s true for all the disciples. Jesus had told them he was going to die and rise, but they were surprised to find an empty tomb that Sunday morning.

That’s us too. We can hear the good news of the resurrection and then go on as though nothing of significance had happened. We can hear that Sin and Death lie vanquished and defeated and still go through our weeks with long faces and guilt.. Luther’s wife Katie once chided him, “To look at you you’d never know that Jesus rose from the dead.” I had one of those weeks myself. I call them “As if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead” weeks where you get caught up in the treadmill and frustrations and failures and the general stupidity of life and you forget, “Christ is risen!”

This calls for a repentance, a repentance that turns slow hearts into burning hearts, like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus. What caused their hearts to burn with faith was not the sight of Jesus risen from the dead. Note that. They didn’t recognize Jesus until the breaking of the bread and he disappeared. So they were no different than we are. They couldn’t see Jesus, even when he was walking and talking with them. Their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. This was the Lord’s doing, not their nearsightedness. Jesus was weaning them of His visible presence. Teaching them to look for Him in the Word and in the breaking of the bread.

And that’s where our road and the Emmaus road intersect. It’s our road too, and we aren’t any different from Cleopas and the other disciple. We’ve heard the news, we’ve read the eyewitness accounts. “But him we have not seen.” Our eyes too are prevented from seeing Jesus. And yet he is quite here. The Scriptures testify to it. The breaking of the bread bears witness. He is with us in a most profound way, much more profound than a seven mile walk on a road. He is with us by His Word and Spirit, in the preaching of the Scriptures, in the breaking of the bread that is his Body, He is with us.

Easter joy continues, and it has continued for 2000 years, not because Jesus keeps popping up all over the place so that people can see him. Easter is not a series of ongoing appearances of Jesus. Easter continues in the preaching of Jesus from the Scriptures, in the Supper of His Body and Blood, “the breaking of the bread.” There the eyes of faith are opened, there he is recognized for who He is as Lord and God and Savior. There he walks with us and talks with us and hearts slow to believe are enkindled again by the fire of the Holy Spirit to believe.

Every Sunday is a little Easter, we say. Every Sunday, an Emmaus walk with Jesus, not seen but heard in his Word and recognized in the breaking of the bread. Word and Sacrament, we Lutherans say. It’s not a new idea. It goes all the way back to the road to Emmaus.

There is something else that goes back to this road. A prayer. The prayer of the two disciples as their traveling companion seemed to be pressing on and they invite him to stay with them for supper. “Abide with us, for the day is nearly over.” There are several well known hymns on that theme. “Abide with me fast falls the even’tide.” “Lord Jesus Christ, with us abide, for round us falls the eventide.”

It is our prayer at the close of the day, when we put our cares and anxieties to rest, and remind ourselves again that regardless of what has happened in our day, our week, our life – Jesus Christ is risen and in Him we too shall rise. This is a prayer from Compline, the prayer at the close of the day. It is our Emmaus road prayer at the end of a long journey.

“Abide with us, Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Abide with us and with your whole Church. Abide with us at the end of the day, at the end of our life, at the end of the world. Abide with us with your grace and goodness, with your holy Word and Sacrament, with Your strength and blessing. Abide with us when the night of affliction and temptation comes upon us, the night of fear and despair, the night when death draws near. Abide with us and with all the faithful, now and forever.”

And He does, abide with us. In Word and Supper, now and forever.
In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Today’s Gospel for this second Sunday of Easter is about a certain Word and skeptical disciple. The certain Word, of course, comes from Jesus, the Word incarnate, newly risen from the dead. The skeptical disciple is Thomas. And the certain Word of Jesus turns a skeptic into a believer.

Thomas was called Didymus, “the Twin,” presumably because he had a twin brother. He is listed in the second tier of the Twelve, usually between Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot. Tradition says that he went on to bring the Gospel to India, where one of the oldest churches in Christianity still exists today.

Thomas was the skeptical, sometimes even cynical disciple. When Jesus announced that they were going to Bethany to help Jesus’ friend Lazarus who had just died, it was Thomas who said, “Let’s go too so we may die with him.” When Jesus said that He was going to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house, it was Thomas who asked, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” And when the disciples came to Thomas with the news that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead, it was Thomas who said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” And he said this even though he had heard Jesus say at least three times that He would die on a cross and on the third day rise again.

The scene is Easter evening. The first day of the week. Sunday, we call it. It’s the first day of the new creation. Jesus had risen. The women had seen him. The word was circulating. And the disciples were holed up behind locked doors. They were afraid. The word was out. There would be investigations and interrogations. The same people who crucified Jesus would surely come after them. You can understand their fears. We live behind locked doors for a lot less.

Jesus appears among them. He doesn’t climb through the window or knock at the door. Who would answer anyway? He simply appears. He’s the Lord. He can do that. And He can do that and be fully human at the same time. I say that because of those who say that you can’t just appear out of nowhere and be fully human because that’s not being human. But then, when God and Man are united in one Person, and He no longer has His divine hand tied behind His back, all bets are officially off. Jesus can do with His humanity whatever He pleases. And what pleases Him is to appear to His band of fearful disciples.

“Peace be with you.” The first words out of His mouth are words of peace. And unlike our words, His words carry divine weight. They do what they say, just as they did in the beginning of Genesis where God spoke and it was so. “Let there be light,” and Light there is. Peace be with you, and peace there is. This is the peace the world cannot give, the peace Jesus promised to His disciples before His death, the peace that comes because of His death. This is no idle wish. He shows them His hands and His side. This is the source of His peace – His wounds, the marks of His death. By His death He conquered Sin and Death. By His death He reconciled the world to His Father. By His death comes a peace that surpasses our understanding.

They were glad. Who wouldn’t be? It was the Lord. You couldn’t mistake Him. He’s the one with the wounds. He died and rose, just as He said He would. He has the wounds to prove it. Whatever sorrow and fear they had melted away instantly. His words and wounds bring peace and joy.

“Peace be with you.” He says it again. Didn’t the first time work? Of course it did! But now something more. He sends them. “As the Father sent me, even so I am sending you.” Jesus is the Apostle of the Father, and now He sends His disciples as His apostles. Sent ones sent with His authority.

And then He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” A little preview of Pentecost. At Pentecost, the Spirit came on the whole church. Here, the apostles. This is their ordination. With His words and His breath, Jesus ordains them to be His authorized representatives, to speak in His stead and by His command. What He speaks and what He wants heard is the reason He died – forgiveness. The justification of the sinner. He wants forgiveness to be spoken. “If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” Their forgiveness is Jesus’ forgiveness.

“Do you believe the forgiveness I speak to you is God’s forgiveness?” That’s a key sentence in the liturgy of private confession. You occasionally also hear it in the corporate confession, as you did if you were here on Ash Wednesday or Holy Thursday. It’s a question of office and authority. Do you believe that the absolution you hear is from God Himself? Well, you should. It is authorized by the Lord Himself. His office, His words, His breath, His Spirit.

That’s what the office of the holy ministry is all about, and it’s all that it’s good for. Forgiveness. Or, if you will not be forgiven, then withholding forgiveness. Sins forgiven and retained. We call it the “office of the keys,” the keys that lock and unlock heaven itself by applying the forgiveness that Jesus won for you with His words.

It’s all about the words and the authority they carry. When the words come from the crucified and risen Lord Jesus, that pack divine authority. They are the same words that absolved the paralytic and raised him up from his mat walking that “you may know that God has given authority on earth to forgive sin.”

The words “I forgive you all of your sins” spoken in the stead and by the command of the Lord Jesus Christ are the surest words there are on earth. They come by way of the cross and the tomb. The come with Jesus’ breath in view of His wounds. They justify the sinner. They are Spirit and they are life, the words of eternal life. Learn to cherish them, believe them, cling to them. If you have nothing else but those words, you have all that Jesus died to win for you.

Thomas wasn’t there that Sunday. See what happens when you miss church? You miss Jesus’ words, wounds, breath and Spirit. The other disciples told him what happened, but Thomas refuses to believe. In fact, he even says, “Unless I touch his hands and side, there’s no way I’ll ever believe it.” Even though Jesus had said it, and Thomas had heard it. That’s not doubt. That’s simply unbelief.

Fortunately for Thomas, he was there the next Sunday. And again Jesus pops in without so much as a knock on the door. “Peace be with you.” And again He shows them those wounds – the nail marks, the spear mark. And then He turns to Thomas. “Go ahead, Thomas. Put your finger here, see my hands. Stick your hand in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.” And Thomas believes and confess what he believes: “My Lord and my God.” Notice that Thomas never got around to touching the wounds as he said he wanted to do. Notice also that Jesus knew exactly what Thomas had said, and He granted him his wish.

But faith doesn’t come by touch. Or by sight. Faith comes by hearing. In Thomas’ case, the words of Jesus, “No longer be unbelieving but believe.” We don’t cause our faith; Jesus does with His words. “Believe.” And Thomas the unbelieving skeptic becomes Thomas the believer, disciple and apostle.

“Have you believed because you have seen me?” Jesus asks. The answer is no. Seeing does not make for believing. If Jesus appeared right here in our midst in the same way, but didn’t say anything, it wouldn’t help your faith a bit. In fact, it might cause you to doubt. Was that real? Were you losing your mind? Was it a hallucination? The Word of Jesus is what makes faith happen. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Blessed are those who put their eyes into their ears and look by listening. Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and cling to it.

Blessed are you, here this morning. You have the words of Jesus. And you have His wounds – His Body and His Blood. And from His wounds, you have His peace, just as I declare it to you in the real presence of His Body and Blood. Listen for it. “The peace of the Lord be with you always.”

There is a Thomas in all of us, I’m afraid. The skeptic, the cynic. Demanding proof, not taking God at His Word. It’s the old Adam who will not believe, who will not trust, who demands that God prove Himself to be true before we will trust Him. Perhaps you have said it yourself. “Unless I see the nail marks, and touch that spear mark, I won’t believe it.” Maybe you are like those other disciples. Their sin wasn’t skepticism but fear. They were hiding for fear of men even having heard that Death had been swallowed up by Life.

None of Jesus’ disciples believed, or they wouldn’t have been locked up in some room ,and Thomas wouldn’t have demanded proofs. They didn’t believe what Jesus had told them. They knew rationally and reasonably that dead men don’t rise from the dead.

They didn’t need convincing. “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him.” They really didn’t need to see Jesus. They needed to see Him to be eyewitnesses of His resurrection, but they didn’t need to see Him to believe. In fact, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Blessed are those who hear. They needed to hear those words. “Peace be with you.” “Receive the Holy Spirit.” “Believe.” “Your sins are forgiven you.”

That’s what you and I need more than anything. That’s why we gather together here. There isn’t much to see. But there is much to hear. What you hear is what they heard, with all the authority of Jesus’ wounds and breath behind those words. These are the words of Him who died for you:

Peace be with you.
I forgive you all of your sins.
Don’t be unbelieving but believe.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

It feels good to shout that again, doesn’t it! After 40 Lenten days of hushed Alleluias in and a full year since the last Easter season, it feels to shout the Easter acclamation once again. Jesus who was crucified is risen from the dead just as He said He would. Death has lost its sting. The grave has lost its grip on humanity. Death, the greatest enemy of our humanity has been defeated single-handedly by the Son of God who came in our flesh to conquer Sin and Death for us.

You hear it every Easter on the nightly news. I’m sure you’ll hear it again this year. Something like this: “This is the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.” Wrong on two fronts. This is not the day, in the sense of the date, because we don’t know the day. We do know it’s Sunday, the first day of the week, the day after the Passover Sabbath, but because we don’t know the year, we don’t know the date.

And it’s not the day we believe Jesus rose from the dead. It’s the day we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as an historic fact. Not a matter of faith but a matter of fact. It’s a fact attested to by eyewitnesses: first the women who went to the tomb, then Peter and John, then the other disciples, then 500 men at one time, then James and finally Paul. How many eyewitnesses do you need to call to the stand to make the point. Christ is risen. Deal with it.

Jesus’ resurrection is the linchpin of our faith. Without it, everything else counts for nothing. It’s all so much religious prattle. The apostle Paul says if Christ isn’t raised from the dead, if there are bones of Jesus buried somewhere in Palestinian soil, then our preaching is worthless and so is your faith and you’re wasting precious time here this morning. You may as well don your Easter bonnet and get on with your Easter egg hunt.

If Christ isn’t raised from the dead, then we are biggest bunch of fools that ever walked the face of this earth. You are believing fairy stories and it’s time to grow up. If Christ isn’t raised, then you, me and 2000 years of Christians all the way back to the apostles are liars and are misrepresenting God. And most importantly of all, if Christ isn’t raised, then you are still in your sins and you better get to work.

If Christ isn’t raised, then you may as well become a Buddhist and work out your own version of salvation, or be an agnostic not knowing anything, or just be an atheist, because what’s the point anyway, if the dead are not raised?

If Christ isn’t raised from the dead, then dead are gone so you may as well forget about them. If there is no resurrection, then life ceases when your synapses cease firing, so why even worry about meaning, morality, judgment, sin, grace? Then you may as well join the ancient Greek skeptics who said, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” That’s all life is, if Christ isn’t raised. We are nothing more than food processors, passing on our flawed genetics to the next generation of dog eat dog consumers, with survival going to fittest.

But something happened that morning of the first day of the week. Something that shook the earth to its foundations and brought angels down to take a look. Something that rattles everything we know about biology and medicine. When the women came to the tomb early that morning they were expecting to find a sealed tomb and guards and a corpse. They brought burial spices. They’d forgotten what Jesus had told them, that He would be crucified and on the third day raised to life again. Even those unsophisticated, unscientific country bumpkins from Galilee knew that dead men don’t rise from the dead, at least ordinarily.

What they found was a stone door rolled away, a bright angel happily perched on top of it. What they heard was incredibly good news: “He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.” What they saw was an empty, open tomb.

I love Matthew’s rendering of it. “So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.” Fear and great joy. How else can you react to this kind of news? Dead Jesus is risen. That’s scary, creepy even. It makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up if you think about it. And yet there’s joy. He was dead and now He’s alive again. Could it really be true? Were they hallucinating? Hysterical?

And then they saw Jesus who meets them on the road. “Greetings!” I love it. He uses the usual street greeting. “Hi!” As if to say, “What did you expect? I told you I would rise on the third day. Here I am.” They took hold of His feet and worshipped Him. You might worship a hallucination, but you can’t grab his feet. And instantly their fear gives way to unbridled joy.

Do you fear death? Then fear no longer. Christ has conquered.

Do you dread the grave? Then dread no longer. Christ has made the grave a place of sabbath rest.

Do you grieve the death of someone you love? Then grieve in hope and trust in Christ. He is risen, and in Him the dead will rise too.

Are you suffering and despairing in this life? Then rejoice even in your suffering. Christ is risen. His suffering is vindicated, and in Him, your suffering will be vindicated too.

Do you harbor doubt? Then doubt no more. Christ is risen. His words are true; He is the truth and the Way to life with God.

Come, you faithful raise the strain of triumphant gladness. God has brought His Israel into joy from sadness.

Come, rejoice in the Baptism that joins you to Jesus’ death and life.

Come, eat and drink the Body and the Blood that conquered Sin and Death.

Come, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we live.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

The following is an excerpt from a sermon originally preached by the sainted Rev. Kenneth F. Korby at Valparaiso University. It is offered here as the sermon for Good Friday.

Abraham was right.  That faithful old man, the “father of believers,” was caught in the deepest anguish of his faith when God stuck him on the spear-point of his order to sacrifice his son.  Laden with wood on his back, the boy asked, “Father, where is the lamb?”  With fire in his box – and in his own heart – and with the knife in his hand, Abraham was faithful.

God provided the Lamb for the burnt offering.  And so that you and I and the rest of the world might not miss the Lamb or get muddled with the claims of a thousand and one other messiahs who promote themselves – willing to make us sacrifices to their ideologies and dreams – God took the pains to send John the Baptizer to point to Christ.  John, that bony, strange, and brave man, was sent for your service.  Let him do his divine service for you as you listen with due attention to his speech: “BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD who takes away the sin world.”  Follow the direction of his bony finger when he points to that burnt-offering sacrifice on the cross.
 
Contemplate that Lamb on the cross, the sacrifice offered once and for all time for our redemption.  The fire of God’s wrath, fanned by his mercy and passionate love to be our God, roasts this Lamb.  Stretched out on the cross, this Lamb is God’s embrace of the world of his enemies: He is our peace.  Like a magnet drawing filings itself, this Lamb, when he is lifted up, “draws all men” to himself.  Into himself this Lamb draws the poison of our death: his death is ours.  When he dies, we all die.
 
The curse of death is everywhere in the world.  It is in us too.  The slavery of death causes us terror in our loneliness, fear in our boredom, anger and grief in our loss.  That curse lives us not rest, no Sabbath.  It hunts us down, drags us out of hiding, and snatches us away from all we love.  Death and its curse dog our days mercilessly and mock our deceits of culture, religion, and civilization to escape them.
 
Israel lived safely in its houses when death passed over the land.  Hiding behind the blood of the Lamb, they could eat, talk to each other, and rise up to walk to the land promise to them.  So you too hide yourselves in these sweet and glorious wounds of Christ.  Look on the Lamb of God and consider.
 
On the head of the Lamb are the wounds that heal your minds in the heavenly joy of repentance.  Learn to think with a new mind about God and yourself by contemplating the wounds of his head.
 
In those hands are the wounds that heal the works of your hands, making them fruitful again in the service of God and your fellows.

In those dear feet are the wounds that heal your straying feet so that you may walk with your Lord on the way of your Lord.
 
On that back are the wounds of stripes that heal all your wounds of self-inflicted flagellation or the blows you receive from the hostility of your fellow victims.  Your backs are healed to stoop down and pick up on your shoulders the lost and the straying and the bruised among your fellows.
 
And from the side of the Lamb, where the spear of our curiosity about death, where the hatred and the violence of our hearts, are rammed deeply into his heart, there flows  the mystery of the love of God.  There flows the holy church, the mystery of the unity with God as she is bound together in cleansing and forgiving.  Water from his death cleanses you in the baptismal washing and cools down the feverish conscience.  Blood fills the chalice you drink that your mortal and condemned body, riddled with disorder, might be ordered sweetly again with God in forgiveness of sins that is lively and salvific.  In those wounds you may hide safely from the curse and sin and death.  From those wounds flows to you the life that is full of blessing, fidelity, and vitality.
 
But the healing comes from his mouth.  He utters through those dried, chapped lips the words that heal you – at cost to himself.  He is the Author of those gracious words.  Therefore, those words have authority – authority to heal you in and with and through those words.  He heals not himself but you.
 
His first and last words are addressed to his Father and ours.  First:  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  He does not scorn us in contempt for our ignorance and willfulness.  He does not wither us with words of disgust and revulsion.  He does not drive back into our soul’s resentment, the bitter hatred we pour out on him.  He embraces it all – and us – to himself, into his body to carry it all to the grave and bury it.  The lethal, murderous hatchet is buried.  It sinks deeply into his soul and by him the sin is extracted from our soul.  We are delivered.
 
In his body – the body of Mary, of the Tree, of the Table – he carries the sin.  But out of that body’s mouth he speaks the word of the forgiveness of sins, the word which creates his body, the church.  And by that word he fills the church chock full of forgiveness of sins.   Into that body, the church, created by his word of the forgiveness of sins, you have been placed for the daily and generous forgiveness of sin so that you may as freely forgive as you have been forgiven.  As the forgiveness springs from the heart of God, you can freely and heartily forgive those who sin against you.
 
His first word opens the door to life forever.  That word, hot with the fire and passion of God, welds us to the faithfulness of the Speaker, creating the faith that embraces him.  That union of his mercy and our trust heals us forever in the eternal redemption.
 
 And his last word, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit,”  finishes what he began.  At the end of his life and work he prays the prayer of his boyhood, the prayer he learned from the lips and laps of his parents.  It was his  “Now -I-lay-me-down-to-sleep”  prayer.  Having gathered us together in himself he lifts us up into the Father’s hands as he returns whence he came.  With a loud voice he roars into our confused ears and minds what our end is.  These words tell us where we are going.  He carries us with himself.  As he offers himself on the cross, he takes us along that where he is there we may be also.  Without ceasing day and night, he who alone can condemn you rather prays for you.
 
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and hear the words of his prayer.  His first word is your beginning, your origin, your creation anew in righteousness.  His last word is the way you are finished out in perfection.  It is the word of your destiny, the word that teaches you to die well, to end your life where it has begun: in him with the Father.  Hold that cross before your closing eyes.  By faith enfold in your heat this One who has enfolded you in his.  Who dies thus dies well.
 
 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Look at him too when he must go alone, even though our closet attention to him cannot enter he terrible God-forsakenness.  The depth of the abyss of hell and damnation, the wretched loss of God himself, is beyond our knowledge and experience.  He alone goes to that far country.  He has come from the secret heart of God.  Now he opens up that secret.
 
Angels sang at His birth.  Angels came to serve Him in the wilderness of temptation.  Angels came to comfort Him in His Gethsemanic sweat.  But now there are no angels.  Ten thousand times ten thousand of powerful shining spirits, faces ablaze with indignation, swords drawn and singing, mounted on steeds chomping at the bit and pawing the sky for release, would have swooped to work a rescue that would have made the most powerful cavalry charge seem like a twitch of the nose.  But God looks down on this Man of Sorrows, Grief, and Death, and says to the angels who love to do His will:  “Stand back.  Do not raise a finger to help.  Verily, do not raise an eyelash.”
 
 And God Himself turned away.
The burden is the burden of the Lamb alone.
 
We are that terrible and lonely burden.  He is the God who comes to us in our loneliness, forsakenness, and curse.  Lost in the “non-place” of our aloneness, He comes to be our place.  We cannot go to Him.  He comes to us.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Caught in the enchantment of our self-love, bound in the enslavement of our own sin, strapped down by the Law’s verdict of condemnation, and writhing in our shameful servitude, this Lamb comes to us.  Well do we sing, “Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord!  Hosanna – please save us.”  
 
Enough of this religious prattle that speaks of our doing this and deciding that.  First He comes to us.  He helps us, not by stepping on us, and not by shouting out commands for self-improvement at us, but by coming, by stooping down even under us to lift us up on His neck.  He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death -  even death by the cross.  We are His burden.
 
 “It is finished”
 
He isn’t finished.  You are not yet finished.  But the work is finished; redemption is perfected and completed for you.  The price has been paid, in full.  Redemption by  the Lamb has no missing pieces that you must full in.  It is perfected in order to perfect you.  By his cross he has brought joy to the whole earth; he is out to perfect you in that joy.  He who won the prize and paid the cost through suffering and death speaks the word of the perfected redemption to you so that you may know what you will be like when he is finished with you.
 
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Adore him.  Adore his cross.  In him on that cross the perfection of heaven, with pure joy, is given to you.  He was put to death that he might vivify his people.
 
MERCIFUL JESUS. LAMB OF GOD, look on us that we may cling to you, and in your mercy have our peace forever.  Amen!
 
The Rev. Kenneth F. Korby

Tonight is the first of the three holy days leading up to Easter. On these days, we will meditate on what Jesus did for us in order to save us, how He laid down His life as a ransom for many, how He went to the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. How He took our sin and death to His grave and buried them there so that we would no longer be slaves to Sin and held captive to Death.

Tonight begins in an upper room in Jerusalem and Jesus with His disciples. There are two versions of this night, one from the synoptic evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the other from John. Both versions have their particular gift, and we will consider them both. The synoptic writers, along with Paul, tell us of the Lord’s Supper in the context of the Passover meal, how our Lord on the night of His betrayal took the bread and the cup of the Passover and made them something new and something more: His own sacrificial Body and Blood which He would give the next day on the cross for the life of the world. John fills in the negative space around the Supper, focusing on what Jesus said and did.

And so there are not one but two gifts these evening – the first by way of Jesus’ example, the second by way of Jesus’ sacrifice. A way of life, and His life.

John tells us that while they were at table, in the middle of supper, Jesus got up from His place, took off his outer robe, tied a towel about His waist, took a basin of water, and one by one washed the feet of His disciples. Foot washing was an act of hospitality, a courtesy extended to your guests, and a necessary one since you sat on the floor all huddled together with your neighbor’s feet rather close to your face not to mention your food. Foot washing was reserved for the lowest rung of slave, usually a Gentile slave. And it was a rule that a disciple was never to be asked to wash the feet of his rabbi. Here, the rabbi (teacher) washes the feet of his disciples.

Peter is outraged, as only Peter can be. First, he protests. “Seriously, Lord! You’re going to wash my feet?” Then, not understanding what’s going on, he goes over the top in the wrong direction. “Well then, not only my feet but also my hands and head.” So typically Peter! But Jesus is not giving out baths; He’s washing feet. There is no task so low that Jesus will not stoop to do it. That’s the point. He comes not to be served but to serve, and to lay down His life. He is the servant of all, the Suffering Servant who stoops as low as the grave in order to save. And they, as His apostles and servants, are to do the same. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

Jesus did not institute a ritual or a ceremonial foot washing, as is practiced in some churches. He gave a pattern, an example of His disciples, that they would reflect His servanthood in their servanthood, that they would love each other in the same way that He had loved them. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” That love expresses itself in the little and lowly things. In bending down to wash the feet of another. In bending down, as the Samaritan did, to help the broken bleeding man who fell among thieves lying in the ditch.

Service always means bending down. Getting down off your high horse, setting aside your pride and ego. It is not the way of the disciple to say “That’s beneath my dignity” or “That’s below my pay grade.” Nor is it the way of a disciple of Jesus to say, “I’ve done my turn and now it’s your turn.” To be a disciple of Jesus is to be a servant. His service comes first. First He washes His disciples’ feet, then He tells them to wash one another’s feet.

The old Law read, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The new commandment says, “Love one another just as I have loved you.” His love comes first. First He bends down to serve us, and we, having been served, bend down to serve one another.

Submerged under all this talk of foot washing is also a nod to Baptism: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me,” Jesus says to stubbornly objecting Peter. Not a foot washing, but the washing of regeneration and renewal, a washing of water and Spirit with the Word. In Baptism, Jesus again stoops down to us, the Holy One reaches down to wash the filthy sinner. Unless we are washed by Jesus, we have no share with Him. Only He can cleanse you from sin, only He can make the sinner clean.

If you turn to Matthew, Mark, Luke or 1 Corinthians, you get a different perspective on this night. It is Passover night for Jesus and His disciples. Curiously, Jesus is with His Twelve not His family. This is no ordinary Passover being celebrated in the borrowed upper room. This is the Lord’s Passover and He is with His Israel, about to undergo HIs “exodus” from death to life by way of the cross.

In the first Passover, the blood of the Lamb was painted on the doorpost. Israel walked to freedom through the blood of the Passover Lamb who stood for the firstborn. Where the blood, there death passed over. In this Passover, Jesus takes the cup after supper, the third cup, and declares, “This is the new covenant in my blood.” The covenant spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah in which God would forgive iniquity and remember sin no more. He gives His sacred blood for wine to gladden the hearts of sinners. He seals the new covenant with His own blood, HIs life in place of the world. By His blood, we have our freedom and Death passes over. Where His blood is, there is life and forgiveness and salvation.

So also with the bread. The bread of the Passover was the bread of affliction and slavery, unleavened and hard. Jesus does something entirely new with it. “This is my body,” He declares. This bread of the Passover is the body of the Lamb of the new Passover, His body which He would give into death for the life of the world. In the old Passover, the lamb was eaten roasted to the point of being burnt to a crisp. In this new Passover, Jesus gives His body for bread, the bread of life, true and living bread come down from heaven like manna to feed those who hunger for righteousness.
With His body and blood come all that Jesus has and does to save us. To eat of His Body and Blood is to receive all that His saving death has won for the life of the world. It is our wilderness food, as we make our way through this life through death to eternal life. Sin and Death cannot harm us, nor can the Law accuse us, for the Body and Blood testify on our behalf. We are justified for Jesus’ sake.

Do you hunger and thirst for a righteousness that avails before God? Then come to ths Supper and be blest! Are you weary from the struggle against sin and wary of your death? Then come to the Supper and find refreshment. Do you seek eternal life? Then come to the “medicine of immortality,” the Body and Blood that have conquered death.

Jesus’ body and blood do not leave us in isolation, but they put us into fellowship with one another. Communion with Christ is also fellowship with one another, because the same Body and Blood that goes into you also goes into me. We are “bodied” and “bloodied” together, or as St. Paul puts it, “We are one body for we all partake of the one bread.” One bread, one cup, one body and blood, one holy church. The church is the Body of Christ precisely because the church eats the body of the Christ. “You are what you eat.”

Here our divisions are healed. Here the walls come tumbling down. Here all the barriers that we put up against each other are knocked down. The is but one Bread and one Cup. the Lord’s Supper is personal but never private. It can never be reduced to a “private moment with Jesus.” It is always corporate, together, side by side as the body of Christ. Christianity has infinite room for individuality, as we are, each of us, God’s unique and uniquely gifted creatures. Yet there is no room for individualism, the idolatry of self, the heart curved inward. The church is a body of members, not simply a bunch of members and especially not an isolated member.

From this Supper of His Body and Blood, faith toward Christ and love for one another. Jesus loved us to death, giving His Body and Blood on the tree of the cross, lifted up for the life of the world. He loves you, washing you in the water of Baptism, giving you the bread of His Body, the wine of His Blood, all of it as gift to you – undeserved, unmerited, unearned, gratis, by grace.

And in that love, you are given to love one another, reflecting to each other the love that you have received. The world cannot see Jesus’ love. They can hear it, they can taste and see that the Lord is good. But they can’t see it. What they can see is you. “This is how the world will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another”

He gives His life. He gives a pattern for life – love. It is the Lord’s Passover.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:8

We call it “holy week” and rightly so. It is the most holy of weeks, that week between our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna and culminating in His death and burial. What a week! Everything that Jesus is for us, everything that Jesus is for the world, His mission, is all packed into this one week and is summarized in this one verse from Philippians, “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Though equal to God His Father, He stepped down from His throne and took up our humanity. The Word become Flesh. And bearing our human flesh as only He could, being the second Adam to do what the first Adam had not, He humbled Himself in obedience to His own Law. The Lawgiver came under the Law. The Judge came under His own sentence. In order to justify the sinner, God had to do justice to our sin. That’s what Jesus came to do. That’s what this most holy of all weeks is about: God in the flesh does justice to our sin.

The week begins on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Jesus procures a donkey and His disciples hail Him with palm branches. They make a royal highway for Him with their coats and shout “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They very likely believed that the revolution would begin, and Jesus would lead them. Passover was the season for revolution and rioting. Jesus makes a big entry into the holy city riding atop a prophesied donkey, HIs followers shouting verses of Psalm 118. “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The mood shifts abruptly from palms to passion, from triumph to crucifixion. This is no ordinary King. His kingdom is not of this world. His donkey is borrowed. His royal robes are worn only in mockery. His head is crowned with thorns. His throne in this world is a cross. His Sabbath He spends in the tomb. He goes to holy war, but He dies for His people and kingdom. Never has the world seen such a King as this one.

He is anointed for His burial by a woman who pours a a lavish amount of perfume, so much that even the disciples complain for the waste. The money could have been given to the poor. But she has unwittingly done a “beautiful thing,” preparing His body for burial. He became poor so that by His poverty, we might become rich in heavenly treasures.

He is betrayed by one of His own. Judas Iscariot sells his Lord for a prophetic thirty silver pieces, the price of a slave. He betrays His master with a kiss. Realizing what he has set in motion, he tries to give the money back after Jesus is arrested, but the chief priests won’t have it. Judas hangs himself in despair, a testimony to unbelief and rejection of the grace that was his. He should have gone back to Jesus. The thirty pieces of blood money go to buy the Field of Blood, a place to bury the stranger. Jesus came as a stranger to His own world, to shed His innocent blood to atone for the world’s sin. No one seems to want this blood – not Judas, not the chief priests and elders, not Pilate, who washes His hands of Jesus’ blood. Only the people cry out, “Let His blood be upon us and on our children.” They say it in derision but they speak the truth. If His blood is not on us, we are not forgiven, cleansed.

This is why we are baptized and why we bring our children to baptism, that His innocent blood shed on the cross may be upon us and upon our children. This is why we go to the Supper and why He comes to us, that His blood of the covenant might be ours for the forgiveness, our life, our salvation.

Peter denies Him three times just as Jesus had predicted. Peter, who had been so bold to confess Jesus. Peter who hours before had said, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” He denies knowing Jesus to a humble servant girl. We have too, when asked, “Are you one of His disciples.” We’ve denied knowing Him too. But Jesus does not deny knowing us. He takes up our weakness and makes it His own. He prays for another way than to drink the cup of death. He prays, “Not my will but Thy will be done.” He prays it against the devil, against the world, against our own sinful flesh that would not have God’s good and gracious will to be done.

Jesus is tried before the courts of Religion and Politics and is found guilty by both. Before the court of Religion, the Sanhedrin, Jesus is accused of blasphemy. He made Himself to be the Son of God. He prophesied against the temple. Jesus even helps them along and seals His fate by identifying with Daniel’s Son of Man coming on the clouds. The religious leaders spit on Him, strike Him, mock Him as Religion still does today. To be God in the flesh is blasphemy to the ears of Religion. To be justified for Jesus’ sake is heresy to the Religion of the Law. “He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.”

He is the Messiah no one wanted or asked for. When given the choice, the popular vote goes to Barabbas the terrorist. He’s proven himself. He’s willing to kill for the cause. What has Jesus done for us lately? The crowd is pro-Barabbas and anti-Jesus. Jesus is not the kind of Christ, Messiah, they were looking for. Barabbas is what they want. Barabbas kills, Jesus goes willingly to His death. The murderer goes free; the Prince of Peace goes to His death.

The guilty walks away and the Innocent One stands convicted. There on Pilate’s stage, we see a picture of our own salvation. We are guilty under the Law, convicted, sentenced to eternal damnation. Jesus takes our place. He is guiltless and takes on our guilt. He is sinless and becomes Sin for us. He humbles Himself and becomes obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Jesus is beaten, mocked, ridiculed, scorned by the soldiers. The put a royal robe on Him and make mock homage to Him. The press a crown of thorns into His head. They spit on Him and beat Him. And Jesus absorbs it all. Every act on inhumanity inflicted on man by man, every act of prejudice, hatred, oppression, violence – this Man takes without so much as a word of protest. He has come to redeem this broken world with His own blood, to make peace out of our violence, to take our rejection and make it the world’s reconciliation. God was in Christ, this Jesus, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them.

He goes to His cross. He refuses to be drugged, but drinks the cup of woe, grief and death with a clear head. He is crucified between two criminals, likely terrorists in their own right. Perhaps they were cohorts of Barabbas and he was to be the third. But now Jesus is between them instead. His death comes with all the attendant signs of the Last Day: darkness between noon and three, an earthquake, the temple curtain is torn from top to bottom, even the tombs of the saints of old are shaken open and they rise with Jesus in a preview of the Last Day.

The centurion in charge of the crucifixion that day said it best. “Truly this was the Son of God.” And that He is. Obedient unto death to save us from Sin and Death. Obedient in every way – actively keeping the Law to the least stroke of a pen, passively dying under the Law and receiving its judgments.

The women stood watching at a distance. The disciples have long fled. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter.” A secret disciple steps up. A rich man. Joseph of Arimathea. He has a new tomb to give Jesus, the suffering Servant who made His grave with the rich. The tomb is sealed and guarded to ensure that no one tampers with the body. The week has ended. The Sabbath had come.

On the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that he had done in creation.

On the seventh day Jesus, the Son of God, finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. It was a holy day, the end of a holy week. The Holy Week. The week that Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, died in perfect obedience to save you from Sin and Death so that baptized into Him and believing Him, you would have eternal life.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Son of man, can these bones live?” Can the bones of Lazarus four days dead in the grave live? Can your dry dead bones live? The answer with Jesus is “Yes. By His Word and breath they can live, for He is the Resurrection and the Life.”

The prophet Ezekiel was given to see Israel in all her deadness. A valley full of dry, dusty bones, the remnants of a battle perhaps. The bones were very dry because the people were very dead. Bones dried up, life dried up, hope dried up. “Our bones are dried up,” the Israelites said. “Our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.” Dead as dead can be.

Can these bones live? Not if it were up to us they can’t. The dead can’t raise the dead. The dead can’t raise themselves. Bones can only lie there dusty and dead, relics from an ancient past. Did anyone even know their names or who they were? Death in all its harsh finality is writ large in this valley of dry, dusty bones.

Can these bones live? Yes, but they must hear the Word of the Lord. “Prophesy, preach, to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’”

From the dust, the Lord made Adam and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and Man became a living being. To be alive is to have the Word and Breath of God. Without the Word and breath there is only death. Dry, dusty death.

Ezekiel obediently preaches to this congregation of bones, speaking what he is given to say from the Lord. Not words, but the Lord’s. Those words are spirit and they are life. The bones hear and obey. They come together again, bone to bone. Flesh and sinew and skin. And then the breath, the wind, the Spirit of God blows and they stand up and they live. Yes, dry dusty bones can live by the Word and Spirit of God. Israel’s bones can rise up, a great army. Your bones can live by the Word and the Spirit of God.

We are born dead. Dead in trespasses and Sin. Dead as those dry bones. We may think we are alive, we may live in denial of Death, we may try to convince ourselves that we can have a life apart from the Word and the Spirit, but in the end there is only death and those dry, dusty bones. That is our lot. “Dust you are, and to the dust you shall return.” Adam’s death is our death too. What passes as a life is really death delayed, a kind of race from the womb to the tomb. So it is with every “son of man.” NInety-three times, God calls the prophet Ezekiel “son of man,” to remind him of his own mortality. As a “son of man” his destiny are these bones laid out before him. And they are our destiny as well.

Jesus’ friend Lazarus went to join those bones. He had been sick, critically so. His sisters Mary and Martha had sent word to Jesus. “Please come quickly! Your friend is very sick.” But Jesus did not come quickly. In fact, he intentionally waited two days and by the time He arrived in Bethany, Lazarus was four day’s dead. Not quite dry, dusty bones but well on the way. Jesus let His best friend die. He didn’t rush in to make an emergency call. He simply let Lazarus go to death and told His disciples, “I’m going to wake him up.”

For Jesus, death is nothing more than a sleep from which to be wakened. We cannot rouse ourselves, nor can other rouse us from this sleep. No alarm in the world can wake us up from death. But the Word and the Spirit can. Jesus goes to the grave not to mourn but to conquer, not to weep in grief but to cry out against it and pierce through the darkness with His Word and breath.

By the time Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. The town had gathered. The mourners were there. Mary and Martha were understandably upset with Jesus. He was their friend. They had entertained Him in their house. Martha had cooked all day for Him. And He didn’t come when they called Him. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” He made the lame to walk, He gave the blind their sight. Couldn’t He have come to Bethany sooner? He could have saved Lazarus from death.

Even in her anguish and hurt, there is a glimmer of hope in Martha. “Even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” But there’s more to Jesus than that. Jesus is not simply a prophet come from God, someone to whom God listens and grants favors. He’s not simply a “son of man” like Ezekiel, a mere mortal. He is the Son of Man, the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth granted Him by the Father. He is the creative Word in the flesh, the Word through whom all things were made and in whom everything holds together. His words are Spirit and they are life.

Martha’s hope is for the last day, Resurrection Day. She knows and believes that she will see her brother again on the day of resurrection. But there is something more that she does not know. Resurrection day, the last day is not yet, but there is a now. Our hope is not just for a day to come but for today. It isn’t only about a resurrection to come but a resurrection that is already here.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Jesus delivers the last of His seven I AM sayings. Resurrection and Life are present tense with Jesus. They are here and now. “Whoever believes in me lives even though he dies. He lives in spite of his death. He lives in his death. To believe in Jesus, to trust Him, is to live. Death may be our destiny in Adam, but life is our lot in Jesus. In Adam all die, in Christ are all made alive. You, dear baptized believer, you live even though you die. In fact, death no longer has mastery over you because death no longer has mastery over Jesus. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. To be baptized into Him, to believe in Him and trust the promise He has made to you in your Baptism, is to have His life now even as you wind your inexorable way to death.

And there’s still more. “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” Literally, “will never die forever.” Oh, you will die. And you live in Jesus in spite of your death. But living and trusting in Jesus you will never die forever. Death can’t hold you. The grave can’t hold you. Because Jesus broke the bonds of death and the grave forever with His own dying and rising.

To show that His words do what they say, to show that He truly is the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus goes to the tomb of His friend Lazarus. Martha’s worried. “There will be an odor.” She doesn’t quite trust that Jesus is who He says He is – the Resurrection and the Life. With Jesus, Death has lost its sting. The grave has been conquered. The stench of death’s decay gives way to the fresh breath of life. He goes to the open tomb. He prays a very unnecessary prayer for the benefit of those watching. And He shouts into the tomb, “Lazarus, come out.” His words, His breath. And like the dry bones in the valley, Lazarus emerges from his own grave, wearing his burial cloths.

You’d think the religious world would have been impressed by that. But like the man born blind in last week’s Gospel, Lazarus fares no better. They plotted to kill him along with Jesus. Jesus predicted this in a parable about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. “They won’t believe even if someone should rise from the dead.”

Can your dry, dead bones live? Oh yes they can! Just ask Lazarus. Jesus let him die, but that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Nor is it for us. We are born dead, but God has made us alive in Christ Jesus. By grace, a gift. Through fatih, not our doing but God’s doing. You can’t ask the dead to raise themselves. Ezekiel didn’t tell the bones to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. He preached to the Word to them. He preached the Spirit into them. That’s what God does to our dry, dusty bones in Baptism, in the proclaimed Word. He makes believers out of unbelievers. He raises the dead to life. He forgives the sinner. All with His Word and His breath.

You are baptized into Jesus’ death and life. You have the Spirit of God, the breath of God dwelling in you. According to the flesh, to your adamic birth, you are dead and dying. But according to the Spirit, your baptismal birth, you are alive to God in Christ. And if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

This is as certain and sure as Jesus crucified and risen from the dead is certain and sure. He is the Resurrection, He is the Life. Trust Him and you will live even though you die. Live in Him and trust Him, and you will never die forever.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Religion can make you blind. That may sound strange in church coming from the pulpit, but that’s the gist of our Gospel reading this morning. Religion can blind you to who Jesus is and what salvation is all about.

There was a man who was blind from birth. And immediately there is the speculation. Who sinned, this man or his parents? This is how religion thinks. Someone has to have done something to deserve this. There is a hard “if A then B” correlation. The man was blind from birth, so someone had to have sinned. The thinking infects Jesus’ own disciples who ask the question. It infects us as well. We have this notion that God works on a quid pro quo basis. Specific sin gets specific punishment. When bad things happen, someone has to have sinned in this religious calculus.

Jesus’ answer is surprising. Neither this man nor his parents sinned. His blindness is something entirely different. God didn’t cause it, but God is going to use it. God is the great Opportunist who uses everything to His glory, “that the work of God might e displayed in his life.” So we never get a reason as to why this man was born blind, just as we never get an answer to most of the why questions we ask. Rather, Jesus pushes to the faith point: This happened so that God’s work might be manifest. God is going to do something good; He’s going to make good out of bad, which is His specialty.

Jesus then says one of his “I AM” sayings which link Him to the name Yahweh, I AM. “I am the light of the world.” And then spits on the ground, kneads some mud out of the wet clay and anoints the man’s eyes. That’s right. Anointed. Christened the man’s eyes with mud. Doing the Creator thing. God made man out of mud in the beginning, and now Jesus, the Creator in the Flesh, fixes what was wrong with a dab of mud to the eyes. Here’s mud in your eyes, so to speak. And then Jesus tells the man with mud in his eyes to go to the pool called “Sent” and wash his muddied eyes. And guess what? He comes back seeing. And Jesus is nowhere to be seen.

“I once was blind, but now I see.” The story has baptismal overtones. We are born blind, spiritually speaking. Blind to God. We cannot see God for who He is, and therefore we cannot see ourselves for who we are. We are born groping in a spiritual darkness. The Light who is Christ shines upon us, but without the eyes of faith, we can’t see it. We’re blind. God must touch our eyes and wash them in water to which He sends us, the Shiloam waters of Holy Baptism, wherein we are granted the eyes of faith, new eyes, recreated, reborn, renewed eyes. Washed by water and the Word with the Spirit, we are given to see Jesus for who He actually is and what He does for us.

Jesus did this on a Sabbath day. You wonder sometimes, if He couldn’t have done these things on a Friday or a Sunday. Why the Sabbath day? It isn’t, as some suggest, that Jesus is a Sabbath breaker. He isn’t by any stretch. He’s always in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and I’m sure that a lot of those meals that He ate with tax collectors and “sinners” were Sabbath meals. Jesus kept the Sabbath perfectly, in both letter and sprit. What He didn’t keep and literally ran roughshod over were the religious traditions that arose around the Sabbath like weeds around a fine rose. The Pharisees had 32 kinds of work you couldn’t do on the Sabbath. One of them was kneading clay. It had to do with making bricks, but in a pharisee’s religious world, simply spitting on the ground, making a dab of mud and putting it into the eyes of a blind man was kneading clay and therefore work.

So Jesus winds up scoring a kind of three point shot with this miracle. He heals a blind man. He reveals Himself to be the Creator. And He gets to tweak the Pharisees and their Sabbath rules. Not bad for a Sabbath day’s work.

