Cruce Tectum

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-29T07:57:00.002-05:00

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (B)

January 29, 2012
Text: Mark 1:21-28

Authority. Jesus comes into the synagogue and teaches the congregation with authority (Mark 1:22). With authority, Jesus commands the unclean spirit to come out of a man, and because of the authority Jesus possesses, the spirit obeys (vv. 25-27). And in this way, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, reasserts God’s authority over men and demons. For when you get right down to it, the crisis in the Garden of Eden was a crisis of authority. Out of love, and by His authority as Creator of man and of the heavens and the earth, God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent, the devil, sought to usurp God’s authority by tempting our first parents to doubt God’s Word and disobey His command. And Adam and Eve, in succumbing to the temptation, rebelled against God’s authority. What they really wanted was autonomy, to be a law unto themselves, to be their own authorities. That is the temptation the serpent held out to them: “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5; ESV). You will be able to determine what is good and what is evil for yourself. If you eat this fruit, you will have this authority. But it was a lie. It always is coming from him. What really happened when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit is that they came under another authority. They came under the authority of sin… Now they could do no other. They came under the authority of death… The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). They came under the authority of Satan, who is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who is at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). So much for autonomy. Humanity was now bound in slavery to sin, death, and the devil, and unable to do anything about it. You see, autonomy is a false promise of the father of lies. You cannot be under your own authority. You are either under the authority of God, as you were created to be, or you are under the authority of the devil. When our first parents fell, they sold us, their children, as slaves to the devil. We are in bondage. If we are to be freed, God must accomplish it. He must do something about our slavery. He must deliver us from bondage and lead us in Exodus from our slavery. And that is what He does in Christ Jesus. That is what He does in our Gospel lesson this morning.

Jesus teaches with authority. The Word made flesh proclaims the Word of the Father with all the authority of God Himself, because He is God Himself. In the Garden, God’s teaching, God’s Word, God’s authority were rejected by man. Here Jesus reasserts that authority in His preaching. St. Mark does not record the words of Jesus’ sermon for us, but suffice it to say, it was a call to repent and believe the Gospel, for the Kingdom of God is at hand in the person of the One now teaching you (Mark 1:15). Repent. As we learned last week, that means to recognize how utterly and hopelessly sinful you are, and that you are unable to do anything about it. But there is Good News, the Gospel. Jesus is here to deliver you from your sins. Therefore turn from sin and receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life from your crucified and risen Lord. Jesus comes preaching this Good News, and He has the authority to do so. He has the authority to call you to repentance, and He has the authority to forgive your sins, because He is God! The congregation is amazed at His teaching. They are astonished because He teaches them as one who has authority, and not as their scribes (v. 22). Their scribes always taught them on the basis of other authorities. At their best, they declared, “Thus says the LORD.” At their worst, they would cite two or three differing opinions of the rabbis of time past, and leave the matter open for indecision. Jesus does not have to say, “Thus says the LORD.” He is the LORD. And He doesn’t waffle between opinions. He declares truth. He is the Truth. He preaches with authority, and His Word is powerful. It transforms hearers from unbelieving slaves of Satan to believing, forgiven sinners, freed from bondage to sin, death, and the devil, now servants of the Most High God.

And it is not as though the devil and God are two opposite but equal powers. God is the God of the devil, too. The devil and his demons know this, and shudder (cf. James 2:19). And so the man with the unclean spirit in the congregation cannot contain himself. The demon cries out in fear: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? I know who you are—the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). The demon knows that this preacher is God in the flesh. The demon knows that this is Messiah, the One come to save His people, and all humanity, from demonic power. The demon knows that this One will pronounce judgment over Satan and all the demons, and on the Last Day cast them all into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. Jesus possesses that authority. And He demonstrates it here. “But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him” (vv. 25-26). With the authoritative command of the Lord, the demon must depart. Of course, he makes a perverse show of it. He convulses the man, seeking to do as much damage as he can on his way out. He cries out with a loud voice. Imagine how chilling that voice must have been. And yet, he comes out. He departs. He must. He is no match for the Savior. He has no authority to stay. He must bend to the authority of Jesus, who is God in the flesh. The serpent once usurped God’s authority over man in the Garden. But Jesus has come to undo the devil’s victory, reasserting God’s authority over man, and in that authority of Almighty God, He casts the demon out of the man.

Again, the people are amazed. They “were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him’” (v. 27). We are amazed, too, as Jesus continues to teach us with authority in His Word and drive the devil away from us, as He continues to claim us as His own by His divine authority, to free us from sin, death, and the devil because He has the authority to do so. He does it in Baptism. He does it in His authoritative Word. He does it as He declares your sins forgiven. He does it with His body and blood, given and shed on the cross to free you from bondage, now distributed to you, into your mouth, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation. How can He do this? He paid dearly for it. God’s Law, which man had broken, which you and I have broken, had to be answered for. It demanded death. For Jesus to defeat the devil and reclaim us as His own, He had to die. Ultimately, Jesus asserts God’s authority over you and over the devil by switching places with you and all men. In His body, nailed to the cross, Jesus suffers the penalty of man’s sin, the sins of all people, your sins, beloved, that He might free you from the devil’s possession. Jesus submits Himself to the worst that men and the devil can do to Him, and in thus submitting, He wins. He suffers. He is crucified. He dies. But after three days, He is risen from the dead, and He comes to you in His Word and His Sacrament, in His risen body, to claim you as His own.

So you are now under His authority. You are free from sin, for your sins are forgiven. You are free from death, for you have eternal life in Jesus Christ and the sure and certain promise of the resurrection. You are free from the devil, for now you are a servant of Christ. Repent, therefore, and believe the Gospel. Turn away from your sins and cling to Christ, your Savior. Believe His Word. Rejoice in His authority. And receive His gifts. Love one another. Serve one another. Confess Christ to one another. For such is the life of the redeemed in Christ’s Kingdom. Jesus comes with authority, and by that authority, He calls you out of the devil’s kingdom, to be His own. Beloved in the Lord, by His Word of authority, today, your Lord Jesus Christ drives the devil away from you. It is amazing, to be sure. It is also absolutely true. The curse of Eden is reversed. Now God invites you to come and enjoy the fruits of another tree, the Tree of Life, the tree of the cross. And in so eating and drinking of the fruit of this tree, you have eternal life. Come, and eat and drink, therefore, and know that the gates of Paradise are once again open to you. Because you belong to Jesus. You are under His authority. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-22T07:58:00.003-05:00

Third Sunday after the Epiphany (B)

January 22, 2012
Text: Mark 1:14-20

Repent, believe the Gospel, and follow Jesus. That is the pattern of the Christian life. The Law exposes our sin to us, exposes us as sinners, kills us, for the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). This causes great sorrow for us, contrition, repentance. The Gospel, however, bestows forgiveness of sins, covers us with the righteousness of Christ, brings us to new life, for the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. This leads us to rejoice and give thanks. The Holy Spirit brings us to faith by the Gospel, so that we believe in Jesus Christ, trusting in Him for forgiveness, life, and salvation. And then we enter upon the crucified life. We take up our cross and follow Jesus, He who was crucified for our sins. That is to say, we lose our lives for Him, for we have found true life in Him. We offer ourselves up as living sacrifices in our daily vocations, confessing Christ, serving the neighbor in love, putting to death the old sinful nature, and suffering if necessary, like John the Baptist who was arrested and beheaded on account of Christ. We take up our cross and follow Jesus, because we know that after Good Friday there is Easter, after death there is resurrection, and in Christ the Crucified, we have eternal life. Repent, believe the Gospel, and follow Jesus. That is the pattern. We have it right here in our Gospel lesson. And this is the content of all Christian preaching. It is the same sermon Jesus preaches to us this morning. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15; ESV). “Follow me” (v. 17).

First… Repent. Repentance in the broad sense includes both contrition, which is to say, sorrow over our sins, and faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is speaking of repentance in the narrow sense, however, and here it simply means contrition, to be sorry for our sins. And that doesn’t just mean crying crocodile tears. Repentance means that in the light of God’s Law you recognize just how wicked you are, and how utterly incapable you are of doing anything about it. Repentance means that you recognize your absolute emptiness, your total lack of resources within yourself to accomplish your own salvation or improve your standing before God. In repentance, you recognize that you are enslaved. You are enslaved to sin. You cannot do otherwise. You are enslaved to unbelief. Yes, you cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ your Lord or come to Him. You are enslaved to the passions of your flesh, to the allurements of the world. You are enslaved to death. You are born spiritually dead already, and dying physically. You will die. And the worst part of it all is this: You are enslaved to the devil. Your first parents sold you to him for a taste of forbidden fruit. And that means that, unless God does something about it, you will die eternally in hell. Repentance does not try to hide the ugly truth. Repentance is to face up to the situation so that you completely despair of yourself. Because as long as you think there is any hope within yourself, any possibility of working yourself out of the situation you’re in, you are not ready for the Gospel. To repent is to weep the bitter tears of Peter after he had denied our Lord. To repent is to say with St. Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). And then there is repentance in the broad sense. To repent is to cast yourself entirely on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, to commend yourself to Him, as does the Psalmist when he prays: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!... If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O LORD, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared” (Ps. 130:1, 3-4).

That confidence in God’s mercy and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is born of the Gospel. God has done something about your slavery to sin, death, and the devil. He sent His Son to crush the old serpent’s head, defeat death, and atone for your sin in His own sinless suffering and death on the cross. He died for your sins, and He has gained the victory, for He’s risen from the dead and now lives and reigns for all eternity. The Gospel bestows the forgiveness, life, and salvation that our Lord Jesus has won for us, and the faith to believe it, and so receive it. Because the Holy Spirit is active in that Word to call us to faith, to enlighten us with His gifts, and to sanctify and keep us in the one true faith. Repent, and believe the Gospel. That is the pattern. That is what our Lord Jesus preaches to us this morning. It is the same as to say, believe in Jesus. Trust Him. Faith is simply trust in Jesus Christ, the Savior. The Gospel is a freeing Word. Jesus Christ has freed you from slavery to sin. He has freed you from slavery to death. He has freed you from slavery to the devil and to hell. Now you belong to Him. He has purchased you for Himself with His own blood. He bought you for a price, to live under Him in His Kingdom in righteousness and purity forever. This is good news. The Kingdom of God is at hand. It is at hand in Jesus. And now, not only are your sins forgiven so that you are reconciled to God and loved by Him. Now you have eternal life. Believe it. It is yours. Your Lord has made it so. Repent, and believe the Gospel.

And then follow Him. To follow Jesus means to be His disciple, under His discipline. To follow the Crucified means to take up your cross, which is to say, continually live in this pattern of death and resurrection. That is what repentance and faith is. It is death and resurrection. It is putting to death the old sinful nature and being raised with Christ as a new creation in Him. It is living in your Baptism. You died with Christ in Baptism. You were drowned. The Old Adam in you is slain. Then you were raised out of the water, out of death, to new life with Him. Just as He is risen from the dead, so you have a new life. It is a continual present reality, your Baptism, a daily dying to sin and being raised to new life. Repentance and faith, that is what it is. It is confession and Absolution. It is naming the sin and being forgiven by your pastor, which is just as sure and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ your dear Lord dealt with you Himself, because He has dealt with you Himself through the mouth of His called and ordained servant. Repentance and faith, death and resurrection, Law and Gospel, drowning and raising to new life, it is all the same pattern. It is the pattern in which you live your daily Christian life in the world.

You live this pattern in your vocations. A vocation is every calling you have received from God. It’s not just your job. It is every relationship in which God has placed you to serve other people: husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, citizen, church member, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. You can do that, serving your neighbor as though serving God Himself, because in Baptism, you’ve died to yourself and your life is now hidden with Christ in God, and because your Lord came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). The disciples were called to their vocation of being fishers of men, which meant for them that they would be apostles, sent ones, those authorized by Christ to speak for Him to the world in their preaching and writing of Holy Scripture. They were the first Christian pastors. They were called to preach the Gospel and forgive sins in the Name of Jesus. And they were called to suffer. They did not love their lives even unto death (Rev. 12:11). They gave testimony to Jesus and His Gospel even though it meant their suffering, imprisonment, death. Like John the Baptist, they received a prophet’s reward: Persecution and martyrdom. They confidently faced this knowing that death is but the portal to heaven, to life with Jesus, and that though they die in their bodies, their bodies will be raised again on the Last Day. You have this same calling, beloved, not as apostles or pastors, but as Christians, to confess Christ, and to suffer for His Name. You confess Christ whatever the consequences. Maybe you won’t have to suffer to the extent that John and the apostles did. Then again, maybe you will. It could happen, you know. Either way, you will suffer, whether it be the current derisive attitude of the world toward Christianity and the attacks of the devil, or full on persecution and martyrdom. You will suffer, but you can do so in the same confidence of the apostles. For you, also, are baptized into Christ, into His death and resurrection, and you have eternal life. They can kill your body, but they cannot kill your soul. Nor can they keep your body in the grave, because you have the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. Even as you follow Jesus into death, you follow Him into eternal life.

Repent, believe the Gospel, and follow Jesus. That is the pattern of the Christian life. That is what it means to be a Christian. So beloved, confess your sins. Believe the forgiveness that is pronounced over you in the Name of our Triune God. Return to the font each day. Cling to Jesus Christ. And then go out and offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God for the sake of your neighbor. And rejoice. Because this Good News Jesus preaches is for you. The Kingdom of God is at hand. It has arrived in Jesus. Of this Kingdom you are made a citizen and an heir through Baptism. You have eternal life. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-15T08:26:00.003-05:00

Second Sunday after the Epiphany (B)
January 15, 2012

Text: John 1:43-51

The Lord calls you. Come and see. Come and see Him where He is, and where He promises to be, for you. For it is only in this way, seeing Jesus where He has promised to be for you, that you become a disciple of Jesus Christ. And it is only in this way that others will become disciples of Jesus Christ. Philip has it right in our text this morning as he tells Nathanael about Jesus. He does not argue the merits of Nazareth with Nathanael. He does not seek to convert Nathanael with cleverly concocted arguments. And note this very carefully, he does not ask Nathanael what it will take to get him to believe in Jesus. He does not ask about Nathanael’s felt needs or capitulate to Nathanael’s preconceived notions about who Jesus should be or what He should do. He simply issues an invitation: “Come and see” (John 1:46; ESV). “Come, Nathanael, and have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. For it is only in that way, Nathanael, that you will be convinced, as I am, that this Jesus ‘is he of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote’ (v. 45), the Messiah, the Savior of Israel and the world.” Come and see. Unbeknownst to Nathanael, and probably even to Philip, the invitation is really a call from Jesus Christ Himself through the mouth of one who already believes in Him.

And that’s Jesus’ evangelism program. Those who believe in Jesus Christ are to confess His Name and His Gospel to others with whom they come into contact, those whom God has placed into their lives, and in this way, through their mouths, Jesus calls others to believe in Him. The message is simple: Jesus is your Savior. Come. You’ll see. Come where? Where Jesus has promised to be, of course. And where is that? You Lutherans know the answer. In His Word! In His Sacraments! In other words, in His Church! Nathanael, I have good news for you. God loves you. He sent His Son to die for your sins, to save you from sin, death, and hell. Come and see. I’d like to invite you to church with me on Sunday. That’s evangelism, beloved. It’s really that simple. The opportunities are there if you look for them. You simply confess Jesus to those in your life. Invite them to church. Invite them to come and see. The worst that can happen is they say, “No thanks!” And there’s really no pressure on you. You aren’t responsible for the results of the evangelism. The Holy Spirit is. You leave that up to Him. Just confess Christ and issue the invitation: Come and see!

“But Pastor, it has to be more complicated than that.” No, it’s really not. Think about how you came to faith. If you came to faith as a baby, it is because your parents brought you here to come and see. They brought you to where Jesus is. They brought you to Baptism, to hear the Word, to participate in the liturgy, to Sunday School and then Catechism class, and eventually, to the Lord’s Supper. You parents, this is why it is so very important, absolutely vital, that you have your children in church every Sunday, from their infancy, and that you teach them how to pay attention and how to participate. And for the rest of you, this is why it is so important, absolutely vital, that you put up with a little extra noise from the young ones now and then.

If you came to faith later, as an older child, a teenager, or as an adult, it is because someone else who already believed in Jesus brought you to see Him. Perhaps they brought you to see Jesus by bringing His Word to you in their own confession of Christ. But it is also likely that eventually, they brought you to church where you could see Jesus in action for yourself, forgiving your sins, bringing you to new life, right where He promises to be, in His Word and Sacraments. The fact is, you’re here in church now. And for whatever reason you might think you came, the reality is that you are here because even if no human acquaintance brought you here, the Holy Spirit did. He is doing His work on you here where Jesus promises to be with His Spirit and all of His gifts, in Word and Sacrament, reconciling you to the Father. That is what you’ll see when you come. Jesus forgiving your sins, enlivening you, imparting His Spirit to you, reconciling you with the Father. It is a personal encounter with God in the flesh.

That is the kind of encounter Nathanael has in the Gospel lesson. As Nathanael is coming to see, walking toward Jesus, Jesus declares, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” (v. 47). Behold, an Israelite who knows the Scriptures and expects a Messiah who will save him. But this Israelite doesn’t want to be fooled. He’s come to see for himself. I’ll show him, says Jesus. “How do you know me?” asks Nathanael. “Jesus answered him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you’” (v. 48). Now, pause just a minute to ponder the profundity of this statement. Jesus was not with Philip when Philip told Nathanael to come and see. There is no physical way Jesus could have seen Nathanel under the fig tree. And Philip did not have time or opportunity to tell Jesus beforehand where he had found Nathanael. Nor could Jesus, if He were just a man, have known that Philip went to call Nathanael. But Jesus is not just a man. He is a man who is also God. And as God, Jesus is the one who called Nathanel while he was sitting under the fig tree. He called Nathanael through the mouth of His servant Philip. Before Philip even arrived on the scene, Jesus, because He is God, saw Nathanael, and knew Nathanael. And this personal encounter with God in the flesh leads Nathanael to confess, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel” (v. 49). The miracle leads to the confession. It is an epiphany, a revelation of who Jesus is. Only God knows all things. Jesus knows all things. Therefore Jesus is God in the flesh, come to save His people.

That Jesus is God and that Jesus knows all things is a great comfort to you, beloved. Jesus knows you. He knows your sins. He knows all the dark little secrets of your heart. And yet here He is, right where He’s promised to be, for you, to forgive those sins, to absolve you of those dark little secrets. He loves you in spite of them, for He has died for them, died for your forgiveness. So also, Jesus knows all the havoc that sin has wrought in your life. He knows your every pain and sorrow. And because He is God, and because He loves you, He not only knows the medicine that you need for that sin and pain and sorrow, He can and will give it you. He can and will heal you. He can and will save you. He knows you, dear brothers and sisters. He loves you. Just and He knew Nathanael, and in His love, called Nathanael to faith through the mouth of Philip while Nathanael was sitting under the fig tree, so Jesus knows and loves you and calls you to faith, to an encounter and a relationship with Him, wherever you are.

And here we learn something particularly pertinent to our society as next Sunday we mark the 39th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the tragedy of legalized abortion. Our Lord knows us and loves us even when we are in the womb, even from conception as He lovingly knits us together, forming our tiny inward parts. Listen to King David’s description of this in Psalm 139: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them” (vv. 13-16). How beautifully King David here confesses God’s loving creation of each one of us, His intimate knowledge of us from the moment of conception until the moment of death, even into eternity, and His tender involvement and providence for every one of our days, written, every one of them, in His book before any of them came to be. In this way God knows and loves every unborn child. He knows and loves every human being with a terminal illness. He knows and loves every person at every age, in every stage of life. The Lord and Giver of life knows and loves you.