Of course, there’s an investigation. Are you surprised? The haul the man born blind into the synagogue. First, they don’t believe it was Jesus who did the miracle because in their eyes He violated the rules of Religion. What does he think of Jesus? Jesus healed on the Sabbath, so from their point of view, He’s a Sabbath breaker, a sinner. If you stop and think about it, this is utter nonsense. Their rules parse out this way. God only works through people who keep the Law. Jesus broke the Law. Therefore, God can’t be working through Him. Therefore, it could not have been Jesus who did the miracle. The man must have been mistaken. But the man keeps on insisting it was Jesus who put mud in His eye, sent him to the pool called Sent, and his suddenly worked for the first time in his life.

Failing there, they call in the man’s parents. Maybe it’s another guy, a look-alike. Perhaps he hadn’t been born blind after all. But no, it’s the man and yes, he was born blind, but they have no idea how he came to see, and they don’t want to talk about it either, because they’ve heard that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be kicked out of the synagogue.

Not only is Religion blind, it’s stubborn. Resistant. The decision has already been made against Jesus; never mind the evidence. He doesn’t play by the rules so He can’t be the Christ, and anyone who says He is, gets kicked out of the Religion club. So not wanting to have their religion cards revoked, the man’s parents just do what most of us do and that’s keep quiet.

A second time, they call the man in, put him under oath, and demand that he deny Christ. They want to hear the story again because liars never tell the exact same story twice. But the man’s story not only checks out, but he gets it. “If Jesus were not from God, He could do nothing.” So the Pharisees, being the great leaders of religion that they are, remind the man that he was born in utter sin (presumably because he was born blind), they insult him, and then kick him out of the synagogue.

How blind Religion can be! They can’t see Jesus through their rules of how things ought to be. They are so focused on their rules, they are blind to the Light that is shining on them from above. It’s like walking around at high noon with your hands over your eyes and insisting that it’s midnight.

And when I say “Religion does this,” I’m speaking also to us as “religious people,” which isn’t necessarily a good thing. When people say, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” they usually mean something like I’m favorable to God things but I just can’t deal with God people. And who can really blame them? There are ways of being religious that get in the way of seeing Jesus. For example, when it’s all about you and not about Jesus. When all you can talk about is your faith, your believing, your this, and your that, that’s getting in the way of Jesus.

Or when we speak of the church, the church, the church but never about Jesus. It’s like the modern wedding where it’s all about the bride who comes down the aisle and everyone forgets about the groom who slips in the side door. It’s all about the church and her splendor and her glory and her wisdom and her rules. And we forget about her Lord, her Head, her Bridegoom. We obscure Jesus. And there are always rules, rules, and more rules because Religion is always about the rules. And if you don’t keep the rules, then it’s not supposed to work.

Jesus operates in complete freedom of all that. Yes, there are God’s laws, and He keeps them perfectly in both spirit and letter. But He won’t be led around on a leash by religious rules and the man born blind is the prime example. He was not blind because of his sin or his parents’ sin. He was blind because he was born into a fallen world in which God’s wonderful design and order is disrupted by the chaos of sin. Yes, the man was conceived and born utterly sinful, as the Pharisees themselves were, as you and I are. But ironically, their religious rules prevented them for seeing their own sinful condition and from seeing Jesus for who He was for them.

Jesus hears about the man, how he got kicked out of the religious country club and had his dining room privileges revoked, and so He goes and finds the man. Notice that Jesus has to find the man. The man can’t find Jesus, because even though his eyes work and he can see, he’s never actually laid eyes on Jesus and has no idea what Jesus looks like. Seeing is not believing.

“Do you believe in the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Christ who is to come?” “Who is he,” the man answers, “that I may believe in Him.” “You’ve seen Him and He’s speaking to you.” Speaking to you. Did you hear that? Faith comes by hearing, not by seeing. It’s Jesus speaking that causes faith and the man born blind confesses it. “Lord, I believe.”

Seeing is not believing. The man’s eyes worked, but he needed the word to believe. And yet believing is seeing. The Pharisees did not believe, and even though they could see the miracles Jesus did and they could see Jesus with perfect 20/20 vision, they would not believe. They covered their eyes to the Light that was shining on them. The miracle was not so much for the man. He’d lived his whole life without sight. He’d adapted to a world he couldn’t see. And when he got his sight, he wound up losing his religion.

The miracles was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Jesus made an example out of him to show that when it comes to sin we do not live in a simple cause and effect world, that it was not this man’s sin or his parents’ sin that caused his blindness. It was just sin in general, the fallenness of this world, the corruption and decay that has come on all things. And yet, it was a sign of the new age that had come when “the eyes of the blind would be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”

You are part of this too. You cannot now see Jesus, the Light of the world, at least with your eyes. In fact, the sight of Him would blind you. But you can hear Him speaking to you in His word of forgiveness, in your Baptism, in His Supper. Jesus speaks to you and in hearing Him you see Him through the eyes of faith, the Light that has been shining on you and on the whole world. Jesus is the Light of the world, the Light the darkness cannot overcome, the Light that brings life to all.

Hear Him, and with the man born blind confess Him. “Lord, I believe.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

She came for well water; she found living water. She came to quench her thirst; she found the cleansing of her sin. She came to Jacob’s well; she found Jesus, the source of living water.

She was a Samaritan, this woman who came to Jacob’s well with a water jug balanced on her head at high noon. I picture her with lipstick just a little too red; hair dyed just a bit too much. Maybe cracking gum. Living in a double-wide trailer on the other side of town. Quick wit, sassy smile, a few too many lines around her eyes. They write country songs about her. By the conventions of her day, she had three strikes against her: she was a woman, she was a Samaritan, she had been married five times and was shacked up with number six. Three reasons why any respectable rabbi would not have given her the time of day. Yet Jesus addresses her: “Give me a drink.” We don’t know if Jesus ever got his drink of water from her. It doesn’t say. But we do know that she got a lot more from Jesus that she could have bargained for, or hoped for.

The scene is Sychar in Samaria, near the field that Jacob had given to his favored son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, supplying water for the town. The Samaritans were proud of their holy sites. Though the Judeans viewed them as half-breed Israelites and heretics, the Samaritans had the lion’s share of the tourist attractions, including Jacob’s well.

Jesus isn’t so much interested in a drink of water as He is in her. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Jesus didn’t need her glass of water, but she needed Him. And so He starts off a conversation with this sassy Samaritan girl over the well of Jacob. Well water and living water. Well water you worked for, as she worked for it, every day. Every day she came to the well with her water jug expertly balanced on her head. Every day she lowered the rope and then hauled up the water. Every day she carried the water on her head back to the town. Work, work, work. That’s what well water is all about.

No so with living water. Living water is flowing water freely flowing, water on the move from its source to you. You do nothing, the water does everything. Living water flows in the way of faith, with you at the receiving end. Jesus is that Source of living water, a stream that was opened at His death when water and blood flowed from His side to supply the Sacraments. Living water. A fountain of forgiveness flowing from Calvary to you in a baptismal stream.

The sassy Samaritan is curious. “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get this living water? Are you great than our father Jacob? (You bet He is!) He gave us this well and drank for it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Samaritan pride kicks in. They had Jacob’s well. How cool was that? Centuries of Israelite history in that water. What could Jesus offer that was greater than that?

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.” That’s how it is with our work. Every day the same grind. She’d be back at noon tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give hi will become in hi a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Wow! Now that’s something new! No more thirst. Such a deal! “Give me some of this water,” she says, “so I won’t thirst again.” No more trips to Jacob’s well. No more balancing water jugs on her head. But of course that’s not what Jesus has in mind. She’s thinking earthly things; He’s speaking of heavenly things, just as with the conversation last week with Nicodemus.

And so back to earth. “Go, call your husband, and come here,” Jesus says. It wasn’t socially proper for a man to be speaking to a woman in public anyway, so better to call her husband. Only one little problem. She doesn’t have a husband. It turns out our sassy Samaritan is shacking up with a man who is not her husband. And she has a record. A long record. Five husbands and now a live-in. The live-in is not surprising when you realize that the rabbis usually wouldn’t go beyond three marriages. Now it doesn’t say she was divorced five times, so don’t go reading too much into this. She might have been widowed five times. We don’t know. We really have no idea what her past was, though our beady little minds love to fill in the blanks. Only Jesus does, and He’s not saying.

She changes the subject. “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.” He’s that and more, but it’s a start. So as long as she has a prophet on the line, how about answering an age-old theology question. Which mountain should we worship on? The Jews say Jerusalem, the Samaritans say Gerazim. What say you, Jesus?

And now things get good. “Woman (and Jesus is being polite here), believe me, the hour is coming when you’ll worship neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know. (Is that possible? I guess it is. Jesus just said it. You can worship in ignorance!) “We Jews worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” Hmmmm. That’s not terribly seeker-sensitive now is it? First He calls her ignorant, then He says that salvation comes from the Jews not the Samaritans, so they have it all wrong. But that’s just to clear the deck for what’s coming. Jesus doesn’t have much patience with religious debates. He’s about rescuing sinners from Sin and Death.

“The hour is coming and now is. Now is. Now in her hearing. Now also in yours. Now with Jesus standing there in front of her. The time now is when true worshippers, that includes you and me, will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.” And you should capitalize those words Spirit and Truth because they are not some sort of abstract spiritual nonsense, but the other Persons of the Holy Trinity. True worshippers of the Father worship the Father in the Holy Spirit and in the Truth, namely Jesus the Son, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

God (the Father) is spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth. No one comes to the Father except through the Son. No one comes to the Son except by the Holy Spirit. Worship, true worship, is not about this mountain or that mountain, this temple or that temple. God is spirit, and He is worshipped ultimately and finally not in a temple built by human hands, though He was once worshipped that way. The hour has come, with the coming of Jesus, that God is worshipped wherever and whenever God is running the signs, the marks of His working: the living water of Baptism, the body and blood of the Supper. That’s where true worshippers are found. Those are the worshippers the Father seeks and the Word and Spirit create.

“I know that Messiah is coming and when He comes, He’ll explain everything to us,” the sassy Samaritan says. And here’s the kicker: “I AM, the one speaking to you.” That’s what Jesus literally says. “I AM is the one who is speaking to you.” I AM, YHWH, in the flesh, is speaking to you.

And the story doesn’t end there. For that sassy Samaritan, the story begins there. She leaves her water jug at the well and runs back to town and tells all her friends and neighbors about this guy “who told me everything I ever did and might actually be the Messiah.” And the whole town went to meet Jesus and they believed Him too, all because of this sassy Samaritan with a messed up life who met Jesus at Jacob’s well one day at high noon and started talking about water.

So what about you? It’s a fun story with a very colorful character and great dialogue, but what does it have to do with you? When you read this story and ponder its details, you begin to realize a few things. You realize that Jesus actually came to save sinners. Real sinners. Sinners with messed up lives that are beyond cleaning up. I’m sure that Samaritan woman was reminded of her messed up life every day as she walked to Jacob’s well and the men stared at her and the women gossiped behind her back. And here she meets this Jewish rabbi who dares to ask her for a drink and offers her living water of eternal life, free of charge.

You realize that our life under the law is a lot like that Samaritan woman’s daily drudgery. Pulling water up from an ancient well, carrying it home. Day after day, the same grind. But Jesus offers something different: living water. A flowing refreshing stream of life and Spirit from Him to you. It flows from His spear-pierced side to your baptismal font. Living, Holy Spirit-ed water bringing you the new birth from above, making you a new creation, joining you to Jesus’ death and life. This isn’t water you work for, it’s water that works for you, a washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, a washing of water with the Word.

In hearing this story, you realize that true worship is not about this mountain or that mountain. It’s not about worshipping God in the sunset or the mountains or the desert or the beach or some lovely forrest setting. Nor is it about grand cathedrals and gothic temples and whatever else our hands have built. True worship occurs in that tiny gather, as few as two or three gathered in the Name of Jesus. True worship occurs where the Word of Jesus is, where the Spirit of Jesus is, where baptismal waters flow, where Jesus is giving out His body as the bread of life, His blood as wine to gladden our hearts with forgiveness. True worship occurs when the Word of Christ is preached and heard and believed.

True worship happens when sinners gather around Jesus who truly knows everything we have done, as He knew that Samaritan woman’s life, and the wonder of it all is that He forgives us. He wipes the slate of our lives clean with His own blood. He takes the mess of our lives and redeems it, makes good out of it. He turns that sassy Samaritan with the shack-up boyfriend into a one woman evangelism committee. Not exactly our idea of an evangelism chairman, but then we’re not the Lord.

She is a shining example of what St. Paul wrote in this morning’s epistle, and it’s worth hearing a second time. “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but god shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. His forgiveness comes ahead of our repentance and our faith. Like a spring of living water that has been flowing long before we showed up for a drink, long before we knew our thirst, while we were sinners, enemies of God, God made peace in Christ and forgave us.

Are you thirsty? Then come and drink. Do you thirst for righteousness? There is a spring of living water flowing to you. Do you wish to worship God in Spirit and Truth? Then you have come to the right place. For where Baptism, Body, Blood and Word are, there Jesus is, there the Spirit is, there the Father is, there His true worshippers are.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

The word that runs through our three readings this morning and connects them is the word “faith.” Trust in the promise of God. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Hims should not perish but have eternal life.”

This is bottom-line Christianity. This is the core of what you and I believe and confess as Christians. This is what makes Christianity “Christian.” It’s the chewy nougat center without which Christianity becomes just another religion among religions. This is what sets Christianity apart from the world’s religions and what many people, even those who call themselves Christian, don’t get. God justifies the ungodly. God counts faith in His promise as righteousness. God grants this as an unearned and undeserved gift, completely apart from any work that we do.

Abraham is the pattern and paradigm. He believed God. He took God at His word and trusted Him. Of all the people on earth, God singled out this one man – seventy-five years old, married, and childless. A wealthy man who shared his empire with his nephew Lot. God chose Abraham not because he was pious, religious, decent, upstanding, or anything at all. In fact, the Scriptures never say why God chose Abraham. He simply came to Abraham and told him to pull up his tent pegs, leave his homeland and dwell as a nomad in a land that didn’t belong to him. God promised Abraham that he would be a great nation, even though he and Sarah his wife were childless and he was 75 years old. That his descendent would inherit that land of Canaan as a gift from the Lord. That his name would be great and a blessing to many. And in him and through his Seed all of the families of the earth would be blessed.

This promise came before Abraham did anything at all. Abraham didn’t say a prayer nor did God offer any kind of a deal. He just told Abraham how it would be. And Abraham believed God. He trusted what the Lord had spoken to him. He believed the promise, as crazy and unlikely as it all sounded, that 75 year-old childless man would be the father of a great nation and through his offspring all people on earth would be blessed. Abraham was faith-full, that is, full of faith. He took God at His word, and God counted that trust of Abraham as righteousness before Him.

This is how an unrighteous sinner stands before a righteous God. Not on the basis of what you do, but on the basis of trust in the promise of God. This is how Israel stood as a nation before God. This is how you and I stand before God. It’s the only way we can stand before God, not on the basis of our works under the Law. Not on the basis of our commandment-keeping, our religious works, our piety, our anything. We stand before God justified solely by God’s grace alone, it’s a gift from Him to us, unearned and undeserved. We stand by faith alone, that is, trust in what God declares by His Word, namely that through the promised Offspring of Abraham who is Jesus the Christ, the blessing has come to the world and specifically to you. And we stand justified before God on the basis of Jesus Christ alone, His life, His righteousness, His saving death and resurrection.

If you take a survey of people around you and ask them what they think Christianity is all about, they will likely speak in terms of works. Stuff we do, or at least are supposed to do. They’ll speak in terms of going to church, of giving offerings, of obeying the commandments, of living according to the Bible’s teachings, being good, decent, moral. It’s not uncommon to hear people summarize the Christian faith and life this way: Live a good life, do good to others, God will forgive the rest.

And that would be the very opposite of what the Christian faith is. If the promise to Abraham and his offspring had come through the law, then there would be no promise, no Israel, no Savior. “For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.”

The law brings wrath. There’s no point in our cozying up to the commandments, because they will kill you in the end. The law is death to the sinner, and sinners we all are. That was true of old Father Abraham too. The condition of Sin, the depth of unbelief, the extent of our corruption are so deep and so pervasive that simple religious rehab won’t work. We can’t be fixed – not with 10 commandments, not with forty days of purposing, not with anything we do. The law, as holy and well-intentioned and good as it is, will only work death in us.

That’s how the apostle Paul described it for himself a few chapters later in Romans 7: What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

The Law always accuses us; it always kills us; it always condemns us. For all the nice things you can say about the Law – that it is holy and righteous and good and just, that it’s good for morals and even builds strong bodies twelve ways, it cannot save a sinner. It only amplifies and magnifies Sin to the point that sin becomes utterly sinful so that we make no mistake that it is only through faith in the Promise that we are justified before God. If we would understand this one point, our churches would become less of the Law factories that they are and more the Gospel sounding boards they are supposed to be.

“But where there is no law, there is no transgression.” Sin ends where the law ends, and “Christ is the end of the law for all who believe.” In other words, sin ends where Christ begins. Christ is the end of the Law, and so Christ is the end of Sin. With Christ, the reign of Sin is ended. And the chains of Death are broken. Sin and Death go together. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God, a gift given out of God’s grace through faith in the Promise, is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

A rabbi named Nicodemus came to Jesus at night for a little rabbi to rabbi conversation. He had heard great things about Jesus, all the miraculous signs that He had done, and had concluded that He was a great teacher come from God because no one could do the signs that Jesus did unless God was with Him. Nicodemus was focused on doing. That’s what his religion was about. Doing the righteousness of God.

Jesus flips the religious tables on him and comes out with a statement that at first hearing sounds like He wasn’t even listening to Nicodemus. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (or better born from above) he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. The word ἄνωθεν can mean “again” but it usually means “from above.” It’s one of those multi-purpose words that can mean two different things at the same time. Nicodemus understands it in the sense of “again” and wonders “How can a man enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time?” But the birth Jesus was speaking of was a different kind of birth, a spiritual birth: “Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Water and Spirit are creation language. Everything was born of water and Spirit by the Word in the beginning when the Spirit of God hovered over the chaotic waters of the Deep that covered the earth. It is also baptismal language. Unless one is created anew, born from above by the working of the Holy Spirit with the Word in the water of Baptism, one cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. Flesh and blood born of Adam and corrupted by Sin cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. Adam wants nothing to do with the kingdom of God. Adam wants to be god in his own kingdom. Adam must die; Christ must rise.

Of course, this all puzzles Nicodemus greatly, and who can really blame him? He’s losing his religion one sentence at a time. He was a teacher of Israel, a respected member of his community. He stood before his congregation every Sabbath and preached the righteousness of God from the Torah of Moses. And yet, as the apostle Paul would write later to the Corinthians, it was as though a veil were pulled over his eyes so that he could read the words but not grasp their meaning. He could quote the Bible and yet missed the message entirely. Occupied with works and doing and commandment keeping, he missed entirely the central theme and focus of the Torah: Abraham believed God and that faith was credited to him as righteousness before God. Faith alone in the Promise alone by God’s grace alone. Luther didn’t invent this at the Reformation. It was already there with Moses!

This was the whole theme behind Paul’s letter to the Romans: that the Torah is not a Torah of works to do the righteousness of God but a Torah of faith that is credited as righteousness before God. The Promise must be believed, trusted, as Abraham trusted God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

We must believe that we have become new creations in Christ, that the old has gone, that the Law with its commandments are fulfilled, that Death has lost its sting. We must believe that we have been born anew from above in the Spirit-ed water of Baptism. We must believe that this Jesus, lifted up on the cross as Moses once lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness is the antidote to the venom of Sin and that looking on Him in faith we will live even though we die.

We must believe that God loves the world in this way: That He sent His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him, that is, trusts in the Promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation in His name, has what he believes, namely eternal life. We must believe, take God at His Word, that God did not send His Son to condemn the world, for the world was already condemned by the Law. Instead, He sent His Son born of a woman, born under the Law to redeem fallen humanity, to save the world by His own dying and rising.

Take God at His Word. Stand in the faith-full shoes of Abraham. Trust the promise of salvation in Jesus. It will be counted to you as righteousness.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Every once in a while, events in the world trump the liturgical calendar and even the assigned readings. Such was the case in September of 2001 and such is the case this morning, the first Sunday in Lent. The assigned Gospel focuses on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. It’s the traditional reading for the first Sunday of Lent and draws a parallel between Jesus’ forty days and our forty days.

Of course, Jesus’ Lent was unlike any Lent we can engineer for ourselves. His fasting was unlike any fast we can cook up; His temptations embraced every way in which we are tempted, yet with this one important caveat: He did not sin. Jesus went one on one with the devil and won, not with a show of divine strength, but solely with the Word. He did it with His divine hand literally tied behind His back. He did it to rescue fallen humanity from the clutches of the devil, to make enmity with the ancient serpent on His way to His head-crushing victory on the cross.

But the events of the past few days are nearly impossible to drive from our minds; they command our attention. I was half-asleep when I saw the first news footage of the earthquake and tsunami that washed ashore in Japan, a twenty-three foot wave of water that swept in with frightening relentlessness, and then flush back into the ocean carrying with it burning homes, cars, buses, trains, airplanes, tress, animals, and as yet uncounted people. It didn’t register with me at first that what I was watching was real, not some special effect in a made-for-TV movie. An earthquake over 100 times that our of big ones followd by a tidal wave traveling at the speed of a DC-10 made the biblical scenes of the Flood or the destruction of the Revelation seem all the more plausible.

It really wasn’t until the next morning that I realized this actually happened in some part of the world. And then, as typical for these kinds of natural disasters, there is the slowly unfolding aftermath which is almost worse than the event itself – nuclear power plants endangered, people trapped without food or water. I had that same feeling of helplessness as on 9/11 watching the buildings collapse. You see it but there’s nothing you can do except to do as the small catechism says, make the sign of the holy cross and say, “Lord have mercy.”

Commenting in the LA Times, a Jesuit priest from New York noted that events like the Japan massive earthquake and tsunami with the attendant destruction and loss of life in pose a greater problem for believers than for unbelievers. We are accustomed to saying things like, “I don’t know what people who have no faith in God do.” Yet for the unbeliever, it’s really quite simple and straightforward. It’s all about the massive forces of what the secular mind calls “nature.” Biologist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins says that nature is simply a huge, impersonal bunch of brutal forces. Enormous tectonic plates grinding together with huge geological forces causing a tidal wave of water. We got a good glimpse of those forces at work toppling and sweeping away decades of building in a matter of seconds.

For all of our reliance on technology and the hope that science and good civic organization can save you, the harsh reality is that we are no match for natural forces. And that’s about as far as the unbeliever can go or even needs to go. It’s Man vs Nature, and in the end Nature always wins, and the tidal wave that washes away your city is a reminder of how insignificant you are in the natural scheme of things.

It’s not so easy for the believer, however. We believe that God is merciful and gracious. We believe that He not only created all things in the beginning, but He also created each of us personally, and that He watches over, cares for and provides for His creation. He defends us from all danger; He guards and protects us against all evil. Not a bird falls from the sky apart from His notice. He clothes the lilies of the field and knows the number of hairs on your head as well as the number of your days. So when something like this happens, we begin to wonder if there really is anyone in charge of all this. Did this escape God’s notice? Did He cause it? Why didn’t He stop it from happening?

The events of 9/11 were a bit easier to wrap our minds around. Evil men with an evil religion did this. Man’s inhumanity can always be explained by reference to man’s inhumanity. For that matter, the Japanese people could probably better understand Hiroshima and Nagasaki than they can comprehend this. Those were acts of war. But the brutal, relentless forces of nature are quite another thing. If nature is so wondrously and intelligently designed, and we are the apple of God’s eye and the crown of His creation, then why does nature seem hell bent on destroying us? And where is God in all of this? And what about when it happens to us?

The book of Job deals with this, though not in any way that is satisfying to those who want simple answers. Job suffers horribly at the hands of the devil. He loses health, wealth, and family for no apparent reason. Job’s friends try to offer an explanation for God, but they’re dead wrong. They think God is angry with Job. They’re wrong. God is pleased as punch with Job and is holding him up to the devil as an example of faithfulness in the midst of suffering. Job never gets an explanation from God. When God finally appears on the scene in the late chapters, He offers no apologia, no explanations. He simply says, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know. Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I said, “This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?”

And what about when they don’t halt, and the waves keep coming and swamp your city and sweep away everything in an instant? The Jesuit priest in that news article said that anyone who tries to explain this in terms of God is either a fool or a liar. The man is right. God offers no explanations, nor should we attempt to fill in the silence. Like Job’s friends, we’re going to be way off the mark. When Jesus was confronted with tragic loss of life, whether by men or by accident, He simply said, “Repent, lest something worse happen to you.” That’s what Job did at the end of God’s speech. He repented. “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”

Jesus spoke of earthquakes and natural disasters as the “birth pangs,” the labor contractions of the new creation being born. Not the death throes, though that’s what they look and feel like to us labor pains. Painful and difficult, but in the end there is good news. A new birth. Life.

The apostle Paul wrote similarly in the book of Romans:

Rom. 8:18   For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

What we witnessed on Thursday evening was the creation groaning in the pains of childbirth. It is a creation that is subjected to futility, to decay, to corruption, not because that’s how God made it, but because Sin has brought discord into God’s harmony. The brutality of nature that Richard Dawkins delights in extolling is not evidence there is no God but the evidence of a fallen and corrupted order. And in that fallen created order, violent and deadly things happen.

Does God cause it? No. And in the rare cases He does, He lets you know about it. Does God intervene? Obviously not, at least not to the extent of protecting us from earthquake, flood and fire, not to mention war, pestilence and famine. Pick your death. What He does instead is work good through such things, through all things, through the good, the bad, and the ugly. The earthquake the flattens your house and the tidal wave that washes it away.

He trumps all things through the death and resurrection of Jesus, who absorbed all of the world’s Sin and decay into Himself and took it all to His grave in order to raise it up for good. God was in Christ, His Son, reconciling all things to Himself in Jesus’ death. That death is the Tragedy that embraces all tragedies, the Disaster that redeems all disasters natural and man-made. And it is only through that redeeming death of Jesus that we can view events like that of this past week as the birth pangs of the new creation rather than death throes of the old.

This is not an explanation. There are no explanations. Science can tell us what happened, and there is much to study and learn. But no one can say why it happened, except that the whole creation is subjected to decay and destruction. The earthquake and tsunami also remind us that natural theology will only get us so far. Enough of the silliness of how we can worship God in a beautiful sunset or a lovely mountain setting or a sunny day at the beach. The power of an 8.9 earthquake that moved the island of Japan 8 meters closer to us and the wall of water that followed it is only tiny little reflection of the power of God who created all things and who can destroy all things. This was creation’s power at work. That was nothing compared to the power of the Word.

And that brings us to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Fresh from His Baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. The way of the cross goes through the wilderness. He is tempted by the devil, the father of lies, the source of all evil. The devil comes to Jesus in His moment of weakness and vulnerability. He is hungry, thirsty, tired. That’s when the devil pounces on you – when you are weak, hungry, exhausted.

Jesus is tempted by power, by celebrity, by glory. He is tempted to use His power to destroy stones to make bread. He is tempted to make headlines by jumping off the top of the temple and being caught by angels. He is tempted to compromise His mission in exchange for the glitter and glory of this world.

He is tested and found worthy. He meets the test with His divinity tied behind His back. He repels the devil with nothing but the Word. What you and I have as baptized believers. The Word. The Truth of God repels the insidious lie. The Word crushes the old evil foe with the death of Jesus.

The devil would have you believe that God is not in control, that God is not merciful and gracious, that God does not love the world or He would prevent every tragedy and disaster from happening. But that’s not how God loves the world. He loves the world by sending His Son to do battle with the devil, the darkness, the death. He conquered and in Him we more than conquer so that neither death nor life , neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, niether height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is Christ Jesus our Lord.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Joel 2:13

Today is Ash Wednesday. So where are the ashes? Why is our Ash Wednesday ashless?

The reason is NOT that we are not Roman Catholic. That’s never a good reason. The reason is you are not ashes but dust. Dirt. Dust you are and to the dust you will return. The wages of Sin is death. Dirt is what Adam was made of; dirt is where Adam returns. Poor dusty Adam, poor dusty you.

Ashes were a symbol of mourning in the OT. You put them on yourself, heaped on your head like Job. You didn’t have others put them on you. That was none of anyone else’s business. And it wasn’t a little dab but a pile. You also wore sackcloth. Scratchy, itchy burlap. “Sackcloth and ashes.” There doesn’t seem to be much of a market for sackcloth these days. Just a respectible little dab of greasy ash from last year’s palm Sunday fronds.

Rend your hearts, not your garments. Torn garments were another sign of mourning. Costly to the wardrobe too. But God desires neither torn clothing or soiled foreheads. What He desires is crushed and broken hearts. Hearts that have felt the hammer of the Law. Hearts that have been plowed under. Hearts that recognize there is nothing whatsoever in us that should obligate God to us. Empty, broken, crushed hearts are what the Lord seeks, not self-imposed ceremonially sooty foreheads.

Jesus does not impose ashes on you. Nor will I, His servant in Office. I love ritual, and I love ceremony. But they must teach accurately. Christ does not soil you with sin. You do that to yourselves. Christ does not pronounce a death sentence over your head. He saves you from death. He marks you with His cross. He baptizes you. He washes away the dust of Adam and makes you a new person in Him. He raises you up out of the dust and forgives you all of your Sin. “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus does not put ashes on you. He doesn’t make you dirty; He makes you clean. Perhaps a more fitting Ash Wednesday symbol would be for each of use to soil our own faces with ashes and dirt and then come up to the font and I would wash them clean and have all the dirt stay in the font and you leave here with your faces scrubbed. That would work. But then we’d be inventing some new little ritual, and we already have plenty of those. We don’t need a new ritual, we need renewed repentance. Rende your hearts, not your garments.

Adam sinned. He disobeyed the Word of God. He refused the gift of God in the tree of life, and so he forfeited his life. “Dust you are and to the dust you will return.” His food would be hard-earned bread. His life one of sorrow and sweat. His wife would suffer in childbirth. His marriage would be a struggle of who’s in charge. Tears and sweat until the man of dust returns to the dust.

Yet in the midst of it all, a Promise. “I will make enmity between you, the serpent, and the woman. Between your seed and her Seed. You will wound him. You will crush his heel. And he will destroy you. He will crush your head.”

We cannot save ourselves. The disease of Sin runs too deep. Adam cannot cure himself. He is but dust. It takes a second Adam. Not from the dust, but from heaven. Born of a woman, born under the Law, yet above the Law and outside the Law. Sinless, unblemished Lamb of God. Where Adam sinned, Christ obeyed. Where Adam brought death, Christ brings life. Where Adam brought condemnation to all, Christ brings acquittal to all. Where Adam brought death, Christ brings resurrection from the dead.

You are baptized. Your sooty, soiled foreheads have been washed clean and marked by the Lord. You are one of His. We trace that mark of ownership whenever we make the sign of the cross. But why would we want to soil it with Adam’s dust? In Baptism, your sins, though scarlet, have been washed white as the snow. In Baptism, the soiled soot of Sin has been washed away in the cleansing flood of Jesus’ death.

This calls for repentance. Not one Wednesday out of the year, but every day the Lord gives you. Daily dying, daily rising. Adam must die, Christ must rise. Return to the Lord your God. He has come to you. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He will not pronounce a death sentence over your head, deserved though it would be. That Jesus has heard and taken upon Himself. You have a life sentence pronounced over you. Forgiven, washed, justified, sanctified, holy. What Adam has done, Christ has undone and more.

Do you want a sign for mourning over your sin? Then look not to your foreheads but to the cross of Jesus. There you will see the grief and suffering your Sin caused the Son of God. Never such grief was there than this. Our tears can only dimly approximate the tears of our Lord shed over us.

Do you want a sign of your life and forgiveness? Trace the sign of that cross, upon your forehead and upon your heart, where God Himself marked you in Baptism as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.

Return to the Lord, your God. Return to the font of your Baptism, to the altar of His Body and Blood give and shed for you. Return with broken hearts. And He will raise and restore you, as He always does and always will, in Jesus.

Why no ashes on this Ash Wednesday? Answer: You are baptized. It is finished.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Jesus told this plainly to His disciples on the heels of Peter’s great confession – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” From that point on, Jesus began to speak openly of His death and resurrection, that He would be betrayed, handed over to sinful men to be crucified, and on the third day raised to life again.

Peter, who had confessed Jesus to be the Christ, didn’t want that kind of Christ, and so He tried to dissuade Jesus, send Him on a detour away from the cross. “This must never happen to you.” But those were Satan’s words not God’s. Satan would delight to have an uncrucified Jesus, because Satan knew the threat, that Jesus cross-bruised heel would crush the head of the serpent and be the devil’s undoing. Anything but a crucified Jesus.

And then Jesus tells His disciples that some of them would not taste death, they would not die, until they saw Jesus, the Son of Man, in the glory of His kingdom. And then He let a week go by. I wonder what they talked about that week. Who would it be? Who would not taste death before he saw Jesus in His glory? And what did that mean?

Six days later, Jesus selects three of His twelve – Peter, James and John – to go with Him up on a high mountain alone. These are the ones who would not taste death before they saw Jesus in the glory of His kingdom. Not the others. They would have to wait. Just these three. Unfair? Of course! Jesus is not fair, but merciful and gracious. It took two or three eyewitnesses to establish a fact. These three were enough.

While they were with Jesus, suddenly He was changed in appearance. Metamorphosized. Transfigured. His face shone like the sun; His clothes gleamed white as light. We say it in the Creed: God of God, Light of Light. True God of true God. Peter, James and John saw it with their own eyes. Jesus’ humanity joined with His divinity. True God and true Man all in the same Person shining with the glory of God.

The glory concealed is now revealed. The glory that once filled tabernacle and temple, the glory that departed from Israel is now seen in Jesus. God with us. Immanuel. This isn’t about how man becomes God, but how God becomes Man yet still retains the fulness of His glory. Nothing compromised. Full blast God in human flesh. And the sight is glorious.

With Jesus were Moses and Elijah from the Old Testament. Moses, through whom came the Torah. Elijah, the chief of the prophets. Mr. Torah and Mr. Prophesy, standing with shining Jesus and talking with Him the way one converses with an old friend. It’s a picture of the resurrection, when we too will stand in the glory of Jesus, raised from our death. This is a little sneak preview of what lies ahead for the disciples and for you, baptized believer.

Jesus came not to abolish Moses and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. To bring them to their conclusion and purpose. And here they are flanking Jesus, bearing witness to Him. Luke says they were discussing Jesus’ “exodus,” His departure, that is, His coming death and resurrection by which Moses and the prophets are fulfilled.

So you read about this and you think, “Wow! I wish I’d been there.” Wouldn’t that sight have been something? Moses wanted to see God’s glory but instead was hidden in a cave as the glory of God passed by. Elijah wanted to see God’s glory but was hidden in the same cave as an earthquake and wind and fire came before God revealed Himself in a whisper. They could not see God’s glory. A sinner may not look on God and live. He’d be toast. But glorious Jesus, that’s different. You can look at Him. It’s OK. With Jesus, you can see and live to tell about it.

Still, there’s something about shining Jesus with Moses and Elijah that’s a bit too much to handle. Peter gets this idea to build three shrines, one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah. He wants to do what religious man always does – enshrine the event. Contain it. Box it up. Domesticate it. There are shrines all over the world, usually shrines to visions of Mary. Lourdes. Guadeloupe. There’s an Orthodox monastery built on Mt. Tabor, the purported site of the Transfiguration. Whether it’s true or not, Christianity is not about holy sites. Have you ever thought about that? We don’t do holy sites. For that matter, we’re not even one hundred percent certain where the cross of Jesus was planted.

Why is that? It’s because the power of God to save does not reside in places you go to. You don’t go to God. God comes to you. You don’t need to go on some pilgrimage to some faraway place to draw close to God. God has drawn close to you in Jesus, who manifests Himself for you personally in the water of your Baptism, in the bread and wine of the Supper, in the spoken Word of forgiveness, the gathering of even as few as two or three gathered in His name. That’s your mountain. That’s the place where Jesus meets you.

Peter, one of the honored three who saw Jesus glorified wrote this: For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts….” (2 Peter 1)

Peter, who saw this vision with his own eyes and testified to it, points us to the Word, as something “more sure” than this great vision. More sure. It is more sure to hear the word of forgiveness spoken by your pastor than to see shining Jesus on a mountaintop. It is more sure to remember your Baptism than to see Moses and Elijah standing next to Jesus in His glory. It is more sure to eat His Body as bread and drink His blood as wine than to see His face shining like the sun and His clothes brighter than anything on earth. It is more sure to read of Christ in the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures than to stand on the mountain where this happened.

Before Peter could begin his shrine building, a thick cloud covered the mountain. It was the same cloud that covered Sinai and filled the tabernacle and temple. The pillar of cloud that guided Israel. And from the cloud there came the voice of the Father, echoing Jesus’ baptism. “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”

Hear His words. His are the words of eternal life. Moses can’t save you, but he can point you to the One who can. Elijah can’t save you, but he can point you to the One who can. Only Jesus can save you. Only Jesus bears your sin, your death, the punishments of the Law. Only Jesus can mediate between God and Man because He is both God and Man. Moses and Elijah reflected the glory of God, but only Jesus shines with the glory of God. Moses and Elijah were like the moon reflecting the sun. But only Jesus shines like the sun with His own light. Moses and Elijah reflected the light; only Jesus is the Light of the world.

And in the end that’s what the three disciples saw. Only Jesus. He came and picked them up off the ground, raised them up out of their fear. They saw no one but Jesus only. He’s all they need. He’s all you need too.

And then a curious thing. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone about this vision until He had been raised from the dead. Not even the other nine disciples. Don’t tell anyone. How do you not tell everyone when you’ve seen something like that? But shining Jesus without crucified Jesus leaves all the wrong impressions. Try this. Which would you rather have witnessed? Jesus’ transfiguration or Jesus’ crucifixion? Which would you want to see with your own eyes – shining Jesus or dead Jesus? I don’t think I need to take a poll. Shining Jesus wins hands down, doesn’t He?

We prefer the glory to the cross, not only with Jesus but also in our own lives. We prefer the stories of miraculous healings to the stories of heroic suffering. We prefer the power and the majesty of a Jesus who shines with unearthly glory than a beaten and bloodied Jesus who hangs dead and defeated. But here’s the rub: Only dead Jesus can save you. Only crucified Jesus can bear your sin. If all that Jesus ever did was appear shining and radiant on a mountain to three of His disciples, you’d still be stewing in your Sin and Death. You’d still be condemned by the Law.

In Islam, it is said that the moon came out of the sky and went up one sleeve of Mohammed and out the other. But no one saw it. And for this reason, we are to believe the words of Mohammed as true and inspired by God. Jesus appeared transfigured along with Moses and Elijah before three eyewitnesses, and yet we don’t believe Him on account of that alone. We believe Him on account of HIs death and HIs resurrection.

The Transfiguration tells you who Jesus is – true God and true Man. Divinity in human flesh. It tells you that even though His divinity may be buried deeply in His humanity, nevertheless the fulness of deity dwells bodily in Jesus without attenuation. He is fully God and fully Man. But His death and resurrection tell you who He is for you – your Lord, your Redeemer, your Savior, God’s sacrificial Lamb who dies for the sin of the world.

You will see shining Jesus one day, soon enough. He’s promised to appear again in glory and to raise you from the dead and give you eternal life. You will see Moses and Elijah and all the saints. And there won’t be any need to build a shrine to preserve the moment, because the moment will be an eternity. And the sight will be glorious, no doubt about that.

But for now, the mountain of glory gives way to the mountain of the cross. And shining Jesus gives way to crucified Jesus. And the Sunday of Transfiguration gives way to Ash Wednesday and the somber season of Lent. But it’s always the same Jesus – shining, dead, risen, reigning. It’s always the same Jesus – true God and Man – who comes to save you.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

You, therefore, will be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Mt 5:48

If you listened carefully, you will have noticed that I pulled a Law/Gospel fast one on you. You heard the Gospel reading say, “You therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And then I just said, “You, therefore, will be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” So which is it?

The first way of translating it is the Law – You must be perfect, without any moral or spiritual defect, measured against your Father in heaven who is perfect. Don’t measure yourself by those around you. Measure yourself against God your Father. Don’t stand around and say, “Well, no one’s perfect.” That’s no excuse. God is perfect. Don’t settle for less if you want to be called children of God. You must reflect who your Father is. Do you call God “Father?” Do you dare to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven?” Then measure yourself against your Father. Be perfect, as He is perfect.

Read that way, Jesus seems to have ratcheted up the bar to infinity. Perfect. Not pretty good. Not trying harder. Not working on it and making some baby steps of improvement along the way. Perfect. He started out this section on the Sermon on the Mount by saying, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious do-gooders and commandment keepers, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That was bad enough. You have to outdo the best of the lot when it comes to commandment-keeping.

And then Jesus goes on a little riff through the commandments, doing the deep diagnosis, pushing things all the way to the heart. You’ve heard it said, “Thou shalt not kill,” but I say to you don’t even call your brother a name. You’ve heard it said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” but I say to you don’t even look or think about it. You’ve heart it said, “Don’t lie under oath,” but I say to you, don’t even swear and oath at all but let your word be a pure, unadulterated yes and no.

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, toss it away. Better to lose a body part or two than to be thrown whole hog into hell. I see nothing but two-eyed, two-handed people here today. I guess no one’s eye or hand caused them to stumble this week. Or maybe the one-eyed stayed home, but, oops, that would be a sin too, wouldn’t it?

How’s it going for you? Are you ascending that ladder to the kingdom? Working those commandments like a gym workout? Feeling the burn? Are you feeling any closer to those pearly gates of the kingdom? Keeping those commandments better than the scribes and the Pharisees kept them? Not only keeping them, but loving God and loving your neighbor? How’s it going for you? Are you going to make it? You want to earn your way into the kingdom? Well, you’ve got a big job ahead of you. And as we heard last week, you’ve also got a big problem. It’s called Sin with a capital S. Big S Sin. Sin as in original sin, the origin of all sins, the inherited, fatal disease that comes down from Adam to us in unbroken succession from father to child.

That’s the deep diagnosis that Good Doctor Jesus delivered last week, and He has a few more divine CAT scans to put up on the screen today. Let’s talk about how it goes with your enemies. Not the people you like and who like you. Those are easy to love and be nice to. Everyone is nice to their friends, but how you treat your enemies tells a lot about you and what’s going on inside that little beating heart of yours.

“You have heard it said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth,’ but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.” If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer him the left. If someone wants your coat, let him have the shirt off your back. If someone forces you to go a mile, go two. Give to the one who begs from you, lend to the one who would borrow from you.”

How’s it going for you now? No retaliation. No pound of flesh. No resistance. No rationalizing and loopholing here. If you want to take the law of God seriously, this is where the law of God is going to take you. This isn’t our way, it’s God’s way. Our way is to fight evil and kill the evildoers. God’s way is to drown evil with good and save the evildoers. If someone strikes us on the right cheek, we strike back before he gets a second shot. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.” It’s the Law. If someone sues us, we sue back. If someone forces us to do something, we do less than required not more. Ever hear of someone paying more than the required income tax?

As a professor at Concordia-Irvine, I learned to be more specific about term papers. It wasn’t enough to say “a ten page paper.” That worked in the days of the typewriter that had fixed fonts and spacing. I learned to say, ten pages, helvetica font, 12 point, single spaced, 1 inch margins. Or more simply 5000 words. What’s the least we have to do?

That’s what life under the Law is like. You look at the bar and you creep up to meet it from below. Just enough and no more. That’s why Jesus raises the bar to infinity.

“You’ve heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor, hate your enemy.” Straight out of the Torah and the rabbis. “But I say to you love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” A son reflects his father. Your Father who is in heaven, loves His enemies and does good to those who hate Him. He causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. There are no little local showers over the good people. There are no local rains and bits of sunshine for the religious people. Everyone gets the same rain, the same sunshine. The same Jesus.

While we were yet enemies, Christ died for us. Enemies. That’s what Sin makes us – enemies of God. If God were to love His neighbor and hate His enemy, then it would simply be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and no one else. A closed community of Three. God loved the world. God loved His enemies. He sent His Son Jesus. He was slapped and offered the other cheek. He was forced to go one mile and went the whole way to the cross. They stripped him of his cloak and his seamless robe. He gave to all who asked of Him. He prayed for His persecutors – “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” He did it as the only-begotten Son of the Father so that you might become sons of your Father who is in heaven.

He did it to completion, and when it was completed He said so. It is finished. Tetelesthai. It is complete; it is finished. Same word as we have here in the verse where we began. “You will be complete, whole. Teleios. as your Father in heaven is teleios, complete.

“You must be perfect?” or “You will be perfect?” Perfect as in complete, whole, all that you are and all that God has made you to be. Which is it? Law or Gospel? Your doing or Jesus’ doing?

If it’s Law, if it’s all up to you to do, then it is as outrageous a law as gouging out an offending eye, cutting off an offending hand, never so much as looking at a pretty girl with anything but a pure heart, and loving the very people who hate you and want you dead. If it’s Law, if it’s all up to you to do, then forget about your eyes and hands, you need to fix that heart that hate the enemy, that returns curse for curse, that lusts after women you can’t have, that secretly mutters evil against the brother and refuses to forgive him. You’re problem is not what you do, that only scratches the surface. You’re problem is who you are – a Sinner. A world-class sinner. Chief of sinners, along with no less than the apostle Paul.

If this is Gospel, if Jesus is capping this all off by promising that you will be perfect, complete, whole, entire as your Father in heaven is perfect, not because of something you have done, but because of everything that Jesus has done, by His perfect life lived in your place, by His becoming Sin for you, by His death on the cross, by His resurrection and ascension, and by the outpouring of His Spirit upon you in Baptism, if this is what He means, then it is the greatest good news your ears could possibly hear. Moses couldn’t promise this or deliver it. He could only get you as far as the scribes and the Pharisees. But Jesus can take you over the top, beyond the Law to completion, wholeness, yes, the kingdom of heaven.

“That I may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve HIm in everlasting righteousness (not yours, His), innocence (not yours, His), and blessedness (not yours, His).” You will be perfect, perfected in Jesus’ perfection. You will be holy, as the Lord your God is holy. Holy in Jesus’ holiness.

Does this mean you get to punch your your enemy? Ogle those pretty girls? Dump your spouses? Refuse to be reconciled with your brother? Refuse to pray for your persecutors? Sin that God’s grace may abound? Of course not! You’re perfect in Christ. You have His complete righteousness and holiness. You are a child of God, as perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. You are salt, seasoning the world with Jesus. You are light, reflecting the light of Christ into the world. Why would you settle for anything less than what Jesus has won for you?

The Beatitudes echo back from the beginning of the chapter to here. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful, the pure hearted, the peacemakers, the persecuted. Blessed are those who offer the other cheek, who walk the extra mile, who give the shirt off their back, who love their haters, who pray for their enemies, who drown out evil with good.

Blessed are those who live in the perfect completeness of Jesus.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Very often, when a doctor wants to make a diagnosis, he has to look at your insides. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since the days when the only way to do that was “exploratory” surgery, where he literally went in just to take a look around to see what was going on. That’s how surgery was invented, and thanks be to God, things have progressed far beyond cutting you open just to take a look inside. Today there are a variety of means at your doctor’s disposal, everything from sonograms and X-rays, to various kinds of CAT scans and MRI scans that can deliver a picture of what’s going on inside you.

That’s what is going on in today’s Gospel reading and this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is taking the Law into His own hands, literally into His own mouth, and explicating in such a way that you get a good look at your insides. There is a line from a famous Lutheran hymn that goes:

The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred Sin to light
That lurks within our nature.

Jesus is putting us into the divine MRI machine of the Law. He’s giving a divine CAT scan of our internal condition. Not simply what’s going on with our hands and eyes, but our hearts. Not simply the external symptoms we call sins, but the internal condition called Sin that necessitates our being baptized in Christ and being born again from above. Not just the outward action here, but the inward orientation and attitude.

Our concern is with the outward stuff. How do we look to others? How are we acting toward others? And if we’re living pretty generally decent lives, we imagine that we are doing well. We’re basically “symptom free.” But being symptom free doesn’t mean you don’t have the disease, it just means you aren’t showing it very much at the moment. If you were to look at your heart from God’s perspective, from the inside, you’d see all sorts of things that would shock you: Murder, lies, theft, adultery, immorality, greed, lust, idolatry, hatred, envy, prejudice, pride, covetousness. It’s all there lurking in our hearts where the disease of Sin lives. The outward sins we do all begin with Sin hidden in our hearts. We can’t see that, it has to be revealed to us, by a spiritual scan, an MRI from above, so to speak.

To push the analogy a bit further, even if you have an X-ray or an MRI to look at, you probably wouldn’t recognize much of anything anyway. When Karen had her back surgery, the surgeon showed her the MRI of her spine and the two compressed discs. Had he not pointed it out, I’m not sure we would have seen it on our own. Or the doctor says you have a suspicious spot on an X-ray and points to this thing which looks like a piece of dust got into the picture. But his trained and focused eye sees what you and I would overlook.

Likewise, even having an inner look through the Law is not enough for us who eyes have been made blind by sin Even we’re staring at it face to face, we’re not prone to recognize it. That’s why we need the word of Jesus here. Over and over again, Jesus delivers the diagnosis on the basis of His own authority – “But I say to you.” Jesus has no need to refer you to a specialist. He is that specialist. His specialty is death and life, sin and grace. Jesus knows Sin when He sees it, and He sees it to the depths of your own heart with the full force of His “but I say to you.”

Who is He to talk like this? He doesn’t reference a single authority before Him. In fact, He seems to overturn all the authorities that came before Him, those “men of old” who handed down the tradition of their wisdom. Their diagnosis was too superficial, too shallow. They only looked at the outward action and thought that by doing those things, by keeping the commandment outwardly they would be doing the righteousness of God.

Now I’m not saying that this wouldn’t be a good start. You can only imagine a world with no murder, with no adultery, with no divorce. A world where debts were reconciled quickly and peaceably, where everyone spoke the plain and simply truth. You wouldn’t need policemen or prisons or courts or lawyers or judges. And yet, even in a world that externally ran by the Law of God written in our hearts, the law that every human being has available as part of their human hardwiring. Even if everyone kept the Law written in their hearts perfectly, it still would not be heaven on earth. The condition would still be there. Oh, we’d be basically symptom-free, but not disease free. And sooner or later, the symptoms of Sin in our hearts would emerge with the first angry word, the first lustful look, the first little lie.

No amount of external discipline can change the inward ways of the heart. Go ahead and cut off that offending hand; you’ll still have to deal with the other hand. Go ahead and poke out that offending eye; you’ll still have to deal with the other eye. And while it’s certainly preferable to enter the kingdom of heaven with one eye and one hand than to be thrown whole hog into hell, cutting off hands and poking out eyes won’t get you into the kingdom of heaven.

The entry ticket is this: Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, unless your righteousness exceeds the religious traditions taught by men, unless your righteousness flows from a heart uncorrupted by Sin, the kingdom of heaven is closed to you.

That’s the deep diagnosis, and we don’t like it one bit. And what do you do when you don’t like the doctor’s diagnosis? You get a second opinion. The world of religion is full of second opinions, and quack cures, and superficial treatments. When we get a second opinion, which one do we go with? That’s easy. The optimistic one. The one that says, “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about.” I think that would make a great inscription on a gravestone. “The doctor said it was nothing to worry about.” Which would you rather take – chemotherapy or a sugar pill? Which would you rather hear – your condition is terminal or there’s nothing to worry about? So much of what passes as religion is a sugar pill, a topical salve, a bandaid on behavior, a second opinion that says, “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Trust Good Dr. Jesus. He’s an expert in you. He knows your humanity better than you do. He knows the spiritual condition of your heart much better than you. He can read the details of the Law’s MRI. The condition is terminal, damnable, incurable. You may not have murdered anyone but you’ve harbored the hatred and anger that goes down that same road. You may be faithful to your marriage vows, but your eyes and heart have wandered. You may be truthful, but the truth always comes with a little spin. The fish you caught is always a little bigger than actual measurement. You are always more brilliant in the retelling than the first run.

The diagnosis: You’re a Sinner. Not because you sin, but because you have this condition called Sin. It’s fatal. The wages of Sin is Death. There’s nothing you can do about it. There’s no religious trick, no spiritual discipline, nothing in your little bag of religious tricks that can change a heart infected by Sin.

Here’s the good news. The cure has been worked. On a good, dark Friday between nine and three when this same Jesus who is speaking here in the Sermon on the Mount went the mount called Calvary not only to pay for our sins but to become our sin. To take up the disease called Sin and have it kill Him. To conquer it for all of humanity by dying with it.

It sounds strange, I know. Bizarre even. But this disease is unlike those diseases that affect the body but cannot harm the soul. Sin affects body and soul right to the core of our humanity. It calls for a drastic cure, extreme measures. The Son of God must become a human being born without Sin and take on this invader lodging in our humanity. He must die and rise. And you must die and rise with Him.

You won’t find the cure for Sin in self-discipline, in religious traditions, in commandment keeping, in any of the things you do. The cure for Sin is dying and rising in Jesus, being joined to Him through Baptism into His death and resurrection. Eating and drinking the fruits of HIs death and resurrection in the Lord’s Supper. Hearing the Word of forgiveness from Christ to you, a word that drowns Sin with forgiveness.

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” Death and evil in our hearts infected with Sin; life and good in Jesus who came to be Sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. There is hope for every sinner, for you in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In the name of Jesus, Amen

Salt, light, and the Law this morning from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He’s preaching on a mountainside to His disciples with the crowds overhearing. He’s just blessed them with His nine Beatitudes, blessings, which we heard last week. And then He follows up with salt and light.

You are the salt of the earth. Notice right off the bat that Jesus doesn’t not say “You need to become salt” or “You need to get to work on your saltiness” but “You are salt.” It’s a given, granted by Jesus Himself. The disciple of Jesus is salt.

Salt? Hmmm. I’ve been called many things, but not that. Salt. What does it mean? Salt seasons, it purifies, it preserves. It’s useful stuff. You don’t need a lot of it, just enough, sprinkled on a dish to tickle the taste buds. A little goes a long way. In Jesus’ day, salt was used to preserve meat from spoilage. Sacrifices were sprinkled with the salt of the covenant. Salt was used to disinfect wounds and was rubbed on the skin of newborns to protect them from various diseases.

The whole earth is not salt but the disciple is the salt of the earth. They have been called out, set apart, chosen. Soon they would be sprinkled, scattered all over the place, seasoning the world with Jesus’ death and resurrection wherever they went. The book of Acts is the record of that. Wherever God has shaken you out – your home, your community, your work, your school – there you salt, seasoning your little corner of the world with Jesus as one of His salty baptized believers.

You have no choice really. You are the salt of the earth. Like it or not, to be a disciple of Jesus makes you salt. Not sugar. Sweetness is not what the kingdom calls for. Salt. Biting, stinging, preserving, purifying. Your little goes a long way, longer than you realize or even imagine. This isn’t about Christians being a moral influence in the world or Christians becoming politically involved. You aren’t salt insofar as you are able to effect change in society. You are salt as you follow Jesus, as you die and rise with Him, as you live and move and have your being in HIm and not in yourselves.

Your saltiness is not yours but Christ’s. He is what makes the disciple salty just as He is the One who makes them light. His death and life at work in them are what gives the disciple that peculiar edge. And without Jesus’ death and life, there is no salt in the disciple. They become salt without taste, salt that has lost its savor, salt that is good for nothing but to be used to pave pathways and be trampled underfoot.

It’s possible for salt to lose its saltiness. In Jesus’ day, salt was collected from evaporating pools at the Dead Sea, that big saline sea. It wasn’t pure sodium chloride as we know salt, but a mixture of all sorts of minerals from which the sodium chloride could be leached out. And then the salt would lose its saltiness and be used like crushed rock for paving pathways.

How does a disciple lose his saltiness? By losing your bead on Jesus and fixing your eye on something other than Jesus. By justifying yourself, trying to atone for your own sins, leaving out the cross and looking for another way to be, you know, “spiritual without being religious.” Well, spirituality without the death and resurrection of Jesus is like salt that has lost its bite. It’s worthless. Fit for the garbage heap.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill. A lamp on a stand. Jesus is the light of the world too. In fact He is the source, the disciple is the reflection. Like the moon reflecting the sun’s rays. Jesus is the light, and you, disciple of Jesus, reflect His light into the darkness of this world. Like salt, light makes a difference. It’s noticed. It’s hard to hide. Like a shining city set high on a hill that can be seen for miles around. Or like a lamp set a on a stand that fills the whole house with light.

You are light. Enlightened by the Spirit. Remember in Baptism how we give a lit candle to the newly baptized. It’s a little symbolic gesture that reminds us that we are light thanks to Jesus our Light. We reflect Him in what we do and say in the world. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Ah good works. You sometimes get the impression that good works are a dirty word in the Lutheran church. Not so! Here is the proper place for good works. Before others. For the neighbor, that person God has placed next to you. Jesus shines His light on your works not so you can see them or so God can see them, but so your neighbor can see them. That’s how faith is made visible. Faith itself is invisible. You can’t see my faith; I can’t see your faith. As James reminds us, you can talk about faith all you want but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s like saying “be warm” to a person who needs a coat. Or “be filled” to a person who needs some food. Faith talk is meaningless to others, because faith is between you and God. God sees your faith; people see your works. Keep those straight, and everything works out just fine.

We have a hymn from the Reformation says it well:

Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone
And rests in Him unceasing;
And by its fruits true faith is known,
With love and hope increasing.
For faith alone can justify;
Works serve our neighbor and supply
The proof the faith is living.

Let your light shine before others, your fellow man, that they may see your good works. They are watching closely, you know. They want to see what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. They want to see what difference it makes. They need to see the light. they need to taste the saltiness. There’s no point in talking about your faith, because that’s well, your faith. It doesn’t mean anything to anyone else. You show your faith with what you do. Good works. Concrete, real, get-your-fingernails,-dirty, self-sacrificing good works – these make an impression.

In 2nd century Egypt, the 10% or so of the Christians in Egypt did the vast majority of the social work. In the early church, it was the Christians who went to the places where the poor congregated. The fed the hungry, they clothed the naked, they did works of mercy, not to merit God’s favor or earn their salvation, but to serve their neighbor in love. People took notice. They wanted to know more about those Christians who went out of their way to do good.

I was talking to Rev. Matt Harrison, our synodical president, a couple of weeks ago about this. We were talking about congregations losing touch with their communities and what we can do to make people notice our congregation again. He said three words: works of mercy. Go into your community, find out what the needs are, and fill one of them in the name of Jesus. Let your shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. He gets the glory, not you.

God doesn’t want to see your good works. He knows about them before you wave them around. He prepared them for you to do before you were around to do them. And you can’t do enough of them well enough to earn your way into the kingdom. Which brings us to the Law and Jesus. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” And don’t kid yourself, the scribes and Pharisees were pretty good at the religion game. If anyone nearly earned their way in, it was them. And yet your righteousness has to exceed even theirs.

Good works won’t get you there. The best of your good works are still soiled with Sin, with your inherent selfish self-centeredness. Even the most noble act of charity has something less than charitable in it. That’s where Jesus comes in. He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He didn’t come to set aside the commandments, as though God changed his mind midstream. He came to fulfill them, to literally fill them up with His own perfect obedience.

Jesus came as pure salt to this earth. As the Light of light, the true and only Light of the world. His righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees. His was the righteousness of God. He kept the Law perfectly. He fulfilled the word of the prophets down to the last stroke of the pen.

And the wonder of all wonders is that He gives that righteousness to you. He credits you with something He did. That’s how you become salt and light. Not by what you do; but by what He did and does for you. You are baptized to be the salt of the earth. You are baptized to be the light of the world. You are given to live and love under the umbrella of God’s undeserved kindness in Jesus called “grace.” And under that grace you cannot fail. You cannot fail as salt of the earth, unless you lose your saltiness, that is, lose your faith in Jesus’ blood and righteousness. You cannot fail as light of the world unless you hide the good works God is doing through you.

At the close of the day, at the end of your life, your are covered with a righteousness not your own, a righteousness that exceeds that of even the scribes and the pharisees, the righteousness that comes as a gift through faith in Jesus, who came to fulfill the Law and the prophets, who kept every commandment down to the very least stroke of the pen. Be light. Be salty. Let them see Jesus.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them.” (Mt 5:1-2)

Jesus’ teaching begins with a word. Blessed. In Greek, makarios. Not quite “happy.” It’s not a feeling. Blessed. It’s a condition, an umbrella under which you live out your existence. Blessed. Nine times it gets repeated, and each time turned a little bit like a diamond, displaying each of its facets.

We call them “beatitudes,” blessings. The first four are inward. They point to the disciple and his condition coram Deo, before God. The poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In a single phrase, blessed are the beggars.

“We are all beggars, this is true.” Luther had written those words in preparation for his death. In those days, it was common to spend a great deal of effort planning one’s burial and carefully choosing one’s last words. We don’t know if Luther actually said these words. They were written on a piece of paper on a night stand next to his bed. We are all beggars, this is true. Poor in spirit. Mourning. Meek. Hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

This is not what you might expect, and certainly not the impression you would get by tuning in to popular Christianity and the prosperity preachers you see on TV or read in books. Their message is quite the opposite. Blessed are the rich in spirit. Blessed are the glad and happy. Blessed are the strong and powerful. Blessed are those whose cups runneth over with righteousness. Of course! Isn’t that the way of all religion? Using God to become a winner. God technology. Plugging into the power. Getting your life in order, maximizing your potential, actualizing your self-esteem, being all that you can be in all the fabulous ways you can be it, all with the “help of God” of course.

That’s what we expect. Keep the rules and God will reward you. Health, wealth, happiness, love. It’s all yours in faith. Just believe hard enough, name it, claim it. Hey, it worked for the guy on TV didn’t it? He’s the picture of success. Nice suit, nice car, pretty wife, squeaky clean, drug free, honor roll kids. God’s on the side of the winners. He always helps the winning football team. “I’d like to thank God for helping me make that game-winning touchdown or kick that last-second field goal.” God is always on the side of the winners. You never hear anyone say, “I’d like to thank God for that loss today. We’re truly blessed.” “I’d like to thank the Lord for that fumble in the red zone when we could have won the game.” “I just want to praise the Lord for the blocked field goal with time running out.”

Blessed are the poor in spirit. That’s right. Not the poor, as in financially lacking. That’s Luke. Poor in spirit. The spiritually impoverished, the spiritually bankrupt. Beggars. Blessed are those who have nothing to offer God but their sin, the messed up lives, their broken hearts, their dysfunctional families. Blessed are those who look at the inventory of the commandments and come to the conclusion, “I’m bringing nothing.” Blessed are those who have come to the conclusion they can’t do religion. Blessed are those who realize they haven’t kept a single commandment in thought, word, or deed not matter how good they might look to the world. Blessed are those who, like the tax collector in the temple, can’t even lift their eyes to heaven but beat their breasts and say “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Blessed are the beggars.

Blessed are those who mourn. Did Jesus just say mourn? To mourn suggests something something died. Blessed are those who experience the pangs of death? That’s right. Those who mourn. Those who grieve. Those who weep over the ravages of Sin in their lives and the lives of others. Those who experience loss for the sake of the kingdom. Those who have “bought the farm” to own the pearl of great price. You think being a Christian means being happy? Rethink.

Those who mourn are open, giveable, receivable. They are like soil plowed under and turned over, the good soil in which the seed of the Word actually produces a harvest of fruit. The kingdom is not about winning in this world but losing. Losing your life in order to save it. Losing your self in order to be find in Jesus.

Blessed are the meek. Yes, the meek. Not the strong and mighty, but the meek and lowly. The losers, the little ones, the door mats of the world. Blessed are you. The earth is yours. Everyone seeks to grab it by power; you get it by gift. Everyone asserts their right to it; it is granted you to receive. The meek. It’s so counterintuitive. It cuts against the grain of our thinking, the way we run our lives. We want to be strong, to be in charge, to be in control. The meek? What war have the meek ever won? Do the spoils ever go to the meek?

Jesus calls Himself meek. “Come to me, all you who are weak and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus is meek, and in His meekness likes hidden strength. It’s the strength that turns the other cheek to the striker, that loves the enemy, the blesses the persecutor, that lays down His life for the sinner. And here we get a hint: These Beatitudes, the “blesseds” are first and foremost about Jesus. He is them, and He does them. For us, for you.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Not simply hunger and thirst. That’s Luke. And that can be taken care of by a square meal and something to drink. You can supply that. But you can’t supply righteousness. You can’t make yourself holy. Oh, you can do righteous things, works of righteousness, but you can’t conjure up righteousness. We are beggars all, said Luther. Hungering, thirsting for a righteousness not our own. Jesus, who knew no Sin, became Sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. What we hunger and thirst for, what humanity seeks in its religions and philosophies, is found in Jesus. In Him you are satisfied.

The next four beatitudes turn the disciple to the neighbor. Life before one another. Blessed are the merciful, the pure-hearted, the peacemakers, the persecuted. They reflect the merciful, pure-hearted, persecuted Prince of Peace who is their Savior and Lord.

Blessed are the merciful, the undeservedly kind, those who love the loveless, who lay down their lives for others. The mercy they show is also the mercy they receive, not as a reward, but in the way of the Lord’s Prayer and forgiveness when we pray “forgive us in the same way we forgive those who sin against us.” You who have received mercy and are aware of the mercies of God are conduits of mercy, showing the mercy of God to others. You are as the moon is to the sun, reflecting the sun’s light into the darkness, shining with a light not your own, that men may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Blessed are the pure in heart, those who are innocent of the evils of this world. “Ignorance is bliss,” we say. In this sense it’s true. To be ignorant of evil is to be blessed, and yet how can anyone walk in this world and be ignorant of evil? Proverbs says, “Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”? Can you? Yes, you can. But not in yourself. Our hearts are anything but pure. They are the place where Sin resides and originates – murder, hatred, envy, lust, pride, prejudice, lies. It all goes on in our anything but pure hearts.

They must be purified by the One who alone is pure in heart. They must be washed, baptized, and when Jesus washes the heart, it becomes pure. You are pure in heart for you are baptized into the pure-hearted One who makes His heart your heart.

Blessed are the peacemakers, literally the peace doers. Those who do peace, who bring “shalom” to others. They shall be called “sons of God” for they are reflections of the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the One who brought peace by His wounds. We are not by nature peace doers. You don’t have to read far in the Bible to encounter the first murder when Cain killed his brother Abel.

Peace doing and persecution go together. Step in the breach between two warring parties and they will both turn on you. The Prince of Peace is rejected, despised, persecuted, crucified. That’s how much this world wants peace. It is willing to kill the Prince of Peace to keep it from happening.

Blessed are you. You. You the disciple. You the baptized believer, child of the kingdom. Blessed are you when others revile you, persecute you, slander you because you bear the name Christian. Blessed are those Christians in Egypt whose worship services are interrupted with bombs and gunfire at the hands of Muslims. Blessed are those Christians in communist lands who are driven deep underground. Blessed are those who are mocked and ridiculed by the “wise” of this world. Blessed are you when people laugh at you for believing in Christ, when people exclude you for being a Christian, when people mock you for speaking the name of Jesus. Don’t be sad, be glad! Rejoice! You are walking in prophetic sandals.
The beatitudes are first and foremost about Jesus. He is the Blessed One from whom all blessings flow. He is the One who became poor in spirit, though He was rich. He is the One who mourned over our Sin, the man of suffering, acquainted with sorrow. He is the meek One, who turned the other cheek, who gave His back to the whips of this world, who went as a Lamb to the slaughter. He hungered and thirsted for our righteousness, and in His hunger and thirst we are filled.

He is the Merciful One, whose mercy knows no bounds. He is the pure-hearted One, innocent of Adam’s sin, whose heart overflowed with nothing but love. He is the peace maker, the One who did our peace to death on a cross that we might have shalom, peace that surpasses our comprehension, peace that that world cannot give. He is the persecuted One, who absorbed this world’s hatred and buried it in His death.

Jesus is and does all these things. He is the Blessed One. And you, baptized into Him, are blessed.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Now when he heard that John had been arrested, Jesus withdrew into Galilee. Mt 4:12

John is arrested, sequestered in Herod’s dungeon. The charge: He criticized the morals of the king. Herod had taken up with his brother’s estranged wife, and John called him on it. The greatest born of woman is arrested and treated like a common criminal. The one who came in the spirit and power of Elijah is off the scene. The voice calling in the wilderness is silenced. This is how it goes with the kingdom of heaven. It suffers violence and violent men lay hold of it. It is vulnerable and appears weak in this world. It always comes with a cross.

Jesus relocated from Nazareth to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. It’s the north country, despised by the Judeans in the south. They were the breakaway tribes, the secessionists, the ones without a lawful descendant of David on their throne. Half Gentile, half Israelite, not quite kosher or orthodox by southern standards, the north was always an object of derision in Jerusalem. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” was the cliche.

It’s not the location you or I would have chosen to start a movement much less a religion, but then we’re not in charge here. The kingdom of heaven is flipped upside down from the kingdoms of this world. It works bottom up rather than top down. The last are first. Those who walk in darkness get to see the dawning light first. It reminds us that God works by mercy not merit, and that Jesus’ mission is not simply to the salvageably religious of Israel, but the entire world, to Jew and Gentile, circumcised and uncircumcised. And so Galilee is ground zero, and Capernaum, a little fishing village, is headquarters.

Isaiah foretold it centuries before. Nothing is accidental or incidental when it comes to Jesus. All of it happens “to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.” The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, despised, rejected, the first to fall, on them has light dawned. That’s the wonder of it – God’s kingdom falls upon the least and the lost and the little. What the world calls insignificant and irrelevant.

Jesus picks up where John had left off. Preaching repentance and the kingdom. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The kingdom was more “at hand” than ever. As near as Jesus. The kingdom of heaven had come to earth in the coming of Jesus, and this called for repentance. A new mind. A new way of thinking. At turning from self to Christ, from Sin to righteousness, from law and commandments to Gospel and gifts. God was doing something entirely new, and this new wine called for new wineskins. And so the call to turn, to repent.

That call of the kingdom hasn’t changed over the centuries. The message is the same. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The call goes out to us in our Baptism. Baptism works repentance, drowning the old, raising up the new. Turn from self to Christ, from your attempts to justify yourself to being justified by Christ, from your works to Christ’s works. “Thy kingdom come,” we pray. And the kingdom does come, when the Word of Christ reaches our ears and has its way with us and we believe it.

The kingdom lays claim. “Follow me.” Jesus calls four fishermen to discipleship with the simple words “follow me.” Peter, Andrew, James, John. They were partners in a fishing business with Zebedee. With a word Jesus calls them away from the nets and their boat. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Here is the beginning of apostolic ministry. These fishermen are not simply the first disciples, they are also the first apostles. That’s what Jesus means when he says, “I will make you fishers of men.” They used to catch fish in their nets. Now they would be sent to catch men for the kingdom in the net of Jesus’ death and resurrection, making disciples by baptizing and teaching in His name, with His authority, in His stead and by His command. That also explains the vocational change. Not everyone is called to leave their line of work to become a disciple of Jesus. Most didn’t. But these four did. They left their nets and their boat and Father Zebedee and began a new calling, a new vocation. This also explains leaving Father Zebedee behind with the boats. It’s not that he wasn’t saved. It’s only that Jesus didn’t select him to be one of his apostles.

This initiated their training – 3 years with Jesus, hearing His teaching and proclamation, seeing the wonders He did in healing every disease and affliction including those who were paralyzed and couldn’t walk. They would see Him through His cross and His resurrection. They would see Him disappear into the clouds in His ascension. And they would go forth to gather the church that confesses Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.

Did they know what they were getting into? How could they? They trusted Jesus. They took Him at His Word. And in that trust they left their livelihoods to join the band of disciples who one day would be apostles.

You may wonder if we are of any use to God and His kingdom. You may think you don’t have the skills, the aptitude, the personality. Remember, these were fishermen. One of the Twelve was a tax collector. Another was a political terrorist. The twelve apostles were the most unlikely band of men you could ever assemble. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they sat down to eat together. I seriously wonder if they always got along. And yet Jesus gathered them, taught them, and sent them as His emissaries into the world. Formerly they fished for fish. Now they would fish for men, catching men for the kingdom, dropping the dragnet of Jesus’ own sacrificial death and resurrection into the sea of this world and dragging whatever they caught into the church, yes, sometimes against their will. Correct that – always against their will. Have you ever met a fish that wanted to be caught?

It’s a funny thing about netting fish, and I have some experience at it having kept fish tanks most of my life. The best way to catch a fish with a net is from below. They have a blind spot below themselves. From above, forget it. And it won’t do to chase them from behind, as most people do. Fish can see behind as well as they can see in front. You can put a net in front of them and scare them into the net, but the best way is from below. They never see it coming.

I think that’s a good parable for how Jesus and His kingdom operate. He sneaks up from below, where you least expect Him. We would expect God to come down from above, to make a heavenly show of it. Whenever we look to God, we tend to look up. And if God were to chase us, we’d high tail it like a startled deer. Can you imagine being chased by God? Adam was left hiding in the bushes; we’d do the same thing.

God sneaks up on us from below. The baby in the manger. The boy in the temple. The carpenter of Nazareth. The teacher in Capernaum. Galilee of the Gentiles. The kingdom begins small, like a mustard seed, and grows to embrace the whole cosmos with the net of Jesus’ death and life.

When you hear of Jesus’ call to Peter, Andrew, James, and John and you hear Jesus say “I will make you fishers of men,” don’t think of yourselves as fishers of men. Think of yourselves as fish. Jesus isn’t necessarily calling you to change vocations in order to serve Him. Father Zebedee was just fine tending to the fishing business, but Jesus needed the boys for other purposes. There were plenty of tax collectors in Israel, but Jesus needed Matthew to collect disciples instead of taxes.

You are fish caught in Jesus’ apostolic net. You are baptized with a Baptism Jesus put into the hands of His apostles with the promise that He would be with them in this baptizing. He put HIs teaching into the hands of His apostles and commanded them to teach everything they had learned from Him.

You are fish. Fish caught in a net are as good as dead. In order to live, they must escape the net. But not this net. This net that has captured you will drag you to the shore and raise you to life on the Last Day. This is a rescue net, before the sea become a lake of fire and destroys you. This is a net cast far and wide to save you from your sin, your death and anything that would harm or destroy you.

He sneaks up on us from below in the lowliest forms – baptismal water, Lord’s Supper bread and wine. Talk about lowly, humble, easily ignored or despised. How many do you know look for a good show when it comes to religion? How many do you know who are hooked on miracles or displays of power? They ask you, “What goes on in church?” You tell them we hear the Word and eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ. They say, “Huh? And scratch their heads.”

The highest, holiest, most heavenly things are buried deeply in humility, in suffering, in rejection. Galilee. The last place on earth you’d use as a headquarters. The last place on earth you’d look for God to come in the flesh to save. Thank God, He did.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” In one, simple sentence, John the Baptizer completely summarizes the whole work of Jesus Christ and the entire Christian faith. Everything else you can say about Jesus or about the faith that confesses Him is really just an expansion of this one sentence. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

Behold. Look. Fix your eyes on Jesus. There in the water of the Jordan baptized for you. There on the cross. There in the water of your Baptism. There in the Supper. Behold. He is “beholdable.” The Word has become Flesh and dwells among us. Men saw Him, touched Him, heard Him, ate with Him. You cannot behold mythical figures or concepts. But John could extend his hand and point his finger at a person and say, “Look at Him.”

It seems obvious, I know, but today, 2000 years later, we can easily forget that this Jesus whom we trust for our salvation, this Jesus who reveals God to us, is a real, historic figure. A man who walked on this earth, who left his footprints in the dust of history, whose death and resurrection are the pivot point of human history. When John says “Behold,” he is pointing at something, someone. God in the Flesh. God with a human face. God bearing the material of our humanity. Christianity is not a disembodied faith because God is not disembodied. He is someone that could be seen.

Behold. John turns the attention away from himself to Jesus. Jesus must increase; John must decrease. John had disciples who followed him. But he pointed them to Jesus. Andrew had been a disciple of John, but he followed John’s pointing finger to behold the Lamb of God for himself. He found his brother, Simon (later called Peter) and brought him to Jesus that he might behold for himself.

That’s who the Christian faith grew and spread. People pointing others to Jesus and saying, “Behold the Lamb.” You might even think of the church as a John the Baptist, pointing people to Jesus. This is the church’s “witness,” her “testimony.” It’s not about what God has done for me lately, or rules to follow, or programs to get your life back on track again. Just tune in to contemporary Christianity and you’ll find all sorts of programs labeled “Christian” from dieting to exercise to improving your sex life. But none of this has anything to do with Christ, and if it points anywhere but to Jesus it’s not Christian.

It’s a good litmus test. Can you what you are going to say and in the same breath point to Jesus and say “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” If it doesn’t sound right or doesn’t seem to fit, maybe what you are saying has nothing to do with Christ or with Christianity.

Behold the Lamb of God. God’s Lamb. John could not have been clearer concerning why the Son of God became Flesh to dwell among us. He is the Lamb of God, which can mean only one thing in biblical terms: Sacrifice. Every lamb, ram, bull and goat in the OT pointed to this Lamb. This is the lamb the shepherds of Bethlehem came to see on that night they were tending their lambs in the field. He is the ram who saved Isaac. He is the Passover lamb whose blood meant freedom and life for the Israelites. He is the whole burnt offering and sin offering. He is the atoning sacrifice of the Day of Atonement whose blood makes atonement for sin.

Lamb of God means substitute, stand-in, His life’s blood exchanged for yours. We heard it last week at the Baptism of Jesus. Standing in solidarity with sinners Jesus was baptized as a sinner though He knew no sin. He trades places with us. He becomes Sin so that we might become His righteousness.

The idea of blood sacrifice seems almost barbaric to our ears. The notion that an animal had to be bled to death for a person to be right with God is offensive to many. You certainly couldn’t say that not animals were harmed in the making of the old testament. The history of Israel and the temple is soaked in sacrificial blood. And the only reason it doesn’t continue, the only reason the church offers no bloody sacrifice is this Lamb of God whose blood cleanses us from all sin.

C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, once described religions as either “clear” or “thick.” Clear religions were religions of the mind and the spirit. They were etherial, theoretical, intellectual, individual. They involved prayer and meditation. Thick religions, on the other hand, were religions of the body. They involved ritual and sacrifice. They were earthy and bloody. He noted that Christianity is rather uniquely both. It can be as cerebral and meditative as Buddhism and at the same time it is as earthy and physical as a tribesman offering the blood of a goat on an altar.

This is why Christians rally around a crucifix rather than a plain cross. The symbol of a cross is not a uniquely Christian symbol. Medical aid comes with a “red cross.” We put crosses on the side of the road when there is an accident, or we use crosses to mark graves even when the person buried there isn’t Christian. Entertainers wear crosses as part of their bling. But put a corpus on the cross and it immediately and unmistakably becomes a symbol of Christianity. The highest symbol. Behold the Lamb of God. See Him on the cross and contemplate His wounds that are your healing. We glory in a death and a blood because this death brings life and this blood brings healing and forgiveness. This Lamb comes with a cross because that’s what lambs are for – they die for the sins of others.

This Lamb dies for the sin of the world. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” First notice that it is “sin” in the singular, not “sins” in the plural. We tend to be preoccupied with our sins, the things we think, do, and say that are contrary to God’s Law. We agonize, at least sometimes, on whether this action or that action is a sin, usually when we are trying to justify ourselves or get away with something.

But your sins are only symptoms of your sin. Sin is the condition; sins are the symptoms. And we completely miss the diagnosis when we concentrate on sins as though they were the problem. Two examples. The person who believes that he can get rid of his sins by working harder, praying harder, and believing harder is not engaging the disease but is in the business of symptom management. You can have a disease and not have any symptoms. Or you can do things to mask the symptoms. If you have cancer but are “symptom-free” do you still have cancer? The answer of course is “yes, of course.” And it would be silly to say, “Since I don’t have any symptoms, I don’t have any diseases.” Some of the most deadly of our diseases are “silent,” you don’t show symptoms until it’s too late. That’s why when people ask me how I am, I like to say “symptom-free today” which usually gets a very funny look.

A second example. When it comes to sin, a baby is essentially symptom free, and whatever symptoms they might show, we can pretty much right off or ignore under the umbrella of cuteness. But just because they can’t speak slanders, lies, and blasphemies, and just because they can do much lying on their backs with the feet kicking the air, doesn’t mean they don’t have the inherited disease of Adam’s sin. In fact, it doesn’t take terribly long for the symptoms to show up with the first cry to test to see if I’m the center of the universe and everyone will run to attend to my every need to the first willful “no.” And things don’t stop with the terrible two. We tend not to improve with age. By our adolescence, Sin has pretty much taken over our thoughts, words, and deeds. And the more control we have over our own lives, the more sin shows itself.

We aren’t sinners because we commit sins. If that were the case, it would be easy to stop being sinners. Stop sinning. Exercise some self-restraint, suck it up, and knock off the sinning. But you and I know it doesn’t work that way. How are those New Year’s resolutions working out for you? With the apostle Paul we have to admit that the good we want to do we don’t do, the evil we don’t want is what we do, whenever we try to do good evil lies close by, the greasy fingerprints are all over even the best of our good works.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Not sins. Sin. He deals with the condition. He goes for the source. He doesn’t simply take up our sins, He becomes the Sinner. Jesus becomes Sin for us – the blasphemer, the murderer, the adulterer, the thief, the liar, the cheat, the gossip. He becomes Sin in order to put Sin to death in our flesh, in His flesh. This innocent, spotless, sinless Lamb of God takes up our sin. He is the cure, the medicine, the antidote. The sting of Death is Sin. He took the sting, He absorbed its venom – the Law that kills us. He died with it. It killed Him and in dying, He conquered Sin.

At the Long Beach aquarium they have a tank full of these water snakes that are among the most poisonous in the world. As is true in the snake world, they are quite beautiful and quite deadly. They keep a supply of anti-venom at the Long Beach hospital for the workers who tend these snakes. Anti-venom is made by exposing another animal, a substitute, to the poison and then harvesting the antibodies that provide immunity. We children of Adam are snake-bitten, poisoned by the lie of the serpent who deceived Eve and brought sin and death to Adam. Christ, our Lamb, willfully exposed Himself to the sting of Death and lived. He’s immune. And He gives that immunity to us in the fruits of His sacrifice – His Body and HIs Blood, which went through Death and conquered Sin. That’s why Ignatius and other fathers of the early church called the Lord’s Supper the “medicine of immortality.” This is why the church from her earliest centuries of worship has sung the hymn “Lamb of God” during the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper. The Lamb’s body and blood are the anti-venom to the deadly sting of Death and poison of the Law that kills the sinner.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Not only for our sin but for the sin of the world. Not potentially, but actually. Not just for some but for all. This is an often misunderstood or even denied point. Christ didn’t comes as God’s Lamb to save the religious few but to save the world. He is not simply Israel’s Lamb or the Church’s Lamb or your Lamb if you choose to believe in Him. He is God’s Lamb for the whole world.

That means every sinner is included in this Lamb. Every sin is atoned for. Every person you meet has been died for by Jesus. There is no room for talk of Christ died for you if you do something. Repent, believe in Him, invite Him, submit to Him, etc. No. Christ died for you. Period. It is finished. Believe it. Receive it.

Would the world beat a path to the Church if it knew that we have the medicine of immortality, the true fountain of life that everyone searches for? They don’t know. And they live in denial of their condition. The symptoms don’t seem so bad at times. They dull the symptoms by indulging their pleasures and pursuing all sorts of things that promise life but in the end only mask the symptoms.

Andrew went and told Peter about Jesus. He brought his brother to Jesus. That’s how it works. We know where the cure for Sin is. We know who the Lamb is. We know where He can be sought and found, in the Word and the Sacrament. If you had a cancer and you went to a clinic and against all odds you were healed, would you keep it a secret? If you knew someone else with the same condition, would you not tell them, urge them, bring them?

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. There no sweeter sentence to hear or to say. And as God’s baptized people, as those living under the Lamb in His kingdom, you and I have the privilege of hearing and speaking it. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. Matthew 3:13

For the past two Sundays following Christmas, we have been rejoicing in Jesus’ obscurity, how the Word made Flesh dwells among us in a hidden way, unnoticed by the world. The infant in the manger. The toddler with His mother. The twelve year old boy in the temple. The carpenter of Nazareth. He is God in the Flesh and yet that fact is apparent to no one. You would not have known it had you seen Him as a baby. You would not have known it had you walked into His wood shop.

The first unique thing about Jesus happens at His baptism in the Jordan. Before He does a miracle, before He preaches His first sermon, before He does anything to remotely suggest who He is, He is baptized. And in His baptism, the Father and the Spirit bear witness and testify that this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Jesus came to be baptized by John. This should cause us to stop and think for a moment. What was John’s baptism all about? It was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It was a washing to prepare for the coming of the Christ. John was calling all Israel to repentance, to turn from sin and prepare for the coming of the Lord in judgment. For whom was John’s baptism intended? Sinners. And that’s who came. Sinners of all sorts. They came to be baptized by John. It was a new start, a new life, a fresh beginning. In baptism their past was washed away, their sin was forgiven, their lives were cleansed. They were ready to meet the Lord.

Here comes Jesus, not with axe and winnowing fork in hand, as John had warned, but with a cross. Jesus comes to be baptized! He is the Lord, God in the Flesh, and He comes to be baptized. He comes to have the cross laid on Him,”to fulfill all righteousness.” The Sinless One is baptized like a sinner. The One who needs no repentance comes as the penitent. The Son of God in the Flesh, Immanuel, God with us, submits to a baptism of repentance.

How do you react when you hear the word “Repent”? What goes through your mind? What if I were to stand here and say to you, “Repent, you sinners and flee from God’s wrath!” Our first reaction is typically, “Repent of what? What did I do?” Or we begin to flash our religious cards. “Hey, I’m a Christian. I’m a believer. I go to church every Sunday. I pray.” Or we deflect the attention to others. “It’s those sinners out there in the world. They need to repent. Don’t talk to me about repentance.”

Jesus had no sin. He was without original sin. He did not have Adam’s sin. He had nothing from which to repent. And yet He willingly and intentionally steps into a sinner’s baptism. He stands in solidarity with sinners in the water of the Jordan.

It’s one of the most dramatic moments in the Gospel. It’s really the beginning of the Gospel. The birth and childhood stuff leads up to this. Imagine it. Picture it in your mind. Jesus standing before his cousin John who has been preaching repentance and baptizing all sorts of disgusting sinners and telling off the religious types, calling them a bunch of snakes. He’s been warning of the wrath that was coming. And then comes the moment when Jesus stands in front of Him and indicates that He wishes to be baptized. I would have loved to have seen the look on John’s face. We have his words: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

John is right. The sinner needs to be baptized by the Sinless One. The lesser needs to be baptized by the Greater. That’s who it should be, and that’s how it is in our Baptism. But not here. Jesus explains, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” This is the plan John. Let go of any notions you have. This is how it’s going to go down. Jesus gets baptized like a sinner. And John must simply trust, take Jesus at His word, that this is the way it goes. Jesus offers John no explanations. This baptism, as all baptism, demands faith, trust in the Word of Jesus.

You might think of Jesus’ baptism as Baptism thrown into reverse or perhaps a negative image of our Baptism. It’s exactly the opposite of your Baptism. Jesus becomes Sin for us, who knew no sin. A swap occurs. Your sin for His righteousness. He takes up your sin in His Baptism so that you might receive HIs righteousness in your Baptism. He becomes the Sinner so that you might become the saint. He dies your death so that you might live in His life.

Jesus’ entire mission as Christ and Savior is all summed up in His baptism. This is to fulfill all righteousness. This is why He came in the Flesh: To stand side by side in solidarity with sinful humanity and to put sin to death in His flesh. Not your flesh. His flesh. Not your doing. His doing. He is the Substitute Sacrifice, the Vicarious Victim, You and He interchange places. He the sinner, you the saint. That’s the deal. The only deal.

Every truth must be established by two witnesses. That’s the rule in the OT, and God is playing by OT rules here. You need two witnesses. So who are you going to call to the stand to testify on behalf of Jesus? There is no one on earth who can swear on a stack of Bibles that Jesus is the Son of God, because, as I said, no one could have known that unless it was revealed. As soon as Jesus was baptized and He was stepping out of the Jordan, the heavens opened (Mark says they were literally torn open violently just as the curtain in the temple was torn when Jesus died).

The Father bears witness by speaking, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” There’s an echo of Isaiah here: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen in whom my soul delights.”

The Spirit bears witness by descending visibly like a dove and resting on Him. The Father and the Spirit are the two witnesses establishing that truth that this Jesus, still dripping wet from baptism, is the eternal Son of the Father and the Christ, the Anointed One, on whom the Spirit of God rests in full measure.

In Jesus’ baptism, we get a snapshot of our own Baptism as well, albeit the reverse image. In Baptism, all righteousness is fulfilled in you, not because of what you do, but because of what Jesus has done for you. You are reborn a sinless saint in Him. You are clothed with Him. You are covered with His righteousness. Your sins in thought, in word, in deed which all deserve God’s condemnation have been washed away. The Law that condemns you has been fulfilled. Remember what James says, that if you break on point of the Law you are guilty and liable for all of the Law. Jesus kept all of the Law entirely and that perfection is HIs gift to you. That’s why Luther in the Large Catechism instructs us that when sins and conscience oppress us, when we feel burdened by our sins, we are to say, “Nevertheless I am baptized.”

In Baptism, heaven is opened to us as it was opened to Jesus. We can’t see this, and so we’re inclined to think it doesn’t happen or it’s not real or that Baptism is merely a symbolic ritual to show we’re Christians or some such thing. But Baptism is the power of God to salvation. “Baptism now saves you” Peter says. Baptism has the power to open heaven – “He who believes and is baptized will be saved,” a promise from the Lord Jesus’ own lips.

In Baptism, the Father claims you as His son. “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” You are an adopted member of God’s family. And I say “son” intentionally, not to exclude the women, but to include them as heirs. In Galatians, Paul says that in Christ there is neither male nor female but you are all sons of God, heirs of eternal life. In God’s household, the daughters get treated as sons, which is a high honor. In the OT, only the boys bore the mark of the covenant in circumcision. The girls kind of tagged along. But in the new covenant, the boys and girls are baptized the same way, everyone is marked the same way as one redeemed by Christ the crucified, for in Christ “there is neither male and female.”

Baptism is your adoption papers, your permission to claim to be a child of God, born, as John says, not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but born of God. You are permitted to come as dear children come to their dear Father in heaven and say, “Our Father.”

In Baptism, the Spirit descends on you. Not visibly in the form of a dove, but audibly in the Word. You are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is there in that water testifying, naming and claiming you as one anointed by God. He is the down payment on your salvation, the deposit God made ensuring your resurrection to life on the last day.