And so He gives you the same promise He gave to Nathanael. You will see greater things than the miracle that Jesus is all knowing and all seeing, present everywhere. “[Y]ou will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). You will see Jacob’s ladder (cf. Gen. 28:10-22). You see it now. For you have come to see Jesus, and that is exactly who you do see here in His Church, in His Word and in His sacraments, for your salvation. Jesus is the Ladder. By His cross, He bridges heaven and earth. His angels descend to serve you, His blood-bought people. They ascend again on the Ladder that is the Crucified to bring your prayers and petitions before the Father, and on that day when you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, they take you up that Ladder into heaven to be with God. Now you see Jesus, not with your physical eyes, but with the eyes of faith. Then you will see Him face to face. And Jesus has promised that because He is risen, He will raise you from the dead, so that the physical eyes that cannot now behold Him, will see Him on that Day in the splendor of His glory. What a marvelous truth the Lord has revealed to you here today. You came. You saw. By God’s grace, you believed. Now go and invite others to come and see. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Baptism of Our Lord

2012-01-08T07:47:00.004-05:00

The Baptism of Our Lord (B)

January 8, 2012
Text: Mark 1:4-11

Beloved in the Lord, Christian Baptism is a declaration of war against the devil and his minions. Christian Baptism enlists the baptized in spiritual warfare, the raging battle against the old sinful flesh, against the temptations and allurements of the unbelieving world, and against the old wily serpent, the devil, and his demons. And it’s dangerous, because it makes the baptized child of God a target of the evil one. Martin Luther wrote in his Baptismal Booklet: “Therefore, you have to realize that it is no joke at all to take action against the devil and not only to drive him away from the little child but also to hang around the child’s neck such a mighty, lifelong enemy. Thus it is extremely necessary to stand by the poor child with all your heart and with a strong faith and to plead with great devotion that God, in accordance with these prayers, would not only free the child from the devil’s power but also strengthen the child, so that the child might resist him valiantly in life and in death. I fear that people turn out so badly after baptism because we have dealt with them in such a cold and casual way and have prayed for them at their baptism without any zeal at all.”[1] Serious business, Baptism. No joke, no trifling tradition. War is what it is. But necessary. A matter of life and death, in fact… eternal life and death. Because in Baptism you become God’s own child. You are snatched from the yawning jaws of death and the tenacious claws of the devil. You are given the Holy Spirit, and all your sins are washed away as you are covered by the blood of Christ. You are Baptized, as we heard in the Epistle (Romans 6:1-11), into the death and resurrection of Christ, so that they become your own. Everything that Christ has done He has done for you. He became a man for you. He was obedient to His parents and grew in wisdom and favor with God and men for you. He learned the Scriptures for you. He fulfilled God’s whole Law for you. He suffered for you. He died for you. He is risen from the dead for you. He ascended into heaven and sits at God’s right hand for you. And He comes to you in His blessed Word and Sacraments, for you, to forgive your sins and to give you eternal life. He has done and does all of this for you and for your salvation. He does it in your place. You are baptized into Him. And this is so powerful, to deliver all these great gifts, because He is first baptized into you, into your sin, into your death, by John the Baptist in the waters of the Jordan River, where He is anointed by the Holy Spirit to undertake His divine mission (warfare!), where the Father says to Him, and to us who are baptized into Him, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11; ESV).

The Good News for us who have been enlisted in the battle by virtue of our Baptism is that the LORD goes before us, the LORD fights for us, Jesus, God in the flesh. And though the battle rages, the victory has been won. It was won on the cross and in the empty tomb. The devil is defeated. So we know the outcome. Our Lord steps into the waters of the Jordan, and as John baptizes Him with a baptism He does not need, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, like a sponge He soaks up all the sins of the whole world. Your sin, all of it, the sinless Son of God took upon Himself, so that He could give you His righteousness in exchange. “For our sake” God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). It is a great exchange. Jesus gets our sin, we get His righteousness. He dies, we live. He takes hell, and heaven itself has been rent open for us. He is baptized into us, that we might be baptized into Him. In the Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan, He “sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood and a lavish washing away of sin.”[2] A great gift, Baptism is. It is not our action. It is God’s action for us and upon us. It is the source of all our confidence and all our joy. But it does mean war. No doubt about it. Baptism makes you a marked man, a marked woman.

How can it be that the battle still rages if the victory has already been won by our Lord Jesus? We encounter here the distinction between the objective justification of all people by our Lord’s sin-atoning work on the one hand, and how that objective justification is applied to each one of us subjectively on the other. The word “justification” means “righteousness,” which is precisely what unrighteous sinners do not have and desperately need. Jesus wins the objective justification of the whole world, of all people, in His life, death, and resurrection. The war is won. The devil is defeated. The sins of all people have been paid in full by the suffering and death of Jesus, and God has declared that payment sufficient by raising Jesus from the dead. But the battle still rages for each one of us in the subjective application of this victory, how this victory is made our own and how we are kept in our Lord’s victory. You see, the victory of our Savior is received by faith. And faith is itself a gift of God. Yet faith can be prevented and faith can be lost, which is the aim of our enemy, the devil. He seeks to rob us of faith in Jesus Christ at every turn. He seeks to kill our faith so that he can claim us once again for his own. In Baptism, God grants faith in Jesus Christ His Son by imparting the Holy Spirit. But the devil never tires in seeking to rob us of that gift. And we are weak. We still have the old sinful flesh hanging around our necks. We easily fall prey to Satan’s lies. Like our first parents in the garden. We listen to the serpent. We see that what he offers is pleasing to the eye, and we think it will be satisfying to our lustful appetites. We’re dead meat on our own. If Adam and Eve, who were created without sin, could fall prey to the devil, we, their sinful progeny, don’t stand a chance. If we are to be kept in the one true faith of Jesus Christ, kept in our Baptism, kept for eternal life, God must do it. God must do it, and God alone. If we are to persevere in the faith, if we are to survive this war, it must be by grace, it must be His work. And it is. We are faithless, but He is faithful. He does it. He brings it to completion.

That is why He’s given us the means of grace: His holy Word, Baptism, Absolution, and the Sacrament of Jesus’ body and blood, the Lord’s Supper. Many of these are mentioned right here in our text. John appears baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the people respond to John’s preaching by confessing their sins, being baptized, and absolved. Well, those are the same means of grace we have here in the New Testament Church. His baptism is the forerunner of our Christian Baptism in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. His baptism leads directly to our Baptism, for Jesus receives John’s baptism, in order that we may be baptized into Christ. And our Baptism into Christ, too, is a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We live daily in our Baptism, which means to repent daily and daily receive and rejoice in the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus.

What makes these gifts so powerful – words, water, bread and wine – is not that they are anything spectacular in and of themselves. But it’s this: Jesus comes in these means. He comes to you. He comes for you. He comes to make you one with Him, and so to make you God’s own child. “In those days,” namely, the days when John was baptizing and preaching in wilderness, “Jesus came,” says our text (Mark 1:9). And in Jesus’ coming, John’s baptism receives all its power. For Jesus comes to use John and his baptism and his preaching as His means of saving humanity. So also our Baptism, preaching, Scripture reading, Absolution, Communion… What makes these gifts so powerful is that Jesus comes and uses them as His means to save us, to make what is objectively true for all people on account of Jesus’ saving work, subjectively true for you, for me, for each one of us individually.

And that is what happens when you are baptized into Christ. All that Jesus is and does is made yours. Heaven is torn open for you. The Spirit descends upon you. And the very voice of the Father speaks in the Word that has been joined to the water: “You… You… You… are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Because of Christ, who has won the war, and who will bring you through the battle to the Day of Resurrection. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] SC: Baptismal Booklet, Kolb/Wengert, p. 372.
[2] Luther’s “Flood Prayer,” LSB p. 269.

Circumcision and Name of Jesus

2012-01-01T08:07:00.002-05:00

Circumcision and Name of Jesus

January 1, 2012
Text: Luke 2:21

Merry Christmas! Yes, it’s still Christmas. You’ve packed up all the decorations too early. It’s only the 8th Day of Christmas for the Church. The 8th Day. That ought to ring a bell if you attended our Family Vacation Bible School a couple years ago. The 8th Day. That’s the day a newborn baby boy was circumcised in the Old Testament. Circumcision, which was the Old Testament type for Baptism, included the newborn in the covenant God had made with His holy people Israel, the Old Testament Church. The 8th Day. What’s the significance? God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them in 6 days, and on the 7th day, He took a Sabbath, He rested. Then on the 8th day, the first day of the new week, creation got busy and got going. But as we know, things quickly took a turn for the worse when our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God and fell into sin. So God sent His Son, to be born of a Virgin, the woman’s offspring who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15), the whole reason we celebrate Christmas. Our Lord Jesus was born to undo all the damage Adam did and to bring about a new creation. Holy Week, Jesus sweats drops of blood in the garden. It’s a redo of Eden. He is arrested, tried, beaten, mocked, spat upon, clothed in purple and crowned with thorns, and made to carry His own cross out of the city to the place of crucifixion. He is nailed to the wood, lifted up, and left to die as a criminal, between two wretched criminals, for criminals, for sinners, for you. It is Friday, the 6th day. On the seventh day, He fulfills the Sabbath. He rests in the grave. Ah, but then there is the 8th Day, Sunday, the first day of the new week, the first day of the new creation. Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

“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; ESV). Merry Christmas. On the Eighth Day of Christmas your True Love, your Lord, gives to you two mighty powerful gifts. He gives you the first drops of His holy, precious blood, fulfilling the Law of circumcision for you, in your place, and in His flesh including you in God’s covenant with His holy people Israel, the holy Christian Church. That’s the first gift. Then there is His Name, Jesus. ̀Ιησους in Greek, יהושע, Joshua in Hebrew, it means YHWH, the LORD, saves. “(Y)ou shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). That is the second gift, His Name, which indicates His divine mission. He is born to save you and all people from your sins, from the fall of Adam and Eve, original sin, from your actual sins, the bad things you do and the good things you should do but don’t. He comes to save you from all of that and from the death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, that is sin’s wages. This is the best Christmas gift you have ever received. It is the only Christmas gift that matters, wrapped in swaddling cloths and human flesh and blood. God is a man. And He is born to save you.

The two gifts on this 8th Day of Christmas go together. A Jewish boy receives his name when he is circumcised, not unlike the ancient Christian custom of giving a child his or her name at Baptism. We still do this. Yes, yes, we name the child already at the hospital, I understand, but we still talk about your Christian name. In the baptismal rite, the pastor still asks the baptismal candidate, “How are you named?” And the sponsors, or the candidate himself, if he is old enough, respond with his given name, what we now call after Baptism his “Christian name.” So on the 8th Day our Lord receives the Sacrament of circumcision and is named Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.

Circumcision, as I said, is the Old Testament type, foreshadowing, of Christian Baptism. We no longer circumcise as a religious custom, because our Lord has fulfilled circumcision for us in His flesh, and replaced it with Holy Baptism. And as a side note, circumcising baby boys for medical reasons is a matter of Christian freedom. You can do it, or not do it, according to your own judgment. But it has no religious significance either way. The important thing here on this Feast Day of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, this 8th Day of Christmas, is the gift our Lord bestows. His blood, His Name, for you, to save you from your sins. Your name is given in Baptism, but more importantly, our Lord gives you His Name in Baptism. You are named after Christ: Christian. The very Name of God is placed upon you, the Name Jesus bears and reveals, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now you bear that holy Name. It is written all over you, because you are God’s possession now, bought back from sin, death, and the devil, and you’re God’s own child, so you bear the Christian family Name. And you’re baptized into Christ. In Baptism, the circumcision of Jesus becomes your circumcision. You’re now part of the 8th Day, the new creation. The covenant, the New Testament in Jesus’ blood, is given to you. His blood is applied to you. It washes over you. It washes away all your sins. One verse in Luke Chapter 2 serves as our text this morning. One verse, and it includes your whole salvation.

So merry Christmas! It is a merry Christmas, indeed, because Christ, the Savior, is born, and He sheds His precious blood and receives His divine Name to save you from your sins. Put those post-Christmas blues away. They have no place here. While the world boxes up the decorations and stuffs the Christ-Child up in the attic along with them, to be safely stored away for another year, you… you lift another cup of cheer. You continue to wish each other and those outside our fellowship a merry Christmas. And I’ll tell you another thing. While the world wakes up this morning with the hangover of last night’s celebrations and the hangover of last year’s sins and failures, you wake up with the abiding hope of Christ Jesus, your Savior and Lord. You wake up knowing God has been your help in ages past and that He is your hope for years to come, your eternal life and salvation. You know something that world, sadly, doesn’t. And so it is incumbent upon you always to be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you, with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15). Because they need to know. That peace is for them, too. Another year of God’s grace is upon us. Another year to bask in the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Christ. How fitting that we begin it at the altar, where the holy flesh of Jesus and the blood He shed for us are given us to eat and to drink. It is the Christmas Feast! Rejoice, dear Christians. Be merry, and sing. A blessed 8th Day of Christmas, and a happy New Year. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Day

2011-12-25T08:11:00.003-05:00

The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Day

December 25, 2011
Text: John 1:1-18

We know God through Jesus Christ His Son. For “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18; ESV). You cannot see the Father. But you can hear Him in His Word. Just as our words reveal what we desire to express about ourselves, so God’s Word reveals what He wants us to know about Him. God the Son is the eternal Word of the Father. He is with God in the beginning, though He Himself has no beginning, but is begotten of the Father from all eternity. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (v. 1). Father and Son dwelling together in eternal unity. It is through the Son, the eternal Word, that God does His work. God speaks the creation into being. St. John is calling us back to Genesis 1 here. God speaks His Word, “Let there be…” and there is. The Word is the Son. Through the Word, through the Son, all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that has been made (v. 3). He is the Father’s agent in creation. He is the Father’s agent in revelation. He reveals God. He is the Light that comes into the world, comes into the darkness, which the darkness is not able to overcome (v. 5). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word of the Father, is the Light of the world.

And today He is born in the flesh. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (v. 14). That is the miracle of Christmas. The incarnation, literally, the enfleshment, of the Son of God. He is born of the Virgin Mary in the fullness of time, in the little town of Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid in a manger, the feeding trough for animals. The angels proclaim His birth to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night: Peace on earth, goodwill to men, which is to say God’s peace on earth and God’s goodwill to men, because He no longer holds sinners’ sins against them. He has sent His Son to deal with sin in His sinless body. Unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ, the Lord. You can read all about it, as we did last night, in Luke Chapter 2. Our reading from John Chapter 1 this morning explains this same joyous mystery from another perspective: from the eternal, Trinitarian, cosmic perspective. In the incarnation, the conception and birth of Jesus Christ, God unites Himself to man in the flesh. God unites Himself to you in the flesh. The Creator has become one with His creation. God, as He reveals Himself in His Word, now lives and walks among His people. To redeem them. To redeem you and me. He is born among us, as one of us, that we might be born in Him, God’s own dear children, born not of the will or man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God (v. 13). And that is precisely what happens in Holy Baptism. Every Baptism is a celebration of Christmas, because in Baptism, you are united to the God who united Himself to you in the incarnation.

Through the Word of the Lord, you were made, fashioned in your mother’s womb. And through that same Word fashioned in the womb of Mary, you are made anew, re-created, born again as the Word is poured out upon you in water. Through the Son of God who became flesh to suffer and die for your forgiveness, and who is risen to new life in that same flesh, you become God’s own child. And as in the beginning, the Spirit is there, hovering over the waters, to make sense out of the chaos, to bring you to faith in Jesus, to enlighten you with the true Light that is Jesus Christ. For you are in darkness outside of Christ. You are spiritually blind and dead. You have no light and you have no life. But the Spirit brings you into the Light, that you may have Life in the Name of Jesus. It is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. It is given in the Word and the Sacraments. It is received by faith. The Word became flesh, came down to us, that He might bring us up to God and present us to His Father as His own people.

He comes down. Because we cannot ascend to Him. He comes down. He is incarnate, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. And here is the great comfort of this Gospel. We do not have a God far removed, who does not care about our problems or do anything about our sin and our pain and our death. We have a God nearby, a God who so loves us that He sends His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). We have a God who becomes Himself our High Priest, in the flesh, who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because He has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). We have a God who makes the perfect sacrifice for our sin, His own holy flesh and precious blood. We have a God who is one with us, that we might be one with Him. God and sinners reconciled, reconciled by God’s body laid in a manger, God’s body hanging on a cross. This is the Christmas gift from God, all wrapped up in swaddling cloths and human flesh. It is His fleshly Word pronouncing us righteous with His own righteousness. Rejoice, dear children of God. Today you receive from His fullness grace upon grace (John 1:16). Today the Word made flesh reveals your God to you as a God of love and compassion who saves you from your sins, who saves you from death and eternal condemnation, who saves you for joy and eternal life. He is the Light that dispels all darkness. He is the Life that dispels death and hell. And He comes to you, for you. A blessed and merry Christmas, beloved. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fourth Sunday in Advent

2011-12-18T08:03:00.003-05:00

Fourth Sunday in Advent (B)

December 18, 2011
Text: Luke 1:26-38

It is the nature of our fallen flesh that we fashion God in our own image. It is the ultimate act of rebellion. Rather than allowing God to fashion us in His image, we fashion Him in our own image in our minds. We design Him according to our own idea of who God should be, what we would like Him to say to us, how He should be disposed toward us. We create the rules that govern our relationship with Him. And in this way, the one true God is displaced and replaced by a false god, an idol. And that idol is us. This is true as much at Christmas as at any other time. We love the pageantry of it all, the story of the birth of Baby Jesus in Bethlehem, the manger, the shepherds, the angels, the wise men (who by the way, contrary to your nativity scenes, actually show up much later at a house where Jesus is probably already walking and talking, but be that as it may…). All of this is beautiful stuff, and very important for us and for our salvation. But how we sentimentalize it to the point of robbing the Christmas history of all its substance, and when Christmas is done, we pack it up with the rest of the decorations and throw the box in the attic for next year. So the image of God we have fashioned is this: He is a sentimental softy of a deity who comes out when we want to see Him, to make us feel good, and obediently stays in the box and out of our way the rest of the time. Even for Christians who come to church every Sunday, this is the temptation, is it not? And we succumb all too often. You hear something in God’s Word you don’t like, and you resist it, you stuff it in a box. You have your pet things you hear in church that you nod and smile at, but in the secret place of your heart you believe you know better. You see, none of us is innocent of this sin. It is as old as Adam and Eve, and common to all their children. “You shall have no other gods,” is the First Commandment. It is a Commandment given in love, because God knows that we need Him to be our God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as He reveals Himself in the Holy Scriptures is the one true God. And there is help and salvation in no one else. You will never ascend to this God by your own reason or strength, because your own reason and strength are always busy fashioning idols. You’re incapable of anything else. So this God must come to you. And He does. And that is what the Gospel is all about this morning.

Of course, as is always the case with this God, He does not come to you in the fashion you imagine or even desire. For His thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are His ways your ways (Is. 55:8). He does not come in a blaze of glory, annihilating His enemies and exalting you to heaven. He does not come in feelings in your heart or voices in your head or spectacular miracles before your eyes. He comes as a baby, to a poor girl from Nazareth (remember the proverb about that place: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” [John 1:46; ESV]). He is born in the midst of scandal. This girl is not married. She is betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth, but he isn’t the father. No one believes she is a virgin and that God is the Father. Please! According to the Law of Moses, she should be stoned to death, but Joseph, being a righteous man, has in mind to divorce her quietly. And right in the middle of this soap opera, God comes in the flesh. There are no halos over anyone’s head. No one has the serene look you see on the Christmas cards. This is all one big controversy, and no one is expecting God to show up and bless this mess with His presence.

The angel causes all this trouble when he comes to Mary and announces all this. Because the moment the angel speaks God’s Word, it happens. That’s how powerful the Word of God is. It always does what it says. The angel declares to Mary, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:31, 35). “You will conceive in your womb.” The Greek literally says, “You will catch it in the belly.” “The Holy Spirit will come upon you… the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Bam! Pregnant! That’s it! The seed of God’s Word enters Mary’s ear and implants in her womb. The Word becomes flesh and makes His dwelling among us. The Son of God is now the Son of Man. It’s a great scandal. It is a scandal both because of the way He is conceived, and because God is not supposed to appear in weakness for our salvation. A little, helpless baby. How much more vulnerable can it get? This is supposed to be our salvation? To be sure, God’s thoughts are most certainly not our thoughts, and His ways are most certainly not our ways.

But what did you think would happen? How else can this happen? Jesus comes to save you from your sins. Can He really appear anywhere else but right where the sins are happening? Do you really think He can save you without getting His hands dirty? The image of God we create in our minds is too clean, too sanitized. The real deal is too demanding. He’s too messy. He’s too… well… real. He really comes in flesh and blood. God is really a baby, a boy, a man, a human being. And He really is great, the Son of the Most High, the rightful Heir to the throne of His father David (v. 32), but He doesn’t appear that way. He appears “as one from whom men hide their faces”… He “was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Is. 53:3). This is not how a king, much less God, should come, according to our fallen wisdom. So we reject Him. We spiritualize God to such an extent that the incarnation no longer has any real meaning for us. That’s why even many Christians reject that Baptism has any real power to save or forgive sins or create faith. That’s why even many Christians believe the Lord’s Supper is just bread and wine. Because the idea that God comes to us in the flesh, as body and blood, is scandalous. And even we who do believe it, treat it lightly, as if it’s not what God says it is, as if it has no bearing on our daily lives. We pack the God of the incarnation and the Sacraments up in a box where He can be safely stowed away.

Repent. God comes to you, not in your own image, but in the flesh to transform you into His image. And this is tremendously good news. He comes to you right in the midst of your sin and sinfulness and all the drama that is your life in a fallen world. He comes to you in the flesh to save you from all of that. He says to you, as He said to Mary through the angel Gabriel, “Greetings, O favored one” (Luke 1:28). The Greek on that verse is literally, “Grace, graced one.” And the meaning is that neither you nor Mary have earned His coming or merited it in any way. Grace is God’s undeserved kindness. He comes out of His own kindness, because He is good, and He knows our need of His coming. “Grace, graced one,” and bam! You have grace! That’s it! Because Jesus is on the scene, and He is grace in the flesh. The Word of God is just that powerful.