In Baptism, Jesus stands in solidarity with you in the same way He stood in the water of the Jordan with all those sinners who came to John to be baptized. The water and the Word is what makes a Baptism. Jesus in the water, there with you as your Brother, bringing you to His Father and your Father. Making His death yours, His life yours, His holiness yours. You are baptized into Christ. You’re a child of Paradise. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit declare it to be so. It is most certainly true.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“And they did not understand the saying that He spoke to them.” Luke 2:50

We’re fascinated by peoples’ childhoods, for some reason. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it’s a reflection of how we idealize childhood as some kind of pure and innocent time. We always try to look back to see if there were any indications of how the kid was going to come out. My parents tell me that I used to come home from church and preach in the basement. Maybe there is something to it.

There isn’t much about the childhood of Jesus. Luke tells us of His circumcision and naming on the 8th day (that was yesterday), and His presentation and redemption at the temple when He was 40 days old. Matthew tells us of the hasty flight to Egypt to escape Herod and the return to Nazareth where He grew up as the son of the carpenter, probably learning Joseph’s trade, working side by side with his surrogate father. Surprisingly there is nothing unusual to report regarding Jesus’ childhood. Later Gospels made up some miracle stories to spice things up a bit, but the 1st century record has nothing unusual to report. Which is unusual.

You’d expect holiness to stick out just a bit, wouldn’t you? You’d expect that when the Word becomes Flesh, when the second Person of the undivided Holy Trinity makes His appearance in this world, there might be something just a bit “different” about Him. You’d expect to be able to pick Jesus out from a crowd, wouldn’t you? Yeah, there He is. Over there. The one with the glowing nimbus floating over His head. And if He didn’t exactly glow with heavenly brightness, you’d at least expect Him to be such a good kid that everyone kind of wondered what was “wrong” with Him. What’s it like to be twelve and sinless? We’ll never know. And the current crop of twelve year olds aren’t going to be much help.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to have a sinless twelve year old in the house? No, you can’t. None of us can. We’re born steeped in Adam’s sin. That’s why we baptize the little ones as soon as possible. They are born with the inherited disease of Sin. Not so Jesus. His mother is Mary but His father is The Father – God. He is Adam 2.0, humanity without the stain of Sin. And the weird thing about it is that nobody really notices this. HIs teachers are amazed at His wisdom, which seems well beyond His years, but the amazing thing is that they are amazed. For all intents and purposes, Jesus was indistinguishable from every other 12 year old in Jerusalem. Which is also why they lost Him.

They brought Jesus to Jerusalem that year to be taught and examined by the temple teachers. The custom was that all men had to appear in Jerusalem three times a year for the various feasts including the Passover. This was the year of Jesus’ preparation. The next year, when He was thirteen, He would be expected to take His place with the men of Israel. Stop, breath, and ponder that for a second. Thirteen years old and considered a man. Notice that at the end of this reading it says, “And Jesus increased in wsidom and in stature….” Earlier in verse 40 it said, “And the child grew and become strong….” He’s no longer a child but now a man. Twelve is the turning point.

Ahhh. Those were the days before we invented the artificial state of adolescence where we indulge childishness in an adult body. In Jesus’ day, a child was prepared for adulthood not adolescence. A young girl was prepared to become a wife and mother. And a young boy was prepared to join the men of Israel. This was Jesus’ last year as a child, which is why Luke records this incident. It serves to cap off this section of the narrative. Luke then picks it up when Jesus is 30 years old and revealed in His baptism by John in the Jordan. So for the next 18 years, He lives in absolute obscurity as the carpenter from Nazareth. You might say that holiness has dirt and splinters under its fingernails.

There are at least two things we can glean from this reading today that are important to our salvation and our faith in Jesus. The first is that He was obedient to His parents under the 4th commandment. Though He was their Lord, He obeyed them as their Son. Though He was the Wisdom of God in the Flesh, He was obedient and respectful to His teachers.

He came under the Law for us. To keep it perfectly in our place. To actively fulfill it. That’s what’s underneath His circumcision, His presentation, His appearance at the temple. He is there in obedience to the Law for us, in our place, for our salvation. He is being prepared, yes. But not simply to be numbered with the men of Israel and participate in the Passover liturgy. He is being prepared for His own Passover, His sacrifice on the cross. And that preparation begins with His circumcision under the Law, it continues with His obedient life under the Law, and it all culminates in His perfect death under the Law, all to save you.

We call this Jesus’ “state of humiliation,” His humbling of Himself in obedience to the Law unto death on a cross. Mary and Joseph could not have known that frantic day what the future would hold. The angel had only told them that He would save His people from their sins. He didn’t say how. They were frantic that day, as they searched high and low throughout the crowded city, looking for Jesus. In twenty years, Jesus would go to His appointed hour on the cross, and again Mary would be there, this time without her husband Joseph, and she would know what it meant that He had to be in His Father’s house to do His Father’s will. But for now she treasured all these things in her heart, just as she had pondered what the shepherds of Bethlehem told her the night Jesus was born.

He was obedient to them and to His teachers and to the Law. That’s the first thing to remember on this second Sunday of Christmas. This Child of Bethlehem was born to be like us in every way, yet without sin. Growing up in a household, growing up under parents, going through infancy, childhood, adolescence. Learning, playing, working. Every facet of Jesus’ life reflects your life, except without sin. And it is done so ordinarily, that no one even notices that there is something different about Jesus. Mary and Joseph even seem to have lost sight of what the angel told them in their moment of panic.

So never say it is human to sin. It’s not. Jesus did not sin, and yet He was so perfectly and completely human, no one even noticed.

A second thought for today is this: God works hiddenly, humbly, and subversively. We see this throughout the Christmas story and Jesus’ childhood. His divinity is buried deeply, completely hidden from human eyes. He appears to be just another twelve year old in the temple. A precociously bright 12 year old, yes. An theologically engaged 12 year old, certainly. But no one said, “Hey, this kid is God!”

You and I would have missed that point too too. We probably would have lost Him in the crowd. And we certainly would not have understood what He was saying when He said, “I must be in my Father’s house.” The incarnation of God is like that. It just doesn’t fit our categories or our way of thinking or our pious religious notions about God. God is Man and Man is God. God is a twelve year old whose parents momentarily him.

The one thing you can’t say about Jesus is that He doesn’t know what it’s like to be one of us. He really is Immanuel – God with Us, and “with us” so hiddenly, so humbly, so subversively that we would not have even noticed Him. But that’s precisely the way god works with us and among us. Not in the seen but the unseen. Not in the powerful and mighty, but in the lowly and humble. A manger, a cross. A child. A teenager. A man. He is us. He is you. He embraces your life in all its humanity. He even knows what it’s like to be chewed out by your parents and not have done anything wrong!

That hiddenness is not understood today, nor can it be. Who Jesus is and what He has done must be revealed to us and seen through the gift of faith. There is no other way. Mary treasured these things up in her heart. And that treasured up Word had its way with her, creating and enlivening a living faith in her Son, God’s Son.

He comes to you today in the same hidden and subversive way. In Baptism, Word, and Supper. So easily ignored, despised, rejected. As easily rejected as a twelve year old kid in the temple. But the Word says there is something more than meets our eyes, our senses, our reason. This is the power of God to save. God in the Flesh come to save us. A perfect obedience to the Law that is yours not by what you do but by trust in what Jesus has done. Life in death because of the obedient, perfect death of the Son of God in the flesh.

And so once again, on this second Sunday after Christmas, our joy is Immanuel – God with us. The baby of the manger, the child in the temple, the man of the cross, the Word made flesh dwelling among us.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

There is a woodcut by Albrecht Duerer from the time of the Reformation depicting the infant Jesus in the manger. Angels are hovering overhead as Mary attend to Him. Joseph stands off to the left looking through a doorway. There are a couple of shepherds poking their heads in, looking over Mary’s shoulder. The roof is a thatched roof with some considerable holes in it. But what is most notable is the way the roof beams intersect to form a cross that hovers over the manger. This was typical in the way Duerer depicted the birth of Jesus. The cross always loomed large over the manger.

That’s how it is with this morning’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew on this first Sunday after Christmas. A hasty flight to Egypt. The slaughter of the baby boys of Bethlehem. And the return of the holy family to settle in Nazareth. Today, December 26th, also happens to be St. Stephen’s Day. Stephen was the first martyr of the church, stoned to death by the Sanhedrin for His preaching. The cross looms large over the Christmas story and over this Child of Bethlehem.

Again an angel appears to Joseph in a dream. He first heard of Jesus in a dream, when the angel had told him of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy. And now he is told by an angel in a dream to flee Israel and go to Egypt, “for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.” They said it was safer to be one of Herod’s dogs than to be one of his sons. Herod guarded his throne with a paranoiac zeal. He was determined to destroy this little One whom the wise men hailed as “King of the Jews.” Herod lay claim to that title, though he was neither truthfully a king or a Jew. Jesus had to go. There was no question in Herod’s mind.

And so in the middle of the night, Joseph got up and took the Child and his mother and went to Egypt and stayed there until Herod died. There was a large colony of Jews living Egypt, and the gold, incense, and myrrh the wise men gave would help with the costs. They would be safe.

In the book of Genesis, the sons of Jacob sought refuge from a famine in Egypt and were rescued by their brother Joseph. Here, the Son of God is rescued in Egypt by another dreamer named Joseph. The connection is fairly obvious. Jesus is going the way of Israel. He is Israel reduced to one man. Even in His early childhood, when He was less than two years old, what happens to Him is to fulfill the prophets. In this case the prophet Hosea, who centuries before had said, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Hosea was referring to the exodus and Israel’s coming out of Egypt. Now little Jesus, a tiny child under the protection of His parents, is whisked off to Egypt to fulfill the purpose and destiny of Israel, literally to be Israel.

We might be surprised at this. Isn’t this the Son of God? The eternal Word? The King of kings and Lord of lords? There is more power in His omnipotent little finger than all the kings and kingdoms of this world. And yet He goes the way of weakness. Instead of having angels protecting Him, He goes under the protective custody of Joseph. The Lord of all must be protected and sheltered in Egypt until the right time, the fulness of time. This was not yet the time, nor was it His hour. Jesus would die one day under a different King Herod on a cross outside of Jerusalem. But not now, and not in this way. First He must do His exodus and come out of Egypt. He is the fulfillment of Israel.

With Jesus safely tucked in Egypt, Herod goes into a rage when he realizes the wise men were not returning. They were supposed to identify the child so he could kill Him. Instead, Herod resolves to kill all the baby boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem two years old and under, just to be sure he gets Jesus. Given the population, there probably weren’t all that many, but even one is too many. It’s called the “slaughter of the innocents” and we commemorate them on December 28th, three days after Christmas. That’s this Tuesday.

It’s a bitter and sad part of the Christmas story. There is a sad carol written in a minor key about this called the Coventry Carol. The cross looms large over the Christmas story. You can’t get away from it. No matter how much tinsel you wind around it, no matter how cheery you try to be, no matter how many Fa-la-las you belt out, the cross is inescapable. These young children, these baby boys of Bethlehem, died because they resembled Jesus.

Again, mother Rachel, the wife of Jacob, who stands for all the mothers of Israel, weeps for her children. She saw her children slaughtered and carted off to exile in Babylon. The history of OT Israel is soaked in blood and the tears of Rachel. Yet this too happened to fulfill the word of the prophet. Everything that happens to Jesus and because of Jesus is to fulfill the word of the prophet. He came to fulfill Moses and the prophets, to live out their words, to do what Israel was supposed to do, to be the servant-son of God for the blessing and life of the world.

Several years later, again by way of an angel in a dream, Joseph gets word that it is safe to return to Israel. And so Jesus, little Israel, makes His exodus from Egypt back to the land of promise. “Out of Egypt I have called my Son.” The King returns, but there’s another Herod reigning now. And another dream. Poor Joseph. You wonder if he ever got a decent night’s sleep! Instead of Jerusalem, the capital, instead of Bethlehem, David’s birthplace, the family settles in Nazareth, a frontier town tucked way up in the far northwest corner of Galilee.

This too is to fulfill the word of the prophets. “He shall be called a Nazarene.” If you look carefully in the old testament, you won’t find that sentence anywhere. In fact, Nazareth didn’t exist in the OT. It was a guard city that developed later, watching over the northwest high lands. People aren’t sure what from where the name derives. It could mean “watchman,” referring to its strategic position. Or it could mean branch.

Both would apply to Jesus. He is Israel’s watchman, prophesied by Ezekiel, and the Branch of David’s family tree spoken of by Isaiah. Or it may be simply this: He was despised and rejected, even as Nazareth was despised by the Jews of Judah and Jerusalem. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” they asked.

The cross looms large over Christmas. It’s unescapable. The sweet, almost romantic story of swaddling cloths and a manger, angels and shepherds, the sublime peace of that wonderful night gives way to the harsh reality of what it means when God enters our world. It means threat and flight and bloodshed and rejection. The Word is vulnerable. He goes into hiding, He withdraws, He can be hunted down, He must be protected.

And once again, our preconceived notions of God are utterly destroyed. We expect a God who exerts His power with force and might. We get a God whose power is exerted in weakness and vulnerability. We expect a God who saves from the top down; we get a God who saves from the bottom up. We expect a God who is a winner among the winners of this world, who isn’t threatened by the Herods and the Pontus Pilates; we get a God who overcomes the powers and principalities by falling into their clutches and being crucified.

Sin and Death must be defeated from the bottom up, not the top down. Were God to execute a plan of divine “shock and awe” we would more than shocked and awed, we’d be dead and damned. Were God to use His power to save us, He would utterly destroy us. Instead He works His power in weakness – hiddenly, subversively – a baby in a manger, a child growing up in Nazareth, the man of the cross.

He doesn’t conquer Sin by use of force, by giving us rules to follow and threats if we don’t do them. He conquers Sin by become Sin for us. He conquers Death by going to Death for us. We can’t save ourselves. We don’t even want to save ourselves. Our humanity has accommodated this foreign element called Sin. We even trick ourselves into thinking that it’s perfectly human to sin. That’s how comfortable we have become with Sin. We think that Death is a natural end to life. We even speak of death by “natural causes,” but Death is entirely unnatural and Sin is completely unhuman.

God snuck into the world in Bethlehem. He hid out in Egypt. He lived in obscurity in Nazareth. And while no one was watching, He conquered Sin, Death and Devil. You might think that it would have made more sense for Him to make His appearing today. We have CNN and MSNBC and the internet. As the line from Jesus Christ Superstar goes, “Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.” And the Word doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need our mass communication. In fact, at times it seems, He’s better off without it.

God sneaks up on us too. Baptism water. Bread and wine. A humble preached Word. Easily ignored, easily rejected. Despised by those who will not believe it. But for those who believe, for those whom God has granted the gift of faith, it is the power of God to save. All that this Child of Bethlehem is for you and all He did for you is given you here in HIs Word, in Baptism, in the Supper. It’s an awesome strength hidden under weakness to save you.

Duerer was right. Jesus always comes with a cross. The cross looms large over your life too. Your Baptism doesn’t make you immune from diseases, from persecution, from hardship, from suffering. On the contrary, your Baptism and your confession make you a target for the Herods of this world. You are marked men and women. You bear the mark of the Lamb. And in His hidden strength, He comes to save you.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:1)

People struggle at Christmas to find the true “reason for the season,” the underlying and enduring meaning of Christmas. Some search in their hearts for peace, love, and joy. Some seek it in “peace on earth” meaning an end of warfare and terror. Some see it in the exchange of presents, festive meals with family and friends, decorated trees and wreaths, colored lights and colorful paper wrapping and bows. Some seek it in acts of kindness toward others, especially the less fortunate, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving toys to poor children. And while these are all worthwhile and noble, they are not the reason for Christmas.

The reason is this: The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. The eternal Word through whom all things were made and in whom all things have their existence and are held together, the eternal Son of the Father, the Second Person of the undivided Holy Trinity, became “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” God became Man, born of a Virgin, laid in a manger, in Bethlehem.

The mystery of Christmas is a great and profound one. The Creator becomes the Creature. The Infinite takes up residence in the Finite. The fulness of the Deity dwells among us bodily. God and Man are reconciled. The image of God is restored to Man.

Gone are any pious notions of “God up there” and “we down here” or of our reaching up to God. What we cannot do, God has done. God has come down to us in the Child of the manger. We cannot ascend to God, either in our thoughts, our prayers, our dreams, or our faith. We cannot reach up to God, but God has extended His right Arm to us. He sent His Son into our Flesh. Gone are any pious notions of our seeking God. God has sought us and found us in the Flesh of His Son, conceived in a virgin Mother and laid to sleep in a manger.

Luther once said, “I know no other God than the One who hangs on a cross and nurses at the breast of His mother.” This is the profound mystery of the Incarnation. It is unmatched in any of the world’s religions. It is without comparison. God and Man are One in Jesus. God of the eternal Father, Man of His virgin Mother, Jesus brings God and Man together as one unique Person, a new Adam, a new Head for humanity.

Don’t simply think of Jesus as one man. He is much more than that. He is all men, all people, every child of Adam and Eve. His humanity is our humanity; His poverty is our poverty; His weakness is our weakness; His life is our life; HIs death is our death.

He is all that we are and yet without the one thing that doesn’t belong – Sin. He is like us in every way – bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh, born of woman – yet without the inherited taint of Sin that kills and condemns us.

He was made our Sin. That is why He was born. Jesus was born to die, not for His sin but for your sin, not for what He had done but for what Adam and his children, including you, have done. The cross hangs heavily over the manger. Jesus’ destiny is to be the Lamb of God, the Substitute Sacrifice, the Vicarious Victim, not only for our sins and the sins of believers, but for the sin of the whole world bar none.

The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. The Son of God had fellowship with us, pitched His tent among us, that we might have fellowship with God. He came in humility that we might be glorified. He came in poverty that we might be rich. He came to die that we might live. He came to dwell with us that we might dwell with Him and His Father and the Spirit.

What glad tidings of great joy Christmas brings each year! “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” To you. Take it personally. God had you in mind when He sent His Son. For you, the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. For you He was conceived by the Spirit and born of the Virgin. For you He was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger.

See, my soul, thy Savior chooses
Weakness here and poverty
In such love He comes to thee.
Neither crib nor cross refuses;
All He suffers for thy good
To redeem thee by His Blood.
(LSB #897)

The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. The incarnate Word continues to dwell among us enfleshed in our humanity even at the right hand of the Father. And so He still comes down to us, poor sinners, humble and lowly as His first appearing in Bethlehem. He comes to us in Baptism water and Lord’s Supper bread and wine and humble words of forgiveness.

This is where the true Christmas, the Mass of Christ, is celebrated, where His Word is preached and heard, where His Body and Blood are offered to us and received, where the Word made Flesh comes to us to embrace us, poor, dying sinners that we are.

The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. And for this the heavens rejoice, the earth is glad, the angels sing, the shepherds worship, Mary ponders, and the whole Church sings praise to God for His undeserved kindness in Jesus His Son.

Joy, O joy beyond all gladness!
Christ has done away with sadness!
Hence, all sorrow and repining
For the Sun of Grace is shining. (LSB #897)

“Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Is 7:14)

King Ahaz was nervous, literally shaking like leaves blowing in the wind. His enemies to the north, Syria and the northern kingdom, had forged an alliance and were planning an attack. The southern kingdom, Judah, was on high alert. King Ahaz was busy inspecting the aqueduct. Water is everything when it comes to national security. He contemplated cutting a deal with Egypt. You couldn’t beat those Egyptian horses and chariots.

The Lord sent the prophet Isaiah to reassure the troubled king. His message was simple and direct: “Don’t worry. Don’t do anything. Be quiet, listen, and trust. Those two kings you are worrying about are nothing but a couple of smoldering stumps about to be snuffed out. In fact, within 65 years, the northern kingdom will be broken to pieces. Don’t be afraid. Trust the Lord.”

Isaiah offers a sign. “Ask a sign from the Lord your God. Make it be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. Go ahead, Ahaz, ask the Lord for a sign. He’ll show you. But Ahaz refused. He wanted neither sign nor Word. Yet Isaiah gives him a sign anyway:

Behold, the young woman is conceiving and bearing a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel.

I translate it intentionally in that way, so that you hear what Ahaz heard. In the time it takes for a young woman to conceive and bear a son, in nine months, you will know “Immanuel” – God is with us. Nine months, Ahaz. Don’t do anything for nine months, and you will see that God is with us. And in twelve short years, before “Immanuel” knows the difference between good and evil, those two kings you worry so much about will be gone. Trust, O King. Hear the Word of the Lord and trust.

Ahaz did not trust. He did not believe. He engineered his own salvation and failed. He refused the sign of Immanuel, God with us, and so he got the opposite. Reject God’s salvation and there is only one alternative. Isaiah and his wife would have a son shortly after this incident. They didn’t name him Immanuel, God with us. They named him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, which means “the spoil speeds, the destruction hastens.” In other words, your destruction is at hand. Refuse Immanuel, and you wind up Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. Refuse salvation and condemnation is all that’s left.

And then this Word of the Lord spoken through the prophet sat quietly like seed buried in the soil of history. For 700 years it lay there silently fallow, waiting for
the fulness of time, the perfect moment, when the stump of David’s family tree would sprout a righteous Shoot. The Word of the Lord came to a young woman named Mary in Nazareth who was in the process of getting married to a man named Joseph. She was a virgin. Their marriage had not yet been consummated. And now she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and the Word. With God nothing is impossible. A virgin conceives a son. God is with us. Immanuel.

The word to Ahaz through Isaiah now takes on its fullest meaning. Its fulfillment. The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. God is with us. He is one with us and one of us. And He became one with us by way of a virgin mother. Eve heard the promise in her virginity, that through her seed would come a Promised One who would crush the head of the liar who had deceived her. And now Mary in her virginity hears the Word that fulfills all things – “you will be with child by the Holy Spirit.” Immanuel. God is with us.

Mary and Joseph were not scientific people like we are. They didn’t know about the genetic code but they did know a thing or two about biology when it comes to how babies were conceived. You don’t need molecular biology to figure that out. Mary didn’t believe it, at first. She asked, “How can this be, for I haven’t slept with a man.” She knew virgins don’t conceive.

Joseph did too. He knew virgins don’t conceive, and you can only imagine what was going through his mind when he heard the news from Mary. There’s a cute video on Facebook that recreates the scene between Mary and Joseph in our digital age. She sends him a text message, “Joseph, we need to talk.” And then Joseph posts on his Facebook page, “Hurt and confused.” It’s cute, but it makes a good point. What a conversation that must have been! Joseph didn’t believe her. Not at first. He wanted to call off the marriage. But he was a good and decent man, and instead of exposing her to public shame, he planned to divorce her privately so that she could marry the father of her child.

Then the Word of the Lord came to Joseph. It’s always the Word. To Ahaz, to Mary, to Joseph. The power of God is in the Word – to create, to destroy, to save. The Word of the Gospel is the “power of God for salvation” Paul says. The Word comes to Joseph in a dream. This Joseph dreams just like the Joseph in Genesis dreamed. An angel in a dream says to Joseph what Isaiah once said to Ahaz, “Don’t be afraid.”

Don’t be afraid to take Mary into your home as your wife. Things are not as they appear. Her child is not from another man by from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you, as his surrogate father, will call Him Y’shua, Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. And Matthew adds the verse (or did the angel?) – Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel. The prophesy is sharpened and focused: Not simply “young woman” but “virgin;” not only “she” but “they” shall call Him Immanuel – God with us.

There are two great miracles in the Christmas story. The first, of course, is that a virgin conceives. It’s biologically impossible, but with God nothing is impossible. The second is that Joseph believed it. That is the miracle of faith. Joseph heard the Word and the Word worked faith and the obedience of faith. And unlike King Ahaz, Joseph didn’t reject the sign but received it. He took Mary to be his lawfully wedded wife. And he did not consummate that marriage, as was legally required, until she had given birth to a son. And he called His name Jesus, as he was told. Joseph heard and believed, and out of faith he obeyed. He did what the Lord asked of him.

This wouldn’t be the last time. Read on in Matthew. He flees to Egypt to escape Herod on account of a dream. He returns to Israel and settles in Nazareth because of a dream. If I’m Joseph, I’d be afraid to go to sleep at this point. At each point the Word comes to Joseph, he is inconvenienced and challenged and tested. And he quietly, faithfully obeys. In fact, there is not a single word from Joseph recorded in Scripture. As James said, “I will show you my faith by what I do.” Joseph shows his faith by what he does. He is full of faith, by the Word and Spirit, and he is faithful.

In eastern iconography, Joseph is always depicted off to the corner of things, brooding, with the devil whispering to him over his shoulder. He is doubting, wondering, questioning. Perhaps it’s true. Joseph knew enough biology to know that virgins don’t conceive, and while God had a track record of intervening with childless couples such as Abraham and Sarah, or more recently Zechariah and Elizabeth, God never pulled off something like this: A virgin conceiving and bearing a son. And perhaps Joseph had a few of those “why me?” moments that afflict the faithful when the Word interferes with our comfortable lives and leads us in directions we normally wouldn’t choose for ourselves. If tradition is correct, Joseph was a much older man, and who really needs this headache, anyway? A pregnant virgin? A virgin mother? A son who is God?

Think of faithful Joseph the next time you are inconvenienced because of your faith. Or the next time you are called by the Word outside your comfort zone. Or the next time you doubt the power of the Word to do what the Word says. That Baptism now saves you. That the Supper actually is the Body and Blood of Christ for you. That the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. Think of Joseph, the husband of a pregnant Virgin, a man of faith who believed the impossible and by the faith did what was given him to do, what St. Paul calls “the obedience of faith,” without saying word. Think of Joseph, the silent surrogate father of Jesus.

This is the Word that creates and enlivens faith, the faith of Mary and Joseph, the faith of you and me. This is the Word that became Flesh in the womb of a Virgin to embrace our humanity from conception to death, literally from the womb to the tomb, and to raise it up from the dead and seat our humanity in glory at the right hand of the Father.

This is the backstory of Christmas – the prophetic Word is fulfilled; a Virgin conceives by the Word, a troubled husband-to-be is consoled by the Word and believes it. You will likely hear, or perhaps you have heard, people say that Christmas, indeed Christianity, is based on pagan myths, that all the elements of the Christmas story right down to a virgin conceiving can be found in prior paganism. And that may be true. But it doesn’t make the story false of concocted. I’d be surprised if God hadn’t sown the seeds among the pagans in their myths, just as He planted the prophetic Word in Israel’s history, just as He promised a seed of the woman to virgin Eve long ago.

Gracious Lord, grant us the faith of faithful Joseph, who heard the Word and believed the impossible – that a Virgin conceived, that the Word became Flesh, that sinners stand justified for Jesus’ sake. And believing, quietly and faithfully obeyed You.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Last week, the wilderness. This week, Herod’s prison. How quickly things have changed. Last week we heard John preaching a baptism of repentance, calling Israel back to her wilderness roots. Today we hear the question from the depths of the dungeon: Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another one?

This is the reading for this 3rd Sunday in Advent, the Sunday traditionally called Gaudete, the Sunday of rejoicing, the “pink candle Sunday” for those of you with a pink candle in your Advent wreath. It’s supposed to be a Sunday of joy amidst the gloominess of December. Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say: Rejoice. Why? The Lord is near. Those words came from the apostle Paul writing to the Philippians from prison. There is joy even for the one in prison.

John was imprisoned for criticizing Herod’s personal life, his taking up with the estranged wife of his brother Philip. For that, the greatest born of women, the last of the prophets who came in the spirit and power of Elijah was thrown into prison and eventually died there. Certainly God doesn’t run the show the way we would! There are no displays of divine power, no judicial intercessions, no storming of the gates by the hosts of heaven, much less a horde of armed disciples or even a group of lawyers clamoring for his civil rights. For more than a year, John, the great preacher, the last of the prophets, sits idly in prison and Jesus goes about teaching, preaching, and healing.

And finally, there comes the question: Are you the One, Jesus? Or do we look for another?

Was John asking for himself or on behalf of others? Some people think that John sent his disciples to Jesus with the question not for himself but for them, to reassure them that Jesus really was the One, the Messiah, the coming One they had been waiting for. John wanted his followers to hear it directly from Jesus Himself and not become disheartened by John’s imprisonment.

Others think that John had a moment of doubt while in prison. The Jesus who came was not quite the Jesus whom John had prepared for. John had faithfully, unflinchingly preached Jesus as the One coming with a winnowing fork of judgment in His hand, ready to sort the faithful wheat from the unbelieving chaff. The axe of His wrath was already laid to the dead root of Israel. Unfruitful branches were going to be cut down and burned with eternal fire. John baptized with water, but the coming One would baptize with fire and wind. Yet when Jesus came, He came humbly and gently, baptized by John in solidarity with sinners, healing various diseases, liberating people from their demons, proclaiming the kingdom not in power but in meekness.

I’m not sure which way to think. In the past, I’ve always thought that it was John who doubted. And yet there is something compelling about the notion of John sending his disciples to Jesus for their instruction and benefit. John must decrease, Jesus must increase. Loyalists to John needed to know that this humble, gentle Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Christ of God come to save. Jesus was the One to follow, not John. John was a voice in the wilderness, a sign post, a way shower; Jesus is the Way, the Savior, the Christ.

Either way, whether for John or for his disciples, the thought is the same: the way of the kingdom of God is the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of dying and rising, the hidden way of weakness instead over strength. The foremost prophet winds up in a dungeon and loses his head for criticizing the king’s morals; the coming One gets crucified for bringing the kingdom of God. It’s not our way of doing things, is it?

Our way is the way of power. Even our notion of peace on earth is a peace maintain by power with the assurance of destruction. We respect power and the powerful. The world, as we know it, is run by the Herods and the Pontius Pilates. Men of power. Men who can put you in prison and can take off your head or crucify you. We respect power, we fear it, we covet it for ourselves, especially the power to control. If only we could just get everyone to do things our way, the kingdom of God would appear in our midst.

John came in power, a man of conviction not shaken by every little change in the wind. A man of the wilderness unconcerned with creature comforts of what he would eat or what he would wear. A prophet who himself was prophesied by the prophet Malachi, coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. Jesus called him the greatest born of women. The greatest. No one born in this world was greater than John the Baptizer. And yet, in the words of Jesus, even the least in the kingdom, the tiniest baptized baby, the lowliest believer, is greater than John. This is not a kingdom of power or of the law.

The kingdom suffers violence. It’s vulnerable in this world. It’s like seed sown in soil that can be trampled, choked, scorched, or even gobbled up by the birds. The greatest prophet can be arrested, imprisoned, and even beheaded. The God’s chosen anointed One can be arrested, beaten, and crucified. His believers are persecuted, ridiculed, martyred. The Church is always a mess – disorganized and divided, a far cry from the slick corporations and powerful kingdoms of this world. To the eyes of the old Adam and of this world, Christianity appears to be nothing more than a bunch of superstitious losers following the biggest loser there ever was.

We too might succumb to doubt and despair ourselves as we look around at the state of things. We too might think it quietly, in the secret of our own thoughts when prayers seem to fail or when we’ve become bored with worship or get frustrated with the realities of living as sinner-saints with our fellow sinner-saints. We might be tempted to ask in the midst of our own personal struggle, “Do we have the right One or is there a “One” at all? Is Jesus is the One or do we look for another? Are we wasting our time with this religion, with any religion, with religion in general?”

Jesus gave John’s disciples the messianic signs to hang faith’s hat on: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor are evangelized. They knew those signs from the prophet Isaiah, signs of the coming kingdom when the wilderness would burst into gladness and the desert would rejoice and God would come to save them. Jesus’ miracles served as signs that the age of Messiah had come with His coming, that the time of gladness and joy was dawning even in the midst of sadness.

You have even greater signs: Jesus’ own death and resurrection. Christ has died; Christ has risen. You have your Baptism, a personal sign from God that the kingdom has come to you and that you are part of this kingdom that comes with a hidden strength. You have the word of the kingdom’s forgiveness, spoken with the King’s authority, in His stead and by His command, that your sins are covered and paid for, that the King Himself has covered your debt and you are free to live in peace. And you have the surest token of His blessing – His own Body and Blood – the fruits of His sacrifice, given and shed for you. Blessed is the one who is not scandalized by this Jesus whose power to save is hidden in weakness.

The apostle Paul wrote: “We have this treasure – that is, the treasure of the Gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection that justifies the sinner and gives life to the dead – we have this treasure in jars of clay. Humble, ordinary clay pots which are nothing much to look at it. Not gallery pieces of pottery, just homely everyday cookware. We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Rarely will you find anyone who boasts in his failings or weaknesses. We usually boast in our successes and accomplishments. Paul even boasted in his unanswered prayers. He prayed three times that God would relieve him of some unnamed thorn in the flesh, some antagonist who undermined his ministry and made his life miserable. “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that he would depart from me.” And three times Paul heard this answer from God: “No, no, no. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Paul concludes: “Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

This is the hidden strength of Christ, and the hidden joy of Advent. You may not have the “joy, joy, joy, joy” down in your heart on this Sunday called Gaudete. You may feel weak and powerless against the powers and principalities of this world. Your life may be more of a dark dungeon and the Herods of this world may appear to hold the upper hand. But the strength of Christ is hidden in the weakness of the Virgin, the manger, the cross, the water, the Word, the bread and wine. The power of God for salvation is hidden in the weakness of a Gospel the world does not wish to hear. The joy of the kingdom is hidden in the sorrows of this life just as the joys of Christmas remain buried in a dark little season called Advent.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!”
Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.

Come, Lord Jesus!
Amen.

“Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.” Matthew 3:1-12

Imagine yourself standing in the wilderness across the Jordan river. You hear a voice calling, shouting, from a distance. “Prepare the way of the Lord!” You see a figure approaching, a wild-haired bearded man, his skin bronzed by the sun, his eyes ablaze with prophetic fire. He is dressed like a prophet straight out of the pages of the Old Testament – coarse camel’s hair and a leather sash around his waist. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it was Elijah come back from heaven. You realize that you are standing on the very spot where the tradition has it that Elijah was whisked off to heaven centuries before.

The strange figure draws closer. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He’s looking directly at you, pointing a long index finger in your direction. Yes, he means you, religious one. Pious Israelite. Pharisee. Sadducee. Scribe. Tax collector. Prostitute. Sinner. It doesn’t matter who or what you are. Repent. Are you good? Then repent of your goodness. You’re not good enough. Are you bad? Then repent of your badness. It’s worse than you think.

Who is this strange man with the funny wilderness diet? Grasshoppers and wild honey. What’s that about? From where did he come? Who sent him? His name is John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth. His parents were old, extraordinarily old when he was born. He was raised as an orphan in the wilderness. He seems to want nothing to do with the temple. He comes from priestly parents, but he is not priest. His business is iat the Jordan River. He came to baptize.

Baptism was not unknown at the time of John. There is evidence that the wilderness communities where John likely grew up practiced a form of baptism. You were baptized when you became a Jew, an honorary Israelite. Proselyte baptism. That made John’s baptism something new, different. The people that came from Jerusalem and all the region of Judah were not proselytes to Judaism but Jews. Some of them religious leaders – Pharisees and Sadducees.

You can see why John’s baptism drew such controversy. He was calling all of Israel to be washed, implying they were not washed. Unclean. He singles out the religious leaders for the harshest treatment. “You brood of vipers! You bunch of snakes! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And don’t start jabbering about how you have Abraham as your father for God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones.” “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

I wonder what they thought. What do you think when someone says to you, “Repent!” We usually think, “Repent of what?” What did I do? Or, “Hey, you should talk! You’re the one who needs to repent!” But no, John is speaking to you. There’s a coming wrath and judgment and fire. Repent!

John’s appearing in the Jordan wilderness marks the end of the Old Testament. The prophet Malachi said that Elijah would come before the Day of the Lord to the prepare the hearts of the people. John came in the spirit of Elijah. He is the last of the Old Testament prophets. The others pointed from a distance down through the centuries. John points directly. The time for Israel’s redemption had come. The age of the Messiah was about to dawn, and Israel was in desperate need of a bath.

We have this impulse. When something important happens, there’s always a bath or a shower involved. Or at least you wash your hands. That was the notion behind Jewish proselyte baptism. You were leaving your old way of life, your old religious loyalties, everything. You were starting fresh, starting over, starting new. You were reborn an Israelite. What John was doing was calling Israel to be washed and ready for the Coming One. He was calling Israel out of the land, away from Jerusalem, away from the temple and its religious institutions back into the wilderness in kind of an exodus in reverse. He was calling every Israelite to repent.

To repent is to have a change of mind. That’s what the word repent literally means. Metanoia. To change your mind, your thinking. It’s not about behaving yourself. That’s bearing the fruits of repentance. But repentance is a total flip of the mind and the will. The time was at hand, urgent. There was no tomorrow. No procrastination. The kingdom of heaven is near.

Perhaps you noticed a parallel. John preached a baptism of repentance to prepare for Jesus’ first appearing. And Jesus gave His Church a Baptism to prepare for His second appearing. We too are called to repentance, to be drowned and die to Sin and Self. To rise up and live in Christ to God.

The Baptism you received is different than John’s in that it came from Jesus, with the fiery Pentecost wind of His Spirit. John’s baptism was fulfilled when Jesus stood in the water before John to be baptized by Him, when the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son,” and John said “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That was the purpose of John’s baptism, to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming in humility to die and rise. But the purpose of your Baptism is to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming in glory to raise the dead and give salvation, to join you with Jesus now in His death and life so that you might die and rise to live forever. Your Baptism is fulfilled the day you die and on the Last Day when you rise.

John’s baptism was for that time only. Jesus’ Baptism is for the end times until the end of time.

John preached Jesus as the promised Coming One. It’s striking the kind of Jesus he preaches. It’s really not the One that shows up! John’s Jesus has a winnowing fork in His hand and a fire of judgment kindled and He’s ready to toss the grain into the fiery wind and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire as he gathers up His wheat into the barn. John’s Jesus has an axe already laid to the root of every fruitless tree. Would you want to meet this Jesus on those terms? I wouldn’t. We’d be toast.

Yet when Jesus finally appears, He appears humble and meek. He submits Himself to John’s baptism of repentance even though He is the one perfect Jew who has not need for repentance. Instead of an axe and a winnowing fork, He comes with a cross and a death. Instead of coming in judgment, He comes to be judged. It’s no wonder that John had his doubts and had to ask if they got the right candidate for the job. Gentle Jesus hardly seemed to fit the bill.

But that’s precisely the point. Jesus comes as Gospel to John’s Law. Who would have known that the axe of God’s wrath would be laid against the promised “shoot from the stump of Jesse”? Who would have known that the fire of God’s judgment would be turned against the Son in His passion to save us? Who would have known that the way of the kingdom of heaven is for the King to die for HIs subjects and rise from the dead?

Seven hundred years before John, the prophet Isaiah saw the coming kingdom in the form of a tiny shoot sprouting from the stump of King David’s family tree. And from that Sprout a righteous Branch that would bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord would rest upon Him. He would judge the world by His righteousness and restore harmony and shalom to the creation so that even the wolf and the lamb could lie down in peace. Isaiah saw a Day when the Root of Jesse would become a banner lifted high, a signal for all peoples, whose resting place would be glorious. From its humble beginnings to its glorious ending: the sprout become a branch become the Tree of LIfe from whose fruit the repentant may eat and live.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The message is the same today in our wilderness as it was then in John’s. Repent. Turn away from your sin, your self, your death. Be baptized. Look to Christ the Lamb lifted up for you. Eat the wilderness food of His body, drink His blood for your forgiveness, for your life, for your salvation. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight. He’s coming soon.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. Zechariah 9:9

It’s the beginning of Advent, the start of the new church year, the time of preparation before Christmas and Epiphany. Advent means “coming” or arrival, as in the arrival of a king. “Behold, your King is coming to you.” Get ready, here he comes.

The season of Advent looks both forward and backward. Backward to Jesus’ first coming in humility – a Virgin mother, a manger crib, a home in Nazareth, no place to lay His head, the suffering Servant, a cross. And forward to Jesus’ second coming in glory – the shout from heaven, the archangel’s trumpet, the clouds, the judgment, the resurrection, the power and the glory. Today we do a bit of both, a kind of “back to the future” look at Jesus’ appearing as our King in His kingdom.

The reading from Isaiah looks to the latter days, when the mountain of the Lord’s house will be lifted high and exalted, when all the nations will flow into it, when people will say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” That time is now, the time of the Church, which is God’s holy mountain exalted in Christ, as all nations come to the house of the God of Jacob to be baptized into the greater Son of Jacob, to be taught the way of salvation in Jesus.

And yet there is a notion of “not yet” here. Not yet does Jesus judge between the nations. Not yet do people beat their weapons into farm implements. Nation still rises up against nation, the art of war remains in practice, though the rules of engagement seem to have changed a bit. Now is not the time of peace but of war and rumors of war and nation against nation.

that great mountain that Isaiah saw, which is heavenly Jerusalem, is still hidden under the cloak of weakness – a church divided, heresies, sects, corruption, hardly the picture of the “highest of the mountains.” But not yet. Give it time. Give it to the end of time when the time of faith will end and the time of seeing will begin. And then you too will see with your own eyes what God has been up to all along in, with, under this history. And the sight will be glorious. But not yet.

Behold, your King comes to you. Did you find it strange to hear the Palm Sunday Gospel on this Sunday? It does sound a bit strange! It seems out of context. We think of the start of Holy Week, not the start of Advent. Yet there is a profound point here. The last time Jesus the King was seen riding into His city it was in humility, riding a beggar King atop a borrowed donkey. It happened to fulfill what the prophet Zechariah had said as he looked forward to see the Messiah King ride to take His throne. And the people that gathered that day were probably itching for a riot if not a revolution. The last thing they expected is what happened at the end of the week when Jesus the King was enthroned on a cross and crucified. Not exactly much of a holy war, was it?

But it was! It was the ultimate and only holy war that mattered, and the Jesus the King fought it Himself singlehandedly. He came to die. He came to lay down His life. He is the King who dies for His subjects, who rescues them, who comes to them. You don’t come to this King, you don’t seek Him out. He seeks you out and comes to you. And yes, He comes humbly and hiddenly, not the sort of King you might expect, much less the kind of God you would expect. He comes in the seemingly weak and hidden way of baptismal water, communion bread and wine, absolving words, and office of the ministry. He comes now as He did then, humbly and rejectably. You can turn your back on Him. You can mock Him as so many still do. You can spit on Him and beat Him and seem to get away with it.

Don’t mistake that humility for weakness. His power is perfected in what appears to be weakness. His victory comes out of what appears to be defeat. His holy war is won not by killing the enemy but by dying at the hands of the enemy. Contrast that with the wars of today, with the kings of this world, with the holy wars waged in the name of God. There is no comparison. There is none like Jesus, nor is there a need to look for another. He’s the crucified, risen, and reigning One, and one of Him is enough for the world.

Our problem is we want it all now. We can’t abide the “not yet.” We want Christmas now instead of Advent. We want glory now instead of suffering. We want heaven now instead of this life. We want everything by sight instead of by faith. We grow impatient, distracted, doubting. The world either thinks we’re quaint or crazy, we who believe in a coming day of glory, much the way the cartoon characters in Charles Schultz’ Peanuts mocked Linus for his watching for the coming of the Great Pumpkin.

I hope you still know that Peanuts special; I know it’s old, introduced 2 years after I was born. Just in case, let me fill you in. A little boy named Linus sits in his pumpkin patch every year awaiting the arrival of the Great Pumpkin who invariably fails to appear. Yet no matter how humiliated and disappointed Linus is every year, he stubbornly vows he will keep his vigil next Halloween for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin.

Advent can seem that way in our modern world. Waiting for the arrival of Jesus who never seems to show up, we’re like Linus, waiting and watching in childlike faith for someone whom we have never seen and who has promised to appear in glory one day. It sounds almost silly to say it. But remember these are the words of the One who died and rose from the dead. Sane, rational, and skeptical people heard Him and believed it. Every generation of Christian has sat in his pumpkin patch awaiting the coming of the Lord in glory. And Advent comes year after year with the same prayer, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.”

Advent is a time of patient watching and waiting. Our epistle reading gives us the image of early morning, just before the alarm goes off. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. You open one eye, it’s still dark, but there is a hint of light on the horizon. You want to roll over and go back to sleep, but it’s time to wake up. Get ready. Your King is coming to you. Salvation is nearer now than when you first believed. Nearer this year than at the start of Advent a year ago.

How then are we to live as we watch and wait for the Day to appear? What are you waiting for, darkness or light? Condemnation or salvation? You are baptized. You have been clothed with Christ. You are children of the light and of the Day. Drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, jealousy – those things don’t befit baptized children of the day. You are clothed with Jesus, His righteousness, His holiness. Wear it. Forget about the desires of the flesh, your sinful self. Don’t indulge it, it’s dead and it means death to you. You’re about life and light.

So even as world lives in darkness and practices the works of darkness, you’ve been called to live in the day even while it is still night knowing that the dawn has come with Jesus and the day is not far off. That’s the spirit of this season we call Advent. It’s not about shopping and parties, though there will be that, There are Christmas expectations to live up to, after all. But Advent would set our eyes on the horizon, on the rising sun, on the coming King, on the mountain of the Lord. Behold, your King comes to you.

Once He came; soon He comes.

Once He came by way of a Virgin mother; soon He comes with the angels.
Once He came by way of the crib and cross; soon He comes with the glory of heaven
Once He came riding atop a borrowed donkey; soon He comes with clouds descending
Once He came as a beggar King; soon He comes as the King of kings.
Once He came to die; soon He comes to raise the dead.
Once He came in weakness; soon He comes in power.
Once He came to be judged; soon He comes to judge.
Once He came to save us; soon He comes to give us salvation.

Come, Lord Jesus!

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name! Psa. 100:4

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name;
the upright shall dwell in your presence. Psa. 140:13

All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD,
and all your saints shall bless you! Psa. 145:10

“Give thanks to the LORD,
call upon his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples,
proclaim that his name is exalted. Is. 12:4

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever! Psa. 118:29

We hardly need an act of Congress, much less a presidential proclamation or even a national day to know to give thanks. It’s all over the psalms, all over the Scriptures. To give thanks is what faith does. In fact, you might say that to be Christian is to be thankful. We are a “eucharistic people.” The word “eucharist,” referring to the Lord’s Supper and its great thanksgiving, means to give thanks. It is truly good, right, and salutary, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. It simply goes with faith. LIke the one faithful leper who returned to give thanks at the feet of Jesus.

Moses reminded the Israelites, “Don’t forget who you were, where you came from, how you got to this good land.” “And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.” Moses warned them, “Take care, lest you forget. Lest you forget that you were once slaves. Lest you forget that the Lord brought you out of Egypt. Lest you forget that He led you through the wilderness. Lest you forget that the land was inherited by mercy not by merit. “Beware, lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.”

Thanksgiving is remembering. Remembering the Giver of the gifts we enjoy. It’s not simply a matter of “counting one’s blessings.” Thanksgiving is not an inventory but an acknowledgment of the Giver, that all we have comes from God’s hand, through means, certainly, but from God. Because God works through means our thanksgiving stops one step short, like the 9 out of ten lepers who were very thankful to God for their healing, but didn’t return to give thanks to Jesus.
We thank the farmer, the butcher, the baker, and the others who serve us, and it’s good and right for us to do that. Everyone likes to hear a word of thanks. But working in, with, and under them is God, who in His fatherly goodness and mercy provides and protects His good creation. And because God is hidden behind these “masks,” as Luther called them, we forget to give thanks to the God from whom all blessing flow.

We forget to give thanks to God also when we are anxious, worried, in distress. Our focus is so centered on what we don’t have, whatever is causing us anxiety, that we forget what we do have. This is especially true of 2nd and 3rd article gifts – the gifts of Christ, of our Baptism into Christ, of our new birth in Him, the words of forgiveness spoken to us in His name, the Body and Blood that strengthen and preserve us. Jesus warned His disciples that the cares and concerns of this life can choke out the Word, like weeds choking out good seed. He told them, “Don’t be anxious for the things of this life, what you will eat or wear, for your Father in heaven knows you needs these things, and He who cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field will certainly care for you, His children.

The apostle Paul, writing to the Philippians from prison, said, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. With thanksgiving. Notice this. No matter what your circumstances, no matter what the cause of your anxiety, no matter why you are praying, give thanks. Give thanks not as a transaction, for what you hope to receive (“Thank you in advance for your cooperation.”) but give thanks for what brought you to prayer in the first place. Remember, Paul is writing from prison. He’s lost his liberty. The Philippians sent him a generous gift. He’s writing a thank you letter.

He goes on to say that he really didn’t need anything, “for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound, in any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” What’s his secret? “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” All things through Christ who gives me strength. This is how Paul can give thanks in any and all circumstances. He does so through Jesus Christ, who even though He had no place to lay His head, nonetheless trusted His Father and lived the perfect life of thanksgiving on behalf of all of us.

We’re reminded also that there is no 1st article thanksgiving without a 2nd and 3rd article. Our restless hearts are content only in Christ, and only in Christ does thanksgiving flow to God. The one out of ten lepers who believed, who was faithful, returned to the feet of Jesus to give thanks and praise to God. He might have argued that since God was everywhere, and he was headed to the temple anyway, why bother to go back. But faith drives him to the feet of Jesus. And it’s from Jesus that he alone hears, “Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well.” The others were made well too, but this one was saved in the fullest sense of that word. Not simply cleansed from leprosy, but cleansed from the leprosy of sin and rescued from death by Jesus.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord. It’s good for us to be here this evening, resting as it were at the feet of Jesus, to give thanks for everything we have – the bounties of this land, the freedoms we enjoy, the food on our tables, the clothing on our backs, the roof over our heads. All are gifts from our good and gracious Father, “for all which it is our duty as priests to God to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.” It’s our priestly duty and privilege to give thanks, not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors, and for this good land of ours. Thanksgiving is what we do.

Whether the nation Israel about to take possession of the promised land, or Paul in prison, or the one leper who turned on the road and returned to Jesus, or you, recipient of God’s rich grace in Jesus, give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His steadfast love endures forever.

In the name of Jesus.
Amen.

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:43

It’s an odd reading for the end of the church year. Ordinarily, we’d expect a parable of judgment – the sheep and the goats or traditionally, the wise and foolish bridesmaids. But instead we get Luke’s picture of the crucifixion. Odd to have a Good Friday text on the Last Sunday of the Church Year, the Sunday when we consider Jesus’ appearing in glory to judge the living and the dead.

But if you look and listen closely, you’ll recognize that Good Friday is a kind of snapshot, a pattern, a “type” of the Last Day, just as last week we saw that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was a pattern picture of the Last Day. Jesus follows the same pattern here as he trudges down the streets of Jerusalem on His way to the place of the Skull, Golgotha. The women were weeping and wailing over Him, but Jesus says to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.” He looks to the coming days when Jerusalem will be overrun by the Roman armies and laid siege, times when it would be worst for pregnant women and women with infants, when people would say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.” It also goes worst for mothers and children.

And that isn’t the worst of it. “If they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry.” No question. The ends times go from bad to worse to worse even still. And yet, amid all of it, there is Jesus, praying “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” That’s not only HIs prayer over those who crucified Him and cast lots for His clothing, but His prayer over all of humanity in its collective insanity. Forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing. It’s His prayer for you and me, living in these latter days.

He is mocked by the religious, as He is mocked by Religion today. No religion of this world tolerates free grace, unconditional pardon, forgiveness of the sinner. Even we sometimes recoil at it. The soldiers too, mock Jesus with their cheap, sour wine and sarcasm. “Save yourself, if you’re the King of the Jews.” Politics and Religion always mock Jesus, always crucify Him, always want nothing to do with Him.

But even here on the cross, especially here on the cross, Jesus is King of all kings, Lord of all lords, Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Son of God, Savior of the nations. This is the last image the world gets of Jesus – bleeding, dying, persecuted, ridiculed, mocked. Five hundred would see Him risen from the dead, but not the general public. Eleven would see Him taken up in the clouds. But this spectacle is for the whole world to see. This is the King in His kingdom as it appears in this world. In your minds freeze frame that picture of Jesus on the cross, between two convicted criminals, mocked by church and state. That’s the last image the world gets until He appears in glory on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead.

It’s also a picture of judgment day. In Jesus, the world is already judged. He is all of humanity in one Man, the second Adam. His death is humanity’s death; His death is the death of the world. This is the world’s last Day in type.

The two thieves separated by Jesus are the sheep and the goats, the wise and foolish, the believing and the unbelieving. They too are a picture of what has come in Jesus and what will come on the Last Day. Two sinners, separated by the crucified Sinless One, one on his right, the other on his left. James and John had vied for the positions of power when Jesus came into His kingdom, seated at His left and His right. But the honored seats go to these two.

Both men were guilty as charged. Their deaths were intended to be an example for the general public. Both were guilty, just as you and I stand guilty under the law, guilty of insurrection against God, guilty of wanting to be gods in place of God, guilty of willfully violating His law. Both criminals were equally guilty, deserving not only their death sentence but deserving condemnation before God. Those who are saved and those who are condemned are equally guilty, as these two were. There is no distinction. All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God, all are condemned by the Law of God.

Two guilty men dying next to Jesus. One rails against Jesus in unbelief. “Aren’t you the Christ? What sort of Messiah are you, anyway? Save yourself, save us.” Here’s the irony – in not saving Himself, Jesus saved us and the world, including the one who railed against Him! This one is the unbeliever, the old Adam who refuses the salvation that is next to Him, who mocks the only Savior that there is. Even in the despair of death he’s full of hatred and mockery and joins his voice with those who stood at the foot of Jesus’ cross. His salvation is right there next to him, but he refuses to see it. In this Jesus is pardon for his sins, acquittal before God, the promise of Paradise. But he would not have it. Instead, he mocks Jesus even in death. A life of rejection culminates in a death of rejection.

The other one believes. He is faithful. He bears witness to his fellow sinner. “Don’ you fear God? You’re under the same sentence. You’re damned as much as anyone. He preaches the Law to his brother convict. A word of truth. “We are receiving the due reward for our deeds. We deserve this.” The wages of sin is death. We deserve this. You deserve this. We all do. No one escapes this.

“But this man, this Jesus in between them, He has done nothing wrong.” He confesses Christ. He is innocent. More than that. He is sinless. And yet in the mystery of God’s mercy, God made this innocent, sinless Jesus to be sin for us. He is the criminal, the terrorist, the murderer. He became our sin, the sin of the world. Every crime against humanity, every homicide and genocide and fratricide is focused upon Him. He becomes our Sin, so that in Him we might become His righteousness, the righteousness of God.

This is the judgment of humanity. God has judged Sin in the death of His Sinless Son. “This man has done nothing wrong,” and yet this Man dies as one who has done everything wrong, forsaken by God, condemned, persecuted, mocked, ridiculed, damned. He gets what we deserve so that, in the end, we get what He deserves.

And then comes the prayer of faith. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This is how faith prays. He asks for nothing but to be remembered by Jesus. He doesn’t ask to be saved from the cross, to be spared his suffering, to be granted a last minute pardon, as the other one did. When death is unavoidable, faith embraces death and prays, “Jesus, remember me.” He who dies with these words on his lips, dies well.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus said, giving out His body and blood. “Do this for my remembrance.” Remembrance works both ways. Faith remembers Him, what He did to win forgiveness, life, and salvation for us. And He remembers us with His Body and Blood. Now, you may argue, of course, that the thief neither was baptized nor did he receive the Lord’s Supper. And that is true. Baptism had not yet been instituted. That comes after Jesus’ resurrection. The Supper had been given only to the Twelve, not yet to the world. That too would come soon enough. But this dying thief, both actually, had the ultimate Sacrament – dying Jesus on the cross next them. And from the lips of dying Jesus, the faithful criminal heard these words saving words with Jesus’ own Amen: “Amen, I say to you, today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

The guilty one is pardoned before God. Justified for Jesus’ sake. Though the world has found him guilty and sentenced him to die for his deeds, and justly so, the Son of God has declared him righteous, fit for life in Paradise. Though he dies for his crimes, he is pardoned of his sins by the Sinless One who died next to him and is promised life. His death sentence becomes a life sentence, thanks to Jesus..

Jesus didn’t say anything to the other one, and we dare not say anything either. Jesus said that every blasphemy uttered against Him would be forgiven. Jesus prayed for those who mocked Him, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” Did this prayer also extend to the thief who mocked Him? Did His blood and His death atone for that one too? Yes, of course. And yet Jesus’ silence over the other thief offers no comfort, just as any refusal on our part of the gifts of salvation will not bring us comfort in our last day. He stands condemned by his own words. How is He to remember you in His kingdom if you refuse to His Baptism, His word, His Body and Blood, the very means by which He remembers you?

You are baptized into the death of Jesus. In Baptism, God declared dead to sin and alive to Him in Christ. You have been judged in the death of Jesus. The One who comes at the Last Day to judge is the same One who came to the cross to be judged. The One who comes on the Last Day is the One who comes to you today with the gifts of His sacrifice. Jesus, remember me. That’s faith’s prayer. And Jesus’ response is ever the same: “Amen, I say to you, Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees; as soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Nothing quite captivates our interest like the end, what the theologians call “eschatology,” last words, the end times, the last days, the Last Day. Some folks have their eye out on 2012 as being a significant year because the Mayan calendar runs out of steam in 2012, though the Mayans ran out of steam as a culture a long time ago. That makes almost as much sense as concluding that the world will end in 2051 because the Lutheran Service Book only lists the dates of Easter to 2050. That may even be a bit optimistic, both for the world and for the hymnal. Remember Y2K, the year 2000? What a snoozer that was! Even the local ATMs and gas pumps didn’t hiccup. Let’s face it, whenever we try to predict the end of the world and prepare for it as though it were an appointment on our day planner, we’re going to wind up with eschatological egg on our faces.

Jesus was walking around the temple courts during what we call “Holy Week,” the week leading up to His death and resurrection. The temple was undergoing an extensive renovation under King Herod who was trying to curry the favor of the Jews, seeing as he wasn’t one of them but wanted to be their king. The temple that had been built after the return from exile was built on a bit of a shoestring budget, you know how renovation projects can be, and so Herod was throwing a bunch of money at the temple to bring it up to Solomon’s specs, hoping the people would love him for it.

As Jesus and His disciples were walking around the temple courts, they could see the scaffolding and hear the stone cutters hard at work. People were admiring the craft and the materials – the noble stones and offerings. And Jesus says out loud, “The days are coming when one stone won’t be left standing upon another that will not be thrown down.” That’s a bit like saying the word “bomb” in a TSA line in the airport. It could get you crucified.

The temple was the national and religious center of Israel. It was the place where the glory of God had formerly dwelt. It once held the ark of the covenant with its mercy seat. It still was a place of sacrifice, though the sacrifices had become pro forma transactions and the priesthood went to the highest bidder. The temple was still the center of Israel’s religious life, it’s history, it’s dreams, hopes, expectations. When Messiah comes, he will restore the temple, they thought. And Jesus says, the days of this temple are numbered.”

Jesus made two predictions in His earthly ministry – that He would be crucified and on the third day rise to life again, and that the temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed within His generation. The way you tested a prophet was whether his words came to pass. Both of them did. Jesus did actually, historically, factually die and rise as He said. And the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Roman army in the Jewish wars of AD 66 to 70. Anyone who wants to call Jesus “a great prophet” needs to deal with these two prophesies of His, and then the claim that He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

Jesus doesn’t tell us when the end will come. There’s no point. If you knew the Last Day was a week from Tuesday you’d be doing all sorts of things, good and bad, right up until the last moment, anything but trusting in the promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation for Jesus’ sake. And so for the sake of your faith, Jesus doesn’t tell you when the end will come.

Instead, He lays out the signs and interprets them. He warns us that the end times will be filled with false Christ, false prophets, false religions. People will claim to come in His name, publish “Left Behind” books in His name, say “the end is near” to try to scare the bejeebers out of you. The will be wars and tumults (think terrorism here). And Jesus says, “Don’t worry about it, and don’t be afraid.” These things have to happen first as things go from bad to worse to even worse. The end times will be a time of war, of upheaval in the creation (earthquakes, famines, pestilences, global warming, you name it). Persecutions too. People delivered up to death for confessing Christ. It happens today all over the world. Not so much here. At least not yet. Here we just whine when things don’t go our way. Wait’ll the persecutions begin.

Family will betray family. Remember what Jesus said about “hating father, mother, son, daughter”? The greatest temptation to forsake Christ may come from your own family. Jesus says, “This will be your opportunity to bear witness.” Don’t worry about what you are going to say. Just keep studying your Scripture, your catechism, your doctrine and Jesus will give you a mouth and wisdom and words. I can attest that He will. That doesn’t mean I don’t prepare a sermon. I do, and I write it out. But I’m under persecution here. He says some of His followers will be put to death, martyred, as all the apostles except John were martyred. You’ll be hated for the name of Jesus. But don’t worry. Why would you worry? He’s conquered sin, death, hell, the devil, the Law, and the world. What do you have to worry about? “Not a hair of your head will perish.”

Do you get the impression that end times living is not exactly a bed of roses? You’ve got it right then! The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple are a picture, a type, a pattern, for the end of all things on the Last Day. Jesus prepares them. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, head for the hills. Christians believed that and were spared the destruction. Jesus said that Jerusalem would be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, meaning until the end. What is sitting on the temple mount today? A mosque. The Dome of the Rock. Just to ensure there is never a temple again. Ever. There is no need for one.

The true and final temple was not that building in Jerusalem. It was the flesh of Christ, His body. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” The Jerusalem temple never rose, it never will. The temple of Jesus’ body rose from the dead after being destroyed by the Gentiles. He is the true temple. His Body and Blood are the true sacrifice for sin. His covenant is the last and everlasting covenant of forgiveness and life.

The true and final city is not Jerusalem, but the city of God, the Church, made not with human hands but by the hand of God Himself. Not rising up from the earth, but coming down from heaven. On Good Friday, at three in the afternoon, in the darkness, the time of the temple and Jerusalem ended. The curtain was torn in two. Forty years later the city and building were destroyed, just as Jesus had predicted.

If Jesus was right about all that, and He was, He’ll be right about the coming Day, when the sun and moon and stars will be darkened, as they already were on the day of His death. The awful Day when the heavens are shaken. The Day when Jesus, the Son of Man, comes in all His Messianic glory and power. In fact, He’s already gone down that Last Day road ahead of us, through the darkness, through the death, through the persecution and destruction. And He has come out alive, risen from the dead, glorified. And you, baptized into His death, are alive and glorified already in Him.

And so, “when you see these things beginning to take place,” these signs of the end, this distress and darkness and destruction that mark the last days and foreshadow the Last Day, then “straighten up, lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Notice that. Your redemption is drawing near. Not your destruction. Not your demise. Not your death. Your redemption.

Jesus gives a picture. The fig tree in spring and all the trees. The branches fat with sap. The buds ready to burst. The leaves ready to break out because summer is already near. So it is with the kingdom. The world may be sitting in the dead of its winter. The whole creation may be groaning as in labor pains. But the sign Jesus gives to His disciples is not a sign of death but of life. The budding fig tree. Summer is near, even in the dead of winter. “These are but the birth pangs” of the new creation.

We worry, we fret, we doubt, we tremble because we do not believe. We do not trust Jesus or take Him at His Word. And so the end times, eschatology, causes us anxiety. We search for security in the false messiahs, the false Christs, the false religions. We bury our heads under our comfortable security blankets of denial. You can see why Jesus doesn’t tell us the day or even the year. He didn’t tell the Mayans or the editors of the hymnal either. It’s not for us to know the times or the seasons. It is for us to testify when called upon, to flee when necessary, to confess Christ at all times, to straighten up, to lift up our heads and our hearts to God from whom all blessings flow.

Christ is coming soon, even as He comes now in bread and wine and Word. Your redemption is drawing near even as it has already drawn near in your baptismal union with Christ. Your Jesus is drawing near. Heaven and earth will pass away. His words will never pass away. His words of forgiveness, life, and salvation spoken to you will never pass away. Nor will you, dear baptized believer. Not a hair of your head will perish.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Today is Reformation Day, the eve of All Saints, all Hallows Eve, Halloween, and so a little bit of everything this morning. 493 years ago today, an Augustinian friar and professor at Wittenberg University named Martin Luther posted 95 theses in Latin for theological discussion concerning the sale of indulgences on the castle church door, the town bulletin board. And so began what we now call the Reformation of the western catholic church.

When you reform something, you don’t start from scratch. You conserve what you can and you fix what you can’t. Reformations tend to be conservative. It’s like pruning a perennial or trimming a tree. You don’t dig out the whole plant and put another in its place. Nor do you whack down the whole tree to the root. You prune selectively, skillfully, carefully. Luther did not intend to split an already fractured church. Nor did he intend to start a new church, as if such a thing were possible. This was not about shaking a defiant fist at the Pope, though he did do a bit of that later on, nor was it about breaking away from the big bad Catholic Church, nor was it, as the radical reformation believed, some pure church emerging from the impure Catholic. This was supposed to be, and always is, about reformation. Correcting what is wrong, conserving what is right.

And so it is today. The Church is always and ever being reformed. The Lutheran churches. This church. Every part of the church. It’s not simply a once and done deal where you can rest on your laurels. There is always error, always drift, always a little sideways current or wind that blows the Church slightly off course. That’s true for each of us justified sinners too. We are ever in need of reformation. It’s not about once saved always saved or once confirmed always Lutheran or whatever other false security blanket we try to wrap ourselves in. Our Baptism is not a one time thing but a daily thing, a daily dying and rising, a daily justification, a daily reformation.

Jesus spoke to the Jews who had believed in Him. The verse before spoke of many coming to believe in Him. Now we learn of those who no longer believed. They used to, but not any more. There’s no once believed always believing security here. You dare not take the gift of faith lightly. What went wrong? Did God fail? Did the Word fail to do its faith creating, sustaining, enlivening work? No. They refused. They turned from the Word (and you are free to do that). Faith is born of the Word, is fed by the Word, is sustained by the Word. And without the Word, faith dies.

“If you abide in my Word you are truly my disciples.” Being a disciple is not like being a member of a political party or a member of the local gardening club. We can claim any sort of affiliation we want. We can call ourselves “Christian” or even “Lutheran.” But to be a disciple is to abide in the Word of Jesus, that is, to be connected to Jesus by hearing His Word and having His Word have its way with you. The same word “abide” is used in Jesus’ saying of the vine and the branches. A branch abides in the vine and draws life from it. Cut off from the vine, the branch is fruitless and dead. Cut off from the Word, faith is fruitless and dead too.

There is a promise for those who abide in the Word of Jesus. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus Himself is the truth. His Word is truth. To abide in the truth is to abide in Jesus, which is the only place in which a sinner may abide and live before God. The truth is that we are sinners. Not simply ones who commit sin, that is, do bad things, think bad thoughts, say bad words. It goes much deeper than that. We are slaves to Sin with a capital S. “Whoever sins is a slave to Sin.”

Do you sin? Well, in case you’re not sure, the commandments say you do. Do you fear, love, and trust in God above all things? Do you use the name of God rightly in worship and prayer? Do you gladly hear and learn God’s Word? Do you honor father, mother, and other temporal authorities? Do you help you neighbor in every need? Do you keep marriage pure and encourage others to do the same? Do you help your neighbor protect his property? Do you defend the reputation of others by putting the best construction on everything? Do you desire what doesn’t belong to you? Are you content with what you have?

The truth is no, you are a slave to sin, just as Israel was once a slave in Egypt, a fact that the Jews seem to have conveniently forgotten. That’s how it goes. You’re freed from slavery, and then pretty soon you forget you ever were enslaved. “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.” How soon we forget. That’s pride talking, and an unusual form of pride. The worst form of pride which is spiritual pride. It’s receiving a gift and then acting as if you’d earned it all along. Or forgetting entirely that it is a gift, and so also forgetting the giver.

We are born enslaved, captive to Sin and Death. We cannot free ourselves. We’re stuck. And any attempts at self-liberation only make matters worse. When we look into the mirror of the Law we find that it’s a magnifying mirror. Even things we thought were OK, even those places where we felt self-justified turn out to be so riddled with sin we barely recognize the good. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The mere fact that we sin – in our thougts, in our words, in our actions – reminds us that we are slaves to Sin.

A slave remains for a while, a son remains forever. The Son came down to us. The Son joined us in our humanity. The Son stood side by side with the slave to free us. He paid the manumission price. He redeemed us. He did the Law flawlessly and without Sin. He was not enslaved by Sin, He was Lord over Sin. And as Lord, He came under the Law that accuses us, that gives our consciences no rest, that kills us. He took up our Sin and our Death and nailed it all to His cross. The Son became the slave so that the slave might become the son. And if the Son sets you free, you are free as free can be.

That’s what Martin Luther discovered when He looked at the cross of Jesus and for the first time in his life saw mercy rather than merit. Undeserved kindness rather than an example to follow. When he heard that phrase “the righteousness of God” and recognized that this was not something you worked for but something given as a gift through faith. In his fear and despair, he finally heard that the Law of God, no matter how holy and good and just it is, cannot save. It can only drive you to Jesus seeking mercy, which is what it’s supposed to do. The Law is there to shut every mouth so that no one can boast before God. Through the commandment comes knowledge of sin.

But the good news that propelled the Reformation is that God declares the unrighteous to be righteous. God justifies the ungodly. He declares the sinner righteous in the righteousness of Jesus. All have sinned; all fall short of the glory of God; all are justified by God’s grace, a gift, given freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus through faith in His blood.

In Jesus you are free. Free from the commandment. Free from the obligations of the Law. Free from the Law’s condemnation. Free from enslavement to Sin. Free from Death. Free to live before God as a justified sinner. Free to serve your neighbor in love. The slave is made a son, a child, an heir. Should you doubt this and wonder if it applies to you, remember you are baptized. Baptism is your adoption paper. The slave is now a son with the full rights of sons. You have a place at the table. You have a permanent place in the house.

At Luther’s funeral, they cited the verse from Rev 14 about the angel with the eternal Gospel and saw Luther as that angel. It was overblown, certainly. But it was a reminder that God intends for every person from every nation, tribe, language and people to hear this good news and believe it. The Son became a slave to make the slave a son. Humanity finds its freedom and life in Jesus, and every human being must hear it. Not all will believe it. Some will believe it for a while, as the Jews who once believed in Jesus but did so no longer.

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” My dear fellow Lutherans, learn to treasure that sentence like the most precious of gems. That is your blood-bought freedom. That’s what you were baptized into. That’s your place of sonship and inheritance as child of God. That is how a sinner stands before a holy God and lives. God does justice to sin and justifies the sinner. By grace. Through faith not works. All for Jesus’ sake.

Abide in that justifying Word, and you are a disciple of Jesus. Abide in that Word, and you are forgiven. Abide in that Word, and you are free.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

There are many religions of the Law that go by many names with many gods and many ways to those many gods. You may worship a false god or you may worship the true God falsely, it doesn’t matter when it comes to the religion of the Law. The religion of the Law brings death and destruction whether you worship a false god or the true God according to the Law. A natural born, dyed in the wool, sinner cannot be justified by the Law. The Law kills; the commandment condemns. The religion of the Law, though it promises grace and every blessing to all who keep the commandments, ultimately fails to deliver because there is no one who keeps the commandments. Not you, not me, not anyone.

There is one religion of the Gospel, the one that approaches God not by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, not on the basis of what we do, but on the basis of what Jesus has done, not with commandment keeping but with promise believing. There is only one religion that works this way. It’s called Christianity, though admittedly many Christians slip into the religion of the Law and make forgiveness, life, and salvation something we do. Even if our part in it is a tiny part, just a little spark of something good, a little leaning in the right direction, a little helping God along by making the right decision, it’s the religion of the Law and not the Gospel.

Two brothers went out into the field to make a sacrifice to God. Sons of the same mother and father. They both believed in the same God, the God of their father and mother. The elder brother, Cain, worked the soil. He offered God some of the fruit the ground produced. The younger brother, Abel, was a herdsman. He offered the firstborn of his flock, and the very best portions of it. The Lord recognized Abel and his sacrifice; the Lord did not recognize Cain and his. Why? The text of Genesis doesn’t say. The book of Hebrews tells us “by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received approval as righteous, God bearing witness by accepting his gifts.”

It wasn’t the size of the sacrifice, nor was it because Cain offered fruit and Abel offered an animal. There is a hint in the text that Cain’s sacrifice was less than “sacrificial,” simply some of the “fruit of the ground.” A bit like the change left in your pocket, or whatever small bills might be in your wallet. Abel, by contrast, offered the best portions of the firstborn of his flock. It wasn’t the gift but the orientation of the giver that was decisive. Abel’s sacrifice was faithful, full of faith, trust in the promise of God. Cain’s sacrifice was faithless, and “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Both men worshipped the same God. Cain worshipped God according to the religion of the Law and was rejected. Abel worshipped God according to the religion of the Gospel and was received. This precipitated a crisis, and the first holy war. Cain was angry with his brother because the Lord rejected his sacrifice. It wasn’t his brother’s fault, but isn’t that the way it is? We’d rather blame our brother then look at ourselves. And that’s where the religion of the Law will lead, to offering the blood of your brother, if necessary. Anything to justify yourself.

Two men went to the temple to pray. Both were Israelites; both worshipped the same God, the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One man was a Pharisee, a religious man belonging to a very conservative religious party. He was respected by his community, admired for his good works. He worked hard to do the works required by God. He was proud of what he had achieved in his piety, his discipline, his religion. He fasted twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. He have a tenth of everything he took in, right down to the herbs from his garden.

The other man was a publican, a tax collector. He was an Israelite too, though he own people despised him. He worked for the Roman government as a tax agent. He paid the tax of his region to Caesar in return for a license to collect whatever he could from his own people. He was probably fairly well off, had a nice house, threw great parties with his tax collector friends, but he was hated by his fellow Israelites and especially the Pharisees who saw him as a traitor to God and country.

These two men, the Pharisee and the tax collector, went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee, standing off by himself, prayed according to the Law. First, he justifies himself on the back of his fellow man: “God, I think you that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector of there.” Then, he justifies himself on the basis of his own works: I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” And he was certain God agreed with him.

The tax collector also stood alone, far away. He couldn’t even lift his eyes, much less his face to heaven. Instead, he looked at the ground, and beat his breast, and said nothing more than “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” The Pharisee asked for nothing from God; the publican asked for nothing but mercy. The Pharisee came with the record of his good works, and the record was long and impressive. The tax collector came with his sin. The Pharisee offered a tenth of everything he had; the tax collector offered his sinful, broken life.

“I tell you, this man, the one who could not lift his eyes to heaven, the one who prayed for mercy, the tax collector, this man went down to his house justified. Declared righteous. Not the religious Pharisee, but the sinful tax collector. He went home justified by God. The big Lutheran word. By grace, God’s undeserved kindness. Through faith, trust in the promise that God justifies the ungodly solely on the basis of His promise of mercy delivered for Christ’s sake. The publican worshipped God in the way of the Gospel, through faith in God’s promise, and God justified him.

If you exalt yourself with the Law, you will be humbled. You will be revealed to be a sinner, the chief of sinners. No matter how religious you may be, the Law will always accuse you, always humble you, always shut your mouth, amplify your sin, and ultimately kill you. That’s what the Law does to sinners. If you attempt to worship God according the Law, to earn His favor with your commandment keeping, your piety, your good works, your religion, you will not be justified but condemned. Even if you worship the true God, it doesn’t matter, because to worship God in the way of the Law is to treat God like an idol. Not good.

That means it is pointless to argue whether Jews or Muslims worship the true God or not. It doesn’t matter. They worship according to the religion of the Law, seeking the righteousness of God through works rather than trust. It also means that even those who call themselves Christians, and that includes you and me, slip into the same religion – the religion of Cain and of the Pharisee – whenever we seek to earn God’s favor by way of the Law instead of the Gospel, by what we do instead of what God in Christ has done for us.

If you are humbled under the Law you will be exalted. Like the tax collector who went home justified; like Abel whose martyr’s blood testified from the ground to the promise of God. God justifies the ungodly, not the already godly. He forgives sinners, not saints. He acquits the guilty, not the innocent. Don’t hide your sins. Don’t compare yourself favorably to others. Don’t boast before God of what you’ve done for Him lately. And by all means don’t attempt to justify yourself before the cross of Jesus. Confess your sins. Own them; they’re yours. Come to God not with an arm load of good works over which to brag, but with empty open arms, like a beggar, eager to receive.

Notice what the next thing is in our Gospel. What happens right after Jesus tells this parable? Luke tells us that people were bringing infants, yes infants, tiny babies in arms to Jesus that He might touch them and bless them. What did those squirming, crying, helpless infants have to offer Jesus? There is nothing more “useless” than an infant, if you are are concerned with “doing.” It’s a waste of Jesus’ precious time. He’s got a kingdom to build and people are bringing newborn babies to Jesus. When the disciples see it, they rebuke those parents for wasting Jesus’ time.

But you see, it’s the infants, the helpless, that worship in the way of the Gospel. They can’t do the Law. They can’t speak, they can’t move on their own. We can’t do the Law either, and in truth, we are in no better shape than those helpless babies who have to be brought to Jesus. But Jesus says, “No, let these children come to me and don’t get in their way, for to such helpless ones as these belongs the kingdom of God.” Infants!

If you didn’t before, you now understand “infant Baptism.” Infants are the perfect targets for Baptism. They are ready-made beggars, utterly helpless. Everything has to be done for them. They even have to be brought. They can’t bring themselves. It’s adults who have to be taught into infancy so that they can be baptized as infants too. In fact, you might say that all Baptism is infant Baptism, even when it happens to an adult. It’s not that infants are inherently good, they’re not. They’re infected with Sin like the rest of us. It’s that they are receivable, utterly giveable to. “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” That’s why Luther said that the baptism of an infant is a perfect picture of our salvation – the child does nothing, God does everything.

Baptism is precisely how believing parents bring their infants to Jesus for a blessing. Where else are you going to go? Where are you going to bring your babies so Jesus might touch them? To the font, to Baptism.

You have been baptized into the religion of the Gospel. You have been declared dead to Sin and dead to the Law and its religion. Yours is the worship of Abel who offered the faith-full sacrifice in view of Christ’s sacrifice. Yours is the religion of the publican, who could not lift his eyes to heaven but sought the mercy of God in Christ. Yours is the religion of the tiny infant in the arms of Jesus, receiving the kingdom.

And in this religion of the Gospel, of trust in the free promise of life in Christ, you go home justified.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Jesus told a parable about persistence in prayer. It comes immediately after Jesus’ teaching His disciples about the suddenness and speediness of His coming, and how there will be no time to get things in order, and how for the remainder of this life they should be like a bunch of buzzards and live off His death, for “where the body is, there the vultures will gather.”

The end times, the times in which we live, and have been living in ever since Jesus sat down to reign over all things at the right hand of the Father almost 2000 years asgo, is a time that calls for persistent prayer. And it is easy to lose heart and become discouraged, especially as we believers see things going from bad to worse to downright evil, as we see the very fabric of culture and society being torn to shreds, as even the Church, the bulwark of truth, seems to be riddled with error, deception, complacency, and downright weirdness. I’m willing to guess that there isn’t one person in this room who hasn’t thought at one time or another, “What’s the point of prayer?” If God does what He wants anyway, if He never seems to answer my prayers, why even bother?

To our end-times anxiety, Jesus tells this parable. In a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. A rogue judge, probably on the take, in it only for himself. Jesus seems to have a penchant for having disagreeable characters as the central figures of his parables as he heads to Jerusalem. First the faithless steward who was fired, now the crooked judge. All to underscore that grace is governing here, not merits, works, or even general likeablility. We may not like the judge, but we have to deal with him.

There was a widow in the city who kept coming to him seeking justice against her adversary. Over and over she kept coming to this judge, who had no regard for her or for justice, but she persisted because he was the only way that she could be vindicated over her adversary. She would not take no for an answer, and even though the judge kept postponing her case, she just kept coming to court. Finally, the judge says to himself, “Even though I could not care less about God, justice, or this woman, I will vindicate her, judge in her favor, or she’s going to grind me to the dust with her constant appeals.” Her persistent petitions are rewarded; the judge, crooked and lazy though he is, grants her justice.

“Listen to what the unrighteous judge is saying,” Jesus tell us. Pay attention. This is an example from lesser to greater. God is not some crooked judge on the take. He is righteous and holy and infinitely wise as well as just. But if this is how it goes with a judge who couldn’t care less, how much more will it be for God who delights in forgiving sins and justifying the ungodly? “Will not God vindicate (that is, do justice) for His elect ones who cry to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them? I tell you, He will do justice for them quickly.” As quickly as it takes to get Jesus to Jerusalem to die, that’s how quickly. And Jesus is on the expressway, the straight path to the cross with eyes fixed on Jerusalem like a runner sighting the finish line.

God didn’t send His Son to hang dead on a cross to save you so that He could ignore you in your time of need. He didn’t command you to pray so that He could turn a deaf ear to your prayers. You are His Child, His chosen and elect one. You are baptized, joined to Jesus in Baptism to His death and life. You have the privilege of calling upon God as your Father. “As dear children come to their dear Father in heaven.”

Every prayer uttered by a baptized believer will be vindicated by God. That’s the promise of this parable. Even if every one of your prayers has been met with nothing but stony silence, they will be vindicated in your justification before God and your resurrection from the dead. Every petition for health, for wholeness, for peace, for life has its answer in the death and resurrection of Jesus and will be granted you in your resurrection. And speedily. As speedily as the coming of Jesus at the end when He comes to judge the living and the dead and give to His elect ones, His baptized believers, eternal life.

I think we too often take an atomistic view of prayer rather than a wholistic view. By “atomistic” I mean looking at prayer in terms of favors asked and granted. You ask for this and God gives you what you ask for. And then you keep score, at least in the back of your mind, to see what your percentage is. Kind of like a batting average. The higher, the better. But the Scripture does not describe prayer in this way. God never promises to give you what you ask for. Rather He promises that your prayers will be answered by His giving you the Holy Spirit, a peace that surpasses your understanding, and His doing justice for you, namely His justifying you and forgiving you.

So it’s not as though one prayer is answered yes, another no, another not now. But all your prayers and petitions that you’ve ever uttered are all bundled together as one and answered “yes” in Jesus. God will do justice to your crying out to Him night and day, and He will do it quite quickly. “Call upon me in the day trouble,” He says, “And I will deliver you.” You see? It doesn’t mean you’ll get bailed out of every scrape by some divine hand reaching down from heaven and plucking you out of danger. But you will be delivered, ultimately and finally and completely, in your deliverance from death in your resurrection. And you have already been delivered in the resurrection of Jesus in your trust in Him.

Prayer is a “trust fund,” in which we dump all our cares and concerns, acting in trust (ie faith) that our Father in heaven hears us for Jesus’ sake and will act on our prayers according to His good and gracious will to save. And that trust (ie faith) is ultimately vindicated when you rise to eternal life. Then you will see how your prayers have been woven into a glorious tapestry of God’s goodness, and you’ll be amazed at how God has been attentive to your every need usually without your even noticing it.

Our OT reading gives a great image for persistent prayer – Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob was on his way to meet his brother Esau, with whom he had not spoken for years since tricking his father into blessing him as the firstborn. As he encamped in the wilderness, he was “mugged” by a guy who turned out to be God (Christ?) who wrestled with him until the sun came up. And Jacob manages to pin God down demanding a blessing. That’s how faith prays. It wrestles with God and pins Him down, holding Him to His promises.

Notice that jacob didn’t come away unscathed. With a touch, God threw his hip out of joint to remind Jacob with whom he was wrestling. The one he pinned down was considerably stronger. The One we wrestle with and pin down in prayer is considerably mightier and wiser than we are. It’s kind of like when you were little and wrestled with your Dad on the ground and he let you win. In prayer, God lets us wrestle with Him a bit, and lets us pin Him down, so we learn petition by petition to trust Him with everything.

Jacob got a new name that day in the wilderness. Israel. One who “wrestles with God.” That’s what Israel as a nation was – a unique and peculiar people who singularly wrestled with God for the sake of the world’s salvation. That’s what Jesus came in our flesh to do – to wrestle with God on our behalf, to be willing to be pinned down by the Law so that we would be blessed as children of God. That’s who you are in your Baptism, one who is called to wrestle with God and be blessed by Him, even if it means that you walk with a limp for a while because God’s put your hip out of joint.

In the end, every one of your prayers, ever petition, every sigh and groaning of yours will be vindicated. God will do justice to your prayers in justifying you. “For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation and every other blessing.”

“Nevertheless,” Jesus asks, “when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” That’s the end-times question posed to us. Will we trust the verdict rendered on Calvary’s cross and spoken to us in our Baptism? Will we trust that God justifies the ungodly in Jesus and that we, chief of sinners though we are, are covered by the righteousness of Christ? Will we trust that Baptism now saves us and rest in that salvation won for us by Jesus?

That’s Jesus’ concern for the end-times. That’s why He has a church and ministers who preach HIs good news and administer His Body and Blood. That’s why He poured out His Spirit and breathed out the Scriptures, to make us “wise to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Jesus is as focused today on your faith in Him as He was focused on the cross to win your salvation. Don’t say, “I can’t believe” because faith is God’s work. And that trust will be vindicated, as will every word of prayer spoken in trust, on the day of His appearing, the day of your resurrection.

Will He find faith on the earth? Yes, He will. He will find you, dear baptized believer. And He will justify you speedily.

In the Name of Jesus,
Amen

Of these two men, which would you rather be? The one with the nice suits, the expensive cars, the servants, the Mediterranean vacations, the fine food and wine? Or the one who had to be carried because he couldn’t walk? Who had to beg because he couldn’t work? Whose body was covered with painful sores and whose only physicians were the dogs who licked his sores? Who looked through the window at the rich man’s table and longed to be a dog at his feet, lapping up the the table scraps?

Which of these two men would you say was blessed by God? Be honest. You’d say the rich man. He could count his blessings. It would take the fingers of both hands and his toes, but he had blessings to count. Good things. Lots of stuff. And the poor beggar, whose name was Lazarus, he had nothing. Blessed by God? Hardly! We might suspect he was cursed by God, that he did something to deserve this lot in life. And there we would be very wrong.

This parable comes at the end of a chunk of teaching where Jesus wants to loosen our grip on our money. He starts with the parable of the unjust money manage who used his money shrewdly to make friends while he still had time. He goes on to observe that when it comes to money, the people of this age tend to be a lot smarter than the children of light, that means believers, which includes you. He then observes that how you handle little things like money is a barometer for how you handle big riches like salvation and eternal life. He warns that no one can serve two masters. You will either love money and hate God, or love God and hate money, but you can’t love and serve them both. As believers, you are servants of God and masters of money. And finally, Jesus reminds the Pharisees, who loved money, that what man esteems, God despises, and if you want to be on the same page with God, you better let go of your death grip on money before it drags you like a lead anchor into the depths of hell.

And then comes the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. As He does with many parables, Jesus paints this one in black and white. There is a man who is filthy rich who has a filthy beggar lying at his gate. We know the name of the poor man: Lazarus. It’s also the name of one of Jesus’ best friends, the brother of Mary and Martha whom Jesus raised from the dead. We don’t know the name of the rich man. Nor apparently does Jesus, or perhaps he’s forgotten him with the words, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

Both men died. Death is the great equalizer. Rich and poor die alike. The rich die more comfortably perhaps, but rich and poor die alike. And then comes the big surprise. The great reversal of fortunes. In death everything gets turned upside down. The rich man loses everything; the poor man gains everything. The rich man becomes the beggar; the beggar becomes the rich man. The one who was blessed is cursed; the one who was cursed is blessed. Go figure.

Lazarus, who was carried every day of his miserable life to the gate of the rich man, is now carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. “Bosom of Abraham” is a Jewish euphemism for what we usually call “heaven” or what Jesus called Paradise. Let’s agree not to speculate too much about this and just let the parable speak for itself. Lazarus is in a good place, comforted, whole, happy, hanging with Abraham.

The rich man is in Hades, a bad place, a place of torment. The worst of the torment is that he can see Lazarus hanging with Abraham, just as Lazarus used to look through the rich man’s window at dinner time. And the rich man, who was used to ordering servants around all his life, now tries to order Lazarus to please fetch him a drink because it’s damn hot down here. At the very least, just dip the end of his finger in some water to cool my tongue. Lazarus used to long for the crumbs; the rich man now longs for a cooling finger.

And the hell of it all is that there is chasm, this huge gap the size of the Grand Canyon, that prevents that cooling finger from ever reaching the rich man’s burning tongue. The distance between the rich man’s table and Lazarus was considerably shorter, just a few feet.

The parable illustrates what Jesus spoke of earlier. “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous Mammon, that is, your money, so that when it fails (and when you die), they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” The rich man did not do what the shrewd money manager did. He didn’t invest in the mouth of Lazarus. He loved his money; he hated God. Perhaps he didn’t even bother to think about God much less trust him. Why trust God when you have everything anyway?

A recent study from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School found that money can indeed buy happiness, up to about $75,000. Beyond $75K people aren’t any more happy, $75 K can buy you happiness. That’s rich by a global standard. And if you were to ask the rich man and Lazarus in their lives who was happy, I’m sure the rich man was quite happy in his purple robes sipping his Robert Mondavi and snacking on fois gras. And I seriously doubt that Lazarus was happy, believer though he was, and we know he was a believer by where he ended up, since Abraham is the father of those who believe.

But when money fails, and it always ultimately fails, when you drop dead and all your hard-earned money gets fought over by your deadbeat kids, the happiness that money brings dies with it. And then what? The rich man in his unbelief winds up an eternal beggar, worse off than Lazarus. And the poor man in his faith has the comforts of Abraham.

Of course, there are no atheists in Hades. And suddenly, the rich man, maybe for the first time in his life, takes an interest in someone else and is interested in evangelism of all things. He has five brothers. They’re rich too, most likely. He doesn’t want them to wind up the same way. “Please send Lazarus to warn them.” Now he wants to bring Lazarus back from the dead because that will make an impression but would be a major bummer for Lazarus. Can you imagine being recalled from the bosom of Abraham? Ironically, Jesus actually did raise a man named Lazarus from the dead, and it didn’t do any good. They plotted to kill Lazarus too because he was making a big name for Jesus.

“They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” They have the Word written and preached. It’s there for them in church, waiting to be heard. That’s all they need to avoid the fate of the rich man. That’s all the rich man needed, and he had it all his wealthy life. Who knows? Perhaps the rich was there every Sabbath in the synagogue sitting in his place of honor as one of the pillars of he congregation. Perhaps he heard the Word every Sabbath because that’s where everyone else was and no one was doing business. Sadly, he is the weedy soil in Jesus’ parable of the four-fold soil, where the seed of the Word is planted but never takes root because the riches and cares of this world choke it out with busy calendars and commitments and concerns. Jesus said it’s easier to pull a camel through the eye of a needle than to squeeze a rich man into the kingdom. This rich man would agree.

Even if someone should rise from the dead (ie Lazarus), they still would not be convinced if they reject the Word, Moses and the Prophets. Resurrections are impressive, but even the greatest miracle won’t produce even mustard-seed sized faith without the Word. Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ – the word of forgiveness in Jesus’ name, the word delivered in Baptism and Supper. The Word that declares a sinner justified before God solely for Jesus’ sake.

Which one would you like to be? The rich man or Lazarus? And the parable won’t let you have it both ways. Would you rather be poor in this life and rich in the life to come or rich in this life only to spend an eternity parted from every comfort in this life?