And it is just that real. Flesh and blood real. If Jesus did not come in the flesh, and if He does not come to you in His Word and Baptism and the Supper in the flesh, then you are still in your sins. But Christ indeed came as a baby and comes to you in the flesh to deliver to you real, tangible, flesh and blood forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The flesh and blood Jesus is the place of God’s tabernacle-ing among us. What David doesn’t understand in our Old Testament reading (2 Sam. 7:1-11, 16) is that the body of Jesus is the true Temple, the House of God built by THE Son of David. Thank God, He doesn’t come to us in the image we’ve crafted for Him. Thank God, He doesn’t stay in the box where we try to hide Him away. He comes through the Word announced to Mary of Nazareth. He comes, true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary. He comes to be our Lord and to redeem us from sin, death, and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, that we may be His own. He comes in His Word preached and read, real words from real voices and on real pages written in real ink. He comes in water that splashes you and soaks you and washes away all your sins because of the power of the Word. He comes in real bread and wine which are His true body and blood, because He says so. You actually touch God and eat His body and drink His blood, the body that was really crucified on a cross of real wood, the blood that was really shed, really poured out from real wounds onto the real dust of the earth. This is real history. This is present reality. Forget your images, your idols. Christianity is a real religion, because Christ is real.

And He’s real for you. That’s the point of Christmas. We don’t just worship some “spirit in the sky.” The Father is Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Spirit. Jesus Christ is Spirit and flesh. We worship a Man! Because a Man has come for us men and for our salvation. Grace, O Graced One. The Lord is with you. Jesus is here, for real. And faith says with St. Mary: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent Midweek III

2011-12-14T15:34:00.002-05:00

Advent Midweek III: His Throne[1]
December 14, 2011
Text: John 19:16-22

The account of Jesus’ crucifixion may seem a strange reading for Advent. I mean, we’re prepared for prophecies about His coming and accounts of His birth during this holy season, but by the glow of Christmas lights and the Yule log, the crucifixion can be a bit of a downer. But we’ve missed what Christmas is if we forget why He came. He came to die. Christmas is what it is in all its glory because of Good Friday. Otherwise this is just the birth of another baby to another peasant-girl. And while every birth is special, it’s an everyday occurrence. It is the purpose of this birth that sets it apart. Jesus is born to die. And to rise again, but that resurrection can only happen out of death. The newborn King claims His throne when He is nailed to it for the life of the world. He dies for His subjects. He dies for all people. He dies for you. And in so dying, He claims you for Himself. Hark, this is the peace on earth the herald angels were singing about: His death. “Glory to the newborn King.”

No matter how you cut it, Jesus doesn’t live up to human conceptions of kingship. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law were not against the Messiah coming. But they expected a Messiah who would be mighty and powerful, lead a military revolution, and rule as earthly King over an independent Israel… with the help and counsel of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, of course. When Jesus didn’t live up to their expectations, they plotted how they might trap Him, arrest Him, and deliver Him over to death. Jesus’ own disciples were no better. Even after His resurrection, they asked Him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6; ESV). They were thinking too small. They failed to understand that by His crucifixion Jesus had restored the Kingdom to spiritual Israel, the Church, claiming a Kingdom and a people for His own possession, purchasing us from sin and death by His own sinless blood and death.

Jesus is not the kind of king we expect, either. We expect a king who will make our lives better, easier, who will not allow bad things to happen to us, or who will immediately pick us up and brush us off if they do. We expect a king who shares our values rather than imposing His own upon us. We expect a king who will shatter our enemies and exalt us as the favored nation. In reality, our expectations of the King aren’t that much different than the Pharisees and teachers of the Law and disciples.

Jesus is none of that. Not in the way we think, anyway. Jesus is the King whose power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Jesus is the King who gives Himself up totally for the sake of His people. He is the King who comes not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). He is the King of the universe, the Son of God, who leaves His heavenly throne to take up residence in the womb of the Virgin Mary, who becomes flesh and makes His dwelling among us (John 1:14), who is laid in a manger because there is no room for Him in the inn, who grows up in a carpenter’s family, who surrounds Himself with fishermen and other commoners, eats with tax collectors and sinners, is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3). This is the King who is betrayed by a kiss, who willingly gives Himself into the hands of His enemies, though at any moment He could call upon His Father in heaven and be rescued by more than twelve legions of angels (Matt. 26:53). This is the King who is tried before earthly rulers, the Sanhedrin, Herod, Pontius Pilate (who declares Him innocent). His Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). Nor is He a king the world would embrace. This is the King who is clothed in royal purple, worshiped in mockery by the soldiers, given a reed scepter and beaten with it, spat upon, and crowned with thorns. He is scourged and led in royal procession outside of the city, where He is nailed to His throne, the blessed and holy cross, lifted up and exalted between two criminals, forsaken of the Father, suffering all hell. For you. For His subjects. And there He dies. He dies to make you His own, that you may live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him.

Pilate writes the truth. “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (John 19:19). Here He is, enthroned on high, for us and for our salvation. The devil, the world, and fallen humanity thought they had conquered this King once and for all that Good Friday. But on the Third Day He would emerge from the grave victorious over all His enemies. Glory to the newborn King, who came to die that we might live.

By nature we rebel against our crucified King. We reject Him as our King and as our Savior. We want to rule ourselves. We want to save ourselves. Or at least we want Him to rule and save us on our own terms. We want strength, not weakness. We want glory, not the cross. But there’s no salvation in that. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Jesus is the King. And He comes to us in weakness, that we might share in His glory. He comes to us in weakness still: Words and water and bread and wine. But in these weak vessels there is great power: the Holy Spirit, the washing away of sin, the true body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. Don’t let the appearance of the vessels fool you, any more than you should let the appearance of the King Himself in His earthly ministry, suffering, and death fool you. This is Almighty God come to His people. Because we cannot ascend to Him. He descends to us. He comes to us, in weakness, by which His power is made perfect.

And there is no other way. This King must die to save His people. So He does so, willingly, in love. No earthly King would do what He did. No earthly King could do what He did. And that is why Christmas is what it is. We don’t celebrate just because a baby was born. We don’t celebrate because that baby was the symbol of hope, or even the symbol of God’s love. We celebrate because that baby is hope incarnate, God’s love in the flesh, poured out on the cross. Christmas is meaningless without the cross. Even at Christmas we say with St. Paul, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Worship the newborn King by beholding Him on His cross, and receiving the benefits of that cross as they are delivered to you in the means of grace. Because in that way you live joyfully in Jesus’ Kingdom. This (Christ crucified) is King of the Jews. By this, we have God’s peace on earth, God’s goodwill toward men. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1]The theme and many of the points made in this sermon are taken from Savior of the Nations (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009).

Third Sunday in Advent

2011-12-11T07:54:00.002-05:00

Third Sunday in Advent (B)

December 11, 2011
Text: John 1:6-8, 19-28

Well, I don’t know about you, but an awful lot of, shall we say, stuff, gets in the way of my “Christmas spirit” this time of year. It’s a great time to be a pastor, but a very busy time that often leaves me feeling overextended. There are extra services to prepare for, extra sermons to contemplate and write, and for whatever reason, Satan is especially active burdening Christians this time of year with emotional, physical, and spiritual pain. And then as a husband and a father, there is the endless Christmas shopping, wondering where the money is going to come from, long lines at the post office, grumpy people hustling and bustling to get wherever they’re going, full of anything but holiday cheer. And we miss our family out on the West Coast. Some of them will be with us, but most will be together many miles from us. I know, I’m just whining. Except that if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on the fact that when you examine your own life and your own vocations, especially this time of year, you find that an awful lot of, shall we say, stuff, gets in the way of your “Christmas spirit” too. The point of my pity party is simply that there’s something common to us all at work here. No matter how hard we try, the “Christmas spirit” we yearn for is unattainable. It seems to be just out of reach. It seems like if we just gave or received the right gift, if the kids would just behave, if the family would just get along for once, if, if, if, then we’d have that Christmas spirit we so desperately desire.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the fact is, the so-called “Christmas spirit” doesn’t exist. At least not the “Christmas spirit” of sappy sentimentality and nostalgia. It never has and it never will. It’s a false god. That’s why even rank unbelievers run after it. It’s a false god because it displaces Jesus Christ. The fact is, the so-called “Christmas spirit” all too often edges out the Holy Spirit. It edges out the Word of God. It edges out the Word made flesh who made His dwelling among us, you know, the whole reason we have Christmas in the first place. And that’s why we need the preaching of St. John the Baptist. St. John was sent by God to testify to the Light that was coming into the world, the Light that is our Savior, Jesus Christ. He was sent to preach repentance: “Make straight the way of the Lord” (John 1:23; ESV), “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). John was sent by God to preach repentance, that we might receive that Light that was coming into the world, and so receive the forgiveness of sins and new life.

How easily we are distracted from the true Light that enlightens every man by the empty promises of tinsel and glitter. Now, let me say, I enjoy the trappings of the season as much as the next guy. These things aren’t bad in and of themselves. But we have the same problem the Jews have in our text. For them, religion had become all about the trappings, and had nothing to do with repentance and the forgiveness of sins, nothing to do with the Messiah who was to come into the world. Just like Christmas for us. Please do remember that Christmas is a religious holiday. It is not primarily a romantic holiday, or a charitable holiday, or a family holiday. All those things are wonderful, but they do not define Christmas. Whatever else it may be, Christmas is first and foremost the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The place to celebrate it is here at the church, where Jesus is, dispensing His gifts. It’s Jesus’ birthday. Come to His house to celebrate with Him. And even here in the church, don’t make the holiday about glowing candles and Christmas carols, as wonderful as those things are, too. Christmas is about what everyday of your Christian life is about: Jesus Christ, living in your Baptism, repentance and the forgiveness of sins, communion with the living God and with His people, your fellow Christians, loving and serving your neighbor. Make straight the way of the Lord. That means examine yourself, repent of your sins, confess them and hear the absolution from your pastor and believe it. Shove aside everything that gets in the way of that message, everything that takes your eyes off of Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith (Heb. 12:2). Hear His Word. Live in your Baptism. Rejoice to receive His body and blood at the Supper. In this way you prepare to receive the Lord in His coming at Christmas, and in His coming again at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.

This Sunday, the Third Sunday in Advent, is traditionally known as Gaudete, Latin for “rejoice.” We’re half way to Christmas. That’s why the candle on the Advent wreath is rose, the color of rejoicing. We rejoice because the Light is coming into the world. The Light is coming into the world to dispel the darkness of sin and death and Satan’s trickery. The difficulty is, though, that our sinful flesh loves darkness. It despises the Light because the Light exposes us for what we are: sinners in need of salvation. The sinful flesh prefers the dim, humanly-devised light of that phantom “Christmas spirit” we were talking about. It would prefer to make Christmas about anything but Jesus Christ and salvation from sin. It would prefer to remove Christmas from the Church. Because in the dim light of the “Christmas spirit,” we can make ourselves appear to be good and kind people, charitable and generous. But in the true Light of Christmas, the Light that is Jesus, the innermost thoughts of our hearts are exposed, and they are ugly thoughts. Every secret deed, every ill-spoken and bitter word, every callous thought comes into the Light to be dealt with when Jesus comes on the scene. Sin is exposed in the Light of Christ so that it be forgiven, covered over by His blood, buried in His tomb. Sin is exposed and dealt with so that it cannot condemn us. And that is reason for great rejoicing. So do not hide in the darkness any longer, beloved. When you find yourself being sucked back into the darkness and distracted by everything that is not Jesus Christ, repent. And rejoice in His gifts. Rejoice that you are Baptized. Rejoice that He pronounces you righteous with His own righteousness. Rejoice that He feeds you with the Supper of His body and blood. That is what Advent is all about. That is what Christmas is all about.

And that is how we make straight the way of the Lord. By repentance and faith. It begins with a deep, deep sorrow over our sins and offenses against God, our despising of His Word and gifts, our lovelessness toward our neighbor, our lust for other gods who are flashier and who tickle the fancies of our flesh. And then we immerse ourselves in the means of grace where God dispenses to us all the benefits of our Lord Jesus Christ and His life, death, and resurrection. And we rejoice. Gaudete. We rejoice, because we do not get what we deserve, what we have coming, eternal punishment in hell. God has mercy on us. He is gracious. He gives us what we do not deserve: salvation, eternal life, the love of God, joy in the Gospel, perseverance under trial and the cross, the peace of God that passes all human understanding, and every other good gift besides. In reality, that is how the Lord makes straight His path in us. He sends His Holy Spirit so that we hear and heed the preaching and believe in Christ as our Savior from sin and death.

The “Christmas spirit” is no substitute for the Holy Spirit. It produces no real rejoicing. Just disappointment. Because it takes our eyes off of Jesus and distracts us with all the stuff of the world’s celebration. And the stuff of the world’s celebration is fallen. Even the good stuff and the necessary stuff can take our eyes off of Jesus and become a god to us. Repent, beloved. Make straight the way of the Lord. Prepare this Advent season to receive your Lord at Christmas here as He comes to you in His Word and Sacrament. Prepare for Him to lighten your heart with His gracious visitation. And what you’ll find when you believe that Christmas is about receiving Christ as God’s gift to you, is that Christmas will not fail. It will not, and cannot. Your yearning will be satisfied, because your delight will be in God, and in His Son Jesus Christ. And the Light who is Christ will shine even in the midst of the busyness of the season and the stuff that surrounds our celebration and even the attacks of the devil who would take your eyes off of Jesus. He won’t be able to, because the Light who is Jesus Christ dispels all darkness. He comes to you and gives Himself to you. This gift is certain. There are no ifs. And He is never out of reach. He is right here, right now, for you. Rejoice, beloved. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent Midweek II: The Announcement

2011-12-07T14:58:00.002-05:00

Advent Midweek II: “The Announcement”[1]
December 7, 2011
Text: Luke 1:26-38

The announcement was impossible to believe, at least by the standard of human reason. By that standard, it is still impossible to believe, that a virgin should conceive and bear a Son, and that Son be God in human flesh, the Savior. It is the mystery of Christmas. Virgins don’t conceive, protests our reason. And for God to be a man is an unreasonable notion. Don’t take these two things for granted just because you are a Christian. Have you ever stopped to reflect on how impossible it is to believe this, how utterly unbelievable it is that a virgin conceives, and that the child she conceives is Almighty God? That the Creator of the universe is a blastocyst, an embryo, a fetus, a baby who is born and soils His diapers? The mystery isn’t unbelief. The mystery is that anyone believes any of this at all.

Yet this is what the angel preaches to St. Mary. The angel Gabriele announces to her that the Lord is with her, that she has found favor with God, that she would conceive and bear a Son and call His Name “Jesus.” This Son, preaches the angel, will be the King of Israel, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of the Most High. Now Mary wonders aloud with the same question we all ponder: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (v. 24; ESV). And the angel answers: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (v. 35). Beloved in the Lord, as the angel speaks these words, the very Word of God, so it happens. The Word of God is performative. It accomplishes what it says. So as the angel speaks, so it is done. The Word enters Mary’s ear and is implanted in her womb. The Word becomes flesh and makes His dwelling among us. He is conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. He is the Son of God from all eternity. He is Mary’s Son in time, conceived at the angel’s announcement, born in Bethlehem on Christmas Day.

It is impossible for human reason to comprehend, unbelievable by our own reason or strength. But such is the case with everything God’s Word preaches. God created the whole universe in six days several thousand years ago, as the Bible says? Forget it, says our human reason. Much easier to believe this is all some cosmic accident that evolved over billions of years into what it is now. Miracles like the Flood and the deliverance of Noah on the ark, the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the day the Sun stood still, and all the other miracles of the Bible? Impossible, says our reason. There must be some rational explanation. Again, the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, His bodily resurrection from the dead? We can explain these away by showing that they are pious traditions and explanations of faith adopted by early Christians in their scientific ignorance. We are children of the Enlightenment, and we know better. So says human reason. Nor can reason accept the great miracles God performs among us today in His Church. A powerful Word of God proclaimed by preachers in the stead of Christ, Baptism actually washing away sin and making you God’s child, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself, bread and wine the true body and blood of Christ received in your mouth for your forgiveness? This is all just as unreasonable, unbelievable to human reason. And not one of us is capable of believing this on our own. What makes this difference? What brings us to reject our fallen human reason in favor of the Word and to say with St. Mary, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (v. 38)?

The same impossible Word of God spoken to St. Mary is spoken to us. And the Word is powerful. It is full of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit’s vehicle, His means of conveying faith in Christ and new life to us. As the Word was preached into St. Mary’s ears so that it took root in her womb, so the Word is preached into our ears and takes root in our hearts. Faith is conceived, faith in the Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ. And such faith believes the Word of God no matter how unreasonable, no matter how unbelievable, no matter how impossible. Faith clings to the Word, the Word preached, the Word made flesh. This faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit who declares to us in the Word: “The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid. You have found favor with God. Because Jesus has come, God in human flesh, the Son of Mary, the Son of God. And He has borne your sin all the way to the cross. He has suffered your punishment. He is risen from the dead. He has restored you to God. And He sends His Spirit through His Word so that you believe in Him and His sin atoning work and receive eternal life.” Impossible to believe by our own reason or strength. But it is all God’s work. With man it is impossible, but all things are possible with God (Matt. 19:26).

So we cling to the angel’s announcement to Mary for our very salvation. The virgin did conceive and bear a Son, Jesus, who saves us from our sins. He is true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity. He is true man, born of the Virgin Mary. And He is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and by His innocent suffering and death. He has made me His own. All this He has done also for you and all people. All who believe in Him have eternal life. So we prepare this Advent for a robust and joyful celebration of our Savior’s birth on Christmas. Because the impossible has happened, the unbelievable, the unreasonable: God became a man, born of a virgin. God became a man for you and me. He is our Savior, Christ the Lord, and He has come to set us free. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] The theme and many of the points made in this sermon are taken from Savior of the Nations (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009).

Second Sunday in Advent

2011-12-04T08:20:00.002-05:00

Second Sunday in Advent (B)

December 4, 2011
Text: Mark 1:1-8

Beloved in the Lord, St. John the Baptist proclaims good news to you this morning. That is the meaning of the word “Gospel.” It means “good news.” And the good news that is the Gospel is “ever and always and only about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”[1] St. Mark writes in Chapter One, Verse One: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (ESV), the formal title of his entire work, and then immediately proceeds to the preaching and ministry of John in the wilderness. John is the one of whom Isaiah prophesied, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Mark 1:3; cf. Is. 40:3). Prepare the way of the Lord… Preparation for the Lord’s coming is what the season of Advent is all about. But how do you prepare? How do you make straight the paths of the Lord? The answer is clear right here in our text. Baptism, repentance, confession of sins, forgiveness of sins, and the preaching of Christ. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and by this Gospel God prepares you for the Lord’s coming. God prepares you by washing away your sins and placing His Word and Spirit into you. God prepares you actually by killing you and raising you to new life, by drowning you and pulling you up out of the water so that you emerge in newness of life as God’s own child. “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). As a result, all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem came out to him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. And they were forgiven, John pointing them to the Christ. Baptism, repentance, confession and Absolution, the preaching of Jesus Christ, they all go together. And in this way God prepares you to receive your Savior. This is what Advent is all about.

John appears in the wilderness of all places. He appears in a desolate place, a place of emptiness. It is a place of preparation. It is the place Moses prepared for forty years to lead the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. It is a place of wandering. It is the place Israel wandered for another forty years before entering the Promised Land. It is a place of temptation. It is the place our Lord suffers hunger and thirst and the attacks of the devil for forty days and forty nights. It is the place where no one can live unless the Lord brings life. It is our place as we wander and are tempted in the wilderness of this world and our sin. It is our place of preparation as we await the Lord’s return to judge the living and the dead and deliver us. It is a place none of us can live spiritually unless the Lord brings life. It is to that place that the Lord sends His prophet to preach and baptize and absolve. It is to that place that the Lord Himself comes, the Lamb of God to whom John points, who takes away the sin of the world. It is there in the wilderness, knee deep in Jordan’s waters, that the Lamb of God is baptized by St. John, soaking up the sins of the world, so that our Baptism can be a cleansing from sin and a drowning of the Old Adam.