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” “We are all beggars, this is true,” Luther said at the end of his life. We are all Lazarus – helpless and hopeless in our poverty, sick unto death, longing to even eat the crumbs that fall from God’s table. Lazarus is each of us, and unless we see ourselves in him, we cannot be saved. We won’t want to be saved.

Unlike the rich man in the parable, Jesus comes to us in our poverty. “Though He was rich, yet for our sakes, He became poor that we through His poverty might become rich.” He came to us in the poverty of our sin and death. He came to us, condemned under the Law to an eternity of misery. He came to us when we were unable to help ourselves. He took on our weak and diseased and fallen humanity, and He lifted us up from the curb and brought us to His house and washed our wounds with His Baptism and gave us a seat at His table, not as pathetic beggars but as beloved friends, not as strangers but as one of the family, not to eat the crumbs that fall from the table to feast on the abundance of salvation that Jesus has won for you.

The rich man’s brothers had Moses and the Prophets. You have more – the apostles and evangelists. The Word and the Sacrament. You are as rich as Lazarus.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

There are Sundays when the lectionary readings make me wish I could just pick my own text or maybe do a nice sermon series on some benign self-improvement theme. Today is one of them. The Gospel has a bunch of sayings of Jesus all clustered around the uncomfortable topic of your money, calling it “unrighteous Mammon” and capping it off with a parable of a crooked money manager who is praised for being shrewd.

The OT reading, which is paired to the Gospel, has the Amos blasting away at the Israelite businessmen of the north for not being able to stay away from the business deals long enough to worship and reminding them that the Lord won’t forget either their greed or their crooked dealings.

The epistle, which is not connected to the Gospel or the OT, is from 1 Timothy starts off great with a reminder that’s God’s will and desire is to save every single human being through the one Mediator who is Jesus Christ, His Son. But then he goes on to give instructions regarding prayer, women dressing modestly including a criticism of braided hair and pearls, and an admonition that women learn in silent submission and not hold pastoral authority in the church.

Given the choices, what’s a preacher to do? Let’s talk about money, shall we?

First the parable. Jesus is telling this parable to His disciples in the hearing of the Pharisees, who, according to Luke, were lovers of money. A certain rich man had a money manager who was sitting on his assets, wasting his possessions, and generally not doing his job. And so the rich man calls him in, demands the books, and fires him on the spot. On his way back to the office to retrieve the books, the manager does a bit of his own accounting and realizes he’s got a bit of a problem. When the word gets out that he’s been fired, no one will hire him as a manager, he’s too out of shape from sitting at a desk to dig, and he’s too proud to beg.

So he devises a clever little plan. Before anyone hears about his being fired, the manager goes to some of the rich man’s tenants, possibly deadbeat tenants who weren’t paying their rent any way, and begins to discount their bills. One owes a hundred measures of oil. He says, “Quick, take your bill and write fifty.” Another owes a hundred measures of wheat, and he says, “Write eighty.”

Two possibilities exist. Either the manager is giving up his cut or he’s discounting his former master’s contracts. In either case, he’s making friends on borrowed time because as soon as the word gets out that he’s been fired all bets are off. And the master (or the Lord, you can’t tell) commends (yes, commends!) this faithless manager for his shrewdness. Jesus notes that the sons of this world are a heck of a lot shrewder in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light, ie believers or citizens of the kingdom.

What makes the manager shrewd is that he rightly assessed the urgency of the situation and he acted on it, cashing in on his master’s name and reputation while there was still time, so that when he was unemployed he wouldn’t wind up sleeping in the streets since now he had some new friends.

Just so, Jesus says, use your “unrighteous mammon” to gain eternal friends so that when it fails, and it will ultimately and eventually fail, you will have lots of eternal friends who will welcome you into eternal dwellings. Now this is not to say that you get into heaven by giving away your money, though your money, as idolatrous mammon, can certainly keep you out. It means that you are masters of your money and servants of the Lord, “for you cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve both God and mammon.” One has to give.

This gets to the principal reason behind the idea of offering. We try to make it practical by looking at budgets, expenses, needs, assets and liabilities, but that’s not really the point. That’s the temporal side of things, which is important, but only in a temporal sort of way. The chief purpose of offering is to loosen our grip on our money lest it become mammon, an idol, in our hands. In other words, the way to prevent wealth from becoming an idol is to give it away, show it who’s the boss, order it around. Tell it to help that poor man, or feed that hungry man. It means that we use wealth that we have not in view of this life but in view of the eternal life that is ours in Jesus.

Wealth fails, just as our health will fail and our life will fail, Inevitably, inexorably. The current economic events tell us this. Money, investments, pension funds are not the place to put your faith, hope, and trust. It will fail and it will drag you down with it. Only the Word of the Lord endures forever. The treasure that endures is the treasure of heaven, not of this world. And so we handle the wealth of this world as citizens of heaven who deal in eternal currency whose value is determined by the Son of God who loved us and shed His blood to save us.

You can tell much about the faith condition of a person by how he handles his wealth. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Jesus said on another occasion. If you want to see where your heart is, follow the money. You may be surprised at the outcome as you see all the idols to whom you sacrifice. Look at the register of your checkbook or the listing of your charge card. It will tell you where your heart is and what your servant has been up to lately.

Faithfulness in little means faithfulness in much. Faithfulness in things temporal reflects faithfulness in things eternal. If you haven’t been a faithful steward of something as fleeting as money, why should God entrust you with eternal treasures? And the answer is that He shouldn’t. The reality is that our hearts are divided, and we indeed try to serve two masters hoping they don’t recognize one another. We put in our God-time like the Israelites of Amos’ day, and then it’s back to business as usual.

Jesus nailed the Pharisees that day in their love of money. “You justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” He knows what’s going on with us. He knows ours fears, loves, and trusts. And what we exalt and hold so high, He considers abominable, putting us in roughly the same position as that manager in the parable who was asked to turn in the books. Imagine a heavenly audit of the books of your life, a close examination at how you handled your money and what you did with it. Whom do you serve – God or Mammon? Do you use your wealth or are you used by it? Does money serve you or do you serve it?

Jesus was tempted by Mammon. The devil dangled all the riches and glories of this world in front of Jesus for one moment of faithlessness, one bit of worship. “All these are yours if you bow down and worship me.” Jesus resisted. “You will worship the Lord your God, and HIm alone will you serve,” He said. Jesus was faithful. He served His Father alone with a single-minded service. He did it in our humanity, as one of us, on our behalf.

Where we love wealth, Jesus loved God. Where we pursue comfort, He went to the cross. Where we look for profit and gain, Jesus took loss. Where we gladly bow down to the devil for little more than a sampling of this world’s riches, Jesus renounced this world’s riches and worshipped God. Where we are faithless in little, He is faithful in much. Where we exalt power and wealth and fame, He exalts righteousness and faithfulness and love.

What is exalted among men is despised by God. And it is conversely true as well, what is exalted by God is despised by men. Jesus, crucified, risen, and reigning at the Father’s right hand, highly exalted in the sight of God yet despised and ridiculed in the sight of men. That a sinner is justified before God not by who he is or by what he does but solely by trust in who Jesus is and what He has done. This is despised by men and esteemed by God.

In the end, and there is a coming end, when the wealth of this world fails, when the global economy collapses under the weight of its own greed, when the idol of Mammon is finally exposed as the worthless fraud that it is, when you have lost everything including your own life, there at that end is only Jesus who will not fail you, welcoming you into an eternal dwelling that He won for you by trading out His life for your life.

You are baptized into Him. His life is yours. His faithfulness is yours. HIs kingdom is yours. You literally have nothing to lose, even if you die as a beggar like Lazarus (which, by the way, is the parable that follows this one). Having nothing to lose, being dead to this world and dead to self, turns out to be the freest position there is. Look at that parable once again. Notice that only when the manager had lost his job and had nothing to lose did he actually do his job. Had he been that aggressive with his master’s money all along, he wouldn’t have been fired in the first place.

It’s like the parable of the man in the ditch and the good Samaritan. Only one who is free from the Law can actually do the Law. Only as you are free from your wealth and hold it freely in a dead hand of faith, can you actually master it as you serve God.

You are that free, dear baptized child of God. In Christ, you have the riches of heaven laid up in trust for you. In Christ, you have an eternal dwelling that awaits you. In Christ, you hold citizenship in a country that will never fall. In Christ, you are a servant of God and master of your Money. This calls for shrewdness, the shrewdness of faith that cashes in on the good name of Jesus and lives as though you have nothing to lose.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Now we hear that and almost chuckle. Duh. C’mon. Jesus came to save sinners, didn’t He? So wouldn’t it stand to reason that He might take a bit of time to eat with them prior to saving them? Ah, but for the Pharisees and the scribes, Jesus was not the Savior of sinners but a radical rabbi with a suspect teaching. Someone to be watched closely, investigated, tested. A proper Messiah (in their way of thinking) would not keep the kind of company Jesus kept. Tax collectors, prostitutes, riff-raff of all sorts. No respectable rabbi would want to be seen in such company for fear his picture would be all over the Jerusalem tabloids.

Just think of what happens when a politician is seen having drinks with a mafia kingpin. Or a minister is seen talking to prostitutes and strippers. You assume the worst, don’t you? And, you’re usually right. When the clean comes in contact with the unclean, the clean becomes unclean, right? Put a good kid into a party frat house, and guess who influences whom? Those with whom you assemble, you soon will begin to resemble, as you slide the slippery slope down the path of least resistance to the least common moral denominator.

But Jesus is not worried about propriety, nor is He concerned about becoming unclean by coming into contact with sinners. In fact, it’s just the opposite. He makes the unclean clean. He touches the leper, and the leper is cleansed. He has fellowship with the sinner, and the sinner is justified. That’s the second thing the Pharisees, the scribes, and the other religious types did not accept – that they were sinners. No different, in fact, than the tax collectors, prostitutes, and riff-raff at whom they looked down their religious noses. You see, unless you see yourself as a sinner, as the apostle Paul says, “the chief of sinners,” you will have no use for Jesus as Savior. It’s really as simple as that. Those who do not know their sin and fear the judgment of the Law have no use for Jesus’ forgiveness and the justification that comes by grace through faith for Jesus’ sake.

Jesus loves the company of sinners because He came to save sinners. They are HIs stock in trade. His specialty. His cup of tea. If you have no sin, if you have kept God’s law perfectly in thought, word, deed, and desire, then you have no need or use for Jesus. And while the Pharisees and scribes didn’t think they were perfect, they did think they weren’t that bad, that the righteousness God demands was within their reach if they just followed the right set of rules.

Jesus tells them a parable. It’s actually a kind of parabolic triptych, three parables built around the theme of lostness, seeking, finding, and rejoicing – a lost sheep, a lost coin, and in the third parable which you didn’t hear this morning, a lost son.

“Who among you having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” I have to assume that the other ninety-nine are under someone’s watch, otherwise you’ll have 99 lost sheep by the time you get back. So assuming the ninety-nine are safe, the shepherd goes off searching for the lost one, and when he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders and gives it a free ride back to the flock. And then he’s so caught up in rejoicing over finding his lost sheep that he throws a party for his friends and neighbors, which probably involves roasting one of the sheep, probably not the one who wandered.

“Or what woman having 10 silver coins, if she loses one, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?” Well, at least with that one, we know the other nine coins are safe and sound, but the pattern is the same. The lost are diligently sought, and when found, there is rejoicing and a big party, which likely costs more than the silver coin that was lost in the first place.

Now if you roll the video back on the parables for a second, there is an alternative that many, if not all, would take. It’s the practical, pragmatic alternative. A wandering sheep is likely to wander again anyway, and 99 safe and sound in the flock aren’t worth abandoning for the sake of one who loves to wander. So just right it off as a dead sheep and forget about it. Tend to the ninety-nine instead. And a lost coin is pretty much a dead asset, especially if you’re going to waste the better part of a weekend looking for it.

But that’s not how God works, and that’s the point. He wants all to be saved, not just many or most. He wants all one hundred sheep in his pasture. He wants all ten coins in his coffers. He takes the initiative to seek and to save the lost in their lostness. In fact, it’s the lost that command Jesus attention. That’s why He came, to save a lost humanity that was wandering in the wilderness of sin and death, unable to save itself, just waiting to be damned forever. Jesus came from heaven, from the comfortable right hand of the Father to seek and save lost humanity.

You are the lost sheep. “All we like sheep have gone astray,” Isaiah says. “Everyone has turned to his own way.” And Jesus, the Suffering Servant of God, Jesus, the Son of God, sought us, when we sought Him not. He came to find us in our death, to place us on His shoulders and take us through the wilderness back to God. You are that valuable to God, chief of sinners though you be. God refused to write you off as a dead asset, but instead made you the object of His seeking and saving love. He baptized you, and there you were found, placed on the Savior’s shoulders, welcomed as a child of God and a citizen of heaven. God turned over every rug, He looked under every pillow and sofa cushion, He turned the world upside down in order to find you in your lostness. And in finding you, in having you joined to Jesus in your Baptism, there was rejoicing among the angels in heaven.
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who needs no repentance.” And you may as well put quotation marks around those 99 “righteous persons who need no repentance” because there aren’t any. The Pharisees and scribes and the religious types thought they were, and they were dead wrong. They were as lost as anyone. In whittling God’s law down to a bunch of rules and regulations, they had lost sight of their own sinfulness, their own utter lostness. They would have seen themselves as the 99 good sheep that didn’t wander, the 9 coins safely in the bank, the good son who always did his father’s will.

Here’s the Gospel kicker for the day: Jesus delights in sinners. Not quote/unquote “sinners” but real dyed in the wool wandering sheep. They are the sole object of His saving gaze. They are the joy set before Him that He should endure the cross and scorn its shame. They are the reason that Jesus ate with sinners in the first place. He was giving the world a picture of what heaven is like: a bunch of wandering sheep and lost coins and wayward sons enjoying fellowship with God for no other reason than Jesus found them in His death.

That’s grace, my friends. Undeserved kindness. The apostle Paul wrote, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. He talks about his past, how he was an ignorant blasphemer and persecutor and stubborn opponent of God’s mercy and will to save in Jesus. But then, on a road to Damascus, he received mercy rather than judgment, the kindness of God washed over him in Baptism stirring up faith and love. The wayward sheep was found resting on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd. And notice that Paul emphatically keeps it in the present tense: Christ died for sinners of whom I AM chief. Not was. Am.

There’s a movement afoot in these days when Christianity seems to be reinvented on a weekly basis in some churches, that says that Christians are sinners. That once you believe, you are no longer a sinner in God’s eyes and therefore shouldn’t call yourself one either. That only unbelievers and those who reject God’s mercy in Christ, like the Pharisees, are actually sinners. One blogger writes: “The term sin/sinner is an identity marker that belongs to the past lives of all who follow Jesus. Sinners are people who are still trapped in UNgrace. Their words and deeds advertise a 24/7@365 addiction to thoughts, words and deeds of UNgrace.”

The “addiction to Ungrace” (whatever that means) remains. We are at once sinner and saints. Sinners in ourselves, saints in Christ. Lost in ourselves, found in Christ. And it is as sinners that God justifies us, that God calls us to be His own, that God welcomes us to His table, that there is rejoicing among the angels in heaven over one poor, miserable, sinner – YOU – than over a world load of people who refuse to be called “sinner.”

“Behold I, I myself, will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” He sought you, and He found you, Sinner. Yes, sinner. That’s who Jesus is seeking. Sinners. That’s who Jesus welcomes to His table. Sinners. Even the chief of sinners. And there is rejoicing among the angels in heaven over every sinner that comes to the feast of salvation, riding on the shoulders of God’s grace in Jesus.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Now the temptation in today’s Gospel reading from Luke would be to label this “the cost of discipleship.” Hardly encouraging words! Jesus is talking about hating, yes hating, one’s own family – father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters. Wow! Just when you think that Christians are supposed to be focused on the family, Jesus comes along and says you have to hate your family in order to follow Him. This is definitely one of those passages that the atheist types love to parade around to show how crazy religion, and specifically Christianity, can be. On the one hand you’re supposed to love your enemies, and then on the other hand, you have to hate your family. On the one hand you are commanded to honor father and mother, and then on the other hand, you are told you must hate father and mother along with the rest of clan.

And if that’s not bad enough, it gets even worse. Not only your family, but also your own life. The life God gave you in the first place, the life we cling to with all our, well – life, Jesus now wants you to renounce and even hate in order to be His disciples. It’s a wonder Jesus had any disciples left at all after this. He puts it as bluntly as possible. “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” While crucifixions have fallen from favor as cruel and unusual punishment, the metaphor still holds quite nicely. Crosses kill. They’re inevitably fatal. This isn’t some sort of superficial flesh wound of self-mortification Jesus is talking about here, like giving up chocolate or bacon or cheese for Lent. This is plain as day dropping dead to your entire life – your family, your friends, your health, wealth, loves, and everything you can’t possibly live without. “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

We’re not talking inconvenience here. We’re talking dropping dead. We’re not talking about enduring a random insult or having one’s civil rights taken away or having the family disinherit you because you are a Christian. Well, maybe the last part. Jesus is talking about losing your life, everything you are, everything you have, your entire life support system, in order to save your life.

And to drive the point home, He fires off a couple of rhetorical parables about counting the cost. Who among you, desiring to build a tower, or say, a home in the hills, doesn’t count the cost to make sure he has enough to complete the project? And you know the embarrassment when the foundation is laid, the walls are half built and the project comes to a grinding halt due to lack of funds. Karen and I rode our bicycles past such a house in St. Louis when we were living there. Nothing grinds a building project to a halt better or faster than a divorce. Just as the McCourts.

Or, what king goes out to encounter another king in war without first calculating whether his ten thousand troops can stand up to his enemy’s twenty thousand? And if not, then he sends a peace delegation post haste. It’s all pretty much common sense. And so in the same way, in the very words of Jesus, “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, who does not hate father, mother, husband, wife, children, even his own life, cannot be my disciple.”

Any volunteers?

Remember to whom Jesus is speaking. The crowds. The great hordes of humanity that were following Jesus all over the place, seeking miracles, favors, special dispensations, and other divine favors because Jesus was dishing them out left and right. There were the looky-los and the religiously curious. There were the theology wonks and people trying to trap Jesus in HIs own words. Jesus couldn’t go anywhere without drawing this sort of crowd. But did they have any idea where He was heading?

Therein lies the key. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, to His cross, to His atoning death as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He has counted the cost. He’s run the numbers in collaboration with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He was going to depart from the right hand of the Father, empty Himself of HIs divine honor and glory, humble Himself under His own Law as the obedient Servant of the Lord, take up His cross and die on it to redeem lost and sinful humanity from sin, death, devil, and the condemnation of the Law. He was going to build His church, laying the foundation by His own death and resurrection. He was going to do battle with Sin, Death, and devil, not with an army of soldiers willing to die for the cause, but entirely on His own. Not 20,000 versus 10,000 but singlehandedly. He had counted the cost, and did not consider it something to be grasped but laid down His life to save the world.

So while everyone else is bugging Jesus for some little favor to make this life a little easier and a little more convenient and a little less painful and stressful, Jesus was taking up the ultimate battle to win our eternal life with God, to restore fallen humanity to the image of God, to bring us up from death to life. He renounced all – family, friends, wealth, power, influence, His whole life. To save us. To save you.

Jesus counted the cost of your salvation, and considered you worth the price of HIs Blood. Not with gold or silver were you purchased and won for God, but with the holy precious Blood and the innocent suffering and death of Jesus, so that you may be God’s own, a child of God, and live under Him in HIs kingdom, and serve Him in His everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness that He gives you as a free gift of His grace.

Here’s the truth: None of us would be disciples of Jesus if we counted the cost. We’d never dig the foundation. We’d never send the troops to battle. We’re dead. Born dead in sin. We can’t free ourselves and no amount of cost accounting and bookkeeping is going to help.

You want to build a tower to God like they tried to do at Babel? Good luck! Our stairways to heaven fall far short of the glory of God and simply become a laughingstock among the religious. You want to do battle with Sin, Death, and devil? You want to deal with the wrath of God under the Law on your own terms? Count the cost, and see if you have enough to justify yourself. You don’t.

Your cross won’t save you. It will kill you. Simply dying doesn’t save you. Dying in Christ is what saves you. Being buried with Christ is what saves you. Being joined to Him through Baptism into His death on His cross saves you. “Hating your life” in this life means letting go of your life as you hold it so that you can receive it as Christ hold it. Renouncing your life means letting go of your control of it recognizing that Christ has better control of it. Hating father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, does not mean dishonoring them or doing evil to them, or even feeling negatively toward them.

This is not about “hate” the feeling. This is about the two ways of having things – the way of death and the way of life. We can hold things, including our own life, in a death grip, and in the end we will lose everything. Or we can recognize that God in Christ holds these things for us in a way that we cannot, and instead hold everything with an open, dead hand of faith. That’s the way of life- loving the Lord, hearkening to His voice, holding fast to Him in faith. “For He is your life,” as Deuteronomy says.

We die in Christ in order to live. This is what makes us Christians. We die to live. We see the cross of Jesus as an instrument of life, not of death. This is the “salt” that makes us salty, that seasons the world with the savor of Jesus’ death and life. And if we lose that, if we lose the one needful thing, if we lose Jesus’ death and resurrection as the heart and center of what it means to be a disciple, then we are indeed not fit for the soil or the manure pile. And the same holds for the church. A church that doesn’t hold fast to the death and resurrection of Jesus, that focuses on this life, whether family, health, wealth, or whatever, is not worthy of even being tossed on the manure pile for compost. It has lost its saltiness, as much of Christianity in America has, being focused as it is on being comfortable rather than crucified, of saving one’s life rather than losing it, of being a winner rather than a loser.

This is about dying in Jesus in order to live. This is about being crucified with Christ in order to have life to God. This is about the way of life instead of the way of death. Father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister – they can’t save your life, they can’t give you life. You can’t save your life. Only Jesus can. Only His death and resurrection can do it.

Count the cost of discipleship, and give thanks and praise to Jesus that because of Him, the cost is paid in full.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In today’s Gospel reading from St. Luke, Jesus is at the home of a prominent Pharisee who invited all his pharisee friends for a Sabbath meal. These were the high powered religious types. Kind of like a table of clergy and professional theologians. “Lawyers” in this reading are not lawyers as we think of them, as in barristers before the court, but experts in the Law of Moses, the Torah. Their job was to study the Torah of Moses and figure out what you were supposed to do to do the works of God.

Don’t think for a moment that this was some casual social gathering. All eyes were fixed on Jesus, watching His every move. Every ear was tuned to Jesus, parsing His every word. In my mind’s eye, I can almost picture Jesus waiting for the opportunity to tweak this stuffy bunch of clergy and theological professors and perhaps thinking, “Man, the tax collectors and sinners are a lot more fun to hang around with than this bunch of losers.” There is nothing worse than a table load of canon lawyers and theology wonks.

Well, it just so happens that some guy with dropsy shows up. Am uninvited crasher at the pharisee’s little dinner party of dignitaries. How convenient, if not mildly unappetizing. You’re just getting the first coarse of dinner going and some guy with a bloated gut wanders in and stands in front of Jesus. Couldn’t he at least have made an appointment or something?

This is what teachers call a teachable moment, and Jesus, ever the Master Teacher, seizes it. “So what do you think? Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” There’s a stumper for you. The Sabbath law said no work. The Pharisees specified 32 different kinds of work you couldn’t do on the Sabbath. I think this is a testimony to the inherent sinfulness of man, that God can make a commandment that says “Don’t work” and we want God to be more specific. “What do you mean by work?”

Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Great question. Only God can heal, right? God is the source of all healing. And He’s the source of the Sabbath and the Sabbath commandment. So what’s the answer? “They remained silent,” Luke says. Of course they did! This is what legalism, reliance on the Law to please God and earn His favor will do to you. It will paralyze you. Either way, you’re going to break some kind of law. If you keep the Sabbath, you’ll fail to love your neighbor, if you can help him. If you heal your neighbor, you’ve broken the Sabbath. This precisely where the Law leaves us. Painted in a corner. Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.

And this is precisely the sort of situation where Luther, seeing Christ as freedom from the Law says, “Sin boldly, and trust Christ even more boldly.”

And then Jesus does it. He gives them God’s answer. He heals the man on the Sabbath, because that’s what God does. And He chides the religious types for their legalisms. Wouldn’t you pull out a son or an ox from a well on the Sabbath? Would they? I’m not so sure they would! They could not respond; they were silent.

It’s like the parable Jesus told of the man who fell among the thieves. The priest and the Levite who saw the man lying in the ditch could not help him. They were bound by the Law. Only the Samaritan was free to be neighbor. Only one who is free from the Law can answer Jesus’ question with a confident “yes, it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath” But you can say that only as you are free. Jesus is free. He comes to bring freedom and life. He is the Sabbath fulfilled, and for that sick man, He is the epitome of the Sabbath. Rest from illness, rest from sin, rest from death. Rest that only God in the Flesh can give.

Now Jesus has the table exactly where He wants them. Now they’re really watching this Sabbath breaker who has the power of God to heal diseases with a word and a touch. He points out how the guests all jockey for positions of honor at the table, to the right and the left of the host. And He says, “When you are invited, don’t take the honored seats lest you be embarrassed. It would be like taking the seats of honor at a wedding reception when you’re not in the wedding party and being told that your table is over in the corner next to the cake. Take your place among the least, so that when the host comes you’ll be honored when he says, “Friend, come up to a better place.”

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Now if you think all that Jesus has in mind is the seating arrangements at the next dinner party you’re invited to, think again. He has in mind first of all His own work. Though He was the Son of God, seated at the right hand of the Father, the place of highest honor, He left that seat to take on human flesh and become a servant. He left the highest place to take up the lowest seat in the house, a cross and a grave. It doesn’t get any lower than that. He humbled Himself to death for our sakes. And from that place of humility, the Father highly exalted Him and seated Him in our humanity at His right hand. And in Him, we are seated there too.

Recognizing that and believing that, we don’t presume the honored place at His table either. We don’t waltz in to the Lord’s Supper as though we’ve earned the right to be there and God should be honored that we bothered to show up. No, we take the lowest place with the least, the lost, the lowly, the dead. We say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” We come as chief of sinners seeking mercy, humbled by the Law that reminds us there is no good in us. And Christ says to us, “Friend, I forgive you. Come up to a higher place. Sit with me at my table.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.” Boast in your goodness, and the Law will put you in your place. Credential yourself with all the good you’ve done, and you will be revealed as a gate crasher at the Lord’s wedding party. Take your place with the losers of the religious world, with sinners, and you will be exalted. All you need to bring to the Lord’s table is your confession and a plea for mercy, and you will hear “Friend, come up to a higher place.”

Then Jesus turns to His host, whose nice little Sabbath dinner party now lay in shambles at the feet of Jesus, and He notes all the dignitaries. “When you give a dinner party, don’t invite your rich friends and relatives lest they do the same and repay you. But instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, that man with dropsy who crashed your party, all those types you avoid, invite them, and you will be blessed precisely because they can’t repay you. Your reward comes in the resurrection.”

And again, Jesus isn’t talking so much about whom to invite to your next birthday party as He is talking about the party He is throwing, the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end. He isn’t inviting people who can repay Him. Not at all. He’s inviting empty-handed, broken beggars, the likes of you and me in our sinfulness. We can’t repay the Lord for what He has done for us. Nothing we can do in this life, no offering, no prayer, no dedication, no amount of purpose-driven living can repay Jesus for His service to us, His sacrifice, His saving us. We come as as the poor, the lame, the blind. That’s what we are under God’s Law. Impoverished of anything remotely called righteousness before God. Crippled to the holiness God demands of us. Blind to Him.

Yes in our brokenness and poverty, we are invited guests, welcomed to a feast of salvation that literally has no end. Why does Jesus do it? Why bother with a table full of losers? Well, if you’re looking for spiritual winners in this world, you won’t find any because there are none. Without God’s mercy in Jesus, without Jesus’ death on the cross, without the forgiveness of sins that comes in His name, there would be no one at the wedding feast of the Lamb save the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Oh, and a bunch of angels.

Jesus’ reward, the joy that was set before Him, is the resurrection of the righteous. The joy of a resurrected humanity declared righteous by what He has done. You, standing before the Father, clothed in the righteousness of the Son, raised from death to life – that’s why Jesus suffered, died, and rose again. So that you would have a place at His table.

So as you take that place today, as one of His baptized believers, don’t think of yourself as a winner, as one deserving to be there. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Humble yourselves, and He will lift you up.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

In Nomine Iesu

So why do you come to worship? What do you expect from worship? Worship today means different things to different people. For some it’s inspiration. For some, instruction. An opportunity to pray, to praise, to give thanks. For some it’s a fact; for others it’s a feeling. Some people expect to feel closer to God. Some expect God to speak directly to them in some manner. But what about you? Why do you come here to worship? And what do you expect to find?

The writer of the book of Hebrews tackles the worship question in this morning’s reading. Hebrews is probably a sermon put down in written form. Some believe it was written by the apostle Paul, which is why it’s parked next to Paul’s letters in the canon. Some believe it was Apollos. The style is definitely preaching with a big dose of teaching. And the main point addressed in the book of Hebrews is people falling away from worship. People forsaking the Word and the Supper and some even returning to the synagogue and the temple, which still appears to be in operation.

They were feeling pressure apparently. Things weren’t going well for Christians. In fact, it was easier to be Jewish and return to the temple. Doubts were setting in. Perhaps Jesus wasn’t the one they were waiting for. Some got discouraged. They stopped assembling together for worship. Some were following strange and esoteric teachings about angels and other things.

Can you imagine what it would be like if Christianity were illegal? I’m not talking here about putting crosses in the public square or ten commandments on the wall of the courthouse. I’m talking about making it illegal for Christians to congregate, to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, to own Bibles, to baptize their children, to hear the Word of God preached to them. Imagine what it would be like if someone were to stop you on the way to church and interrogate you as to what you were doing and where you were going. Imagine, in this time of economic downturn, that it was perfectly permissible to discriminate against Christians so that Christians were never hired or others were favored over them. Imagine losing your job because you were identified as a Christian.

Do you think there would be more or fewer people here this morning under those conditions? Would you be here this morning under those conditions? Would I?

The sermon to the Hebrews was written in that kind of climate. And the preacher/author, whoever he was, has a lot to say about Christ, and how He is superior in every way to Moses – having a superior priesthood, offering a superior sacrifice, bringing a superior covenant. In other words, if you abandon Christ and go back to Moses, you are going from the greater back to the lesser. You are going literally downhill and in the wrong direction.

He holds out the great men and women of faith in the OT, those who lost their lives believing in the Promise of God but never in this life receiving what was promised. He compares the life of faith to long distance relay race, where the runners who have gone ahead of us are on the sidelines cheering us on and Jesus is at the finish line with the victor’s crown ready to put it on our heads. And the preacher of Hebrews says, “Keep your eyes focused on Jesus – the author and perfector of your faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame.

He encourages us to run the race, not looking backward at our past, our sideways, comparing ourselves to our fellow runners (which is a sure way to trip over your own two running feet), but to look to Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus and not get distracted by anything else. He reminds them that they have not yet suffered to the point of shedding their blood, and all the suffering and inconveniences they’ve experienced up to now is nothing else that the discipline of a loving Father in heaven who loves His children enough to give them a swat on the rear end once and a while.

Now, of course, we don’t like that, and especially that inner brat called the “Old Adam” hates the notion that God is not our Permissive Parent in heaven but our Father in heaven who disciplines the children He loves. You’re His children, and like all fathers, He protects you from yourself, sometimes with a firm hand that seems painful at the time, but in the end turns out to be a blessing.

He warns his hearers, and us in our overhearing, against complacency, bitterness, immorality and everything that distracts, deflects, and otherwise messes up our running the race set before us. And then he gets to worship and hits a major high note because Christian worship is utterly unique in the world of religion. In all other religions, you reach up to your god, whether corporately or individually, and you offer your god stuff so he/she/it will do you favors in return. But in Christian worship, God comes to you in Christ. Eternity and time coalesce; heaven and earth join together, and the Father through the Son in the Spirit bless us.

For those who were tempted to go back to Moses and the worship of the synagogue and the temple, the preacher reminds them of what Mt. Sinai was like. In a word, scary. Frightening. Untouchable, ablaze with fire, trumpet, and voice from God that made everyone hold their ears and beg that God be silent. No one but Moses was permitted on that mountain. Even an animal that set foot on the mountain was stoned to death.

Do you want that kind of worship? I don’t. That’s ultimately the worship of the Law, you realize. The Law says do this and don’t do that. Do this and you’ll life; don’t do this and you’ll die. That’s the worship of commandments and principles and all the stuff that God demands from you and you as a sinner can’t deliver. Even Moses, who was covered with a promise that he wouldn’t be harmed, trembled in fear.

One of the problems we face today is that people no longer tremble with fear at the thought of coming into the presence of God. When bad things happen – floods, fires, earthquakes, storms – we no longer consider them acts of God but simply acts of nature. Mother Nature, perhaps. It’s interesting don’t you think, that we’d rather blame Mother than Father? We’ll let the psychologists unpack that one. My point is that we leave God out of the picture, and if we have any notion of God at all, it’s the kind of God at whose house you can put your feet up on the furniture.

The Law basically says that if you, a sinner, dare to come into the presence of God, who is holy beyond holy, you will be toast. So don’t you dare come near with your commandment keeping, or you’ll wind up like one of the goats who stuck his foot on Sinai.

But that’s not the mountain you, as a baptized believer, have come to. You have come not to Sinai, the mountain burning with God’s wrath, but to Zion, to God’s city, to the heavenly Jerusalem. Not the disputed piece of real estate over there in what is called “Israel” today. But Jerusalem that comes down “from above,” from heaven, the city of which God is the architect and builder. So when you,, baptized believer in Jesus, come to worship, you’re not coming to a bunch of commandments and to God’s wrath, but to God’s city where you yourself are one of its free citizens.

You come to angels, countless angels in festal gathering, which means they’re having a party. Just as we say in the liturgy, “with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven.” You know, it can get discouraging when attendance is down, but think of the fact that in worship what you see is not all that you get. In fact, it’s with the unseen where the action is. The angels worship with us. Wouldn’t you like to hear their liturgy? You will one day. And for now, they hear you.

You’ve come to the assembly of the first-born, the congregation of the elect whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, and your name is among them. You are coming to God, who is the judge of all, not to be judged guilty under the Law, but to be judged “not guilty,” “innocent,” perfect, blameless, and even holy not because of what you have done but because of what Jesus has done for you.

You have come to the spirits of the justified, the righteous made perfect. Those are all the believers who have died ahead of us and are now “with the Lord.” In some way, and I have no idea how, they are with us. Where Christ is, there His saints are, for they are saints only in Him. That means that the closest we can be to those who have gone before us, including our own loved ones, is in worship, in the liturgy, in the gathering where Christ comes to us and the Spirit gather us as one body around Christ.

You have come to Jesus. Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, in which God forgives and forgets. He forgives our iniquities and He remembers our sins no more. Moses came with books and a bookkeeping spreadsheet – the Ten Commandments. That’s how you keep book on your sin. Jesus came with no commandments. Yes, He preached the commandments to their sheer undoability. And then He died under the same Law, shedding the blood that the Law requires. And you have come to that sprinkled Blood, the blood of Jesus that cleanses you from all sin, the blood shed on the cross for the sin of the world, the Blood of the covenant poured out for you into the chalice of the Lord’s Supper as wine to gladden your hearts.

And when you look at worship that way, not as something we do for God but something God in Christ does for us – His city, His righteousness, His covenant, His blood – then you don’t need to look for reasons to worship. You already have them.

In the Name of Jesus,
Amen

That would appear to run counter to the prevailing opinion here in southern California. Life seems to be defined by food and clothing, coupled with endless entertainment and an almost insatiable desire for electronic gadgets. Life is more than food? You wouldn’t know it by our grand obsessions with calories, fat grams, and carbs. The body more than clothing? Well, shoes too. You have to have the right shoes, don’t you?

We need clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home. Those are primary needs, in fact, we’re not going to worry about anything else until those are taken care of. And Jesus comes to us this morning and says, “Don’t worry. Don’t be anxious about your life, or even the most basic of your needs. Your Father in heaven has you covered. Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry? Has Jesus looked at the economy lately? My retirement fund? 
The unemployment statistics? The gross domestic product? Health care? Come on, who is alive and aware these days and not worried about something having to do with the means to support this body and life? Don’t be anxious? Get real!

But here is the reality: Anxiety is a liturgy. It’s the worship we offer our false gods when they’ve failed to deliver on the goods. When we realize that our religious transactions aren’t working and we are left without an apparent safety net under us, the anxiety mounts and grows. Sleepless night, churning stomachs, headaches, heart palpitations, stress, the list goes on. Anxiety is like a cancer of the soul, consuming us from the inside, paralyzing us, disordering our lives, our eating, our drinking, our priorities. Anxiety eats away at us like rust, corroding our souls until we are nothing be a shell.

Don’t be anxious, Jesus says. He knows what He’s talking about. He’s the Lord of creation. He’s the One who died and rose again. And He’s intimately familiar with our anxieties. He worked the family trade. He knew the uncertainties of a family business. He came to bear the sin of the world on His shoulders. He was the “Man of Sorrows,” intimately acquainted with our suffering. Do you imagine that didn’t involve some potential anxiety?

Jesus knew His disciples’ hearts and He knows our own. He knew that He had called them away from their fishing boats and tax collectors office. And there were probably days when they wondered aloud, “What are we going to eat today? How will we afford clothing when ours wears out?” They were following someone who had no place to lay His head, who didn’t promise them wealth and prosperity like the prosperity preachers you hear today. Jesus never promised them any of that. Instead He promised them hardship and persecutions in this life and eternal life in a kingdom that has no end.

Consider the ravens, Jesus says to His anxious disciples. Look at the birds. They neither sow nor reap nor store in barns, and yet God feeds them. Yes, they spend the bulk of their day looking for food. And yes, they work their feathered tails off building nests. But in the end, they can only play the hand they are dealt. They can’t rearrange their environment the way we can. They are completely dependent on their environment. “And yet God feeds them.” The hidden hand of God cares even for the birds of the air. And if He cares about the birds, don’t you think He cares about you? You are worth so much more that a bird.

Consider the lilly and all their beauty. They don’t weave or spin or shop at Nordstroms, yet even Solomon in all his over the top bling wasn’t decked out like them. And aren’t you worth more than plants, which are here today and gone tomorrow?

Does anxiety put daily bread on the table? Not a crumb. Does anxiety put clothes on your children? Not a stitch. Does anxiety pay the mortgage or the rent? Not a dime. Does anxiety add a single hour to your life? No. And it will make the hours you have most miserable.

Jesus calls His anxiety-ridden disciples “little faith ones.” Little faith is better than no faith, I suppose, but it’s still not the way of faith to be anxious over things. Faith is trust, trust that your Father in heaven knows what you need even before you ask. Trust that you value to God is so much greater than the birds and the flowers.

Our other readings this morning speak about faith as trust. There is Abram, 99 years old and his wife nearly as old, childless, and the only heir to his fortune is some relative named Eliezer of Damascus. And the Lord says to childless Abram, “Look up in the sky and take a census of the stars. Count them, if you can. Here’s my promise to you, Abram. So shall your offspring be. You will have descendant as numerous as the stars in the sky even though you don’t even have a kid at this moment.

Abram believed the Lord. He trusted. He took the Lord at His Word, as improbable and unlike as that Word was. He trusted the Promise that against all odds, against all that he knew of reproductive biology, against all common sense, he would be the father of many, that through his offspring, all nations of the world would be blessed. He believed, that is, he trusted. And God counted this faith of Abram as righteousness.

This is a key verse in the new testament. It is a key and central verse with the apostle Paul, that a sinner stands justified before God by grace through faith, and that faith, trust in the promise, is counted as righteousness before God. The book of Hebrews devotes an entire chapter to faith. It begins with a definition: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is trust in a promise without having the thing in your hand. It’s being so sure of the outcome, even before it happens, that you bank your entire life on it. You orient yourself around it.

Faith is much like a little kid who is promised a candy bar the next time they go to the store. He waits for it, expects it, can’t wait to go to the store and get it. And finally, the store trip comes, and the little guy can’t wait for the candy aisle. When they get to it, he runs and grabs his favorite one in complete confidence. And if there is the slightest piece of parental hesitation, he’ll say with a quivering lower lip, “But you promised.”

Hebrews goes on to list a kind of hall of fame of faith – Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and others who trust God, who took Him at His Word and whose lives were oriented around the Promise. They died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. They knew there was a better country awaiting them, a better city built by God, and they oriented their entire lives around this promise. And yes, the world thought them crazy and deluded and deranged, but God is not ashamed to be called their God.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” That’s the Gospel good news today that speaks to your anxieties and fears. Your Father’s good pleasure is to give you the kingdom, and He works everything together for you to receive the kingdom. You have it all, thanks to Jesus. His death and life has purchased what you cannot afford on your own. LIfe with God. You have His Word on it. He clothes you in Baptism; He feeds you in HIs Supper. You have the kingdom. You trust Him with the big stuff. Why not also trust Him with the little things of this life?

This doesn’t mean we don’t work and plan and store in this life. But we hold things loosely, lightly, with a dead hand of faith. Give freely. Take care of the poor. Do your banking where your life is. Store up treasures in heaven, eternal treasures that don’t corrode or decay, that can’t be stolen, that moths can eat, that won’t wear out like all the things we have in this life. Seek first the kingdom and God’s righteousness, trusting that your Father in heaven who has saved you by the blood of His Son, knows what you need.

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul speaks of anxiety and prayer. He wrote to the Philippians from jail. They had just sent him a generous gift of support, and he was writing to thank and encourage them. If anyone had reason to be anxious, it was Paul. His liberty had been taken from him, his work hindered, he had no guaranteed means of support. And he writes this:

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

You have the kingdom. The Father has promised it; the Son has won it; the Spirit delivers it. Don’t be anxious about your life. The Lord has you covered.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

When it comes to wealth, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, is an expert. Most people think he’s Solomon, the Son of David, the richest king in the history of Israel. He had it all. To put it in modern terms – cars, houses, women, personal chefs, a wine cellar, horses, gardens. You name it. He was the middle eastern version of excess. Over the top consumption.

And now he’s writing to us to tell us what it’s like. His report from the lap of luxury? Vanity. Emptiness. Nothing. Chasing after wind. Boxing the air. You work and work and work and some fool enjoys all the benefits. Or the economic bubble bursts. Or your paper profits evaporate. And all that you’ve worked so hard for, all that you planned to have is gone. Like the wind. Vanity. Emptiness.

We don’t like to hear that. That’s why prosperity preachers are so popular. That’s how Joel Osteen can pack them in like crazy. He promises the abundant life to those who do it his way. God is going to give you in abundance, whatever you want, and more, pressed own, overflowing. Cars, clothes, houses. Ask and it will be given you. I wonder if he ever read this morning’s Gospel, that a man’s life “does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” When Jesus promises life in abundance, He doesn’t mean an abundance of stuff. In fact, the parable of the four kinds of soil tells us that an abundance of stuff can get in the way of life in abundance, the cares and riches of this world choking out life-giving Word.

We learn early in life to idolize our money. It comes with the first allowance and all the rules about not spending it all in one place, etc. We learn the power in money as stored wealth, how we don’t have to build bigger barns like the rich man in today’s parable, but we can simply gather our money, put it in the bank or stuff it in the mattress, or if you don’t want to take the government’s word on currency, buy some gold and bury it somewhere. The beauty of money is that you can store your wealth, and unlike grain, it won’t get moldy. It may not earn much interest these days, but at least it won’t rot, though the deficit will certain devalue it.

We learn early in life to envy the kids with more money, the latest video games, the latest X-box or whatever is the thing to have. We grow up coveting even more, there seems to be no end to the things we want, and we mistake the abundant life for an abundance of stuff, a hefty portfolio, bigger houses, faster cars, a celebrity lifestyle. The cost is great. Just consider the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Solomon tried to warn us. There is nothing there there. Do we listen?
Two brothers came to Jesus. They were fighting over an inheritance and wanted Jesus to serve as mediator. Jesus refuses to get involved. “Man, who made me judge or arbitrator over you?” Think of this from what you know. Jesus had come to die and rise, and here were two brothers bickering over their share of their folks’ inheritance. You’d think they know better. How many families have been torn apart by inheritance disputes, with everyone demanding their fair share?

Jesus uses the incident as a warning to His disciples. Watch out! Be on guard against all covetousness. That seemingly polite almost secret sin of the heart unbuckled from God. The heart is like velcro and will stick to anything. St. Paul calls covetousness “idolatry,” because idols are made in the heart. Luther said that the sinful human heart is a veritable idol factory, cranking out one idol after another. An idol is whatever you bow down and worship in your heart. Whatever you fear, love, and trust above all things. It usually isn’t in God we trust but in gold we trust. And that love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. We will do most anything for money.

Jesus goes on to tell a parable of a rich man who had an unusual bumper crop on year. “The land of a rich man produced plentifully.” Notice that it’s the land. Like most riches, the man had little to do with it. It was just plain dumb luck, being at the right place at the right time. And this excess created a crisis. What to do with it? Where to store it? And so he embarks on an ambitious building program, which so often happens when you fall into unexpected wealth. You get ambitious. Tear down the old barns and build bigger ones to store “my grain and my goods” And then, after he was done building and storing, he could finally retire. Enjoy life. Relax, eat, drink, kick back, have some fun after all this hard work.

One small problem. There was a little blood vessel that was set to pop at about 2 AM, and his life would be over. And all the things he labored over and worried about and planned would wind up in probate court. And then what? It’s a tragedy, played out all too often – a rich man who has no joy in his riches. Or someone planning for a retirement that never comes, a plan cut short by cancer or a heart attack or an accident. As the Preacher of Ecclesiastes says, it’s all vanity, emptiness, nothing. Chasing after the wind.

So then what? What’s the alternative? Is there a better way to live? The answer, of course, if yes. The apostle Paul lays it out for us in the 3rd chapter of Colossians. He basis what he has to say on the fact that in Christ we are already raised and glorified. We died to this life, even before our death. Baptism buried us in Jesus’ death. “If you have been raised with Christ (and you have been raised with Christ), seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. “Seek first the kingdom of God,” Jesus said, “and all these things, the stuff of your life, will be added.” First the kingdom. The things that are above. The eternal things. What you will have forever, thanks to Jesus.

“Set your minds on things that are above and not on things that are on earth.” Again, fix your minds that are renewed in Christ on eternal things, not temporal things. Why? You died. That’s right. You’re already dead to the world, and one of the nice things about being dead to the world is that you have nothing in the world to lose. All that stuff you own that’s piling up in your garage and the attics and closets of your life, is not your life. That’s just your stuff. Your life, your real life, the true you as God created and intended, is hidden with Christ in God. HIdden. You can’t see it. You must be told or you wouldn’t know it.

What does this mean? It means, contrary to what Joel Osteen and the prosperity preachers tell you, that the abundance of your life is not having an abundance of things but being in Christ and receiving the abundance of life that He gives. It means that your life, as you now live it, is not a matter of building bigger barns to store more grain so you can enjoy life in the future, but living by faith in the Son of God who loved you and laid down His life to save you, and who gives you life in an abundance you cannot now even imagine.

It means that we hold our possessions loosely, with a dead, open hand of faith. There is nothing wrong with having stuff. Abraham had stuff. David had stuff. Solomon had lots of stuff, and he wrote to warn us about it too. But stuff can only be held loosely or you won’t enjoy it. Think about it. You buy a brand new car. And it’s all shiny and the finish is perfect. What’s your biggest fear? Someone is going to ram it with a shopping cart in the parking lot and put a ding in that flawless finish. And so you park it way off in a lonely corner somewhere. And you size up the neighbors and try not to park it next to junkie looking cars. Like mine, for instance. No one wants to park their late model beauty next to me. I don’t even wash my car. That’s why it’s better to buy your cars pre-dinged. You don’t care, and you’re free to enjoy driving the thing. And if a piece of freeway junk hits it, so what?

You do not know the day or the hour your life in this life will end. And what’s the point wasting it worrying over your stuff like that foolish rich guy agonizing over his barns when we has less than twelve hours to live? That’s where idolatry will get you. Your idols will wind up consuming you, robbing you of every last ounce of joy that the gifts of God can bring you. But holding them with the dead hand of faith, trusting that even if we lose everything, we’ve lost noting, there is the freedom to enjoy and to give away and to employ. One church father remarked of that rich man in the parable, “There was plenty of storage space for his surplus grain in the empty mouths of the poor.”

Solomon in all his wisdom said this: “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil. This also is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” Ah. There’s the secret. Apart from God who can have enjoyment? Without God at the center, without Jesus in the middle redeeming all things, reconciling all things, making all things new, there is no lasting enjoyment. Just a race against decay, a futile running after the wind, an emptiness that can’t be filled no matter how many ways you indulge yourself.

That’s no way to live, my friends. And it’s no way to have a life. But you are baptized into Christ who holds your life in a way that you cannot. And when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Until then, enjoy your work, enjoy your food, enjoy your drink. That is a gift from God. As the Hebrew toast goes: L’chaim. To life in Jesus. Abundant, eternal life.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Prayer is one of those least common denominator religious activity. Whenever people get religious, prayer is involved. People who are “spiritual without being religious” usually pray, or at least meditate, or thing “God-ward” thoughts.

Prayer is also one of the more misunderstood religious activities. LIke any other bit of religion, prayer can become a transaction, a deal, some sort of bargain where we try to extract some favor from God by saying the right words. Kind of like God as vending machine. Put in the right combination of petition, prayer, and praise and out pops your miracle, blessing, or whatever you are seeking from God. Many people have stumbled on this way of thinking. And when God fails to deliver the goods on demand, that marks the end of their religious phase.

Prayer is not a bargain. Nor is it informing God of something He isn’t aware of. “Hey God. Over here. It’s me. I’m sick, in case you haven’t noticed, and wouldn’t mind feeling better. So could you please send some healing my way?” Doesn’t work that way. Jesus told His disciples, “Your Father in heaven knows what you need even before you ask.” Our catechism says the same thing: God’s name is hallowed, His kingdom comes, His will is done without our prayer. So there. Ponder that for a while. God already knows what you need, and promises to give you what is best. Shoot, He even causes the rain and sunshine to fall on the heathen.

So then, why pray? Ah, good question! Why pray when your Father in heaven has it all covered anyway? Well, why bother talking to your earthly father if he’s going to give you the keys to the car anyway? Why talk to your wife if she already knows what you’re going to say? Why talk to your friend who already knows what you’re thinking?

If you stop and think about it, most of our talk is not about getting things out of others. Most of our talk is just talk, chat, saying what’s on our minds and hearts, sharing our secrets, our fears, our hopes, our longings. Most of our conversation is not so much communication as it is communion. And there is the Gospel key to prayer. Prayer is not communicating with God, but communion with God. Holy conversation. Dear children coming to their dear Father in heaven and saying, Abba. Papa. And the Son insisting that the Father listen to us. And the Spirit packaging and delivering our words to the Father.

Jesus prayed. That’s the beginning of our Gospel reading and also the beginning of our prayer. Jesus, the eternal Son in human flesh, prayed. Luke makes a point of it more than the others. If anyone didn’t need to pray, it was Jesus. He knew the mind of God perfectly. He and the Father were one. Why did He need to pray? He was God in the flesh. What did He pray about? Luke doesn’t tell us here, but in other prayers of Jesus, He prays for HIs disciples, for the world, for us. He is our High Priest and intercessor, who prays for us. And because He prays for us, we are able to pray. We pray through Him, through HIs sacrifice, through HIs blood, through HIs death and resurrection.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray. This is the second thing. Prayer is not a natural activity, like eating or breathing. Prayer must be taught the Lord and learned by the disciple. The disciples recognize this. “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” We don’t know what John taught about prayer, and this is the only mention of it. But that doesn’t matter. The One greater than John is speaking.

He gives them words to pray. Father. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us Lead us not into temptation. You’ll recognize what we call the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father, at least five of seven petitions. It’s a perfect prayer, embracing all that we need. Daily bread, certainly. Enough for the day, each and every day. But surrounding that God’s name and His kingdom, the Name by which we are claimed and saved, the kingdom that comes by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus teaches us to pray on the front end for the big stuff, the eternal stuff, the stuff that lasts forever. God’s Name, HIs kingdom, and in the longer version, HIs will.

This has nothing to do with getting favors from God; it has everything to do with His favor for Jesus’ sake. May your name be holy, Father. On our lips and in our lives. God owns us. He has stamped His claim on us in Baptism. We are His children. We bear His Name. And that Name burnishes our lips like the hot coal that touched the lips of Isaiah. He opens our lips that praise might come forth. He claims our lives for HIs own that we might serve Him without fear.

May your kingdom come, Father. Rule us! Be our Lord as you already are. Overrule every competing rule – the devil, the world, and yes, oh yes, my own sinful self that wants to be king. Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection over me. Let the Word be preached and heard. Let faith take hold and love flow. That’s what we’re praying for. Nothing less than the reign of Christ over us. Big stuff. Eternal stuff. Stuff that matters forever. We might call it “spiritual stuff.” You can’t take it to the bank, and it’s not going to pay the rent, but in the end, it’s what we need to see us through death to life.

Yes, it comes “without our prayer,” but in praying we are reminding ourselves from whom it all comes. And when you’re praying that God’s Name be holy and HIs kingdom come, you’re not so much praying to get stuff as you are praying that God would be gracious to you and establish His reign in your life.

On the other side of daily bread is forgiveness and our being guarded against temptation. That’s the agenda for prayer, then, according to Jesus, and He gives a perfect prayer for us to pray, which means we don’t even have to worry about getting the words right, because, let’s face it, sinners that we are, we’d mess up even something as simple as prayer.

Third, Jesus encourages us to pray. He tells a funny parable of a person who has unexpected out of town company and is three loaves short at midnight and so goes and pounds on the door of his neighbor who’s already sound asleep. Outrageous? Of course! It’s over the top. The point of the parable lies in the Greek word anaideion, which gets translated as impudence but I think is better translated with Yiddish word chutzpah. Prayer is an act of sheer chutzpah, like pounding on your neighbor’s door at midnight. And the only reason we get away with this is that our Father is that crazy neighbor who actually listens to our prayers and petitions and doesn’t mind the midnight intrusion. In fact, He delights in it! He thinks it’s great. But then, what parent doesn’t like to hear from their kids?

Fourth, He promises that prayers do not go unanswered. Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened. He doesn’t promise that you will get precisely what you ask for, or find exactly what you seek, or that every door you knock on will be opened. Fathers know to give good gifts to their children. Right gifts. Gifts that will bless and benefit them. He promises the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. And with the Spirit, every good and perfect gift.

I dare say that every petition of the Lord’s prayer is answered fully. His name is hallowed. His kingdom comes. His will is done. He sustains your life with daily bread. You are forgiven, guarded from temptation, delivered from evil. Every single petition of that perfect prayer is fulfilled in your life every single day. Maybe not in ways you might expect, but our expectation fall far short of what our Father in heaven wants to give us.

I started by saying that prayer is the least common denominator religious activity. Religious people pray. I’m going to end by saying don’t look at prayer in a religious way. Don’t think of prayer as something you do to get something from God, but something you do because you believe you already have everything you need and more. Don’t pray to earn God’s favor or to get favors. Pray because you have God’s favor in Jesus. Don’t pray as though you were coming to a king or some powerful political bigshot looking; pray as children coming to their dear Father in heaven. Don’t pray as the religious types do; pray as Jesus, your Savior, has taught you. Short, sweet, to the point.

And remember this. Prayer doesn’t begin with you. It begins with Jesus. His prayer. His words. His sacrificial life and death. His resurrection. Your Baptism into Him that makes you a child of God who dares to knock on the Father’s door at midnight. He has to answer. You’re one of the family.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

That was Martha. Busy, busy, busy beyond imagination. She was all excited over Jesus coming to her house. What an honor! Jesus the great teacher and healer whom everyone was talking about was coming to her house. Her house! Of all the houses in Bethany, Jesus was coming to her house. Wow!

Now you know what happens when you get whipped into this kind of frenzy, don’t you? I’m sure it’s happened to you. You get so wound up in preparations, you get so absorbed in your seven course meal and fancy dessert, you are so obsessed over how clean the bathrooms are and how scrubbed the floor is, that you actually forget about the guest of honor; You’re busy in the kitchen, and your guests are left to fend for themselves in the living room. And all your plans of hospitality turn into a disaster that would make Martha Steward faint away as though dead. Your best intentions work against you, and you wind up missing you on the company of your guest.

Martha was distracted with much serving. It happens. It’s natural to want to impress your guests, and when your guest is the Lord, even more so. Of course, you would want to do the same for Jesus! He’s …well… Jesus after all! But Martha’s serving turned out to be a distraction to her being with Jesus. While she’s stuck in the kitchen clanging pots and pans, Jesus is sitting in the living room with her sister Mary sitting at His feet, taking in every word.

That’s when the fireworks begin. It’s like a scene straight out of Chef Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen. The pasta water is boiling over, the sauce won’t thicken, the roast is in danger of being overcooked, the vegetables are getting soggy, the temperature in the kitchen is rising, and Martha finally snaps. She slams her spoon down on the counter and storms out of the kitchen. And who does she lash out at? Not her sister! No. Her guest! The one she was totally focused on, the reason for all her preparations. She lashes out at Jesus!

“Don’t you care? Don’t you care, Lord, that my sister has left me to serve all alone? Don’t you care that I’m in the kitchen slaving away over a steaming stove while she sits there doe-eyed at your feet doing nothing? Don’t you care that I’m pulling all the weight around here and she does nothing? How about cutting the chit chat and telling her to get her lazy rear end in the ktichen to help me!”

In a way, this real life episode illustrates the point of the parable of the man in the ditch which comes just before. The Law says “love God and love your neighbor.” And yet, the Law cannot produce this love. If you think you can work up love for God and love for neighbor by your doing, you will wind up as frustrated and angry as Martha was with Jesus and her sister. The very guest she loved and wanted to serve became the object of her anger, which spilled over to her sister. If all we had to work with was divine rules and regulations, whether ten commandments or twelve biblical principles or 613 dos and donts of the pharisees, if all we have is the Law, we will wind up hating God and hating our neighbor.

Martha’s problem was not her service, but her lack of freedom. She wanted to please Jesus. She wanted to impress Him with her house and a nice dinner. She wanted to serve Him with her very best. And yet, it all failed. She wound up yelling at Jesus and angry at her sister. She was occupied with many things, when one thing was needful. She was busy preparing a seven course dinner that would have earned her four stars in the Michelin guide, but Jesus would have been content with carryout.

It was not Martha’s service that Jesus wanted. It was Martha. Jesus came not to be served but to serve. He came to give, not to get. He came not to be the guest, but to be the host, to lay down His life as a sacrifice for sinful humanity, to offer Himself up for the life of the world, to be the Bread of Life and wine from heaven to bring refreshment, forgiveness, life, and salvation to all. As far as Jesus was concerned, Martha’s house could have been a wreck, she could have laid out cold cuts and sandwich bread, she could have simply offered a loaf of bread and a dried fish. What mattered most to Jesus was that she have communion with Him, that she hear His word.

Jesus doesn’t need our service. He’s the Lord. He has heaven and earth at His beck and call. What can we give God that He does not already have? What can we do for God that He has not already done? Martha is the way of the Law; Mary is the way of the Gospel. Martha is about works, busyness, ultimately frustration; Mary is about faith and freedom, trust in Jesus and freedom to sit at His feet and take in His Word. Martha seeks to be justified by her works of service, and in the end winds up frustrated and angry. Mary is justified by grace through faith for Jesus’ sake. She does nothing but be given to; Jesus does everything. He is the one needful thing, for her and for you. You need nothing else but Jesus and His Word.

And yet. Don’t we often find ourselves in Martha’s shoes? Busy with so many things that we have no time fto rest in Jesus? So busy we have no time to hear His Word, to receive His body and blood. Distracted by this, that, and the other thing. Thinking that we must do in order to please God. But if we are to please God at all, there must first be faith. And faith comes by hearing, sitting with Mary at Jesus’ feet and being given to.

We need to repent of our busyness. We’ve let many things get ahead of the one important thing. We’ve let many things get between us and Jesus. The symptoms are all there. Frustration, anger, snapping at each other, complaining, griping, pointing the finger, accusing. Tell them to get in the kitchen with me and help. When you sense that in yourself, read the symptoms of busyness and hear the words of Jesus, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Just be quiet for a while and listen. I know it’s hard to do, because we are tuned to being busy. The way of our world is Martha, not Mary. Sit and listen. Jesus is here to give to you. He wants to spend time with you. There’s plenty of opportunity to serve, but what good is our service if it simply burns us out on the Lord and on each other?

I had an interesting Sunday a couple of Sundays ago when I was in Nashville. Our group had arrived late. We were staying in a hotel at the airport. We were getting our rental vehicle the next morning. We’d been up very late the night before. Now mind you, we had just come from a youth conference in Logan, where our youth were. Two divine services and worship three times a day. So here we were on Sunday between conferences. We decided to sleep in as long as possible and then shuttle over to Vanderbilt University, the site of our second conference. Then we went out to brunch.

At brunch, I realized we had just enacted the unbelievers version of Sunday. We slept in and then we went out to brunch with friends. I said to everyone, “I get it! Now I know why it’s hard to sell people on the idea of coming to church on Sunday when you could sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast, read the paper, watch TV, and then go and hang with friends. It’s terribly easy to let most anything get between you and Jesus, whether our work or our play.

We live most of our lives under the Law. We have duties to execute, obligations to fulfill, expectations to meet, quotas, goals, you name it. We are busy people, running from one thing to the next at freeway speeds, rarely taking the time to sit still. We even make our play into work. They say that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This is true. If we are defined solely by our work, we become bored and boring. The story of Mary and Martha would remind us that all work and play and no worship will burn us out in our own busyness, chasing after the wind, as Ecclesiastes says, until we burn out like a candle that’s run out of wick.

You are here this morning to receive. God brought you here. Yes, you drove yourself or were driven by someone. But the Spirit gathered you and drew you to the feet of Jesus. To be given to. To worship is to sit with Mary, to rest in Jesus, to have His Word have its way with you, to participate in His rest. You sometimes hear that worship is work, the “work of the people.” No. Worship is rest. Sabbath. To rest in Jesus and His Word, HIs saving death, HIs life, His glory. It’s a busy world out there. But there is rest and refreshment in Jesus, and in Him strength to do what your calling demands, not in bitterness but in joy, not to please God but in thanksgiving that you are pleasing to God.

There are many things to occupy you; one thing is needful, necessary, indispensable. Be given to, my friends. Be given to.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

A lawyer, an expert in the Torah, came up to Jesus in order to test Him. That was his first mistake. Test Jesus, and you yourself will be tested. He will shatter your presuppositions and topple your notions. This lawyer was an expert in biblical principles, in making the law doable, practical, relevant to today’s living. He believed that with the right combination of knowledge and discipline, one could keep the law of God. And so testing Jesus he asks him the key question: What shall I do to inherit eternal life? That’s the question on the table this morning with the parable of the man who fell among the thieves and the kind Samaritan who rescued him.

It’s an important question, perhaps the most important question one could ask. What must I do to inherit salvation? What must I do to be saved? You might notice that there is already something wrong with the question. What does one do to inherit? Nothing. To inherit, you must be in the good graces of someone who dies and they will you the inheritance. It is by grace, gratis, a gift.

This was the fundamental error of the synagogue at the time of Jesus. The Pharisees, who controlled the synagogue saw the Torah as a Torah of works, works that need to be done to accomplish the righteousness of God. In other words, do these 613 or so things and you’re in. You have eternal life with God. But then, it’s not an inheritance but wages earned. Something you do to deserve it, not something God does.

That’s the way it is, I’m afraid. The gospel, good news, gift of God always deteriorates and degenerates into a religion of works. This is what prompted the Reformation in the first place. The good news of sins forgiven for Christ’s sake through faith and degenerated into a religion of good works aimed at meriting God’s grace.

Jesus never answers the question, but instead poses one in return. What does the Torah say? You’re an expert in it, how do you read it? Now the tables are turned, as they always are with Jesus. Now the lawyer is the one on the stand, and Jesus is running the questions. So what does the Torah say: Love God, love your neighbor. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus doesn’t argue with him. “Bravo. Go to the head of the class. You have answered correctly. Bang on. Now, go and do this, and you will live.” Try it for a few days and see how it works out for you. Love God with everything that you are, everything that you have, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. You’ve heard of “taking care of number one,” meaning taking care of myself. Fine. Now treat your neighbor as number one and take care of him or her, whomever he or she may be. Try it and see how it goes for you the rest of today. Then Monday. Then Tuesday and on through the week. How long do you think you could go? Could you even make it out of here in church in this morning?

The lawyer realizes that he’s been nailed and so tries to wriggle out of it by justifying himself. “Who then is my neighbor?” The self-justifying question, the question that seeks to get the questioner off the hook. We ask it too. What’s the least I have to do to make the grade? How often do I have to go to church? To communion? Who is this neighbor whom I am to love as myself? Is he like me? Will I like him?

To the self-justifying question, Jesus tells a parable of a man who fell among thieves on the well traveled road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The pilgrim road was a popular hangout for bands of thieves, who had robbed and beaten this poor man to near death and left him to die in the ditch. Three men came by him that day. Three men had opportunity to be neighbor to the man in the ditch.

The first was a priest returning home from his priestly duties in the temple in Jerusalem. He sees the crumpled shadow of the man lying in the ditch but quickly moves to the other ditch to avoid even a hint of contact. He had to remain pure to do his priestly work. If the man were dead, the priest would have to undergo a lengthy and costly process of purification.

The second was a Levite, a priest’s assistant, going in the same direction. He comes a bit closer and takes a look, but like the priest walks around at a safe distance. The law is the same for him as well. The same law that said love your neighbor also demanded ritual purity of priest and Levite. So what were they to do? What would you have done?

What do you do when the Law of God paints you into a corner and then demands that you act? What do you do when you must break a commandment to fulfill the law? There are two answers here: Legalism and Liberty. Legalism says you must keep the law. The priest and Levite were not bad people. They were legalists. They knew what the purity law required. And that’s what the law will do in this fallen world. The law can say “love God and love your neighbor,” but it can’t produce even the slightest love. You can legislate morality but you can’t legislate love. Almost by definition. Love is an act of freedom, not the law. Which brings us to the kind Samaritan.

I call him “kind” rather “good,” since he was no more good than the priest and Levite were bad. He was simply free, and that makes all the difference. The Samaritan is, for all intents and purposes, free. There is no law restricting him. He is free to stop, act on his compassion, to go to the man, treat his wounds, put him up at a local inn, and even pay for his expenses in advance.

Samaritans were despised by the Jews for being half-breed Jews and heretical worshippers. They were a separate sect of Judaism that worshipped on a different mountain. For Jesus to make the hero of the story a Samaritan was to rub salt into the wounded pride of the synagogue lawyer. He would have to identify with a Samaritan instead of his heroes, the priest and the Levite.

Which of the three proved to be neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? The answer, of course, is obvious. The one who showed him mercy. The Samaritan who stopped, bent down, and helped the man in the ditch. And Jesus said, “Now you go, and do likewise.” If you want to do the works necessary to inherit eternal life, you go and stop asking questions and be neighbor to the man in the ditch. Whomever God places in your path. Whenever, wherever, no matter how inconvenient it might be. That’s what it means to love God and love your neighbor.

Are you satisfied with that? I hope not. And if you are, I challenge you to go and do likewise with the understanding that if you fail, you will not inherit the kingdom. Is Jesus serious? Of course He is. He is also a teacher, the greatest teacher that ever walked this earth, who perfectly knew the hearts of those who came to Him with their questions. The only way to pierce through the hardened heart of legalism is to take the Law and amplify it, to paint the legalist into a corner so that he must choose which law he will break and then try to make up the difference.

Only one who is free from the Law can do the Law. Remember that. Only one who is free from the Law can do the Law, even remotely. Until we hear and believe that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” until we recognize and trust that “Christ is the end of the Law to all who believe,” we will never have the Samaritan freedom to love our neighbor. Quite the contrary – without the freedom that comes in Christ, we will hate God and hate our neighbor.

God became our neighbor in Jesus. He joined us in the ditch of our sin and death. The Word became flesh to dwell among us, to be God with us, to do the Law for us, to free us from the burden of the Law. Christ became our neighbor, embracing us in our death, healing our wounds with His wounds, applying the healing wine and oil of Word and Body and Blood to us. He forgives and frees us from the Law that we might actually do the Law – love God and love our neighbor, that broken, bleeding dying man in the ditch.

Look at him, look closely. Does he resemble someone you know? That’s right. “For as often as you have done it to the least of these, my brothers, you have done it to me.” That broken man in the ditch is Christ in cognito to serve. Do you have to help the man in the ditch? Yes, if you wish to earn eternal life. You must, and you must do it perfectly. But for you, baptized believer, living in Samaritan freedom thanks to Jesus, you get to help him. He is gift and opportunity to serve as you have been served, to love as you have been loved by Jesus.

What must I do to inherit eternal life? Nothing. It is given you. What may I do now that I have eternal life? Do you really need to ask?

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

His journey took Him through Samaria. He sent messengers ahead to prepare for His coming. The Samaritans refused Him, because His sights were set to Jerusalem. Samaritans worshipped on Mt. Gerazim, not Jerusalem. Samaritans and Judeans were at odds over this, and Jesus’ single-minded focus on Jerusalem just rubbed salt into those festering religious wounds. This was not about place but purpose. Jesus had to die in Jerusalem. It was the appointed place, the place prepared for Him. The Samaritans did not understand, nor could they. Nor did the disciples.

James and John, the “sons of thunder,” the hot-headed fishermen wanted to call down fire and brimstone from heaven. Do a Sodom and Gomorrah number on them. That’ll show them. “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” If ever there was an episode that makes the apostles look bad, this is one. They’re supposed to be in the Gospel business, and here they are, acting as if heavenly fire obeyed their beck and call!

And we too, we must admit. We forget, when we look on the world, especially those parts of the world that do not share our confession much less our “values” and opinions that these are people for whom Jesus died. He set His face to Jerusalem also for the Samaritans, even those who turned Him away and slammed the door in His resolute face. You can walk down the streets, any street at any time of any day, and look in the face of any random person, be they rich or poor, young or old, well-dressed or not, and you can truthfully say to yourself, “Jesus gave His life on the cross to save that person.” He set His face to the cross of Jerusalem to save this person. So maybe they’ve been rude to you, or ignored you, or slammed their door in your face. No matter. Jesus died on a cross to save this person.

It isn’t for us, as it was not for James and John, to call down fire from heaven to consume those who aren’t nice to us. “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” The same fire and brimstone you call down on others, they very well might be calling down on you. Mutual assured heavenly destruction. That’s not why fire from heaven exists. Fire from heaven is for God’s judgment, not our petty squabbles. And God determined to judge the world in His Son. Jesus’ grim determination to go to the cross reflects His consuming desire to seek and to save the lost. He goes to the greatest length possible, to death on a cross, to seek and to save a world lost in sin and death.

Jesus turned and rebuked James and John. There would be no fire from heaven. It was not for them to call it, much less suggest it. And they went on to another village.

On the road, three would-be disciples put in their disciple application with Jesus. It wasn’t unusual for people to step up and approach a rabbi seeking to be one of his disciples. All three have a little hitch, something that holds them back, something that keeps their commitment from being whole-hearted.

“I will follow you wherever you go,” one says. Does he know where Jesus is going? Is he following the resolute gaze? Does he realize the trajectory? Jesus clues him in, that his road has no comfortable rest stops, no comfy pillows under your head at night. At least the foxes and birds have homes to go to, but the Son of Man, God’s anointed One, the Christ, has no place to lay His head.” You want to follow me, Jesus is saying, prepare to be uncomfortable, Prepare for those sleepless nights on hard ground, cold and destitute. Prepare to join the homeless.

Another says, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” It was the honorable thing to do. The right thing. The compassionate thing. But this Jesus with His face fixed on Jerusalem seems to have no compassion for a grieving son who only wants to bury his father. “Let the dead bury their own. You go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yes, that’s right. Let the dead bury their own. Death is about to meet it’s match in Jesus. Death doesn’t have the last say here. Jesus does. The kingdom He brings with His dying and rising.

A third says, “I will follow you , Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my house.” A simple goodbye. What could be so wrong with that? Maybe a little going away party. A cake or something. Jesus says, “No one who takes up the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Any farmer will tell you that. You can’t plow straight looking over your shoulder. You can’t plow ahead while you are pining for the past.

Tough words? You bet they are! Jesus means serious business. HIs words are urgent, hard, edgy, demanding. His claim on the disciple is radical. It’s all or nothing. No halfway disciples. There are no compromises here. His face, remember,is fixed toward Jerusalem. And each of these three disciple wanna-bes, each in their own way, diminishes the cost that Jesus is about to pay. What does it mean to follow Jesus? To follow HIs rules? Well, He doesn’t have any, really. Moses had rules and we can’t keep them. The last thing we need is rules 2.0. We won’t keep those either.

To follow Jesus is to go the way of His resolute gaze. To follow Jesus is to die and rise with Jesus. To lose your life in order to save it. To become least in order to receive greatness. To become as nothing in order to receive everything. To die in order to live.

Do you know what Jesus had in His vision as He set His face to Jerusalem? it wasn’t the cross, though His vision was certainly cross-focused. It wasn’t the suffering He was to endure. It wasn’t death. It was you. It was the joy of saving you. His focus was like that of a lifeguard venturing out into the dangerous waves and currents with only one thing in his or her focus. You. The person who is drowning and in need of aid. That’s Jesus, who for the joy, that is the joy of your salvation, that was set before Him “endured the cross, scorning its shame.” The cross was the focal point through which He had to bring everything. But the focus of His gaze was you. He came to rescue you.

Just so, the disciple’s focus is on Jesus, the author of our faith, the perfecter of our faith, the beginning and the end of faith. We don’t look to ourselves. When we do, we’ll get it wrong. When the prophet Elijah, great as he was, looked to himself and started whining about how he was the only faithful one left in all of Israel and how everyone was trying to kill him, that’s when he got it wrong. He goes to Mt. Horeb (Mt. Sinai) for a little pity party. He’s upset that Queen Jezebel is issuing death threats against him. He’s expecting God to flex some muscle. He thinks he’s the only faithful Israelite left on the face of the earth. We even call it an “Elijah complex” today, when you think you’re the only one who sees it, the only one who has it right.

Elijah essentially got fired that day. God ordered him to appoint his own successor, Elisha. His work was done. Oh, he’d get a nice ride to heaven in a fiery chariot. But Elijah learned a couple of things that day in the cave. He learned that it was not about him. That the kingdom didn’t rest on his shoulders. That he wasn’t alone, though he wasn’t aware of it. Seven thousand that haven’t bowed the knee to the idol Baal. That may be a symbolic number, the fulness of the believing remnant of Israel. Or it may be the actual headcount. What matters is that Elijah was not the only one. God has his secret agents scattered all over the place. You’re one of them too.

The Church is such a hidden mystery. You can’t see it in its fulness. You can only hear the Word and see the activity of Christ in the sacraments. The Church remains hidden. The glory remains hidden. We won’t know what God has accomplished until the Last Day, and we trust that the sight will be glorious.

Elijah also learned that God works hiddenly and subversively. Elijah had seen the power and glory as fire rained down from heaven to consume the 400 prophets of Baal. But he also learned the fire from heaven was not God’s ultimate purpose. Salvation is. Eternal life. Forgiving sin. Showing mercy. Justifying sinners. God wasn’t in the strong wind, the earthquake, the fire. God was hidden in the soft whisper. We expect God to shout, and He whispers. Hiddenly, humbly, rejectibly. Almost overlooked by all the religious noise going on around him.

My friends, fix your eyes on Jesus. Jesus had His Jerusalem so that you would have your Jesus, a focal point. LIfe presents you with a whole bunch of rabbit trails, all sorts of things to worry about, all kinds of things to distract you from the one, needful thing – and that is to die and rise with Jesus. Like a sailor setting a course in the storm, or like a runner pushing toward the finish line, fix your eyes on Jesus. His cross, His resurrection. His life. His Baptism, Body and Blood. That’s where the action is. That’s where the life is. That’s where forgiveness is. That’s where He is for you.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Now the story of this man is just as weird, if not downright creepy. For a long time, he ran around without any clothes on, which in the Gospels tends to be a sign that something isn’t going quite right. You’ll recall that the young men who greeted the women at Jesus’ open, empty tomb were clothed in white, while the young man who fled dark Gethsemane on the night of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest ran off naked. So while streaking may have been a funny college prank back in the 70s, it’s no laughing matter in the Gospel. The devils seems to have the upper hand here. And not just one, but a legion of them.

Moreover, the man did not live in a house, but among the tombs, with all the dead. Preoccupation with the dead seems to be a demonic thing. So that’s pretty creepy too. Luke adds that he was often kept under guard and was frequently bound with chains and fetters, which is the 1st century equivalent of being put in a straightjacket and restraints, but the demons were so strong they broke the restraints and drove him away from the city into the wilderness. The wilderness, as you recall from Jesus’ temptation, is the devil’s playground. Mark tells us that the man would cry out night and day and cut himself with sharp stones, which is probably why he was put in restraints in the first place.

Now our modern, scientific, skeptical minds are already spinning a bit here and wondering about this demon stuff. Today, we might consider the man deranged and put him on drugs or some such thing. But make no mistake about it. The demonic realm is real. It’s the opposite side of the angelic realm. There’s a whole spiritual realm that we confess with the “invisibles” and some of it isn’t good.

A colleague of mine once remarked that in lands where the devil is taken seriously, he shows himself even more seriously. Take Haiti as an example. There are weird stories always coming out of Haiti where voodoo is alive and well. In places where the devil isn’t taken very seriously, he shows himself even less serious. The Halloween kind of devil. Horns, tail, red suit. Comical. Funny. But either way, the devil and his demons are serious business and not to be played with. “On earth is not his equal,” ends the first stanza of A Mighty Fortress and it’s referring not to Jesus but to the devil. There is none on earth that can stand up to him.

The devils knew who Jesus was and shouted it as loud as they could. “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” That’s about as good a confession as there is. And it comes from a demon. But you see, in the devil’s hands, even the truth becomes a lie. When the devil tempted Jesus, he quoted from the psalms to try to get Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple. You see, even the Bible in the hands of the devil will be used in service of the lie. He’s a liar and the father of all lies. His demons are liars too. They tell the truth. Jesus is the Son of the Most High God. But they tell it in a way that subverts His mission.

Jesus came to do battle with the devil on his own playground. He came to undo the works of the devil and his demons and to cast them into the eternal pit, which is what hell was prepared for by God. Not for people. For the devil and his demons. And the way in which the devil was going to be defeated was by Jesus dying on a cross and descending into Death. He stormed the prison to bind the devil and free the captives – you and me and the rest of humanity. The reason the demons are so interested in Jesus is that they want to head him off at the pass. Send Him down a glory detour. Make a celebrity out of Him and try to divert HIm from His appointed hour with the cross.

They even try to bind Jesus with the name of God. Now that’s a cute trick. They invoke God’s name against God! “I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” But Jesus has the upper hand here. He’s their Lord too, and they know it. He asks their name. That’s how you assert your dominion. They must respond. Legion. A Roman legion is four to six thousand soldiers. You can only imagine the horror.

They beg Jesus not to send them into the “abyss,” the hell hole where they belong. They know what Jesus is there for. They offer a large herd of pigs instead. “Let us enter them.” The story gets even weirder. With Jesus’ permission, the demons take over a herd of 2000 pigs who promptly throw themselves off a cliff into the sea. Now if you’re Jewish, you’re OK with this, because pigs were unclean, so it all makes sense. Unclean spirits, unclean pigs, over they go into the sea. Bye, bye. But this is Gentile country, and pork belly futures just took a steep jump not to mention the stench of rotting pig carcasses on the beach. So it’s little wonder the people ask Jesus to please pack His bags and leave.

The formerly demon possessed man is now sitting with Jesus. He’s clothed and in his right mind, and he wants to join Jesus’ followers. But Jesus said no, and sent him back to his own people as a living testimony to the mercy of God. And what a testimony it was! A demon possessed man who used to live among the tombs and cut himself now goes all around the ten cities of the Gentiles, proclaiming the good news. And 2000 pigs plummet to their death after being taken over by a legion of demons. Weird. Just plain weird.

The demonic realm is real, my friends. Don’t think for a moment it isn’t. You do so at your own peril. The devil prowls around like a lion, looking for someone to devour. It could be you. He is resistible as you stand firm in Jesus. He is defeated. Jesus is stronger than the devil and his hordes of demons. Whatever darkness plagues you; whatever way the devil seeks to have his way with you, you are safe in Jesus. Apart from Jesus, you don’t stand a chance. In fact, we are all by our human nature, in league with the devil. And just because he doesn’t show himself like this, his work is all around us. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes subtle. But it’s all around us.. A weird story like this, one that actually happened, serves as a reminder to all of us that the spiritual realm is both wonderful and terrifying and that there is no firewall to protect us save the death of Jesus, His blood, His baptism, His victory.

Jesus went to the tomb for us. He was scarred, wounded for us. It’s not our scars that heal, but His. It’s not our death that saves, but His. It’s not our word that conquers the devil, but His. What He did to that legion of demons that day in the Gerasenes is but a small picture of what He will do at the end, at His coming in power and glory and might, when He will make visible the victory that He won on the cross, and bind the devil and his demons forever and cast them into the lake of fire prepared for them.

We’re not there yet. We’re living in the in-between time, the now and not yet between Christ’s disappearing and His reappearing. And in that time, the Bible speaks of Satan’s “little season,” a time when the devil and his demons will be let loose on earth. Perhaps we are there already, or it is soon to come. I have no idea what that will be like. Probably weird. But then, things are already pretty weird.

There is nothing to fear for those who are in Christ Jesus. He’s got you covered. You baptized, covered with Christ, filled with His Spirit, safe in His death and life. His wounds are your healing; His cross is your victory; His righteousness is your clothing. Your sins are put far away from you, as far as the east is from the west. As far as that legion of demons from the poor man.

There is something more going on here too. Not weird but wondrous. The prophet Isaiah saw it and spoke of it. “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to found by those who did not seek me.” Those who sit in tombs and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh and broth of tainted meat is in ther vessels. The gentiles. The outsiders to Israel. One of Jesus’ greatest and weirdest displays of divine power and authority was not even in Israel but across the sea. In Gentile territory.

Israel’s messiah is the world’s savior. Jesus’ victory over the darkness and death and the demonic is for all. He knows no boundaries in seeking the lost. He seeks those who do not even look for Him. And in the end, even the devil and his demons wind up serving HIm and HIs mission to save. Jesus would not let that man come to Israel with Him, as much as He wanted to. He might have made a great disciple. Much better than Judas! But his calling was to tell his own people, in his own place, the greatness and goodness of God’s mercy. Yours too. Jesus has freed you. Broken the chains that held you. Rescued you from the grave. Purchased and won you. Tell others what He has done, not only for you but also for them.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” In Word and Supper. Forgiveness, Body and Blood. Freedom and life. Much more than we would ever dare to ask of Him. Weirdly and wonderfully so.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

He had invited Jesus, along with some of his other religious friends. You can safely assume that the table was populated by religious men, the pillars of the religious community. Leaders. Why he invited Jesus, we don’t know. Perhaps he wanted to impress Jesus, or pick his brain, or impress his friends. Here he was, hanging out with the new young rabbi who was making all the headlines.

The woman slipped in unnoticed at first. She crept quietly around the table until she was directly behind Jesus. Surely they noticed her by then. She bent down near His feet, ignoring all the hard stares of the religious men who were judging her. She knew what was going through their minds. She heard what they hissed behind her back. “Sinner,” they called her. Or worse. How dare she intrude on their nice little dinner party? How dare she even show herself in the company of these respectable men? There was certainly no place at their table for so much as a woman, much less a woman of her reputation.

These men at the table are all outcasts of the kingdom too, every bit as much as she is. But their religion prevents them for seeing their own sinfulness. And failing that, they fail to see Jesus for who He is – the Savior of sinners. The fact is, if you don’t think you are a sinner, if you think that God is just tickled blue over you for all the nice things you do, then you have no need for a crucified Savior.

That’s the danger of religion. It gives you a pretense of respectability, a thin veneer of piety, a mask. We call it our “Sunday best.” We wear it when we want others to see how religious we are, how we’ve made all the right choices, and hang out with all the right friends, and how you should do the same. Oh we wear it well, and sad to say, we’d be right at home at Simon’s table. We would like the company of these men who probably lamented the lack of morality in their culture and nodded soberly at the sorry state of affairs.

You can only imagine the harsh, judgmental stares of these men at this woman of the streets. Did they know her name? Did they know anything about her? Why did she have to sell her body to men who used her and discarded her? Had any of them been with her? Do you wonder about that? You know, the guilty always protest the loudest.

She has no mask behind which to hide. She has no pretensions of piety. There are only tears of shame that bathe Jesus’ feet. She anoints them with her perfume from a precious alabaster flask, likely the most precious thing she owned, perhaps a tool of her trade. When Jesus was little, the wise men from the East offered Him gold, incense, and myrrh. Now this woman of the street offers her perfume, hair, and tears . She gently massages the ointment into Jesus’ tired feet, and if this weren’t outrage enough, she lets down her hair (what no decent woman of her day would have done), and dries Jesus’ feet with it.

For her, Jesus is a man, perhaps the only man in the world, who understands her, who accepts her, who loves her, and most importantly who forgives her. She trusts that Jesus will not rebuke or shame her in front of these harsh, religious men. He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to rescue sinners. He came for her, and she believed it. And He is not ashamed to receive her acts of devotion, even though they tweak the sensibilities of the religiously proper.

You can only imagine the outrage at the table, the looks on those hardened faces as the perfume fills the air along with her sobbing. What kind of prophet is Jesus who would allow such a thing? How can this man claim to be the Messiah, the Holy One of God, and let such a woman touch Him?

That’s right. We say Jesus is a friend of sinners. “Jesus sinners doth receive.” We preach it. “Christ died to save sinners of whom I am chief.” Do we actually mean that? We confess we are sinners, yes, but do we see ourselves in solidarity with this woman of the streets? What if some genuine sinners showed up in our midst, could we handle it? What if genuinely broken people brought their actually broken lives to the only place where brokenness is a virtue, where sin is not judged but forgiven, where God comes to keep company with sinners? Would we welcome this woman into our midst or would be grumble with the religious over how outrageously good God’s free grace is? “If the pastor only knew what sort of person she was, he wouldn’t be communing her.”

“I have something to say to you, Simon.” And our Pharisaical friend Simon was all ears. What an honor! Jesus had something to say just for me. A parable. Oh oh. Watch out for the parables. They’re traps. They’ll catch you when you are least suspecting. Just ask David. He thought he’d gotten away with adultery and murder. He’d gotten the wife of Uriah pregnant and arranged for Uriah’s death in the battlefield so he could marry the widow and look like hero in the eyes of Israel. But God sent Nathan the prophet to David with a little parable. And the parable nailed him. “You are the man!” David was dead to rights. All he could do was say, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And all Nathan had to say was “The Lord has put away your sin.”

A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii (a denarius is roughly a day’s wages for a day laborer); the other owed fifty. He forgave them both. Which one loved him more? Simon realizes he’s been caught. “I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” Ah. The bigger the sinner, the greater the gratitude. “See, Simon, that’s why you gave me no water to wash my feet, no kiss of greeting when I walked through the door, no oil to anoint my head. You have no idea how great a sinner you are. You think you’re a little sinner in need of just a little forgiveness. And so your love is just as little. But this woman, she knows how great a sinner she is, and you keep reminding her so she doesn’t forget, and she knows how great a Savior of sinners I am, and so she washes my feet with her tears, and anoints them, and wipes them with her hair, and kisses them. She loves much because she has been forgiven much.

The fact is, those who think they have no sin, have no need for Jesus. Oh, they might try to use Him to win friends and influence people, perhaps. Make a name for themselves. Show off for their friends. But they had no need for why Jesus came – to forgive sins and justify sinners.

Only as we see ourselves in her position, not in Simon’s, do we get it, do we see who Jesus is for us. I find it interesting to look at the three women mentioned in this reading. Luke has a particular accent on the women who followed Jesus. A prostitute who anoints Jesus’ feet. Mary Magdalene who had seven demons chased from her by Jesus. Joanna, the wife of Herod’s chief of staff. A high ranking woman of considerable power and means. A demon distressed woman. And a woman of the street. And all three are forgiven much; all three love much. And, by the way, two out of those three are witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and were among the first to go the tomb that morning.

“Your sins are forgiven you.” These the the first words Jesus speaks to the woman. Right in front of those men who would accuse and judge her, Jesus absolves her. Outrageous forgiveness. Does God have no sense of decency? He forgives David, an adulterer and a murderer? He forgives this woman? If her tears and hair and perfume and little foot massage weren’t bad enough, Jesus’ rubs salt into the religious wound. He publicly pronounces forgiveness? Who can forgive like this except…well…God?

That’s the faith point. “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” She trusted Jesus – nothing else, nothing more. Faith is like that woman, risking everything including the scorn of religion, offering nothing except a broken, sinful life and tears and a humble offering that Jesus doesn’t need anyway but receives as the greatest gift of love there is. She was forgiven much, even before Jesus said those words to her. She knew it. She believed it. And because of that, she loved much and worshipped.

You are forgiven much too. More than you realize. The commandments will tally the size of the debt, and it isn’t a small one. We too are adulterers and murderers and thieves. We don’t want or like to think of ourselves as big sinners, and as a result we look in judgment on others. We would be very wrong. To know the greatness of your sin is also to know the greatness of your Savior. No matter how great the sin, no matter how messed up the life, Jesus is always greater. Greater than our sin, greater than our death, greater than the Law that condemns us.

There is a place at Jesus’ table for sinners – for David, for that woman of the streets, for troubled Mary Magdalene, for the religious and the unreligious, for the good and the bad, and for you. Bring nothing but your sin, and He will forgive. Bring nothing but your tears, and He will dry them. Bring nothing but your emptiness, and He will fill it. Bring nothing but your sorrow, and He will bring you joy. Bring nothing but a hunger and thirst for God, and He will satisfy it. Let His great forgiveness have its way with you, and there will be great love – for Him and for others.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

He heads south to Mt. Tabor, along the Great Trunk Road. His disciples are with Him, along with a great crowd following Him closely. Pressing in on Him. Religious lookie lous and all sorts of people demanding a miracle, a cure, a favor. As He drew near the gate of the city, Jesus and His crowd meet another crowd. A funeral procession. A young man had died, the only son of his mother. The crowd was considerable. The crowd is always large when the person who dies is young. We can make sense of death for someone old and sick. Funerals of older people tend to be calmer and more peaceful. There is even a sense of relief.

When the young die, there is outrage and bitterness and anger. It’s not supposed to be this way. First this poor woman lost her husband to death, and now her only son. Who was going to take care of her? We can only imagine her grief and despair. She buried a husband and now must bury a son. No mother ever expects to bury her only son. Her eyes surely were swollen with tears; her face contorted with grief; her heart broken.