As the children of Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, and as that same sea drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his host, so Baptism saves us. We pass through the water and our sinful nature is drowned. We are delivered to new life on the other side. As the children of Israel again passed through the Jordan River into the Promised Land, so we pass through Baptism into the Kingdom of God. That is why John is in the wilderness, baptizing in the Jordan. It is a re-do for Israel. The people once again come into the Kingdom of God through water. St. John is calling the people to repent, to repent of their taking for granted that they are God’s people, to repent of their pride and arrogance in God’s Law, which, even if they had kept outwardly, they had not kept in their hearts. He was calling the people to repent of their heartless worship, their self-righteousness, their self-idolatry. Tax collectors and prostitutes happily splashed into the water, confessing their sins and receiving the Baptism of repentance and forgiveness from John. They gladly heard his preaching of the Lamb of God. They clung to the Word John proclaimed in faith for their forgiveness and life. Pharisees stood on the shore, not knowing what to think about it all, but certainly not repenting, not confessing their sins, not being forgiven or heeding the preaching. Instead, as we will learn next week, they sent priests and Levites to demand an explanation from John (John 1:19-28).

Beloved in the Lord, John preaches to you this morning. You are the Baptized. You are the holy Christian Church. But do not take your status as the people of God for granted. John calls you to return to your Baptism. John calls you to repent. For the Christian, it is so easy to fall into spiritual pride and arrogance, to stand in judgment over those sinners who commit those wicked acts, to look at all you do for the church (with such humility, of course), to look at your love for others and your model citizenship, and smile at yourself with the approval you think God must have for you. And you don’t want to hear John’s preaching of repentance, or mine. Oh, you don’t mind it when other sinners are cornered in their sins, the ones you don’t commit. You kind of enjoy that, actually. But when your sins are exposed, that is painful. It kills you. Really. It kills you. That’s the point. The Law kills. It puts you to death so that you’re good and dead and you can’t talk anymore about your accomplishments or judge other sinners or take God for granted. And you certainly can’t bring yourself back to life. God must do that, in the preaching of the Gospel, the good news that is not about what you have done, but ever and always and only about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Law places you in the wilderness, at Sinai, with the thundering of God giving commandments you cannot and will not keep and sentencing to death anyone who even touches the mountain. The Law places you where there is no hope for life, where no one can live. Unless God brings life. And He does. He sends His prophets. He sends His Son. He sends His Son in the very preaching of the prophets, the apostles, and the Christian pastors. He sends His Son, the Lamb of God, to take away the sin of the world. He sends His Son so that you can be baptized into Him, confess your sins, be forgiven, and cling to the One who is preached, even Jesus Christ. And in this way, He prepares you to receive Him. He prepares His own way in your heart. He makes His paths straight by casting down the mighty, the self-righteous, the Pharisee in you, by His Law, and lifting up the lowly, the repentant, the redeemed sinner with His Gospel of forgiveness in Christ.

So how do you prepare for His coming, this Advent season? Return to your Baptism. Happily splash into that water, confessing your sins. Repent. And believe the Word that has been pronounced over you: I forgive you all your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. And then go and gladly live the new life God has given you in your Baptism. Remember that your old sinful flesh has been drowned in Baptism and crucified in repentance. You’ve been born anew in Baptism, and you return to that new life every time you are absolved of your sins. So leave the old ways behind. Don’t judge others anymore. Repent when you do. Don’t take pride in yourself anymore. Repent when you do. Don’t take God for granted anymore, despising His Word and Sacraments and His holy Church as if you could take them or leave them. Repent when you do. Know who you are before God, a sinner redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Always believe that your righteousness is in Christ alone, and that because He came for you in the flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, yet the very Son of God, to die for you, you have the full and free forgiveness of all of your sins. So now live in that faith, and just go love and serve your neighbor.

And hear the preaching, Law and Gospel. Hear and heed. Because that is how God prepares you to receive Jesus. He kills you and makes you alive. That is how He gives you Jesus, namely, in the means of grace. Baptism, repentance, confession and absolution, the preaching of Jesus Christ, they all go together. This is the whole ministry of John the Baptist. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God. This is all for you. Prepare the way of the Lord by receiving it. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Harold Buls, http://www.pericope.org/buls-notes/mark/mark_1_1_8.htm.

Advent Midweek I: The Invitation

2011-11-30T15:20:00.003-05:00

Advent Midweek I: “The Invitation”[1]
Nov. 30, 2011
Text: John 1:1-14

God does not coerce us to believe in Him. He invites us. He forces no one to be in fellowship with Him. But He tenderly calls us into communion with the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Body of Christ, the Church. He calls us by the Gospel. He calls us in the preaching of His Word. He calls us by placing His Name upon us in Holy Baptism. An invitation, of course, does not have to be accepted. It may be ignored. It may be rejected outright. Such are the forms of unbelief. God invites by His Word and by Baptism, but not everyone believes. Not everyone wants fellowship with God or with His holy Church. Still, the invitation goes out from God, and it goes out with power, the power of the eternal Word of God through whom all things were made.

Creation itself is God’s invitation to existence through His powerful Word. God graciously called into being all that exists, the heavens and the earth and all living creatures. And without any cooperation or participation from man, God called Adam into existence, formed Him from the dust of the ground, and Eve, Adam’s wife, God formed from Adam’s rib. God invited our first parents, Adam and Eve, to live perpetually in fellowship with Him in paradise. But He did not coerce them. He gave them an opportunity to live outside of fellowship with Him. If you want to live without God, just eat from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Every other tree you can enjoy for food and remain in fellowship with God, but this tree is a relationship breaker. And of course, you know what Adam and Eve chose. The serpent led them to believe that they were better off without God, that they could do better on their own, as their own gods. An invitation graciously extended, even by the very hand of God, can be rejected. Such was the fatal mistake of our first parents. For what they had forgotten, the warning of God they had failed to heed, is that in the day they ate of the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. Outside of the fellowship of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is only death.

Adam and Eve died when they ate the forbidden fruit. They died spiritually, they began the process of dying physically, and they were condemned to eternal death in hell. They could do nothing about their mortal condition. So God graciously did something about it. The Father invited the Son to become one with sinful humanity by taking on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The Father invited the Son to suffer and die in that flesh to deliver Adam and Eve and all their children, you and me and all people, from the wages of our sin, which is death, and to restore us to fellowship with God. The Father invited the Son to bring life into the world. The Son did not reject the Father’s invitation. For our sake, the Son accepted the Father’s invitation and accomplished His saving will. In Him, all our sins are forgiven, our relationship to God is restored, and we are given eternal life with Him. The invitation to receive this gift goes out with every sermon, with every confession of Christ, with every Baptism into Christ. And the invitation is powerful because it is the very Word of God. It is a performative Word, which means it is powerful not only to invite but to deliver, to deliver the faith to accept the invitation, and to deliver the very gift the invitation promises: The forgiveness of sins and eternal fellowship with God.

So the invitation goes out this evening here and wherever the Word is proclaimed. Some will reject. The world rejects the invitation. The world would rather remain in death and darkness, under the illusion that they are their own gods. “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:9-11; ESV). God forces no one. He has extended a time of grace for repentance and reception of His gracious invitation. After that, He will give all who reject His invitation what they want. He will leave them alone, forsake them, which is hell. But you, beloved, you who also by your sins have rejected His invitation, hear Him now as He extends it to you once again in preaching and so delivers to you all the benefits of your Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness and death and resurrection. Repent of your rejecting Him. Repent of listening to the serpent, of desiring to be your own gods, and believe that this invitation is for you. God has beheld your deadly plight, and He has done something about it. He sent His Son. And to all who receive Him, who believe in His Name, He gives the right to become children of God (v. 12). You are God’s own child by Holy Baptism. You have been born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, by water and the Word. The relationship that God intended for His people from the beginning has been restored to you, that you might live perpetually in fellowship with Him in paradise. This is pure gift, beloved. God does not coerce you to receive this. He gives it to you freely in His Word and Sacraments. It is your life. Death is defeated. Life is yours in Christ. It is a reality that is yours now by faith, but it will be made fully manifest on the Last Day when your Lord Jesus extends another invitation to you: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).

May this Advent Season be a joyful time for you to prepare for the celebration of our Lord’s birth and for His coming again on the Last Day, and also a time to revel in His gracious invitation to you to receive His gifts. For the Word became flesh and has made His dwelling among us. We behold His glory as He continues to come among us in the flesh in His Word and Supper. And so we receive the true Light which enlightens everyone, the Light of life, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. Invitation delivered, invitation received. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] The theme and many of the points made in this sermon are taken from Savior of the Nations (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009).

First Sunday in Advent

2011-11-27T07:58:00.003-05:00

First Sunday in Advent (B)

November 27, 2011
Text: Mark 11:1-10

We pray in the Collect, “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance.”[1] Advent means “coming,” and this season is all about preparation for the coming of the Lord for our protection and rescuing. For if the Lord does not come, if the Lord does not protect us and rescue us, then the threatening perils of our sins will devour us. We are no match for those perils outside of Christ. Outside of Christ we are lost. The perils are too strong for us. Those perils include despair, unbelief, hardness of heart, being given over to the passions of the flesh, worldliness, spiritual blindness, enmity with God, DEATH. Finally, THE great peril of sin is damnation, hell. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature, our three main enemies, seek to deceive us and mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Even believers are attacked by these things, and so we fervently pray that God would deliver us from temptation and evil, so that we may finally overcome them and win the victory. But the victory is only won if the Lord comes. Advent. “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come.” Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly.

“(B)ehold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he” (Zech. 9:9; ESV). The Lord does not leave us to be devoured by the perils of our sin. He comes. And He comes in three ways: in the flesh, in His Word and Sacraments, and as Judge on the Last Day. He comes first of all in human flesh as the Baby Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem of Judea. He comes in the flesh to be our substitute, to fulfill the Law of God in our place, the Law we cannot and will not keep, the Law we have broken. He comes to bear our sin and to suffer and die our punishment, the death of the cross for our forgiveness. He comes to lie in our tomb and transform it from the gate of hell to a soft bed for the believer’s body to await the resurrection. He comes to rise from the dead and give us new life, eternal life, now, already, in our Baptism into Christ, and for all eternity in our resurrection bodies in a new heaven and a new earth on the Last Day.

Our risen Lord Jesus has ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God, ruling all things. But He has not left us nor forsaken us. He has given us His Holy Spirit, and He Himself comes to us in the flesh in His Word, and in the Sacraments of Baptism, Absolution, and with His true body and blood under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. This is the second way He comes, and in this way He protects us from the perils of our sins in the time of our earthly life.

And of course, He will come again visibly on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead. On that Day He will deliver us from the threatening perils of our sins forever. That is the third way He comes. We must be prepared for that Day, which means we must always be in Christ, partaking of His gifts in the Word and Sacraments, which impart to us the saving benefits of His life, death, and resurrection. All three ways that He comes to us: His first coming as a baby, His continual coming in Word and Sacrament, and His coming again at the end of time, all three of these are interrelated and interdependent. We face His coming again with confidence because of His first coming, by which all our sins are forgiven, and His continual coming and presence among us in the means of grace, by which that forgiveness is applied to us. Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation, which He desires to give to you. He is coming to protect you and rescue you from the threatening perils of your sins.

He comes for sinners in the midst of their sin, in the midst of the threatening perils they have caused, in the midst of their death. He comes to you, right in the midst of your sin, right in the midst of the mess that is your life. What a comfort that is. You don’t have to be “good enough” for Jesus to come to you. You couldn’t possibly be “good enough.” You don’t win His coming to you by cleaning up your act, cleaning up your life, getting rid of your sinful habits. He comes by grace, regardless of who you are and what you’ve done. He comes to you, not because you are worthy, but because He is good. He comes to you, not to punish, but to rescue you and make you His own. When our Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God from all eternity, took on flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, He became one with sinners. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us (John 1:14). He lived among us. He patiently endured our sin against Him. He bore rejection, mockery, and insult. He ate and drank with sinners, with prostitutes and tax collectors. He died a criminal’s death, between two criminals, one of whom He declared would be with Him in Paradise. He was buried in a sinner’s tomb. And He rose victorious over sin. Now He comes to sinners in His Word and Sacraments. The righteous do not need His Word. They do not need His forgiveness. They do not need His Baptism or His Supper. Jesus comes for sinners in His means of grace. He comes to His Church, which is a hospital for sinners. The righteous need not apply. Sinners, however, who are covered by the blood of Jesus are declared righteous in Holy Absolution, and so they will be declared righteous when our Lord comes again on the Day of Judgment. Absolution is simply the declaration of God’s Judgment over you ahead of time: In Jesus, you are righteous.

But make no mistake. Jesus does not come to us so that we can go on sinning. He comes to free us from our sin. “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:1-4). Jesus comes to you and me right in the midst of our sin, to be sure. It is a great mercy on His part. But He does not come to leave us there. He does not come to tell us that it’s alright for us to remain in sin, that we’re okay the way we are, that we should feel good about ourselves in spite of our weaknesses. No, He frees us from all that! As long as we remain in our sinful flesh, we will sin, there is no doubt about it. But we are baptized into Christ, into His death, and so we daily die to sin. We daily crucify the sinful flesh. The entire life of believers is a life of repentance. But so also we are raised to new life with Christ, new life now, so that the new creation in us daily emerges and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry… Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony… Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” and “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:5, 12-14, 16-17).

Advent is a season of preparation for our coming King. It is a season to prepare for the celebration of His birth at Christmas, to prepare for His coming in mercy in His Word and Sacraments, and by these means of grace to prepare for His coming again to judge the living and the dead. So we prepare the way of the Lord by strewing before Him the palm branches of repentance (you’ll hear a lot about that this Advent season in the preaching of St. John the Baptist) and in faith praying “Hosanna! Save now, O Lord. Save us, for the threatening perils of our sins are great, and without You they will devour us. But You come to deliver us. You come to fight for us. You come to protect us and rescue us. Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” And as the Church prays these words again in the Sanctus, the Lord Jesus does just that. He stirs up His mighty power and comes with His true body and blood, that instead of being devoured by the threatening perils of your sins, you may devour Him in your mouths, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation, and so be rescued. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He. A blessed Advent, beloved. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Pastoral Care Companion (St. Louis: Concordia, 2007) p. 538.

Last Sunday in the Church Year

2011-11-20T07:52:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday in the Church Year (A – Proper 29)

November 20, 2011
Text: Matt. 25:31-46

What will be your confidence on the Day of Judgment? What will you plead before the Divine Court? You know, of course, that you are a sinner. You just confessed it to God a few minutes ago, “by nature sinful and unclean… sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone” (LSB p. 167). To confess anything other than this truth would be fruitless. It is not as though you can lie to the all-knowing God. But to confess this truth about yourself, that you are a sinner, to plead guilty, is a fearsome thing as you stand before your almighty and righteous Judge. That is why you plead guilty now, confessing your sins, and you cling with all your might to the Absolution, to the word pronounced upon you by God’s called and ordained servant, “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit,” knowing that by these words God Himself is forgiving your sins. You cling to your Baptism into Christ, by which your sins are washed away and you are clothed with His righteousness. Because this is true, beloved, on the Day of Judgment you plead innocent. You plead righteous. Not with your own righteousness. You have none. Not by your own works. Your works are as filthy rags before God. You plead righteous because of your righteous Lord Jesus, who covers you. When God looks at you, He sees Jesus, His innocent, righteous, beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased.

But Jesus talks about works in the Gospel this morning, and this can be a little confusing to say the least. First, Jesus commends the sheep, those who are saved, for having fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and those in prison. He commends them for their works. Then He sentences the goats, those who are condemned, to the eternal fire for their having failed to do these works. What’s it all about? Is Jesus here contradicting our doctrine that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from works? It may appear that way at first glance, and this text is often misunderstood in that way, but what we have to ask of this text is this: What is it that makes the sheep, sheep? And what makes the goats, goats? And when we examine the text very carefully, we see that it is not the works that make the sheep or the goats, but the sheep or the goats that make the works, just as a good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit (c.f. Matt. 7:17). In fact, before the judgment, before works enter the picture, the sheep are already sheep, and the goats are already goats. The sheep are those who are in Christ, the Lamb of God, by Baptism and faith. The goats are those who have rejected Christ and relied on their own works for justification and salvation.

So again the question, what will be your confidence on the Day of Judgment? What will you plead before the Divine Court? The sheep have as their only confidence on that Day their Lord Jesus Christ. The sheep will plead innocent and righteous because of Christ, who covers them. The goats will also plead innocent and righteous, but not because of Christ. They will make this plea because of their works. They will take confidence in themselves and in their works. And they will be condemned because their works are not sufficient. Their works are, in fact, sinful. The sheep will be surprised that they have ever done any good works. “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” (Matt. 25:37-39; ESV). The sheep will be surprised because they know their works to be filthy with sin, impure, with mixed motives, and they know that they have often failed to live according to God’s will, that they have, in fact, blatantly sinned against His commandments. Yet their works are made holy by the blood of Jesus, which cleanses them. Their works are holy because of faith, which grasps the righteousness of Christ. The sheep will be surprised because they take no account of their works. They just do them, because faith is always living and busy and active, overflowing in love and good works. The works don’t make the sheep. The sheep make the works. And their sin and impurity and weakness is not counted against them, because they are forgiven in Jesus, who died for them and is risen for them. He alone is their confidence. They are justified by faith alone. But their faith is never alone. It is always full of love and the works wrought in believers by the Holy Spirit.

The goats will also be surprised on that Day, surprised to find out that none of their works count. None of their works help them. They will blame Jesus for having misjudged them, for being unjust. “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” (v. 44). “Lord, don’t you see all that we’ve done, what good people we are? We gave lots of money to charity, we volunteered at soup kitchens, we were upstanding citizens, we did everything the sheep did.” And you know what? They will be right. In terms of outward works and outward obedience, they did everything sheep did. But they did it without faith. They did it outside of Christ. And so the sin and filth and impurity and mixed motives that are forgiven the sheep for the sake of Christ are not forgiven the goats. The goats want to be judged, not in Christ, but on the basis of their works. And God gives them what they want. But no one, neither sheep nor goat, can stand before God by his or her works. Works done outside of Christ, no matter how noble and good in the sight of men, are damnable sin. Yes, a million dollar donation to a children’s hospital (or even a church, for that matter), is a damnable sin when done outside of Christ. But in Christ, the mother who changes her baby’s diaper, who feeds her children, feeds and clothes Christ Himself. In Christ, the father who sets a roof over his family’s heads welcomes Christ into his home. In Christ, when you visit your Christian brother or sister in the hospital for their comfort and consolation, you visit Christ. We often think that the works Jesus speaks of in our text have to be extraordinary works of service, above and beyond what we do in our daily lives, but in reality, Jesus speaks of our living in our daily vocations, loving and serving those around us in faith that Jesus alone is our righteousness, not these works we’re doing. We do these works precisely because Jesus is our righteousness, and we live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

What we learn from this text is that Jesus is one with His Church, with His little lambs. We serve Jesus by serving them. We love Jesus by loving them. Because Jesus is in and with His people, what we call in theology the “mystical union” of Christ with His believers. Christ is in you and you are in Christ. The Holy Trinity is in you and you are in the Holy Trinity. This is your reality in Baptism. And this is the reality that makes all the difference on Judgment Day. Not the works you’ve done. Those are a result of the Judgment already rendered, that Christ has become your sin and paid for it in full on the cross, and you are righteous in Him because He has fulfilled the Law for you, died for your forgiveness, and is risen for your new and eternal life. The Judgment is that you are righteous on account of Christ alone. And that Judgment has already been pronounced. On Judgment Day it will be made manifest, declared publicly, for all the world and for the devil and his demons to hear. But it is a reality now. So you can go to work now, loving and serving your neighbor, knowing the end is near, but not worrying about it, because you know exactly what will happen on that Day. The Lord Jesus will say to you, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (v. 34). And that will be a Day of great joy for you. Only those not found in Christ need fear that Day. For the Christian, it will be the Day when all that is wrong is made right again, when we are freed from our sinful flesh as our bodies are transformed into resurrection bodies like unto Christ, when God Himself will wipe every tear from our eyes.

Indeed, this is how it will happen on that Day: “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:16-17). Hereupon will follow the Judgment, when the unbelievers will be cast into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. But you, beloved, because you are in Christ, will receive eternal life in a new heaven and a new earth. Believe it. Be comforted by it. Do not fear. For you are in Christ, and all your sins are forgiven. The verdict has been pronounced over you in Absolution this morning. You are righteous. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

2011-11-13T08:13:00.003-05:00

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 28)

November 13, 2011
Text: Matt. 25:14-30

Beloved in the Lord, everything you have, everything you are, belongs not to you, but to God. He created you and all things, visible and invisible. He has given you your body and soul, eyes, ears, and all your members, your reason and all your senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives you clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, family, and your daily living. You may think you have earned these things by your hard work. Even devoted Christians battle with such thinking in their sinful flesh. But every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, from our gracious God (James 1:17). He richly and daily provides you with all that you need to support your body and life. So you are not yours to do with as you please. It is not your body, your choice. And what you believe belongs to you is not yours to do with as you please, either. It all belongs to God, your Maker and Redeemer. And He does all this, gives all of these things to you, only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in you. For all this, then, it is your duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

God has made you a manager, a steward, over what He has given you. He expects you to use it, and use it well. And recognize, there will be an accounting of your use on the Last Day. He gives these gifts to you by grace, apart from works. These are your talents, your abilities, your blessings. Many of these things you were born with, others God has given you throughout your life, and God has charged you to foster them, develop them, and use them responsibly, not for selfish gain, but out of love for others and in thanksgiving to God. This is the doctrine of stewardship, and while it includes how you manage your money and contribute to the work of the Church, stewardship concerns so much more. It has to do with everything God has given you: Your very body and life, your relationships, your time, your talents and abilities, how you care for people and the things God has given to you, your prayers for others, the creation you enjoy, your daily vocations. Essentially, Christian stewardship is how you live your life in relationship to your neighbor. A good steward directs his or her resources for the benefit of the neighbor. A bad steward stores up all of his or her resources for him or herself. And, of course, the sinful flesh is always a bad steward, always curved in on itself. Beloved, you and I have a lot of repenting to do. Especially in view of the fact that the Master, our Lord Jesus, is returning soon to demand an accounting. Thus the parable Jesus tells us this morning (Matt. 25:14-30).

Jesus speaks of a man going on a journey who entrusts his property to his servants. To one servant he gives five talents, to another two, and to another one. A talent was a unit of mass in the ancient world used to measure money. The Roman talent was equal to about 71 pounds. The master in the parable is giving out money to his servants. And the money is not for them to do whatever they please with. The money doesn’t belong to them, but to the master. They are to put it to work for the master, to manage it as good stewards. Each servant is given his talents according to his ability. No servant is given more than his ability. No servant is given less than his ability. The master is wise in his distribution. Now the master goes away, and the servants do not know when he will return. As it happens, he is gone a long time, but one day he does return, and he expects to settle accounts with his servants. The one who had five talents had been faithful. He put the talents to work for the master, earning five more talents. And so the master commended him and richly rewarded him: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (v. 21; ESV). So also, the servant who had two talents was faithful and had made two more talents. He was likewise commended and rewarded. But the servant who had only one talent was worried for himself. He did not put the master’s money to work, as he had been commanded. He was not concerned to multiply the master’s blessing by investing it. Instead, he hoarded it. He buried it so no one could find it. Why? Because he did not trust the master. He believed the master to be a tyrant. “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. Here you have what is yours” (vv. 24-25). The master’s judgment is swift: “You wicked and slothful servant!” (v. 26). The unfaithful servant is rebuked, the talent is taken away from him and given to the one who has ten, and this worthless servant is cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Notice that the first two servants are not rewarded because of their success, but because of their faithfulness, as the master points out in his commendation. There was always the risk that they would not have been successful, but they were nonetheless faithful, trusting in the master’s wisdom and intentions with his talents, desiring to do the master’s will. The third servant is not condemned for his lack of success, but for his unfaithfulness, for his lack of faith in the master, for his self-interest. And this is very important as we apply the parable to our own situation. God has graciously given us all that we have, without any merit or worthiness in us. He has generously poured out blessing upon blessing for our use and enjoyment. But His blessings don’t belong to us to bury under the ground or hoard up for ourselves. He gives us our blessings to use in love for others. Now this includes money, but again, it isn’t just about money. It is everything we have been given. In fact, we get our English word “talent,” as in gift or ability, from this parable. So we should use our gifts and abilities, our resources, yes, our money, as well as our time and effort, in love, for the sake of our neighbor. Because this is the investment our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, would have us make with what He has given us. And the question with regard to our investment is not one of success, because success or failure is not in our hands to determine, but of whether or not we have the faith in our Lord to do as He commands with what He has given us. If we believe that the Lord is gracious, if we trust Him, if we know that everything we have is from Him, that He has redeemed us for Himself, that He will not leave us or forsake us, that He gives us each day our daily bread, our meat in due season, opening His hand to satisfy the desires of every living thing, if we trust that His blessings will never dry up but that He will always provide for us, then we will be generous toward our neighbor. If, however, we think that the Lord is a hard God who does not love us, who does not care for us, who will not provide for us, whose blessings will dry up, then we will hoard what has been given to us for ourselves. So the question is, do you trust the Lord, or not? Trust, faith, alone makes the difference whether you will be commended and invited to join in the joy of the Master, heaven, or be cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, hell.

This is a Seventh Commandment issue, “You shall not steal.” The Commandment, remember, is more than the prohibition of taking what doesn’t belong to you. There is also the positive command; we should help our neighbor to improve his possessions and income. It is also a Fifth Commandment issue, “You shall not murder.” This Commandment, likewise, is about more than prohibiting the taking of our neighbor’s life. There is also the positive command; we should help and support our neighbor in every physical need. We act as though it would kill us to give even a little bit of our abundance for the sake of our neighbor who needs our help, as if we’d be ruined.[1] We act as though we don’t have any time to spare for a neighbor who needs a helping hand or a little encouragement. We act as though, if we don’t look out for ourselves, the Lord certainly won’t do it. Beloved, “God helps those who help themselves” isn’t in the Bible. It’s a false teaching. God helps the helpless. God helps you. He has helped you in the past and is helping you now and He will always help you. He is your only help. And He helps your neighbor through you. Repent of burying your talent in the ground, of hoarding it up for yourself, of failing to trust in the grace and generosity and providence of God. The good news is, your Lord Jesus Christ has taken your failure upon Himself, and given you His faithfulness. He has fulfilled the Seventh Commandment and the Fifth Commandment and every other Commandment in your place, and suffered the punishment for your unfaithfulness, your sin, in His innocent suffering and death on the cross. And He is risen, which means your sins are forgiven, and you have eternal life. Because just as He has given you His faithfulness, so He gives you His life. He has invested all, His very self, for your sake, that He may present you to His Father. And because He has done all this in your place, you already know the verdict that He will pronounce over you on Judgment Day: “Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your master.”

The Lord Jesus has ascended into heaven. It is very true, to be sure, that He dwells among us in the flesh in His Word and Sacraments, but He is gone from our sight. Just like the master in the parable, however, He has left us with every grace and blessing. We are to manage it. Knowing His faithfulness, knowing His providence, knowing that everything you are and have belongs to Him anyway, and knowing the verdict He will pronounce over you on the Last Day because of His faithfulness, trust Him enough to invest in your neighbor. Give generously. Be a good steward. Crucify the sinful flesh, that wicked and slothful servant who wants to be selfish with everything. Crucify your old Adam. And know that Christ Jesus, into whose death and resurrection you are baptized, has already done everything for your eternal life and salvation. He has redeemed you that you may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. This is most certainly true. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Stolen from the Rev. President Matthew Harrison.

All Saints' Sunday

2011-11-06T07:57:00.002-05:00

All Saints’ Day (Observed)

November 6, 2011
Text: Rev. 7:9-17

“Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come? … 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” (Rev. 7:13-14; ESV). There is a lot of confusion out there about the great tribulation. What is it? When is it? Who experiences it? Should I be scared by it? It doesn’t help that popular preachers, popular book series, and the rest of commercial Christianity sensationalize the great tribulation to catch your ear and draw you into their audience. And this sensationalizing is almost always based on a false theology called premillennialism. There are several stripes of premillennialism, but the most popular, dispensational premillennialism, goes something like this: On a day that God determines there is a rapture where all the Christians disappear (go to heaven) and everyone else is left behind (thus the name of a certain popular book series a few years back). And so begins a seven-year period of tribulation in which the antichrist reigns on earth, the Jews are converted, and the Jerusalem Temple is rebuilt. At the end of those 7 years, Christ visibly returns and raises the saints from the dead. The Battle of Armageddon is fought and Jesus reigns on earth for 1,000 years, after which comes the final judgment. Now, understand, this is a false theology that fails to understand the genre of Revelation, namely, apocalyptic literature, in which images and numbers are symbols. The symbolic nature of these images and numbers was readily understood by the original audience, the early Christians, living in the Greco-Roman world and familiar with Old Testament apocalyptic literature. But to you and I, living as we do in the Twenty-first Century Western world, this can be a little confusing, and even a little scary.

But beloved, the book of Revelation was never meant to be scary. Our Lord has given this book to His Church for our comfort and joy. We interpret Revelation in light of the rest of Holy Scripture, and so it is clear that this is how it will happen on the Last Day: On a day determined by God from all eternity, and known only to Him, Christ will return visibly to judge the living and the dead. The dead will be raised. Those still living will be gathered together before the throne. And our Lord Jesus will divide those who believed in Him from those who did not believe in Him. Those who believed in Him will enjoy a new resurrection heaven and earth where they will live with Jesus Christ in their risen bodies for all eternity. Those who did not believe in Him will be cast into hell, the lake of fire, in their risen bodies for all eternity, along with the devil and all his demons. It will all happen on one day, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. No literal 7-year reign of the antichrist during the great tribulation. No 1,000-year earthly reign of Christ. Lutherans are amillennialists, because the Bible is amillennialist. The name “millennialism” comes from the idea of an earthly thousand-year reign of Christ (a millennium is a thousand years). Lutherans don’t believe there will be such a reign since the Bible doesn’t support this teaching, and since Jesus Christ already reigns over all things from the right hand of God in heaven. Thus we’re amillennialists.

But if that’s the case, what about the great tribulation in our text this morning? It’s in the Bible, so we have to deal with it, and Lutherans certainly don’t deny that there is such a thing as the great tribulation. We need to teach it rightly. Beloved, you’re living in the great tribulation now. The great tribulation is the time between our Lord’s ascension into heaven and the day He returns to deliver us from our suffering on earth. St. John, the writer of Revelation, clearly says at the beginning of his book that the Church is already suffering the great tribulation. He writes, “I, John,” am “your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus” (Rev. 1:9). And St. Paul writes that we should be patient in tribulation (Rom. 12:12), knowing that the Church on earth will always suffer tribulation on account of her Lord Jesus and His Gospel. Our Lord Jesus Himself unpacks what it means to suffer the great tribulation in our Gospel lesson this morning, the Beatitudes. Christians, according to our Lord, are poor in spirit, they mourn, they are meek, they hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Jesus in an unrighteous world, they are called upon to show mercy to those who are unmerciful, they are pure in heart by the cleansing of the Holy Spirit in a world of impurity, they are to be peacemakers in a world of divisions and war and bloodshed, and they are to suffer violence, persecution for righteousness’ sake. But they are blessed, because this is the description of their Lord Jesus, and the description of them in Jesus. This is a description of you, beloved, as you suffer the great tribulation, as you live in an unbelieving world that is hostile to Christ and His Christians. You are blessed. Because yours is the kingdom of heaven, you will be comforted, you will inherit the earth, you will be satisfied, receive mercy, see God, and be called sons of God. Blessed are you in Christ Jesus your Savior.

So you’re suffering the great tribulation now, and if that’s the case, never mind all the hogwash being pedaled by pop/commercial Christianity and those under the spell of premillinnialist false-doctrine… if it is the case that the great tribulation is now, as the Bible teaches, then this reading from Revelation is of great comfort and consolation to you. Just who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come? “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.” These are the saints who have died. These are the saints we commemorate on this All Saints’ Sunday. They were sinners, corrupt to the core of their nature, but they washed their filthy robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They are baptized into Christ and have been made perfectly holy with His holiness, perfectly righteous with His righteousness. Who are these? These are all your loved ones who have fallen asleep in Christ. They are in heaven with Jesus, standing before the throne of God and the Lamb, awaiting the resurrection of all flesh, with palm branches in their hands, joining with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in lauding and magnifying their Lord, crying out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10). They are a great multitude that no one can number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. They are all Christians who have died and are with the Lord. There is King David, and there is Mary, the mother of our Lord. There is Martin Luther and C. F. W. Walther. There is St. Augustine and Johann Sebastian Bach, and there is my dad, and my wife’s brother, and your loved ones, and all the saints who have died in our beloved Epiphany congregation. Behold, a host arrayed in white. They are not dead. They are standing around the throne of God and of the Lamb, where you will join them in a few moments from this side of the veil to feast on the Lamb’s body and blood for your forgiveness. And, beloved, this is a description of you when you depart this earthly life. For your robe has been made clean and white in the blood of the Lamb. You are baptized. And when you die, you come out of the great tribulation into heaven where you will see the Lamb for yourself, with the sure and certain promise that He will raise you from the dead on the Last Day.

Yes, you will be before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His Temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter you with His presence. You will hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike you, nor any scorching heat. The tribulation can no longer come near you or harm you. The Lamb will be your shepherd and lead you to springs of living water. How can this possibly be meant to scare you? Shame on those who would make this into a cheap horror flick. This is rather a comforting glimpse into your eternal future and the eternal present of your loved ones in heaven. What great joy. The Lord reveals this to you to strengthen you for endurance now as you suffer the great tribulation. It’s hard to be a Christian at this time in this fallen world. Many Christians suffer great persecution for the Name of Christ. Others, particularly in our culture, are lulled to sleep by materialism and affluence. Whatever the case, recognize this for what it is. This is the great tribulation. The devil is seeking to turn you away from Christ. But you’re safe in the Lord Jesus who died for you, and who is risen for you, and who is coming again for you to take you to Himself. You have washed your robes and made them white in His blood. You are baptized. And you have now beheld the future that awaits you. The Kingdom is yours now. The tribulation only lasts a little while. Very soon, beloved, God will wipe away every tear from your eyes. Blessed are you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Reformation Day

2011-10-30T07:47:00.002-04:00

Reformation Day (Observed)

October 30, 2011
Text: Rom. 3:19-28

Beloved in the Lord, Martin Luther considered himself a son of the Church his whole life. He loved the holy Christian/catholic and Apostolic Church, and it is because he loved her that he sought to call her back to faithfulness, back the Holy Scriptures, back to the pure Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Martin Luther’s goal was reformation of the Church, not revolution. He did not seek to leave Rome and form a new denomination. He was cast out by Rome, excommunicated. Luther maintained that Rome left him. And in fact, technically speaking, the Roman Catholic Church as a distinct denomination within Christendom began with the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which was Rome’s definitive response to Protestantism. The Council of Trent, which began shortly before Luther’s death and continued for about 18 years, condemned Martin Luther as a heretic and rejected his doctrine, particularly the teaching that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and that the one infallible source and norm of Christian teaching is Scripture alone.

So if Luther is no revolutionary, what is it that drove the Reformation? Where had the Church gone wrong? And what is distinctive about Luther’s teaching over against the medieval Roman church? I’m going to teach you a couple of high-falutin’ theological terms here, so buckle up and listen close. Through a period of intense and careful study of the Scriptures, prayer, and spiritual struggle, Dr. Luther came to realize he fundamentally differed with Rome regarding the formal principle of theology and the material principle of theology. Now let me explain. The formal principle is that which forms your theological system. For Rome, the formal principle, that which forms her theology, is Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and reason. For Luther and for Lutheranism, the formal principle is sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. The material principle is that which is at the center of your theology, the hub of the wheel from which the spokes of the various articles of doctrine fan out. For Rome, the material principle, the central article of Christian doctrine, is progressive righteousness before God by good works. Faith is included in that to be sure, but Rome cannot agree that one is saved by faith alone. It is always faith plus works for Rome, faith itself being your work. It is always faith formed by love. For Luther and Lutheranism, the material principle is justification, being declared righteous by God, by the perfect life, innocent suffering and death, and resurrection of Christ alone (solus Christus), by grace alone (sola gratia), which is received by faith alone (sola fide), apart from works. And this is made crystal clear by St. Paul in our Epistle this morning (Romans 3:19-28).

Reformation Day should not be pick-on-the-Pope day or dump-on-Roman-Catholics day in Lutheran congregations. It should, however, be a day of self-examination and repentance. Is our theology still formed by Scripture alone? Do we still teach justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone as the central article of our doctrine? Reformation Day should be a day to call ourselves and our Christian brothers and sisters in other denominations, including the Roman church, back to the Scriptures as the one infallible rule and norm of doctrine, and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that we are saved because He died for our sins and is risen again to give us new life, as the central article of Christian doctrine. Reformation Day should be a day to give thanks and praise to God for Martin Luther and the heritage he has left us, and to do as Luther did: return to the source, return to the Scriptures, that in the living and active Word of God, in preaching and in Baptism and in Holy Absolution and in the Supper, the Holy Spirit may impart to us the benefits of Christ’s cross, of His merit by which alone we are saved.

The Law of God stops every mouth that preaches salvation by any other means than the holy, precious blood of Jesus Christ which atones for our sins. The Law of God stops every mouth, including yours and mine, that would speak of its own righteousness before God, as if there were any righteousness outside of Jesus Christ. The Law of God holds the whole world accountable for sin. “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law… the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Rom. 3:20-22; ESV). There it is, our material principle, justification by faith alone, stated clearly in our formal principle, Holy Scripture, the Apostle Paul writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (v. 23). There is no merit, no righteousness, no earning anything before God. You are a sinner. You sin constantly. It is a corruption of your very nature. You are sinful and unclean. All are included in this. No one can escape this judgment save our Lord Jesus. But so also all “are justified by his grace as a gift,” without works, for a gift is never earned, but “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation,” a sacrifice to make atonement and appease God’s wrath, “by his blood, to be received by faith” (vv. 24-25). “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (v. 28). It just doesn’t get any clearer than that. Church tradition and reason, good gifts in and of themselves, are abused when they are used to add human works of merit into this. Placing Church tradition alongside of or above Scripture is what leads to works-righteousness, the necessity of certain ceremonies and acts of piety for salvation. It led the Jews to reject Christ and is the reason for the sad state of affairs in the medieval Christian Church. Placing reason alongside of or above Scripture is what leads to rejection of so much of God’s revelation, for example, the rejection of God’s special creation in favor of evolution, rejection of Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, rejection of His miracles and His resurrection, and the rationalizing of sin. Such rationalizing has led to the rejection of God’s design for marriage and the sanctity of human life from conception to death, just to give two examples. Finally, all false teaching and all the problems that have caused divisions in Christendom and in our own beloved Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod come down to this: If our formal principle is anything other than Scripture alone, if our material principle is anything other than justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we err. We have sinned. So let us repent and come before God trusting not in our orthodoxy, our purity of doctrine, or any good work, but trusting in Christ alone. That is the reformation Luther sought for his beloved Church. That is the reformation that takes hold of us in every encounter with God’s holy Word. The Reformation is nothing other than the proclamation of repentance and faith in Christ. And in that sense the Church is always being reformed. The Reformation continues to this day, right here, right now, in the Divine Service of preaching and Sacrament.

Semper reformanda, the Church is always being reformed, you are always being reformed, by repentance and faith created by the Spirit in the Word and Sacraments. It is a freeing thing. This is what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel this morning: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). The formal principle leads you into the material principle. In the Divine Service you abide in the Word of Christ, the formal principle. And in this way you are set free, free from sin and guilt, free from death, free from condemnation. You are justified, the material principle. You are pronounced righteous, declared to be God’s own child, and given eternal life. Christ’s salvation is given to you in the Word, not as something you earn, but as a gift. To have faith is not to do a work by which you earn this. To have faith is simply to receive the gift as a beggar who has nothing but what is here given. There is no room for boasting here. It is excluded (Rom. 3:27). It is all God’s action for us in Christ. We celebrate Reformation Day by believing and confessing that truth. Martin Luther wouldn’t have us celebrate any other way.

My very favorite painting is a work by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a friend of Luther’s in Wittenberg. He depicts Luther standing in the pulpit, preaching to his congregation, including his beloved wife Katie and their children. Between Pastor Luther and his dear flock is a life-sized crucifix. Luther is pointing his people to Christ crucified for their sins. Because finally that is what all Christian preaching must be. The formal principle always leads us to the material principle, Christ crucified, for you, the forgiveness of sins, justification by grace alone, received by faith alone. Beloved in the Lord, we celebrate Martin Luther today, and our church is named after him, not because he was perfect, not because he was without error. He was neither of these things, as he’d be the first to tell you. Martin Luther is not our formal principle. Scripture is. We celebrate Martin Luther because he calls us back to Scripture as our formal principle. We celebrate Martin Luther because in His preaching and writings he calls our attention to our material principle, justification. We celebrate him because, like St. Paul, he was determined to know nothing among us save Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2). This is the Gospel, dear friends. This is the life-breath of the holy Christian/catholic and Apostolic Church. This is the truth of Jesus Christ that sets you free. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-23T08:25:00.003-04:00

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 25)

October 23, 2011
Text: Matt. 22:34-46

Beloved in the Lord, in theology we talk about two tables of the Law. The first table deals with our relationship to God, and includes the first three commandments: You shall have no other gods, you shall not misuse the Name of the Lord Your God, and Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. The second table deals with our relationship to our neighbor, to all other people, protecting the honor of our parents and other authorities, protecting our neighbor’s life, spouse, property, and reputation. Jesus sums up the two tables of the Law this morning in answering the lawyer’s question. The first and greatest commandment is this, the first table of the Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37; ESV). The second table of the Law is like unto it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 39). Furthermore, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (v. 40), the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The Scriptures command us to love… to love God and to love all other people. So St. Paul declares, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

The problem is, of course, that we don’t love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, nor do we love our neighbors as ourselves. Instead, we love ourselves as gods, with all our heart, soul, and mind, at the expense of our neighbors who should love and serve us. That’s what the sinful flesh demands. It is a self-idolatry that is inherent in the disease of original sin. After all, the original sin is nothing less than Adam and Eve desiring to “be like God,” or in other words, be their own gods. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as far as we’re concerned. Because we believe that God is holding out on us, and that our neighbor should bend over backwards to do what makes us happy. We believe we deserve better than we have, which is why we’re never content. And we grab at any piece of forbidden fruit that holds the specter of happiness, only to be disappointed again and again as with every bite we fall under the sentence of death. Love, agape, self-sacrifice for the sake of the other, is anything but natural to us. If this is what God demands of us toward Himself and toward our neighbors, we are in trouble. We’re condemned… to death and to hell.

Except that out of love for His fallen creation, out of love for you and me, love for the loveless, God does not leave us in death and hell. He sends His Son. He sends His Son to do what we cannot do, and to do it in our place. This is why the eternal Son of God, the Word of the Father who was in the beginning with God, became man in time, taking His flesh from the womb of the Virgin Mary. He became flesh, became one of us, made His dwelling among us, so that in our place, as our substitute, He might love God with all His heart and soul and mind, and love His neighbor, you and me, as Himself. In fact, He puts His neighbor, you and me, above Himself. Because also in our place, as our substitute, He suffers the punishment of hell and death for our failure to love, our absolute lack of love for anyone other than ourselves. He is crucified. Love incarnate, love in the flesh, the love eternally begotten by the Father, is crucified for our forgiveness.

That is what it means that the Christ is both David’s Lord and David’s Son. According to His divine nature, He is David’s Lord from all eternity. He is the God who declared David to be a man after His own heart. He is the God in whom David trusted when he battled Goliath and the Philistines, when he fled before King Saul and before his own son Absalom. He is the God who put away David’s sin and forgave His iniquities. Yet according to His human nature, our Lord Jesus is David’s Son. He is the rightful King of the Jews, from the house and lineage of David, as we know from the Christmas story. That is why He is born in Bethlehem, the city of David, because Joseph has to take his family there for the census (Luke 2:4). Yet just as Jesus is not recognized as David’s Lord, neither is He recognized as His Son. He is not born in a palace and laid in a gold-leafed cradle, but in a stable and laid in a feeding trough for animals, because there is no room for Him in the inn. He is not visited by dignitaries. King Herod and the chief priests do not pay Him homage. He is visited by dirty shepherds who hear the glad tidings trumpeted by angels while tending their flocks by night. This little baby, this man who would grow up to die a criminal’s death, forsaken by God and man on a cross, is David’s Son. He reigns from that cross, crowned with thorns, exalted and lifted up. This man, David’s Son, is God, David’s Lord.

Behold, what He did for you on the cross. Behold, what He does for you in His gifts of the Word and the Sacraments, not to mention every other good gift you enjoy. What love He bestows! Yet we do not love Him as we ought. We do not love others as we ought. We want to love God. We want to love others. Because in Christ, having been baptized into Christ and in to His death and resurrection, we are a new creation, we walk in newness of life. But in this earthly life we are burdened by the old Adam, the sinful flesh. As St. Paul writes of himself in Romans 7, we do not understand our own actions (v. 15), for we do not do the good we want, but the evil we do not want is what we keep on doing (v. 19). We want to live lives of love and thanksgiving according to our new creation, but we are encumbered by this body of death. Who will deliver us? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25). So it is a daily battle to crucify the sinful flesh, to drown the old Adam in us by daily contrition and repentance so that the new man in Christ can daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity. In spite of our weakness and failures and sins, of course we should seek to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. We will never do it perfectly in this earthly life, as long as we have this sinful sack of flesh hanging about us. But with the Holy Spirit’s strengthening in His Word and Sacraments, we can make a beginning. Love flows in rivers of blood and water from the holy cross and to us in Baptism, preaching, absolution, and the Supper, through us in acts of love to our neighbors. And by serving our neighbors in love, we love and serve God Himself.

How? How do we love and serve God and our neighbors? What does all of this mean, practically speaking? It first of all means faith receiving the gifts of God here in His holy Church. Because of the old sinful flesh, you have no love in yourself to bestow upon your neighbor. So you come here to be filled with God’s love. That is what the Word and the Supper fill you with, the love of God in Jesus Christ that forgives all your sins. Here your cup is filled to overflowing, and there is no end to the supply. So now going out into the world and into your daily vocations with an overflowing cup, you spill that love onto your neighbors by serving them. This means living in your vocations faithfully, being faithful spouses, parents, children, friends, citizens, and church members. This means doing your daily work as for Christ Himself. This means showing mercy, forgiving those who sin against you, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and praying for all. This means confessing Christ in your daily conversation, and supporting the work of the Church with your prayers, your time, your talents, and your financial gifts. This means examining your life according to the Ten Commandments, repenting of your sins and clinging to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, which is to say, returning again and again here to the holy Church for the gifts of Jesus Christ. The river that flows into your cup never stops, so you are always full and always overflowing. It is a living, busy, and active thing, this faith, always abounding in good works, because it is always full of Christ and His forgiveness and life.

But of course, faith never trusts in these works. Faith trusts Jesus’ fulfillment of the two tables of the Law in our place, His love for God with all His heart, soul, and mind, His love for His neighbors as Himself. And faith trusts Jesus’ innocent suffering and death on our behalf, and His victorious resurrection from the dead. Faith trusts Jesus, David’s Lord and David’s Son, our Lord and Savior. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-16T08:18:00.003-04:00

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 24)

October 16, 2011
Text: Matt. 22:15-22

Beloved in the Lord, our God rules all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth. He is God of all that exists, the entire universe, even of the powers that are hostile toward Him, even of unbelievers, even of the devil. For all belong to His Kingdom of Power. God rules over a three-fold Kingdom, the Kingdom of Power which I just described, the Kingdom of Grace, which consists of the members of the holy Christian Church who are still on earth, and the Kingdom of Glory, which consists of the members of the holy Christian Church who are in heaven. In each component of His three-fold Kingdom, Power, Grace, and Glory, God rules all things for the benefit of His believers, of His children, of those who are in Christ. Which is to say, He rules all things for your benefit.

This is true on earth as much as it is in heaven. Despite all appearance perhaps to the contrary, God rules this earth and all the people of the earth. The devil may think he rules, and certainly there is a sense in which he is called “the prince of this world” (cf. John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). But in reality, the Ruler of all things is God. And God rules the earth in two ways, through what theology calls the two realms, or again, two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God’s right hand, and the Kingdom of God’s left hand. The Kingdom of God’s right hand is the Christian Church, operative in the Kingdom of Grace and the Kingdom of Glory. In this Kingdom, God rules solely by His Word. In this Kingdom, God seeks the hearts of men, that they believe in Him, receive the salvation of His crucified and risen Son Jesus Christ, and serve Him with a willing heart, out of love for the God who created, redeemed, and sanctified them. The Kingdom of God’s left hand, however, is the civil realm, civil authority, civil government, operative in God’s Kingdom of Power. And in this Kingdom, God rules by the sword. In this Kingdom, God rules through the authorities that He Himself has established to curb sin, reward good behavior, and otherwise order society. St. Paul describes this well in Romans 13: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s instrument for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain” (vv. 1-4; ESV). St. Paul then goes on to remind us that this is why we pay taxes, “for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (vv. 6-7). Fulfill your Fourth Commandment duty, a duty not only to parents but to all who are in authority: “Honor your father and your mother. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.”[1]

In Romans 13, St. Paul is essentially preaching a sermon on the words of Jesus in our Gospel lesson this morning, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). In other words, recognize that the Kingdom of God is not opposed to civil rule. God works through civil rulers for the benefit of His people on earth. This is part of His Kingdom of Power. This is the Kingdom of God’s left hand. Now, the point should not be lost on us. We owe our government obedience, respect, and frankly, our tax dollars. We ought to render to our government the things that belong to our government, whether that be taxes or revenue, obedience to the laws of the land, or honor and respect for those who are in authority over us. This is the case, in fact, whether your guy is in office or not. You owe whoever takes the oath of office honor and respect and obedience as the ruler God has placed over you. Remember that God uses even unbelieving rulers as ministers for our good, just as He used Cyrus for the good of Israel, as He says in our Old Testament lesson (Is. 45:1-7).

As Christians, we have a very special and important service to render to our civil government. We are royal priests of God, called to be a Kingdom of priests before our God, the priesthood of the baptized. And so we are called to pray for our government, as St. Paul writes to young Pastor Timothy, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim. 2:1-2). So also, as royal priests, we are called to inform the government concerning God’s will on whatever issue to which the Word of God speaks. We owe it to the government to uphold marriage as a sacred institution, instituted by God Himself in the Garden of Eden, the most basic building block of our society, to be entered into by one man and one woman for life. We owe it to the government to warn against the murderous practices of abortion and physician assisted suicide, and now embryonic stem cell research, which means the destruction of tiny unborn babies, sacrificed to the false god of medical research. You owe it to your government, your state, your country, and your tiniest neighbors to vigorously oppose such wickedness. This is also why the Christian must vote if at all possible. It is our responsibility as priests of God who are in the world, but not of the world. We owe it to the government to speak to any and every moral issue. To say that we should not legislate morality is a ridiculous proposal. Laws against murder, against stealing, against rape, are all the result of moral legislation. Therefore to remain silent on a moral issue, like that of abortion just as an example, is to commit the same sin as the Germans who remained silent during the Holocaust, or the Russians who remained silent as Stalin sent millions to their death for criticizing his regime, or the Iraqis who remained silent as Saddam Hussein gassed his own subjects and committed atrocious crimes against humanity in his lust for power and influence. And we must remember that while we are to obey the government in every circumstance, there is one exception to that rule. When the will of the government comes into conflict with the will of God, we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29), and this no matter what the consequences. For whenever a civil ruler acts contrary to God’s will, asks us to sin, or leads the nation into national sin, he is acting outside of his vocation, outside of the office to which God has called him, and that ruler should not be obeyed. Let them take all our earthly possessions. Let them put us in prison. Let them put us to death. “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).

Render, therefore, to Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s does not prevent you from rendering to God the things that are God’s, as long as Caesar is not commanding you to sin. So what is it you owe to God? Your very self. For He has created you, and He has redeemed you with the blood of His own Son. He has sanctified you with His Holy Spirit. And all of this, out of His pure grace. God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die a horrible death on the cross in payment for your sin and the sins of all people. He graciously forgives you all your sins for Jesus' sake. He loves you and makes you His own child in Holy Baptism. He speaks His tender Word to you and nourishes you with the Supper of His Son’s body and blood. Therefore render to God the things that are God’s: a holy life lived sacrificially for His glory and for the good of your neighbor, the confession of Christ to the world no matter what the consequences, adherence to His pure doctrine and the right use of the sacraments, and the support of His holy Church through your offerings, your time, and your talents. Live faithfully in the vocations in which God has placed you, every relationship you have to others. Be faithful spouses, parents, children, students, citizens, members of the congregation, friends, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. Run for public office if you have the God-given ability required for the job. Participate in society as priests of God, the priests God has called you to be. That is rendering to God the things that are God’s. And you do this not in order to be saved. God gives you all that is necessary to be saved in Christ Jesus. You are already saved, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, without works. But you do these things now as a result of that salvation, as your sacrifice of thanksgiving.

You also do these things, dear brothers and sisters, because you recognize the grace of God in His First Article gifts, which is to say, you recognize that all that we have, all that is good, material and spiritual, is from God, given freely, as a gift of His grace. Indeed, every good gift, and every perfect gift, comes down from above, from the Father of lights (James 1:17). You recognize that God has placed us in this world and given us all that we need for the support of this body and life. You recognize this and you give thanks. And you pray that as one redeemed by the blood of Christ, God would make you a faithful steward of His gifts. For He rules all things for our benefit. This is true not only of the Kingdom of God’s right hand, His holy Church, but also of the Kingdom of God’s left hand, the civil realm. And to confess that truth, in spite of all that is wrong with the world, in spite of all the things you see on the evening news, in spite of the stock market and high gas prices and especially our national sins with regard to the sanctity of life and marriage… to confess the truth that God rules all thing for our benefit, is to live by faith. God ever keep us in that faith, the one true faith of Jesus Christ. And God make us faithful stewards of all the good gifts of His creation. And finally, God make us faithful and obedient citizens, royal priests of God who are not of the world, but certainly live fully in the world. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1]Catechism quotations from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986).

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-09T08:16:00.002-04:00

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 23)

October 9, 2011
Text: Matt. 22:1-14

Beloved in the Lord, “This is the feast of victory for our God” (LSB 155), this, right here and now, this that is on the altar. Understand that when you sing those words, you are singing about the Divine Service, and particularly about the Lord’s Supper, the feast of Jesus’ body and blood. It is a foretaste of the feast to come, the wedding feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom which has no end. And you are invited to this feast, now at this altar and continuing for all eternity in heaven and in the resurrection of the dead.

Of course, it’s not just anyone who here invites you. It’s the King, God, who is throwing a wedding feast for His Son. It is the wedding of Jesus and His beloved Bride, the holy Church, whom He has made spotless by His blood and clothed in the garment of His own righteousness. God, our King, sends out His servants, prophets, apostles, and Christian pastors, to call those who are invited to the feast. All is now ready. The Lord is ready to welcome you as His honored guest, to speak tender words of blessing upon you, and to set a table before you, the feast of forgiveness and life, the true body and blood of Jesus Christ. It would be strange, indeed, to refuse such an invitation. Except that you and I, we are bound to this sinful flesh. It is a sinful flesh that finds good reason to do other things it considers more important. What do those who were invited in the parable do when the King’s servants plead with them to come to the feast? One goes off to his farm, another to his business, having “more important things to do” than to feast with the King and enjoy His hospitality. Others seize the servants, treat them shamefully, and kill them, which, as we learned last week, is the prophet’s reward for faithfulness. Still, the gracious invitation goes out. All the King wants is for you to enjoy His gifts and receive them with rejoicing and thanksgiving. The issue in the parable Jesus tells is whether the gifts are received in faith or rejected and despised.

And so this is a Third Commandment issue. What is the Third Commandment? “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”[1] For the Christian, Jesus is your Sabbath rest, so the issue is not what day you go to church or whether you do any work on that day. You rest in Jesus every day, knowing your sins are forgiven and you have eternal life with God. The issue is whether you take Him up on the rest that He desires to give you in His Word and Sacraments. Or do you believe there are better ways to rest? The problem is, you are rest-less, because no matter what you do or what you have, you are left unfulfilled and ill-at-ease. We are an anxious people, you and I, and so we are always restless. And we think that the cure for this is either to work harder and longer, or to take a vacation, pamper ourselves, get away, relax, enjoy our hobbies. Now I’m all for hard work, and I’m all for vacations and avocations (the things we do outside of our normal, daily routine). These can all be beneficial. But they do not provide the rest we need. Because they do not address that which makes us restless, our sin and alienation from God, and the wages of sin which we see all around us, death. Whether you know it or not, what you’re always fighting against, what makes you so restless, is the terror of knowing you stand condemned before God as a sinner. You will die, and unless God does something about it, that death will be eternal. How wise, therefore, are the words of St. Augustine’s prayer: “our heart is restless until it rests in you.”[2]

God would have you come to the feast He has prepared to rest in His Son, to relax in His forgiveness, that He may give you the blessed gifts of salvation and eternal life, and strength to bear up under trial and tribulation. The parable Jesus tells in our Gospel this morning is a scathing indictment of the chief priests and Pharisees who reject God’s invitation to the feast. They reject Jesus Himself, finally handing Him over to the Romans to be crucified. Here the feast is ready, the Son has arrived to save His people from their sins, and they want no part of Him. So, Jesus says, the King sends His servants out to the roads to gather whomever they find, bad and good. The Gospel goes out to the Gentiles, to you and to me, that we may come to the feast to enjoy the Lord’s good gifts and be His people. Gentiles, tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners are welcomed to the feast. A royal table is set before the unworthy.

And here we come to the real, central point of this parable. This table is set by grace. No one is worthy to come to this feast. Not even the chief priests and elders who rejected the invitation and refused to come. Had they recognized their unworthiness, had they recognized their sin, they would have jumped at the merciful invitation to come anyway as forgiven sinners whom the Lord had come to purchase with His own blood. But because they believed they had earned a place at the feast, because they believed they would be doing the King a favor by attending, they considered it of no account to toss the invitation aside, to ignore the King’s servants, even to beat them, treat them shamefully, and kill them.

No one is worthy to come to this feast. Not chief priests and Pharisees, not you, not me. Still, the Lord invites you. The invitation has nothing to do with any worthiness or merit or loveable-ness in you. Remember, the King sends His servants out into the roads to gather the bad and the good. Rather, you are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb by the grace of the King, by His undeserved kindness and love. And it is He who determines your worthiness by pronouncing it so, and by clothing you with the wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness in your Holy Baptism. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27; ESV).

Many Christians believe they have a right to come to the altar. Many Christians believe they have a right to the grace of God. Many Christians believe they have a right to the eternal heavenly feast. As a result, the feast of the Divine Service on the Lord’s Day is just one option among many that they have a right to choose, or not choose if another option is more attractive. Is this you, beloved? Repent. Of course you’d rather sleep in on Sunday morning. Of course you’d rather go to the lake or go to Starbucks or read the paper at home. On the other hand, of course you think there are more pressing needs, things that must get done, and there’s just not enough time to do it all. Enough. That’s your sinful flesh. That’s the allurement of the world. That’s the devil lying to you. Repent. Come to the feast. Get to church. That’s your priority. Everything else will fall into place. You need the rest and refreshment that only your Lord Jesus can give with His rich gifts in His life-giving Word and the feast of His body and blood.

Of course, you’re the ones sitting here. You did come to church this morning, thanks be to God. And that’s the Holy Spirit’s work. Whether you know it or not, He’s the one who got you here. But whatever you do, don’t think you’re being here makes you better than those who chose another option. Because if you do that, you’re back to thinking you’re here by your own worthiness. And then you’re the guy walking around at the feast without a wedding garment. Then you’re seeking to feast without the garment of Christ’s righteousness, clothed in your own works. Repent. Those who come with their own righteousness are thrown out where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. In other words, hell. But it’s so unnecessary. Because the wedding garment is free. You’ve been clothed with Christ in your Baptism. You come to the feast, not by your own righteousness, but by His righteousness. It is all by grace.

That’s the thing about this feast, both this foretaste here and the eternal feast to come in heaven and in the resurrection. No one has a right to it. It is the gracious gift of the King, God, through His Son, Jesus. And since the options are eternal feasting with God in His Kingdom, or weeping and gnashing of teeth on the outside, beloved there is nothing better for you to be doing now, nor is there any place more important to be. This is the feast, right here, right now, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. This is the rest and refreshment you can’t get anywhere else. Do not despise preaching and God’s Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Do not despise the holy meal of our Lord’s body and blood, but gladly receive it in your mouths, the death of the Lord delivered to you by the risen Lord Himself. And rejoice. It’s a wedding. And the surprise ending is, you aren’t just any guest. You’re the Church. You’re the Bride. All of this is for you. Come. All is ready. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986).
[2] Confessions, Henry Chadwick, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 3.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-02T08:21:00.002-04:00

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 22)

October 2, 2011
Text: Matt. 21:33-46

“O love, how deep, how broad, how high,” (LSB 544:1). It is the profound love of God for His people that Jesus preaches in the parable of the vineyard this morning. You see, there is no other explanation for the Master’s actions in the parable. Only love could cause Him to do what He does. For the Master in the parable, of course, is God. And the vineyard is His people Israel. That God plants the vineyard in the first place, as our Old Testament lesson says, that “He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines,” that “he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it,” (Is. 5:2; ESV), that He so carefully cultivated His vineyard and provided for it that it might thrive, this is, in and of itself, a supreme act of love. But when those whom He set over the vineyard, the tenants, the chief priests and elders, made a wreck of the vineyard and refused to produce fruit for the Master, in other words, when they abused the people of Israel and led them along false paths, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men (Matt. 15:9), equating the traditions of the elders with the Law of God, turning people away from faith in the promised Messiah to faith in their own works or despair over their inability to keep the Law… when these tenants were found to be unfaithful and wicked, the Master did not come in wrath to destroy them. Rather, in love, He sent His servants, the prophets, to collect the fruit of the vineyard, to proclaim the Word of the LORD, to call the tenants and the people of Israel to repentance and faith and to point them to the coming Messiah. And how were those servants treated? “(T)he tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stones another. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them” (Matt. 21:35-36). Prophet after Prophet the LORD sent to the people of Israel, and prophet after prophet was rejected, mistreated, beaten, killed, stoned. A fine reward for their faithful proclamation. Jesus even calls this a prophet’s reward (Matt. 5:12), to be counted worthy to suffer for the Name of Jesus. But what is this Master thinking? Why does He keep sending servants? Surely He knows what will happen! The only answer could be love; love for the vineyard, Israel, and love for the wicked tenants themselves, the chief priests and elders. And as if this were not enough, what does the Master do next? He sends His Son. “They will respect my son,” He says (Matt. 21:37). It makes you almost want to shout at Him, “You fool, don’t do it, you know what will happen!” just like you want to shout at the character creeping up the stairs in a scary movie. You know what’s coming next. The Master knows, too, beloved. But it has to happen this way. “(W)hen the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him” (vv. 38-39).

He sent His Son. To be killed. Love. Of course, this would never happen in real life. No worldly master would go to such an extent to be reconciled to his tenants. At the first refusal to yield fruit, a worldly master would have had the tenants evicted and punished. But parables never turn out the way they would if God were not the main character. And this did happen in real life. This is the story of God and His people. What is heartbreaking about the story, however, is that while the Son is sent to be killed for the sake of the vineyard, the tenants and the wild grapes, those who reject Jesus, the Son, must be thrown out. The vineyard is taken away from them and given to others. The chief priests and elders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, can no longer be the spiritual leaders of Israel. The vineyard must be repaired. And it is the Son who does this, in His death. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The chief priests and elders are the builders of Israel, but they’ve rejected Jesus, handing Him over to be crucified. And yet, this rejected stone, the Son who was thrown outside the walls of Jerusalem and killed on Calvary, He has become the cornerstone, the stone by which the position of the entire structure is determined. He is the cornerstone of the new Israel, the Holy Christian Church, Jews and Gentiles, all who believe in Jesus Christ, you, beloved. Which is to say, He’s risen from the dead. They couldn’t keep Him in the grave. This rejected stone/cornerstone stuff is death and resurrection language. The Son who was rejected and killed now lives and tends the vineyard Himself. And He does so through Christian pastors whom He has called to preach and care for the vineyard so that the vineyard, you and all believers in Christ Jesus, would produce the fruit of faith and love. The Master sent His Son for you, to be killed for you, because He loves you. That is the price of your redemption.

And now the new tenants, Christian pastors, are called upon to be faithful. St. Paul defines that faithfulness for us. He writes, “we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23). The tenants are to preach the stone that was rejected but that has now become the cornerstone, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. And this is the only preaching that will produce fruit in the vineyard, the preaching of Christ crucified. Any other preaching is precisely that: other preaching. It is not the preaching that Christ calls His tenants to do. If the tenants preach something else other than Christ crucified, they are committing the same crime that got the chief priests and elders expelled from the vineyard. And this is the take-home point for you, beloved. It matters who’s tending you, and it matters how they’re tending you. The chief priests and elders were very religious, very pious, very sincere, but they did not preach Christ crucified. There are preachers out there who claim to be the rightful tenants of the vineyard. They engage in a lot of “God-talk.” They are very religious, very pious, and very sincere. But the question you have to ask whenever someone preaches to you, be it me or someone else, is this: “Is he preaching Christ crucified?” Because if he’s not, the vineyard must be taken from him and given to another. Whenever you listen to a sermon, whenever you read a “Christian” book, whenever you listen to “Christian” music or watch “Christian” television, you should be asking this question: “Is it Christ crucified here proclaimed, or is it something else.” And if it’s something else, forget it. Even if it sounds biblical. Even if it’s about how to lead the Christian life. Even if Jesus’ Name is mentioned over and over again. Christ crucified is the criteria by which we evaluate teaching and proclamation. Because that’s the whole point of the Gospel. The Master, the Father, our Father, sends His Son, to be killed, for you.

And in the preaching of Christ crucified, the Holy Spirit is active in His Word to bring you to faith in Jesus Christ, and that’s the fruit the Lord desires from His vineyard, His Israel, His holy Church. Faith active in love. For you are saved through faith alone, faith in Jesus, the Son who was killed for you, but of course faith is never alone, but is always living, busy, and active in works of love done for the neighbor. Because the love of God, so high, so deep, that sent His Son to die for you, that love now flows through you to your neighbor. It all hinges on the preaching of Christ crucified. Through that preaching you, the branches, abide in Christ, the vine, and bear much fruit. Outside of that preaching you are severed from the vine, and can produce no fruit, because you are dead. Chief priests and elders and preachers of foreign theologies cut you off from Christ and ruin the vineyard. Faithful tenants, faithful pastors, theologians of the cross preach Christ crucified with St. Paul and with the servants who were beaten and killed, the prophets. They all proclaimed the God who sends His Son. They all proclaimed the Son who dies, who is killed for His vineyard. And so must every Christian pastor, for to proclaim the cross is to proclaim the love of God. To proclaim the cross is to connect you to the vine that is the living Lord Jesus.

Such love is profound, unutterable, incomprehensible. “For us by wickedness betrayed, For us, in crown of thorns arrayed, He bore the shameful cross and death; For us He gave His dying breath” (LSB 544:5). But understand, this death is life for the vineyard, and for the servants who were sent to be beaten, killed, and stoned, and for preachers of the cross, and for you who live daily under the cross. Because you have been baptized into that death, and received that death in your ears and in your mouth. It isn’t just any death. It’s death of the One who is now risen from the dead. So great is the Master’s love for you, He sent His Son, knowing full well what would happen. His Son would die. His Son would redeem you to be His own. And by the power of the Son, you would produce the fruit of faith and love. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-25T07:44:00.002-04:00

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 21)

September 25, 2011
Text: Matt. 21:23-32

“Now just who do you think you are?!?” This is essentially what the chief priests and elders of the people are asking Jesus when they say to Him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (Matt. 21:23; ESV). They are trying, of course, to trap Jesus. The question is brilliant. Jesus is on their turf, or so they think. “Who gave You the authority to overturn the tables of the money-changers? Who gave You the authority to heal the sick and teach in this place?” Now, no matter how Jesus answers, the chief priests and elders think they have Him. If He names a human authority for His teaching and activities, they can remind Him that they call the shots around here. If He names God as His authority, the chief priests and elders can charge Him with blasphemy, which, of course, they do on Good Friday when He is tried before the Sanhedrin. But Jesus responds to their question with a counter question that traps them in their own trap. “The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” (v. 25). If the chief priests and elders answer, “From heaven,” then they will have to answer for the fact that they didn’t believe his preaching, which was all about Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. If they answer, “From men,” then they have to face the people, who believe John is a prophet. It’s a lose/lose situation, so they lie and plead ignorance. “We do not know,” they say (v. 27), and Jesus responds, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

This is not simply an example of Jesus’ theological one-ups-man-ship over His detractors, however. This is rather an example of Jesus’ love for the chief priests and elders in calling them to repentance and faith. Jesus seeks to show the chief priests and elders the sinners that they are, so that confessing their sins, they may receive forgiveness and eternal life from THE Chief Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, by His suffering and death and resurrection. The heart of the problem for the chief priests and elders is illustrated by the parable Jesus tells, the parable of the two sons. One son is told by his father to go and work in the vineyard, and he refuses. But later, that son goes and works anyway. The other son is told by his father to go and work in the vineyard, and he enthusiastically agrees. But then he doesn’t go. Which one does the will of his father? Obviously, the one who works. He was wrong to refuse in the beginning, but then he repents and goes. The second son’s sin is double. He not only doesn’t work, he breaks his promise to his father. The application of the parable is devastating to the self-righteous chief priests and elders. The tax collectors and prostitutes are the first son. They are sinners, but they believe John’s preaching. They confess their sins and are baptized. They look to Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb proclaimed by John, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The chief priests and elders are the second son. They feign religiosity. They are extremely pious. They live visibly moral and upright lives. They even claim to be the teachers of Israel. But they reject John’s preaching. More to the point, they reject the Messiah sent by the very God they claim to worship. They reject Jesus, and so they reject His salvation. Tax collectors and prostitutes enter the Kingdom of God by grace alone. Chief priests and elders, with all their honor and good works, are left outside where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

You can be very religious, and still reject God’s authority. The chief priests and elders reject God’s authority by rejecting the preaching and Baptism of the prophet John, by rejecting Jesus, the Messiah and Savior. As it turns out, it is those who make no religious pretensions, those who don’t pretend they possess moral superiority, those who come before God without presumption, those who are sinners and who know it and confess it… it is precisely these, tax collector and prostitute types, who rejoice to be under God’s authority, because by that authority their sins are forgiven, covered over by the blood of the Savior, washed away in baptismal water. The problem with chief priests and elders, with super Christians and model citizens, is not that they try to keep God’s commandments. Of course, we should all strive to do that. The problem is that they don’t recognize their sin. They don’t recognize that they break God’s commandments at every turn, that though they may lead outwardly praiseworthy lives, though they may outwardly keep the commandments, inwardly they are full of sin and death. Their hearts are not right. Their hearts are full of evil thoughts and rebellion. So are the hearts of the tax collectors and prostitutes, by the way, but the difference is that the tax collectors and prostitutes know it and confess it and ask Jesus to do something about it, namely, to forgive them and to renew in them a right spirit, to grant them His Holy Spirit.

Beloved in the Lord, you must never pretend to be who you’re not. You must never pretend that you have it all figured out, that you’re getting morally better and better every day, that you ever sin less than others or less than you did the day before. You must not be like the chief priests and elders who will not receive the Baptism of repentance from John or hear his preaching about Christ, who will not hear Christ Himself and repent of their sins, believing on Him for forgiveness and eternal salvation. You must be tax collectors and prostitutes before God, which is to say, you must be honest. You must be honest about who you are, a poor, miserable sinner, by nature sinful and unclean, having sinned against God in thought, word, and deed. Because if you can’t confess that, then you’ve rejected God’s authority. You’ve said to Him, “Just who do you think you are to tell me that I’m a sinner?!?” Because that is precisely what God tells you about yourself in His Word, the Holy Scriptures. Held to the standard of His commandments, you simply don’t measure up, and can’t. When you try to justify yourself, when you make excuses or point to your outwardly praiseworthy life or decide that certain sins are okay for you to commit, you challenge the authority of God in the same way the chief priests and elders do in our text. But when you confess your sins, when you stop pretending to be who you aren’t and simply tell it like it is to God (who already knows, anyway, so it’s not like you’ll surprise Him), then you are the tax collectors and prostitutes who joyfully walk into the Kingdom of God by grace alone, covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, redeemed children of the heavenly Father.

Just who does Jesus think He is, anyway?!? Well, who is He? He is the Son of God, the Savior. As the Son of God, the eternal Word of the Father made flesh, Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. Yet He exercises that authority in this way: He submits to His enemies. He suffers and dies for sinners. He suffers and dies for you. And in this suffering and dying, He asserts His authority over sin, death, the devil, and hell. They could not keep Him in the grave. They are conquered, for Christ is risen, the living Lord who bestows life, for He has life in Himself to bestow, and all authority to bestow it. His authority is from the Father, delivered by the Spirit in preaching and Baptism and Supper. This is no blasphemy. This is real, divine, powerful stuff delivered by weak and common means. It is the authority to forgive your sins, to save you, and to give you eternal life. John’s Baptism is from heaven. Jesus’ authority is from heaven. And so your Baptism is from heaven. And that claims you for heaven. Because of who Jesus is, you are who you are, and that is God’s own child, a sinner to be sure, but a redeemed, forgiven, and cleansed sinner who is now the possession of the Holy Spirit. Who does Jesus think He is? Who is He? The Son of God, your Savior.

So enough with the illusions. You are who you are, and you’ve done what you’ve done. You’re a sinner, and you’ve sinned. God knows that, and we all know it about each other. Stop pretending. Repent and believe the good news. Confess your sins and cling to the forgiveness that is yours in your crucified and risen Lord Jesus. Then rejoice. Live each day in the joy and freedom that the Lord has given you by His authority. For you don’t earn the Kingdom of God by good works or super-spirituality. You don’t earn the Kingdom of God by working in the vineyard. You receive the Kingdom of God freely, as an undeserved gift. You receive the Kingdom of God by grace alone. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Consolation of the Gospel

2011-09-22T16:21:00.002-04:00

Pastor’s Window for September 2011
The Consolation of the Gospel

Beloved in the Lord,

There are two words of God in the Holy Scriptures. There is God’s Word of Law, and God’s Word of Gospel. They are both God’s Word. They are both true. But they are different. The Law tells us what to do and not to do. The Law shows us that we are sinners. The Law always accuses. The Law always kills. The Law always condemns. The Gospel, on the other hand, shows us what God has done about our sin. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take our place, to fulfill the Law for us, to suffer and die for our sins, and to be raised from the dead for our justification (Rom. 4:25). The Gospel grants us forgiveness and cancels our guilt. The Gospel raises to new life. The Gospel grants eternal salvation.

Therefore we need the daily consolation of the Gospel. We need God’s daily declaration that all our sins are forgiven on account of Christ. That means that we should be in church every Sunday to be absolved of our sins, to hear God’s Word of life, and to receive the Word made flesh in His true body and blood in the Supper. That means that we should be in the Scriptures each day in private and family devotions. And that means that we should know how to properly distinguish between Law and Gospel. The Law is important, too, so that we know what pleases God and what angers Him, and especially so that we know how desperately we need our Savior, Jesus. But we must not rely on the Law for salvation, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight” (Rom. 3:20; ESV). The Law can offer no consolation. Only the Gospel consoles sinners who need refuge from their sin.

The Law cannot console because we have never done enough to fulfill it. The Gospel consoles because it gives us Christ, who has already done it all. To paraphrase the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (one of our Lutheran confessional writings in The Book of Concord), Article V:46-47: The Law always accuses, because after all, who loves and fears God enough? Who has enough patience in times of trial? Who trusts God enough? Who faithfully loves and serves the neighbor enough? We must confess with St. Paul that even as baptized Christians, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom. 7:19). So it goes in this sinful flesh, and so it will go until we are rid of the sinful flesh. As long as we live in this fallen world, in this fallen flesh, we will struggle and fight against sin. Only in heaven and the in the resurrection will we be rid of it. Until then, the Gospel is the only remedy for the old Adam. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:24-25).

In fact, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Baptized into Christ, you are outside the reach of the Law’s condemnation. You are outside the reach of the devil’s accusations. You are outside the reach of the claims sin, death, and hell make on you. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). All of that is to say, Christ has become our stand-in. He took on our human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and in that flesh He fulfilled the Law for us. Perfectly. He fulfilled the Ten Commandments. He did not break one of them. He loved God with His whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and His neighbor as Himself (Mark 12:30-31). In fact, He placed His neighbor, you, above Himself, for in His holy flesh He suffered and died for you, to pay for your sins. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). Now that’s good news! That’s Gospel! Because that means that in the place of all of us who have never done and can never do enough, Christ has done it all! All our sins are forgiven! And we have eternal life! Consolation, indeed. Live in it daily, beloved. Rejoice! You are free.

Pastor Krenz

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-18T07:36:00.003-04:00

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 20)

September 18, 2011
Text: Matt. 20:1-16

Before God, you have no right to demand anything. You are saved by grace alone. And grace, by definition is unmerited, undeserved. It is God’s undeserved favor toward you on account of Christ, His Son. Grace is, by nature, a free gift. So there simply is no room for the language of rights or the making of demands in the presence of God. You have not deserved or earned anything from Him. Instead, you owe Him everything. And that is true even outside of the fact that you are a sinner to your very core. By grace, without any merit or worthiness in you, God created you, gave you a body and a life, reason and senses. What a gift! He set you within this world that He has created. You did not earn it. You did not choose to live. You did not choose to be placed here in this glorious creation. You did not earn this. It is grace, gift. Nor did God simply abandon you to this place He has created, but He cares for you, sets you in a family, daily and richly provides all that you need to support this body and life, gives you food and drink, house and home, spouse and children, occupation, and all you have. He guards you against danger and evil. All by grace. All only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in you. And all in spite of the fact that you have rejected Him. That’s what it means to be a sinner: to reject God, to make yourself your own god. When you sin, you reject God. You know this from the Bible and you know this from experience, and you confessed it just a moment ago, that you are by nature sinful and unclean (what we call “original sin,” the sin inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve), and that you have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed ("actual sins," the actual bad things we do against God’s commandments, sins of commission, and the actual good things commanded by God that we neglect to do, sins of omission). Grace, God’s unmerited favor, is the only explanation for the fact that God still loves you, still takes care of you, still provides for you, and has done something about your sin, your rejection: He sent His Son. He sent His Son to fulfill His commandments in your place. He sent His Son to bear your sin. He sent His Son to die for you. He sent His Son to defeat sin, death, and the devil for you by dying and rising again, that you may have new life and be reconciled to God. No, you have no right to demand anything of God. You have no right to this grace. This grace is a gift, freely given, by the merit and worthiness of Jesus Christ, who alone has any rights before God.

The difference between the first workers hired in the parable, and those who were subsequently hired, is that the first workers came demanding payment for their services, payment they had earned. The workers hired subsequently came expecting payment, not because they had earned it, but because the master of the house had promised it, and they trusted His promise. Now here in the parable, we get a taste of the ridiculous and overwhelming generosity of God. Some labor the whole day in the vineyard, and they are promised a denarius, a day’s wage. Some labor most of the day, and they are promised that they will receive whatever is right, though the amount is unspecified. Some labor only a few hours, and some only one hour, and they are not promised anything. At the end of the day, when it’s time to hand out the paychecks, the master has his foreman line up the workers, beginning with those who were hired last and ending with those who were hired first. The first to be hired look on as the master does an unimaginable thing: He pays those who have only worked one hour a denarius, a full day’s wage. Outrageous, generous, gracious, because those who have only worked an hour certainly haven’t earned their wages. Now those hired first are all excited. If those who only worked one hour received a denarius, surely we will receive more. We’ve earned it! But when they receive their wages, they are only given a denarius, which they had agreed to in the beginning. So these workers grumble. “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” (Matt. 20:12; ESV). The problem, however, is that these workers are looking at their own works, rather than to the generosity and graciousness of the master. Comparing themselves to others, these workers believe they have a right to demand more of the master. But if they had instead looked to the generosity and grace of the master, they would have rejoiced that even these undeserving fellow workers had received a gift, a full-day’s wage, which they had not earned, because the master is just that good.

Of course, God is the master, and you are the workers, but don’t be confused here. God’s act of grace, His undeserved gift, happens first of all way before He lines you up for your paycheck. That He chooses you in the first place, to set you in His vineyard, to make you His own, this is pure grace. Without any merit or worthiness in you, you are baptized into Christ. And you’re saved. That’s your call into the kingdom of heaven. God places work before you to do, not so that you can earn your place in this kingdom, not so that you can demand payment for your services, but because He desires to use you as His hands in the world to serve your neighbor in love and to confess Christ. And this, too, is a gift of His grace. You don’t deserve it. He could do it without you. But He doesn’t. He calls you to do it. Because He loves you and He wants to work through you. And it doesn’t matter when you were called. Perhaps you were the first called, baptized as an infant, raised in the Church, at the Divine Service every Sunday, Sunday School and Catechism classes and Bible classes, you’re at everything. Or perhaps you were called later in life, coming to faith through the Word of God confessed by someone in Christian witness, baptized as an adult, Adult Information Class, maybe even still getting used to this “church thing.” Some come to faith at the last hour. Now, no one should put off believing in Jesus, thinking that there’s always time to repent at the very end. As Isaiah writes, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (Is. 55:6). But it is true that someone whom the Holy Spirit brings to faith in the last moments is likewise saved. We even call this an “eleventh hour conversion” on the basis of this parable. And the point is, all receive the same gift. All receive the same eternal life. Because the wages you are given are not based on the works you have rendered, but on the promise the Lord has given. He will pay you what is right, as the master promised the second group of workers (Matt. 20:4). The word “right” in the Greek is actually the word for “righteous.” He will pay you whatever is righteous, whatever is justified. And this is the key to interpreting this parable. This parable is not about payment for your works. This parable is about justification by grace. Only Jesus can earn justification, righteousness before God. And He has, for you. He gives it to you as a gift, by grace, apart from works. Your works proceed from justification. And in the economy of justification, everyone who is called gets the same thing, no matter how long they’ve been a Christian, no matter what they’ve done or left undone, no matter how they measure up in comparison with you. Because justification is not on the basis of anything you have done, or anything within you. Justification is solely on the basis of our Lord Jesus Christ and His sin-atoning work, given by grace, to be received by faith. Do not come before God as if you had a right to His gifts, as if you had earned them. Come on the basis of the promise. Unworthy and sinful though you be, all things are yours in Christ Jesus. Even the very kingdom of heaven.

“So the last will be first, and the first last” (v. 16). Those who demand payment from God for their works will get what they want. They will get what they deserve. Fed up with the Master, they will leave Him in disgust. They will go to hell, which they have earned. Those, on the other hand, who know they deserve nothing, but who trust that the Master is gracious, get what the Master desires to give them. They receive what is righteous. They are justified. And so they remain with the Master and tend His vineyard, because they love Him, because He has given them the very kingdom, by grace. And they eat at their Master’s Table. Beloved, you know you deserve nothing from the Master. But you trust that the Master is gracious. And so you have received what is righteous. You are justified on account of the blood of Christ. You work in His vineyard because you love Him, because He has given you the very Kingdom. And now He sets a Table before you. Come and eat and commune with the Master, Christ. By grace, He gives you His body and blood and the forgiveness of your sins and strength for your Christian life and all manner of good gifts. Come, not because you have earned this (you haven’t). Come, because of the Promise: Here you will be paid what is righteous. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-11T08:03:00.002-04:00

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 19)

September 11, 2011
Text: Matt. 18:21-35

The forgiveness of sins is two-directional. There is first of all the vertical direction: God forgives all our sins on account of the suffering and death of His now risen Son, Jesus Christ. Then there is the horizontal direction: As those whom God has forgiven unconditionally and without limit on account of Christ, we are to forgive one another. Vertical and horizontal, forgiveness is cruciform, cross-shaped, even as our forgiveness from one another flows from the holy cross of our Lord Jesus, and lays a cross of suffering upon us, because we are called to bear the sins of our neighbor. The cross shape of the forgiveness of sins informs our prayers. We pray it daily in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is not to say that God’s forgiveness is based on our forgiveness for others. In fact, the opposite is true. We forgive others because God has first forgiven us, so that when we pray the 5th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we are saying, “O God, since you have already forgiven me for all my sins by the blood and death of Your dear Son Christ, so now I also, by the power of that same blood, forgive anyone who has sinned against me.” After all, how can we not forgive those who sin against us when God has forgiven us so much more? Or do you believe your neighbor’s sins against you outweigh your sins against God? Let us not be foolish. In the economy of God’s overwhelming generosity and mercy, we are supplied with more than enough forgiveness to bestow upon our neighbor who has sinned against us.

Peter thinks he is being generous and merciful when he suggests to Jesus that he should be willing to forgive the brother who sins against him up to seven times (Matt. 18:21). And let’s face it, from a human perspective, he is being more than generous. Who of us, if someone sinned against us even, let’s say, twice in a day, would be willing to extend forgiveness that second time? Maybe we’d do it, but we’d probably do it grudgingly, or else feel that we had done that person a great favor, or made a magnanimous gesture. Jesus applies a different standard. “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven,” says Jesus (v. 22; ESV). And of course, Jesus doesn’t mean that you should stop forgiving your neighbor after 490 sins, but rather that your forgiveness toward your neighbor should be unlimited, as God’s forgiveness is unlimited for you. And again, remember, God has forgiven you infinitely more than you have to forgive your neighbor.

Our Lord illustrates this with a parable. A king comes to settle accounts with his servants. And there is a wicked servant who owes the king ten thousand talents. I’m not sure what the exchange rate would be with today’s currency, but ten thousand talents is an unimaginable amount of debt that the servant could not possibly pay back. The king pronounces sentence over his debtor: he and his wife and children and all he possesses are to be sold for payment of the debt. The servant falls on his knees before the master and implores him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything” (v. 26). Now, that’s a silly thing to say. There is simply no way that the servant can pay this debt. That would be like us trying to pay God for our sins with our own resources and by our own works (do you see where this is going?). But something amazing happens here in the parable. The master has pity on the servant. The master sets the servant free and forgives the whole debt. He doesn’t just give the servant time. He doesn’t tell the servant to pay what he can when he can. He forgives the debt, wipes the slate clean, declares that there is nothing to pay, not even a penny. This is mercy, beloved. Now, it would rightly be expected that one who has been shown such generous mercy would also extend that mercy to others. But this servant immediately finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, a rather small sum in comparison with ten thousand talents, and he chokes that fellow servant saying, “Pay what you owe,” (v. 28), and when the fellow servant cannot pay, he casts him into debtor’s prison. Needless to say, when the master of them both hears about this, he is exceedingly angry: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (vv. 32-33). And the master delivers him over to the jailers. You get the point of course. Jesus makes the point explicit, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (v. 35).

Beloved in the Lord, you owe an unimaginable and un-payable debt to God for your sins. The time to give an account is coming, namely, the final judgment. But instead of condemning you to an eternity in hell for your sins, which God could justly do, He rather forgives your entire debt. He declares the debt paid in full. He credits the blood of Jesus to your account. He wipes your slate clean. He does not give you time to pay. He does not tell you to pay what you can when you can with your pitiful praises and so-called good works. He just forgives you, for Christ’s sake. It’s as if you’ve never sinned. Such is the mercy of God. Such is His love for you. He pities you and rescues you. Now, therefore, on account of all of this, when you go to your neighbor, your fellow servant, who has sinned against you, you don’t get to choke him and threaten him and demand that he pay for his sins. Your neighbor’s debt toward you is nothing compared to your debt toward God, which has been wiped out by the blood of Christ. And your neighbor’s sins, too, have been wiped out by the blood of Christ, by the way. If God no longer holds your sins against you, and if God no longer holds your neighbor’s sins against him, then who are you to hold anyone’s sins against anyone? You are to have mercy, as God has had mercy on you. If you don’t, you clearly don’t understand the full and free forgiveness God has mercifully and graciously bestowed upon you in Christ.

To be sure, it is hard to forgive. You have suffered real hurts at the hands of others. Your scars run deep. Some suffer more than others, and there are undoubtedly some here this morning who have suffered profoundly at the hands of cruel sinners. To say that you are to forgive those who sin against you is not to deny the reality or the intensity of the sin you have suffered. Still, you are to forgive them. Forgiveness is a cross to be borne, and crosses hurt. Forgive, bear that cross, as your Lord bore the holy cross to forgive you. Now, what does forgiveness mean? To forgive someone is to make the conscious decision that you will not desire or perpetrate evil against that person in payment for his sins, but that you will only desire and do good for that person. To forgive someone is to pray that God would bless them according to His wisdom, that God would not hold the person’s sins against him, that the person would ultimately repent and be saved. Forgiveness does not cancel the temporal penalties and consequences for sin. Criminals, even though they be forgiven, must still go to jail. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that nothing bad ever happened. If you abuse my children (God forbid), I may forgive you, but I will not ask you to baby-sit. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean that you feel warm and fuzzy toward the person who has sinned against you (though it’s nice when those feelings can return). Never trust your feelings. They’re sinful and unreliable. Forgiveness, remember, is a conscious decision, not an emotion.

Most of all, understand that forgiveness of others is a reveling and rejoicing in the gracious forgiveness of sins that is yours in Christ Jesus. You’ve been forgiven to forgive. You’ve been freed to set free. You’ve been given to give to your neighbor. The gifts of God always overflow in abundance so that they must be shared. Beloved in the Lord, forgive and be reconciled. Such is your joy and privilege in Christ. So you were wronged. So you were hurt. Let it be. Just bear it. Your Lord Jesus was wronged and hurt and killed for your sake, by your sins, that He might be reconciled to you. He has removed your sins from you as far as the east is from the west. And He has promised that when others intend evil against you, God intends it for your good. Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Let love cover the sins of your neighbor, even as God’s love covers your sins with Jesus. We are a community of the forgiven, forgiven and forgiving, confessing and being absolved, living under the cross. And as we gather around the altar this morning for the Feast of Jesus’ body and blood, there is no room for hostility. Having been forgiven, we forgive, and we eat and drink together in the Holy Communion. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-04T07:51:00.003-04:00

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 18)

September 4, 2011
Text: Matt. 18:1-20

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 20:18; ESV). Here, from the life-bestowing lips of our Savior, is the holy purpose of the Christian Church and the sacred charge of her ministers, the Office of the Keys, that “special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.”[1] When the called minister of Christ deals with a person by our Lord’s divine command, the command given here in our text, which is to say, when the pastor excludes openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolves those who repent of their sins and want to do better, “this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.” Because when the pastor proclaims the Word of Christ, it IS Christ dealing with you Himself. Through the mouth of a weak and sinful man, to be sure, namely, your pastor, but make no mistake. It is Christ Himself who speaks when the pastor speaks His Word faithfully. And that means that when your sins are bound because you do NOT repent of them, you are NOT sorry for them, you do NOT want to do better or amend your sinful life, then heaven is locked to you. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). But when you repent of your sins, when your sins cause you grief and sorrow for having offended your gracious God, when you desire to amend your sinful life, to flee from sin, and when your desire is to do that which pleases God, then you have a sure and certain refuge. Confess your sins to God. Confess before the man He has called to be His mouthpiece, your pastor. “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (v. 9). Confess, and hear the Holy Absolution, the declaration that all your sins are forgiven, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. And believe that this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ your dear Lord dealt with you Himself. Because He HAS dealt with you Himself. He IS DEALING with you Himself. Heaven is unlocked and open to you. It is for this reason alone that our Lord Jesus has given His Church the Office of the Keys.

Our Gospel lesson this morning is lengthy and many-facetted, but the golden thread that ties it all together is the Office of the Keys, which is to say, the binding and loosing of sin. First, the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matt. 20:1). Jesus calls over a child. Unless you turn (repent) and become humble like this child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The one who turns (repents) recognizes his utter helplessness and complete dependence on Jesus… in other words, the one who confesses that he is a poor, miserable sinner, by nature sinful and unclean, who has sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, and who clings to the powerful Word of forgiveness that Jesus speaks in Absolution, that one, is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Because by faith, he is united to Christ, who is THE greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s what it means to be like a child before God. It is to utterly and completely depend upon Christ in all things for help and for eternal salvation, and to recognize that you have no resources within yourself to help yourself or save yourself, that all is by grace, not by works. There is no room for boasting. You are a child, and can do nothing for yourself. You cannot earn forgiveness. It must be given to you, by God, in Christ.

And woe to the one who tempts you to forsake that childlike faith in Jesus. It would be better for such a one that a great millstone be fastened around his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea. And for God’s sake, don’t be the one who causes a child of God to stumble! Better to mutilate yourself. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, better to cut them off and throw them away and still be saved. If your eye causes you to sin, better to gouge it out than to go to hell. But of course, the problem is not your hands or your feet or your eyes, but your heart. So no, don’t mutilate yourself, because it won’t work. You’ll only be a handless, footless, eyeless sinner, but a sinner you will still be. But understand this, you need heart surgery. A heart transplant, in fact. Your heart needs to be cut out and thrown away, because it’s a heart of stone, and from that heart proceed evil thoughts: murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matt. 15:19). You need a new heart, beating with the life of the Holy Spirit. That heart transplant happens as your confess your sins to God and the death and resurrection of Christ are applied to you for your forgiveness in the Word of Absolution.

This is simply the business of the Church and the ministry, this binding and loosing of sin, and it has been from the beginning, even in the Old Testament, as the LORD says to the Prophet Ezekiel: “if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul” (Ez. 33:9). The Law must be preached, that sinners may know their sins and come to repentance, and when there is no repentance, the sinner must be bound in his sin, not out of meanness, but in hope that such binding will become such a great burden that the sinner will return to the LORD. Yet the prophet and the Christian preacher is also to proclaim the way out: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31). The Gospel must be proclaimed to repentant sinners who have been crushed by their sin and guilt. The Gospel is the Word of life, that Jesus Christ died for your sins and has been raised for your justification, that in Christ all your sins are forgiven and you are reconciled to God. Confession and Absolution is simply Law and Gospel in practice. For “Confession has two parts. First, that we confess our sins, and second, that we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.”

The Church and her pastors, you and I, are to go and seek sinners, the lost sheep, with the preaching of Law and Gospel, calling sinners to repentance and proclaiming to them the forgiveness that Jesus has won for them on the cross, applying that forgiveness to them in Absolution. When a Christian falls, we must restore him gently. So Jesus tells us how we are to do church discipline, which is always done only for the sake of restoring the sinner. When a Christian falls, the pastor (or you, if you are the one who knows about it) is to go to that sinner privately and urge him to repent and receive the forgiveness of Christ. The sin is not to be divulged to others. You are not to gossip about it. The matter is to remain private. If this does not work, then one or two others are brought into the conversation, mature Christians, probably the elders in our context, and the person is urged to repent and receive the forgiveness of Christ. And if this does not work, then the Church is to be informed, and the Church is to plead with the person to repent and receive the forgiveness of Christ. And if the person still does not repent, he must be bound in his sin. He cannot come to the Lord’s Supper anymore. He must be excommunicated for the sake of love, in hope that this measure will bring him out of his sin and to repentance, so that he may be absolved and restored. And we must not doubt… That which is bound by the Church is bound by our Lord in heaven.

But, beloved, there is this great promise, and we must all cling to this promise for our very eternal lives. Whenever a sinner repents, confesses his sin and is absolved, he is loosed from his sins, and heaven is opened. Whenever you repent and turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, your sins are forgiven. You heard it this morning in the general Confession and Absolution, where you confessed your sins and I, in the stead and by the command of Christ, forgave you your sins. You are hearing it now in the sermon, which is always to be an Absolution, a proclamation of the Gospel. And you have a glorious opportunity as a Christian to come to your pastor privately and confess your sins to Christ, and receive individually, personally, and intimately, the forgiveness of all your sins, knowing that your sins are forever taken away, that the pastor can never divulge your sins, that your sins won’t even be brought up on Judgment Day, because they’ve been buried in the grave forever. Beloved in the Lord, private confession is by no means commanded. But I urge you to consider availing yourself of this gift. Because the Lord Jesus promises that when His ministers loose you from your sins on earth, your sins are loosed in heaven. The very sins you name can never haunt you again. They are removed from you as far as the east is from the west.

And beloved, even this day, as you hear the Gospel, you are forgiven and restored. You have been absolved. Your sins have been washed away in Baptism. You have heard the Word of Life from the Lord Jesus. And now your Lord Jesus comes to you with His true body and blood to place His forgiveness in your mouths. Thanks be to God, in Christ you are no longer bound in your sins, but loosed, forgiven, set free. And now gathered together in His Name, here He is in our midst, really and substantially, to distribute His gifts. Heaven is opened, for the Lord Jesus has bestowed the Office of the Keys to His Church for this very purpose. For you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Catechism quotations from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986).

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-28T07:08:00.002-04:00

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 17)

August 28, 2011
Text: Jer. 15:15-21; Matt. 16:21-28

Beloved in the Lord, Martin Luther wrote: “A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.”[1] There are two competing theologies within Christendom, the theology of glory and the theology of the cross. One is true and one is false. One comes naturally to us, the other we are by nature incapable of believing. And unfortunately it is the theology that comes naturally to us, the theology of glory, that is false. The true theology, the theology of the cross, revealed by God in the Holy Scriptures, is foolishness to us by nature. We can only come to believe it when the Holy Spirit brings us to faith in it. St. Paul says something of this when he writes: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14; ESV). The Spirit, given in Baptism, leads the Christian to believe what he would otherwise, by nature, regard as folly. But even so, even as baptized Christians, the old sinful flesh in us rejects the theology of the cross. It is a constant struggle to hold the true theology, because it is so contrary to our human way of thinking. The theology of the cross is the theology of the things of God. The theology of glory is the theology of the things of man. We must say to the theologian of glory within each one of us, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matt. 16:23).

The thing about the theology of glory is that it sets up an unbiblical standard to measure that which is good. It is good, says the theologian of glory, if I never suffer, if I am in good health, wealthy, comfortable, entertained, happy. It is good if I have everything I’ve ever wanted. It is good if everyone likes me and wants to be like me. In fact, says the theologian of glory, it is a sign of God’s favor toward me when everything is going right. It is a sign of God’s displeasure with me when things go wrong. But beloved, remember, a theologian of glory, which is to say, you by nature, calls evil good and good evil. Because the theologian of glory, you by nature, does not understand that God disciplines His Christians precisely because He loves them, that He graciously gives them over into suffering for their good, that His foolishness is wiser than men and His weakness stronger than men (1 Cor. 1:25). God displays His wisdom and His strength precisely in what is foolish and weak, God in the flesh, God on the cross, sinful men and women redeemed as saints, sinful pastors speaking His Word, words on a page, words and water, words and bread and wine. The theologian of the cross must get past the appearance of things and, with trust in God’s Word, call a thing what it actually is. In God’s way of operating in the world, foolishness and weakness are good. Christianity as a bed of roses, as a program for success, as a method of achieving health, wealth, and prosperity, is exceedingly evil.

The Prophet Jeremiah was by nature a theologian of glory. But like it or not, in the school of YHWH, he would become a theologian of the cross. We encounter him in our Old Testament lesson complaining bitterly. He was good at that. He even wrote a second Old Testament book called Lamentations! In our text, Jeremiah complains that in spite of his faithfulness to God, his profound love for God’s Word, his indignation against the evil of his people, and his dynamic preaching, the people were still unfaithful. They did not repent. They did not convert. Instead, they persecuted the prophet! “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart,” says Jeremiah, “for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16). Yet “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” (v. 18). Every Christian pastor knows this heartache. He buries himself in God’s Word and finds great delight in devouring the Word of life as he studies and prays and meditates and prepares. With great joy, as well as a little fear and trembling, he brings this Word to the pulpit to proclaim it to his flock, revealing treasures old and new, knowing beyond all doubt that this sermon will get results. The people will repent of their sins and amend their ways. They’ll never miss a church service or Bible class again. They’ll all bring their friends and neighbors and the church will be filled to capacity with the faithful. Offerings will be at an all-time high. No one will complain anymore. No one will dissent. No one will question. All will dwell together in perfect peace and harmony. Oops! That’s a theology of glory. Because what really happens when the pastor preaches is that some do repent and amend their sinful ways and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to be sure. That’s the power of the Word. But some do not repent. Some do not amend their sinful ways. Some do not believe. The church is never filled to capacity. Many of the faithful have other things to do on Sunday morning. And there are complaints and dissents and questions, because the Church is full of sinners. For after all, the Church is only for sinners. The perfect need not apply. So as such, let us call the thing what it actually is. It is good that only sinners are here, sins and all. Because the Church is a hospital for sinners, dispensing the medicine that is our Lord Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, for the forgiveness of sins.

Do you know what the LORD says to Jeremiah for his complaint? Do you know what the LORD says to your pastor when he slips into the theology of glory? Do you know what the LORD says to His Church when she thinks she can grow herself by gimmicks and achieve success by following the right method? Do you know what the LORD says to you when you think everything should go well for you if God really loves you, and when you despair because you are called to suffer? He says this: Repent! You do not have the mind of the LORD. You do not have His wisdom. You do not see how He is working all things together for your good, in spite of appearances, because you are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). You do not see that His grace is sufficient for you, because His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Nor do you understand that He does not owe you an explanation for your suffering. It is enough for you to know that it is finally for your salvation and your eternal good that God allows bad things to happen to you. Look to Christ and His cross. There, in the ultimate evil, the LORD accomplishes the ultimate good for you and all people as the sinless Son of God suffers unjustly for the sins of the whole world, for your sins and mine. You cannot begin to understand His plan. So don’t lecture Him about how His plan is foolish. Do not say with St. Peter concerning the cross: “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matt. 16:22). You don’t know what you’re saying. Just get behind Jesus. Take up your cross and follow Him, all the way to Calvary. Trust Him. There’s resurrection ahead. But the only way is through the cross and death.

The LORD says to Jeremiah, in the midst of his theology of glory: “If you return, I will restore you” (Jer. 15:19). Get behind me again and go where I lead you and I will make you my faithful preacher once again… “you shall be as my mouth” (v. 19), which is what every Christian pastor is. He speaks for God when he faithfully speaks the Word, in season and out of season, even if it gets him persecution and a broken heart. But the results are up to God. The Spirit works when and where He wills in those who hear the Gospel. The LORD doesn’t tell Jeremiah what the results of his preaching will be. He promises that He will finally deliver Jeremiah from his afflictions, but he doesn’t say how. We know how, because we have the benefit of historical perspective. Here is Jeremiah’s deliverance: He died as a refugee in Egypt. A theologian of glory would say that that is a bad deliverance if there ever was one. A theologian of the cross will call it what it actually is: God’s wisdom, God’s deliverance. Jeremiah died a reject. But he now beholds the face of God with great joy. And what he didn’t know as he suffered persecution for his preaching in this earthly life, is that through his divinely inspired writings, he still preaches Christ to the people of God. He is preaching to us today. And how many people have come to faith through his record of the Word of the LORD? He never knew it in his lifetime. He could not see the LORD’s wisdom in his ministry and his suffering. The theologian of the cross