Their eyes met. Jesus looked into those tear-filled eyes and saw the grief, the anguish, the uncertainty, the fear, the anger, the overwhelming sadness. This is what Death does to us. It robs us of those we love. It separates husband from wife, son from mother. It insults our humanity. This is what Jesus came for, to encounter Death in His death and defeat it on its on home court. Jesus came in the flesh precisely to be Death’s undoing, to overthrow the curse of the Law, to deal with the consequences of Adam’s sin and ours. “The wages of sin is death.” Jesus came to collect the just wages of our sin.

Luke says Jesus had compassion on her. It means He felt this grief and anguish in His guts. We would say, “His heart went out to her.” In Jesus’ day, they would say, “His guts went out to her,” because that’s where you feel compassion, in the guts. It literally wrenches His guts what death has done to this poor woman. You’ll notice that she does not say a word to Him. She doesn’t have to. He knows her. He knows her pain and her need. His look said everything there needed to be said. She says nothing at all to Jesus, not before or after. Unlike the centurion in the prior episode, we have no evidence of this woman’s faith, whether it was strong or weak or even there at all.

In the prior episode with the centurion, it was about faith in the Word of Jesus, that all Jesus had to do was speak the Word, wherever and whenever, and the servant would be healed. But in this episode, the woman says nothing. What is she to think or believe? Healing the sick is one thing. It goes on in our hospitals all the time. But raising the dead is quite another thing. This woman may not have been as scientifically sophisticated as we are, but she knew one thing, the dead don’t rise from their funeral processions.

Jesus looks at her with compassion. “Do not weep,” He tells her. Not the thing you usually say to the grieving, and I don’t recommend you do. But this is the Lord who wipes every tear from our grieving eyes. This is the Lord who is greater than our sin, greater than Death itself. This is the Lord of Life standing before her. He touches the bier and the pallbearers stop still in their tracks. You can imagine the two crowds coming together as one, with Jesus and this woman and her dead son in the middle of it all.

“Do not weep.” Only the Lord can say this in the face of death and loss. Only the Lord can say this to a grieving widow burying her only son. And it’s not some pious fond wish, He offers her. No, “there, there it will all be set right one day.” Jesus means it. There is no need to weep when He is there. “He lives to silence all my fears; He lives to wipe away my tears.” With Jesus, her sorrow becomes joy; her loss is restored; life is pulled out of death, for even Death must obey its Lord and Master.

“Young man, I say to you, arise.” The previous episode showed that Jesus’ word does what it says, even from a distance. This episode shows how far the Word of Jesus reaches. Even to death and the grave. The dead hear His voice and they obey His word. He says “arise” and that’s precisely what happens! The dead sit up. And just to demonstrate that this wasn’t some freaky rigor mortis reflex like you see in the horror movies, the man spoke. He was conscious and alive. Wouldn’t you love to know what he said? Of course you do! We’re endlessly curious about these things. What was it like? What did you see? Today he would have written a book and appeared on Oprah, I suppose. Thankfully, it happened then and not now.

Jesus gave him back to his mother. Resurrection and reunion. Like all miracles, this is not about some reward for right believing or strong believing. We really don’t know whether the woman believed anything at all. Faith is not the issue here. This is about Jesus, not about the woman or her believing. Like all miracles, this is a snapshot preview of what Jesus is up to, and what He will do for all in the power of HIs own death and resurrection. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.”

We see in this miracle a glimpse of our destiny in Christ, of resurrection to life, of reunion with loved ones who have died in the Lord. It is a reminder that weeping may remain for a grieving night, but rejoicing always comes in the morning of Jesus’ resurrection. What Jesus did for the young man lying on his funeral bier, He will do for each of us, as He has pledged to do in our Baptism. Raise us to life and restore us. The Grave could not hold Jesus, and it cannot hold against His Word. When He says “rise,” the dead rise. It’s not a matter of faith, it’s simply a matter of fact.

What Jesus did for the poor widow lady so stricken with grief, He will do for each us. Reuniting parent and child, breaking down the walls of the Grave. swallowing up Death in His victory. “Oh Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory? The sting of Death is sin, and the power of Sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Victory. You have it in Jesus. It’s yours. Wrapped in weakness, cloaked in death, appearing as God in the Flesh hanging dead on a cross. It appears as hopeless defeat in this world, as defeated as a dead man being carried to his grave; as hopeless as a widow who has just lost her only son, as dark as Good Friday. But see what happens when Jesus appears. See what happens when Jesus touches that coffin. See what happens when Jesus speaks to the dead. They rise. They live. Jesus is life. He came to give life, abundant life, eternal life.

How much people shortchange Jesus and what He comes to do! How often we ourselves sell Jesus short! Seeking favors from Him. Expecting exceptions and exemptions from the suffering of this life. That woman’s life was changed that day all because her son died. Had her son not died, she would never have encountered Jesus on the road, she would never have known the power of His resurrection, she would not have known whom to trust with her own death and the death of her son and loved ones.

Her momentary grief became eternal joy; her temporal tears became a spring of happiness; her time of sorrow became an eternity of praise; her moment of anguish became a unique encounter with Jesus who was completely there for her in her time of need and made good out of her son’s death in a a way she could not have dared to ask.

There is a sense in which this has already taken place for us in Baptism. It is a present reality to faith. God has spoken the Word and it is so. God has declared declared dead to Sin but alive to Him in Christ. We have already been raised from death and given back to our mother, the Church. We glorify God, rejoicing that a great prophet has indeed come among us, the Word is with us in the fulness of His glory. God has indeed visited His people, become one with us so that we might die and rise with Him.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that the last word is not Death but Life. Death remains as a next to last word, the final word on our sinful condition, but not the end of life and certainly not the end of us, thanks to Jesus. We will all join that widow at Nain in her grief. We will all ride in our slow moving processions to the graveside to bury our loved ones. We will weep with her. And we will all one day join her son in death too. That is inevitable. But as surely as Jesus looked on her with compassion, so He looks upon us in our time of sorrow. And as surely as He raised that young man from the dead, so He will raise us.

He is committed. He has spoken. You have His Word on it.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

“And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing eh persons nor dividing the substance.” Not three gods but one God in essence. And yet not one Person but three Persons. Tri-une. Three in One and One in Three. Got it?

Of course you do! Or do you? Well, today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the day we celebrate the central paradox of the Christian faith, namely, that God is both Three and One at the same time. Three Persons in One Divine Essence, one Divine Essence in three Persons. Strange? You bet it is. Irrational? Yes, though you can understand it well enough to repeat it. We do every week in the Creed. And we will shortly in the words of the Athanasian Creed, which summarizes four hundred years of struggling to say it just the right way. And still we can only come to an approximation, as though looking through a dirty window pane. We can describe God using words like “person” and “being” and “essence” and “substance” but we can’t really explain God or get a bead on Him. How can something be both Three and One?

There are some failed attempts to makes analogies. A cube, for, has three distinct dimensions – height, width, depth, which together make a cube. Without all three, you don’t have a cube at all. You’d have a square or a line. But the problem is that each dimension is not a cube but only one side of a cube.

There is the hat analogy, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are like someone wear three distinct hats, for example one man may be a father, a husband, and a son at the same time. So God has three hats – a Father hat, a Son hat, and a Holy Spirit hat. Clever, but again, it fails. When Jesus prays, He does not pray to Himself but to His Father. And Jesus didn’t send Himself to die, but the Father sent the Son with all authority in heaven and on earth.

There is the triple point of water analogy. At it’s triple point, water co-exists as solid ice, liquid water, and vapor all at the same time. All are essentially “water” H2O, but they are simply different states of the same thing. But that doesn’t quite do the trick either. Father, Son, and Spirit are not states of God or modes of God’s existence, but distinct Persons with a distinct relationship to each other.

The error is called “modalism,” where you don’t have three distinct persons but you have three modes of God’s presence. That’s one of the two ditches you end up in when you try to resolve the tri-une paradox. Most analogies fail in this way. They’re modalistic. The other ditch is tri-theism – three gods. That’s what Islam accuses Christianity of. Tritheism. They even call us tri-theists. If you lose the Persons, you will end up as either a modalist or a unitarian. If you lose the one Essence, you will wind up with three separate gods.

The closest that anyone has come to a decent analogy is St. Augustines who used the analogy of love – the Father is the Lover, the Son the beloved, the Spirit love. And still that fails somehow. All we can do is distinguish the Persons – the Father is uncreated, unbegotten, unproceeding. The Son is begotten of the Father. And the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. That’s what distinguishes them. And yet there is but one God, and whenever God deals with us, all three Persons deal with us, each according to what is properly His.

The trick to all paradoxes is to stay on the road, confessing both but favoring neither. It’s not really that hard to say back, just impossible to rationalize. We worship three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one Being or Essence called “God.” It’s really as simple as that.

And the Trinity is literally all over the Scriptures. From the opening verses of Genesis in which the Father speaks the Word as the Spirit hovers over the waters of the deep to the Revelation, in which the Lamb who was slain but lives is enthroned at the right hand of the Father and the Spirit flows like a river of life from Father and Son.

In today’s OT reading from the Proverbs, the Son is personified as Wisdom, begotten from all eternity, from before the beginning of the earth. In his Gospel, John states it this way: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. With God and was God. Paradox. Two things held together at once.

You heard it in the epistle reading and Peter’s quoting of the psalm: “The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” Jesus confronted His detractors with that psalm and asked them, paradoxically, “How can David’s son be David’s Lord?” And how can “the Lord” and “my Lord” talk to each other and sit next to each other?

Finally, in today’s Gospel we have Jesus Himself being confronted with the paradox of who He is as the Son of God in the flesh. The religious types thought He was nuts. “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” That’s another way of saying, “You’re nuts.” And anyone who claims to be the Son of God in the flesh is nuts or delusional or demon possessed or at least a Samaritan heretic. It’s a crazy claim and worthy of all dismissal. If I made that claim to you, that God Himself is my Father, you’d have every right to ignore me and tell me to get some help. You can’t really blame the Jews for doubting Jesus. Here He was, a carpenter from Nazareth, claiming not simply to be the Messiah, the Christ. But also claiming that God Himself was His Father, that He was sent by the Father, that the Father glorifies Him with a glory not given to Abraham or to Moses or to any of the prophets.

Jesus even rubs it in a little bit by indicating that Father Abraham rejoiced by faith that he would see Jesus’ day. He acted as though He and Abraham were on a first name basis, which they were, and had seen each other, which they had. And then Jesus pushes the big button and flat out says it, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And this doesn’t simply mean that Jesus is chronologically older than Abraham, but that Jesus is the I AM who Moses say in the burning bush, YHWH of the ineffable name, the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who keeps covenant and shows mercy.

They understood precisely what Jesus was saying. There was not mistake in hearing. They immediately took up stones to throw at Him. He claimed to be “I AM” in the flesh, an audacious claim, a crazy claim really.

The core truth of today is that the doctrine of the Trinity centers on Jesus. It’s really all about Jesus and His being sent to save the world, to save you. If the Son of God had not come in the flesh, there would be no need for all this triune paradox. We could all be unitarians and worship the Father or Jehovah or whatever we wanted to call Him or Her. But when the Son of God shows His face to the world and suffers, dies on a cross, and rises from the dead, when He reveals the Father to us, and sends the Spirit out as His breath, all religious bets concerning God are off.

Luther was fond of saying that he knew no other God than the one who nurses at the breast of His virgin mother and who hands dead on the cross bearing the world’s sin. It’s very tempting to speculate about God and come up with clever analogies and theories and alternative theologies. But that is nothing more than subtle idolatry in the end, our fashioning gods for ourselves in our own image and likeness. God comes to His in the eternal Son. We know God in knowing Jesus. And we know no other God but this Jesus who suffers, dies, and rises, who sends His Spirit, who brings us to the Father.

The triune life of God is also our life in Holy Baptism. We are baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We live, move, and have our being within this Triunity, worshipping the Father in the Spirit and in the Truth who is Jesus, having God as our Father, Jesus as our brother, and the Spirit as our Advocate and Guide. We are loved by the Father in the Beloved Son who bears our humanity and are drawn by the Spirit.

They wanted to take up stones and throw them at Jesus. They wanted to kill Him for saying He was the Son of God. They couldn’t bear the thought that the Word could become flesh and dwell among them. They wanted God “out there” in heaven somewhere, safely transcendent, big and mighty, powerful and remote. But that’s not a God who can save from sin and rescue from death. The God must draw near, empty Himself of HIs divine glory and take on our humanity, become one of us, and in our humanity humble Himself under His own Law in obedience to death. And being humbled in death, He must be raised to life again and glorified at the right hand of the Father, now bearing our humanity so that we too are glorified in Him.

“If I glorify myself,” Jesus said, “my glory is nothing.” Self-glory is vain glory, empty glory, narcissistic vanity. The Father glorifies the Son. And the Son glorifies us in His dying and rising by the Spirit whom He breathes out over us in our Baptism. And we, trusting that this mysterious Triune God is merciful and gracious to us for His Son’s sake worship the trinity in unity and the unity in trinity.

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity.
Blessed be God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God in three Persons, now and forever.

Amen

Today is the Holy Spirit’s day, Pentecost Day, a day full of grace and favor. It is the day the crucified, risen, and reigning Lord Jesus Christ breathed out on His church – 120 believers gathered together in a room. Pentecost means “fifty” in Greek. Fifty days. In the Old Testament, it was the harvest festival of the winter wheat, fifty days after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In the rabbinic tradition, it celebrated the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai fifty days after the Exodus.

The Lord employs the symbolism of the day to its maximum effect. It was now fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus. Seven weeks. Fifty days after Jesus’ “exodus” from death to life comes the outpouring of the Spirit and the “new Torah” the Gospel of Jesus is preached to the world in all of its languages. Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection from the grave, the first-fruits of the resurrection’s harvest is gathered – 3000 people heard the proclamation of salvation in the name of Jesus, believed, and were baptized.

Pentecost also indicates the beginning of the “last days,” the days leading up to the Last Day. Everything has been done for your salvation. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ has ascended to the throne of glory at the Father’s right hand. It is finished. Nothing more needs to be done except to broadcast the victory. Proclaim it. Preach it. Make it known far and wide. That takes breath. The Church must have breath if she is to proclaim the victory and reign of Christ. Before you can shout or sing, you need to inhale, take in a good deep breath. That’s Pentecost. The Spirit is the Church’s breath. The rushing wind and tongues of fire. That’s Jesus breathing the living Breath of God into the Church giving life and vitality and breath to speak.

The breath of God blew through the church like a mighty wind. Divided tongues of fire rested on each of the disciples gathered there. Wind and fire were Sinai signs. Jesus promised He would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. They were all filled with the Spirit and began to speak in various languages and dialects. And the people who were gathered in Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean world heard the good news of Jesus in their very own language and dialect. Pentecost is a miracle of both speaking and hearing. The Holy Spirit works both at the mouth and at the ear to convey the Word.

That’s why to people can get two different things from the same sermon, or react in two different ways. I’ve learned that over 17 years of preaching. No two people hear the same sermon the same way. And sometimes what I plan to say and what is said are two different things as well. I believe, on the basis on Pentecost, that this is precisely how the Holy Spirit works. He always works through means, in this case words. Nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, subjects, predicates. Human language. It is one of the most amazing gifts of the Spirit that the Word of God that kills and makes alive, that tears down and builds up, that is sharper than any two edged sword, can be conveyed in ordinary human language. It’s really no different than Baptism using ordinary water, or ordinary bread and wine being the Body and Blood of Christ. God works through means. Ordinary, creaturely, earthy means.

The languages spoken here were coherent human languages. People heard the Gospel in their own native tongues. It was God’s way of saying “for you.” This death and life of Jesus, this Baptism, this forgiveness is “for you.” Take it personally and trust it. Own it. The words “for you” require hearts to believe.

Our OT reading spoke of a different language event – the tower at Babel where God intervened in the ambitious plans of men to build a city and a tower to the heavens by confusing their languages. It’s wonderfully simple and subversive. If you want people to scatter, make it so they don’t understand each other’s subjects and predicates. confuse languages and people scatter.

It was a protective act of judgment, lest a united humanity do something worse. It reveals God’s mistrust of our unity as sinners. You always hear talk about everyone all being together as one and how great that would be. The Lord doesn’t appear to think that one world anything is a good idea. God knows the mischief that sinners will make if they “just all get together.”

The place where God confused the languages of men was called Babel. It sounds like what it is – babbling. It forms the root for Babylon, the city that man builds, the city destined for final destruction on the last day. We are reminded, by way of this narrative, that the ambitions of man without God will result in nothing but confusion and chaos. All of our attempts to be united, to be “one people,” will be nothing more than tower building without the Lord. It also reminds us of who runs the verbs, if not the nouns. We don’t, God does. We don’t reach up to him, neither with with our towers reaching to the heavens nor with our religions that attempt to do the same. God comes down to us. God becomes one of us and one with us. “The Word became Flesh.”

At Pentecost, the confusion of Babel is not undone. The diversity of languages remains. Instead, God uses the diversity of tongues as a sign of His Spirit, and He brings people together not by giving them a common language but by giving them a common Savior. “There is one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all. There is one Spirit, one bread, one cup. Our union in Christ is the true unity of the Church and the only way in which we can be united without our destroying one another in the process.

The world remains skeptical. Some thought the disciples were drunk at nine in the morning, though I’ve never met anyone whose language skills improved much less expanded with drinking. As the last days play out, the skepticism is bound to increase, as will false teaching and teachers, deceptive spirits and spiritualities, any distraction from Jesus and His cross. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in the later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.” Our day is one of many spirits and many beliefs. It’s a religious Babel out there, and sometimes that babbling confusion even leaks into the church.

We ourselves are tempted too. We have this itch for things new. We are fascinated by things spiritual. Some people expect the church always to be like its opening day, with wind and tongues of fire and speaking in languages and thousands baptized at one time. And that may indeed happen here and there where it’s needed. But that’s not the ordinary way. That’s opening day.

The ordinary way of Pentecost is the preaching of Jesus. Baptism. Body and blood. Immediately after this episode in the book of Acts it says of those who were gathered, “They continued in the doctrine of the apostles, in the fellowship, the Breaking of the Bread, and in the prayers.” In other words, they worshipped together in much the same way that we do here. Preaching, teaching, fellowship in the Bread which is the Body of Christ and the cup that is His blood, and in prayer.

Can you imagine what would happen if wind and fire and tongues were part of every service every Sunday? We’d get bored with it within a month or two. We’d complain about the wind, we’d worry that the tongues of fire were going to singe the carpet or our hair. And that chatter of all those languages. Couldn’t we just settle on one?

Jesus knows this. He knows what is best for His Church. And He’s promised always to be with us. The Spirit is how Jesus can both “go away” and “come to us.” In one sense, Jesus “went away” when He ascended. He didn’t go “somewhere” in the sense of place, but He withdraw His visible and touchable presence. We can’t see Him as His disciples did, nor would we want to, not in His glory. But in another greater sense, He comes to us. He comes to us by the Spirit He sends, in the Spirit-ed Word that has Jesus’ own imprimatur, that the apostles who wrote did so guided by the Spirit who brought everything to their remembrance.

That same Spirit is at work here among us. Subtly, humbly, hiddenly. Delivering the peace of Jesus. “Peace, I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” That’s the peace of sins forgiven. The peace of standing before God justified. The peace of having death conquered for you. The peace of eternal life and the promise of resurrection to life. Pentecost peace and joy.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

When you look out over 2000 years of church history, when you consider the Church that began as 120 believers gathered in one room on the eve of Pentecost, you have to ask yourself how has the Church managed to survive throughout the centuries. Empires have come and gone. Nations have fallen and risen. Great cultures have reached their pinnacle and then disappeared. Antagonists have risen up: Islam, communism, atheism, rationalism, agnosticism, skepticism. There have been enemies from within too: heresies, false teachers, egocentric leaders, corrupt clergy, faithless laity. 2000 years of mismanagement that would have driven a corporation or even a country into the ground.

And yet, like the dandelions in your Spring lawn or weeds in your vegetable garden or the Energizer bunny that keeps on ticking and ticking, the Church seems to march on, popping up here and there all over the world. Oh, it isn’t uniformly strong and vibrant everywhere at the same time. It’s like that field with the four kinds of soil in the parable that Jesus told. Some parts of the Church are simply unproductive hard pavement, where the Word gets barely a hearing. Some are like the shallow soil that spring up with rapid growth that wilts in the heat of persecution. Some are like the weedy soil where riches, comforts, and cares choke out the Word before it ever becomes fruitful. And some parts are like that deeply plowed soil that receives the Word and in which the Word bears generous fruit.

Luther recognized this. He called the Gospel a “local rain,” that showers for a while in one place and then moves on to another. Churches that once were busting full with people now stand nearly empty, while churches pop up somewhere else. We see it in our own area here in southern California. Churches that were once the great mother churches of the region are barely alive; while areas that barely had a presence of the Church is not thriving. The greatest resurgence of Christianity is found not in America but in Africa. And through it all, there remains one Lord Jesus Christ, one faith, one Baptism, one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

Jesus promised that He would build His church on the confession that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that the gates of Hades would not prevail against that Church. That doesn’t mean every congregation is bullet-proof. Certainly not. Sometimes growth in one part of the Church entails loss in another part. The Church is a living, dynamic body, not a static institution or corporation.

The Church is also not our doing. We comprise it but we don’t construct it. The Church is not of our doing, nor is the Church’s unity our doing, nor her glory our doing. These are the Lord’s doing. He purchased and won her with His blood shed on the cross. He washes her with the water and Word of Holy Baptism. He clothes her in the seamless robe of His own righteousness. And He prays for her. Jesus prays for His Church, as a loving husband prays for his wife. He is one flesh with her. He prays for her, and in praying for the Church, Christ also prays for you. This part of Jesus’ high priestly prayer, you get to take personally.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” He prays, first of all, for our union with Him in the Father, that just as He and the Father are one, united in the godhead, so we would be one with Him and the Father, that we would dwell in God and God in us, that we would live in the love God has for us in sending His Son to save us.

Notice that it is not simply for ourselves. It is “so that the world may believe that you sent Me.” The Church exists for the benefit and blessing of the world, just as OT Israel existed for the benefit and blessing of itself, as though it were some kind of holiness club that had exclusive dining room privileges with the Lord, but Israel and its NT counterpart the Church exist “for the life of the world.” “That the world may know and believe that the Father sent the Son to save the world by His death.

This is the first place where churches go wrong. They become institutionalized, self-protective, worried about themselves instead of others, concerned with their own affairs and not with the unbaptized, unbelieving world. We cease to see a world reconciled to God in the blood of Jesus, and instead look at the world in terms of “us” and “them,” drawing a line and building a wall instead of breaking through walls. Jesus’ desire and His prayer is that our unity with Him and the Father would manifest God’s love to the world in Christ so that the world would be drawn into the dragnet of salvation. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Second, after union with Him, Jesus wants you to share in His glory. “The glory that you have given me I have given to them.” This past Thursday, we celebrated Jesus’ ascension, the withdrawal of His visible (but not actual!) presence. In ascending to the highest majesty of rule and dominion at the right hand of the Father, Jesus has glorified our humanity. Think about it. Jesus embodies all of humanity in His human body as the second Adam, the new head of humanity. In Christ, all died. In Christ, all are raised from the dead (which is why all rise in the resurrection). In Christ, all are glorified, humanity is glorified at the right hand of the Father.

And it is this glory that He shares with you as one of His baptized believers. You are glorified in Him and you possess a share of that glory, the down payment of which is the Holy Spirit which was given you in your Baptism. Things may appear anything but glorious at the moment. The Church may not appear terribly glorious in this world. And let’s face it, much of the what passes as glorious in the church is man-made glitter, like so much make-up and a hair dye job. It is superficial glitter, as man applies it. But God looks to and sees the inner beauty, the radiance of Christ and His perfection shining through His bride. The Church doesn’t need make up, as much as she thinks she does. She is beautiful to Christ as she is, clothed with Him, her spots and wrinkles and blemishes covered by Him.

Third, Jesus’ desire and prayer is that we be with Him and the Father. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” It’s not enough that we believe in Him unseeing; Jesus’ desire is that we see what we now believe. That the glory that is now ours by faith in Him would one day be seen in all its glory.

The apostle Paul described this present life as seeing through a glass dimly. Glass was a fascination in the ancient world. Especially clear glass. That’s why the streets of heavenly Jerusalem are depicted as paved with gold as clear as glass. That’s why the city itself is characterized by clarity; wherever you look, everything is as clear as glass. That’s why the river of the water of life, the Spirit that proceeds from the Father and the Son is a crystal clear river. Clear means that the light of Christ shines perfectly through it, without any cloudiness, without any obstruction, without anything getting in the way. What we now see dimly and reflect dimly, we will soon see in all its shining glory, bathed in the light of Jesus.

Only then will what goes on in this life make any sense or achieve its full clarity. There are certain things that can only be seen under special light, UV light, for example. Similarly the sufferings and hardships of this world as we now see it will only make sense when held under the lamp who is Jesus Christ. Now as we speak, the smudges of sin cover things. We can see only dimly; sometimes not at all. But on the day of Jesus’ appearing, when He shows Himself for who He is and for all the world to see, you too will see and understand and marvel at what God has done.

Until then, the Spirit and the Church say, “Come,” inviting all to drink freely of that Spirit-ed water of life that flows from the Son and the Father. Come and be refreshed. Come and be renewed by Him who makes all things new.

Jesus prays for the Church; He prays for you. And you are held safely in that prayer forever. In the name of Jesus, Amen

Viewed through the lens of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the future looks bright even as the present descends into darkness and death. The labor contractions of the new creation seem to be growing in intensity and frequency these days. I don’t know about you, but I wake up every morning wondering what the disaster du jure is going to be: earthquake, flood, fire, volcano, oil slick covering the Gulf of Mexico, market declines, global financial meltdowns. The daily headlines are looking more and more like an apocalyptic checklist from the book of the Revelation. I’m just waiting for famine, plague and pestilence to enter stage right.

It’s terribly easy, and indeed tempting, to get caught up in despair, to abandon all hope for the future, to live radically in the present with a kind of “let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die” attitude. I’m afraid many in our culture have already succumbed to this already. Grab for all you can today because we don’t know about tomorrow. People rack up enormous debt with no intent to repay. Young people walk around aimlessly with no coherent plan or purpose, living day to day from one Frappachino to the next. Perhaps you yourself have wondered what the point of it all is when it seems that nothing is lasting, everything is disposable, today we live, tomorrow we die, so what the heck.

Jesus was preparing His disciples for His impending death and resurrection and ascension. He was “leaving the world,” visibly speaking, and going back to the Father from whence I came. He was about to accomplish the Father’s plan and purpose in giving His life as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world. And He would rise again too, demonstrating the power of His death over Death itself, showing that the Death and the grave had lost their sting. And He would ascend to His glory, glorifying our humanity in His. That’s our future – resurrection to life and glory, all thanks and praise to Jesus.

When we despair of the future, when we can as though there is no hope, no glory, no life awaiting us, we betray our own unbelief. We have forgotten the past – Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ now reigns. We have failed to embrace our present sufferings as signs of future glory, as the birth pangs of the new creation that they are. In other words, when we despair of the future, we have failed to grasp in faith the present “now” of our salvation. Now we already have everything in Christ. We have been crucified with Him, raised with Him, glorified with Him. Everything that He died to win for you, you already have in Christ, held in trust for you until you take possession of it. And you have the gift of the Holy Spirit as “earnest money,” as a pledge toward a future filled with resurrection from the dead and life everlasting. You have a future in Jesus.

Our faith in Christ is anchored in the past. It is tied to a cross driven into the earth outside of Jerusalem, the tree on which the incarnate Son of God gave His life for you. That’s the anchor point. This is why the Church is mandated by Christ to proclaim His death until He comes. This is why the Sacrament of His Body and Blood is so central to the worship of the Christian. This is the very point of our Baptism, that we are united with Jesus in His death. That once for all people, once for all times death on a cross is ours. Without the death of Jesus, we have a free-floating faith, perhaps even verging on idolatry, but we have no concrete reference point. Without the sacrificial death of Jesus, our faith would be nothing more than a philosophy of life and pie-in-the sky- by and by optimism at best. Philosophy cannot raise you from the dead, nor can optimism change the course of the future.

This is what is so incredibly toxic about many religions that pass themselves off as authentic Christianity today. They are oriented entirely in the present and in the self. It’s all about now and it’s all about me. The reality of “now” is that we live by faith and not by sight. We live in love toward God and others in spite of and in tension with the lovelessness that resides in our own hearts that really cares only for ourselves. What passes as true religion today, is little more than pandering to the self. If past ages bowed down before idols of wood and stone, this present age bows down before the mirror and worships the self. Even faith itself comes an idolatry when we speak of having “great faith” or a “strong faith.” The question is faith in what? What is the object. I can say, “I trust, I trust” but you will quickly ask in what or in whom do you trust? I may trust that the elevator I am about to step into is in good working order, but my trust won’t make it go or down safely.

I saw a spot on television this past week about Half Dome, the rock in Yosemite and the cable trail that people take up the back side of Half Dome to get to the top. These are not experienced climbers, mind you, but ordinary tourists who trudge up the near vertical trail clinging in trust to a cable. If that cable isn’t any good or if that cable isn’t tied down and anchored properly, it doesn’t matter how great your trust is or how firm your grip is. If the cable lets loose, you may hang on to it with all your might, it won’t save you.

The death of Jesus on the cross is the anchor point of your faith. Without it, “faith” is really nothing more than wishful thinking, and nothing more sure than clinging tightly to a cable tied to nothing. The cable that connects you to the cross is your Baptism, a cord that extends from the wounded side of Jesus to you in this present time. “Now is the time of your salvation.” That “now” is fraught with tension. We Lutherans have a number of ways of saying it. We are now both sinners in Adam and saints in Christ, simul justus et peccator, simultaneously justified and sinner. We are now both dead in ourselves and alive in Christ. We are now residents of this earthly city and citizens of the heavenly city that comes down from above. We now possess all things in Christ, and yet we do not now possess all things for ourselves. We now have peace in Christ, and yet, as Jesus told HIs disciples, we also have trouble, tribulation, hardship. There is now, and there is not yet.

Jesus spoke to His disciples of a coming day and a coming hour when theology would no longer be analogy as it now is, but the Father would be known plainly, when Jesus would no longer be the intermediary of their prayers but they would be able to deal directly with the Father and everything for which they asked in His name would be granted. How often we’ve been mistaken or mislead into thinking that day and hour is now, that all we have to do is append “in the name of Jesus” to whatever we ask and we will receive it like a can of soda from a vending machine.

Even the disciples thought this. They said, “Ah, now you’re speaking plainly and we know you know all things and we believe you….” And Jesus looked at them and said, “Really? Do you think you now believe? No. The hour has come when you will scatter and hide and leave me all alone. That’s how great your faith is. So get your eyes off of yourselves and look to me. In me you have peace, but only in me. In the world in which you live, you will have trouble and heartache and sorrow. But take heart, I have overcome the world.”

The death and resurrection of Jesus have overcome the world. The crucified and risen Lord Jesus now reigns over all things, even though all things do not yet appear to be under His reign. And you’ve undoubtedly heard the questions or perhaps have asked them for yourselves, “If there is a God why does He allow….” Fill in the blank for yourself. If Christ has already overcome the world, if Christ now reign over all things at the right hand of the Father, if all things are now put under His feet, why is there yet tribulation, suffering, disaster, disease, death?

We have no simple answer, and any answer would be trite. It is the way God wishes to do things. He leaves the old and dying in place, even as He brings the new. He allows the city of Man to decay and collapse under its own idolatries, even as His city comes down from heaven glorious as a bride on her wedding day. The sufferings of the present, together with all the doubts and ambiguities of living by faith and not by sight, do not compare with the glory that will be revealed on that Day we see what we now must believe.

John caught a glimpse in the Revelation. A perfected, symmetrical city made of translucent gold with Israelite gates and apostolic foundations, a city paved in gold unlike any gold in this world, transparent as glass. A city of endless day and light illuminated by a single lamp, Christ the Lamb who was slain but lives. A city where all the achievements, all the good that was done in this life, all the glory of the nations is seen in the light of Christ without the stain of sin, with all the greasy fingerprints of Adam wiped away. A city with no temple, no sacrament, where worshippers see face to face the object of their worship – the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb He sent to save us. The vision reminds us that this city does not rise up from below by our work and ambition. That was Babel, the city of man’s ambition. This city comes down from above, whose architect and builder is God.

It is a city whose boardrooms and bedrooms and staterooms are pure and holy. Nothing unclean shall enter through its gates. Nor anyone who does what is false and detestable. That would exclude you and me as well, were it not for the blood of the Lamb and His writing our names in His baptismal book of life. We enter those gates of pearl by God’s undeserved kindness, by grace, through faith, for Jesus’ sake.

Then we will know in full, what we now can only experience in part, dimly. Then we will see what we now must believe. Then every prayer, every petition, every supplication uttered in the name of Jesus will find their “yes” and their “amen.” It is as sure as Jesus risen from the dead is sure. It is as sure as the water of Baptism poured on you. It is as sure as the Word of Christ spoken to you. A past anchored in the death of Jesus, a present lived in baptismal faith, a future filled with joy and peace in the light of Jesus, the One who was and is and is to come, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

What Jesus has from the Father, He gives by the way of the Spirit. From Father to Son to you gathered here this morning.

Jesus prepares them for His soon to come death and resurrection. “In a little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” In a little while, by the close of that day, Jesus would be dead and buried. And then, in a little while, three short days, He would rise, and they would see Him again, and their sorrow would turn to joy.

Would that all our sorrows lasted but three days! Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be great if all the pain and suffering and loss of this life could be packed into a Friday and over by Sunday? Well, in a very real and profound sense, it has! It is all there in the death of Jesus – your death, mine, the death of the world. And it is all there in the resurrection of Jesus – your death, mine, the life of the world. “Behold, I make all things new,” Jesus says. And He does it by His dying and rising. “It is finished.” If only we believed those last words from the cross – “it is finished.”

Jesus compares to a pregnant woman about to give birth. That’s always a hazardous analogy for a man to propose because the usual response from women is “You have no idea what it’s like.” But He’s the Lord, and He knows, so we’ll have to take Him at His Word here and run with it. “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” Suffering and sorrow give way to joy, a joy so great that it literally blots out the memory of the suffering, which is good, otherwise we first-borns would all be only children.

It tends to be true — we have a poor memory for pain, at least the intensity of it. St. Paul says that our present sufferings, the sufferings we endure in this life in a fallen creation, do not compare with the glory that will be revealed in us on the day of resurrection. The pain of dying and death with all its attendant tears and grief will be wiped away by the joy of the resurrection, the new creation, the abundant life that is ours in Jesus even now. It will be as St. John saw and described it in the Revelation, like a wedding day, a day of joy overflowing like Cana wine, when the Church appears as a bride for her husband, a day when God and Man dwell together in a blood-reconciled peace, when God will wipe away every salty tear of grief from our eyes, when mourning and weeping and sorrow and pain will finally be ended. The day that Death is swallowed up in the victory of Jesus who makes all things new.

And the glorious news of the day is that it is already done. It is finished. The hard work is done and Jesus did it. The old is gone – crucified, dead, buried. The old you with all your sins, your shortcomings, your failings, your weaknesses, your death. This world with its terrors and disasters and doom. The old Adam with his rebellion and selfishness and lust and pride, wanting to be god, killing everyone who gets in the way. It’s all dead and buried in the death of Jesus. It is done. It is finished. The old has gone, the new has come to all who are baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection. The grave is open, empty, impotent, powerless to hold. The new has come and left His resurrection footprints in this old creation, blessing and breathing life into His frightened disciples, proclaiming His victory at Death’s very beachhead, at the cemetery.

Do you think the disciples understood all this from Jesus that night? For that matter, do we here today? Now we see dimly, in part, a shadow, a glimpse of the glory that is. What we see is a world falling apart – wars, earthquakes, volcanos, oil spills. And that’s just this past month! But Jesus would have us see in every earthquake, every tidal wave, every eco-disaster a painful birth pang, a labor contraction of the new creation being born.

Our problem is that we would like to skip over the labor pains and get right to the birthday. We’d like to leave out the world’s last chapters, the painful part about the collapse of this world’s order and go straight for the resurrection. We’d like to skip over Good Friday with all its terror and blood and gore and head straight to Easter Sunday. We look for a detour from this upper room on a Thursday night to the upper room on Sunday evening that somehow goes by the old rugged cross outside of Jerusalem. And sadly today there are many counterfeit forms of Christianity that do just that. Oh, they don’t deny the cross of Jesus; you couldn’t get away with that. They just marginalize it and push it off to the side in favor of something a bit more uplifiting than Jesus being lifted up.

Jesus sees through the sorrow. For Him, it is like a lens through which this world is view. “You will have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.” Weeping remains for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Remember Jeremiah in his lamentation as he grieves the death of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple.

“Remember my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust — there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.” (Lamentation 3:19-34)

Life under the cross is real life. There is genuine suffering, heartache, brokenness, death. There are tears and disappointments and grief. Luther called it the “theology of the cross” and rightly so. Look at the book of Acts and our first reading this morning. Right on the glorious heels of Pentecost comes controversy in the church. The Gospel was reaching Gentile ears and gasp! the Gentiles were believing and being baptized. The Holy Spirit was at work delivering the gifts of Jesus to pagans and what happens? Peter is criticized for eating with Gentiles! Can you believe it? Sure you can! It happens all the time when God acts in a way that doesn’t square with our notions of consistency. It took three swift divine kicks to get Peter into Cornelius’ living dining room.

Can you imagine telling someone about childbirth and leaving out the birth pains? Of course not! It would be downright dishonest. With pregnancy, as with life itself, it’s the whole thing or nothing at all. You have to embrace all of it. If you are going to embrace life, you must also embrace death. If you are to know the joy of the resurrection you must endure the cross. The Christian has one foot in Good Friday and the other in Easter Sunday – now and not yet. That’s the clear message of the Revelation. Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. And that glory is already present in a hidden, sublime way in, with, and under our present sufferings.

John had the privilege of seeing it with his own eyes. A glimpse of the glory. And like a tourist to a far away place who sends a postcard saying “wish you were here,” John sends this glorious picture postcard of things as they are from the heavenly perspective. A new heaven and a new earth. Jerusalem as she has never been seen in this life – adorned like a bride on her wedding day. This is what we long for, hope for. This is what faith waits for – resurrection and life. There will be sorrow now, but there is joy to come. There will be times of trial and testing now, but there is joy to come. There will be tears and grief now, but there is joy to come. Wait on the Lord. Wait patiently, hopefully, expectantly, faithfully. You won’t be disappointed.

Jesus says to His disciples and to us, “You will have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

Sheep and Shepherd. It’s Good Shepherd Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter. In Latin Miseracordias Domini Sunday. The merciful heart of the Lord. And no image more clearly captures the merciful heart of the Lord than that of the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.

Jesus was walking about the temple grounds. It was winter, the feat of Dedication, Chanukah. He was in the colonnade of Solomon, the son of David. The Son of David in the colonnade of the son of David. Prophesy and fulfillment meet. Naturally there is religious interest in Jesus. He’s created quite a stir healing the sick, cleansing lepers, driving out demons, raising the dead. He’s drawn a lot of interest and quite a following. The religious gather around Him to quiz Him some more. Are you the Christ? Stop beating around the bush and tell us plainly. We need to know whether we should invest in or not. So tell us, Jesus. And none of those clever parables and funny sayings of yours. Tell us plainly, are you the Messiah or not?

The works speak for themselves, Jesus says. So do His words. There’s no question that Jesus claimed to be the promised Messiah, the Christ. He also claimed God as His Father, that He was sent by the Father to do His Father’s saving will. He claimed that He and the Father were one, that is, one in essence.

Still they did not believe. In fact, they took up stones to kill Him. They sought ways to have Him arrested. They sought ways to get rid of Him. He was inconvenient, an embarrassment. He challenged their religious notions. He laid waste to their concept of righteousness as something earned. He challenged the very foundations of their religion. He almost seemed indifferent to the temple as He walked its colonnades. The temple which was so central to the worship of Israel. The temple with its troubled history – destroyed and rebuilt, captured and desecrated, recaptured and purified (the reason the Feast of the Dedication or Chanukah celebrated). Herod was undertaking a massive renovation of the temple, in order to earn the favor of the people. Yet Jesus seems rather cool and indifferent toward the temple. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” The temple, of course, was His own body, His flesh which He would give for the life of the world. The lesser gave way to the greater.

With Jesus, all the prophetic images coalesce and combine. Temple, priesthood, sacrifice, Lamb, Shepherd. Jesus is all of these, and all of these prepared for the coming of Jesus. He is the dwelling of God with man, the High Priest of humanity, the sole sacrifice for sin, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, the good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.

Oddly, He was rejected by those who were looking for Him. They refused to be part of His flock, they refused Him as their shepherd, and in their refusal, they were blind to who Jesus is. And so instead of hearing His voice and following Him, they took up stones and plotted to kill Him.

We’re considerably more polite. Maybe we don’t throw stones at Jesus these days, and crucifixions are long thing of the past and wouldn’t pass muster being both cruel and unusual punishment. We’re more inclined to ignore Him, marginalize and mythologize Him. Leave Jesus safely on a shelf somewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. We’re more inclined to turn our attention on our needs, our sense of purpose, our well-being, looking out for #1 (meaning me). Jesus call to follow Him is drowned out by what seem to be more urgent calls. His call to repentance is replaced by more comfortable religions that promise a better return on our faith investment than to take up our cross and follow HIm. The big proof has been offered to the world in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and still we clamor for proof, scientific proof, some clincher that Jesus is the one, the real deal, the one who will work for us.

Make no mistake about it. There are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The apostle Paul warned the Ephesian pastors that fierce wolves would come after he left, twisting doctrine, distorting grace, not sparing the flock, drawing disciples to themselves. Some would even come from within the ranks of their own. Pastors who strayed from the truth for some novelty, something different, something marketable. The same exists today. The enemies to the Gospel come both from outside and inside the Church. It may surprise us, but it shouldn’t. It was true at the time of the apostles too.

Probably the most destructive books today are not written by atheists. It’s easy to get all wound up by people who mock religion in general and Christianity in particular, people like Bill Maher or Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.

That’s why the Church always remains an article of faith, something confessed and believed but not seen. We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. We believe precisely because we can’t see, and because the church really isn’t much to look at. That, perhaps, is the greatest deception of our day, that where the biggest and richest and loudest is going on, there God must be at work. But the fact of church history is that the novelties were always more popular. We are so much like sheep, everyone going in his own spiritual direction, sipping from polluted puddles, munching on deadly weeds, following wayward paths that lead to death and destruction. Or as Isaiah put it poetically, “All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone has turned to his own way.”

That’s really the point of comparison with Jesus the Good Shepherd and we as sheep of His pasture. It’s not that sheep are stupid or stubborn so much as they are wandering and wayward. They are dependent on their Shepherd who leads them, feeds them, brings them to fresh and living water, tends their wounds, sets them on their feet, literally lays down His life for their life. That’s the image of the church gathered around Jesus, around His Word and Sacraments, and what Jesus is doing for us.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Holy lambs and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd. That’s how Luther described the church. That would apply to us gathered here this morning. A flock gathered around its good Shepherd. And Jesus here to feed and lead, to bring us to the refreshing waters of Baptism, to restore our souls with His forgiveness, to set a table in the presence of our enemies, to anoint our heads with the oil of gladness.

He knows you, better than you know yourself. He calls you by your name. He goes ahead of you through the dark valley of the shadow of Death and the grave. He conquered them for you, so you need fear no evil. He comforts you with the rod and staff of His Word.

There is a promise. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” Those cross-scarred hands of Jesus hold your life in a way that you cannot. Your hold on your life is a tenuous hold at best. A little pinch grip of the present moment, nothing more. You realize that every time you get a taste of your own mortality. A health scare perhaps, or a near accident. Or one of those “life flashes before your eyes” incidents. Or just the dawning realization that “dust you are and to the dust you return.” All you have is this present moment, and that isn’t much. One day, you will lose your grip on your life. We all eventually will, like it or not. But One does not. Jesus holds your life wholly and entirely, in a way that you cannot. He’s got the whole world in His hands. He has your life in His hands, and nothing can ever snatch you away from Him.

You see, it’s not about your grip on Jesus, but His grip on you. It’s the grip of your Baptism by which you were buried in Jesus and joined with Him in His death and life. It’s the grip of His Word doing its killing and making alive thing with you. Killing the sinner, drowning the sin, literally making a sheep out of a goat, a believer out of an unbeliever. A child of the Father, a member of the family, a sheep of the Good Shepherd’s pasture. You see, sheep don’t make a flock, shepherds do. Sheep constitute a flock, but the shepherd gathers them. And when you’ve been gathered by the Good Shepherd, you’ve been gathered forever.

On the island of Patmos, the apostle John was privileged to see and hear something few people get to see in this life. The heavenly side of worship. The liturgy of heaven. What he saw was a countless multitude waving palm branches, like an eternal Palm Sunday, worshipping a Lamb who was slain but lives, seated at the right hand of the Father, surrounded by four living creatures representing the whole created order, by 24 elders representing the old and new testament church, surrounded by countless angels.

The description of that congregation John saw is a description of the Good Shepherd’s flock, of you too in Jesus. Listen again to what John heard:

“These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (What other blood do you know that makes things white?)

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away ever tear from their eyes.”

That’s about you too. That’s your destiny in Jesus. That’s your life as it is held now in Jesus. Jesus is your Good Shepherd; you lack nothing in Him. And in Him, you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen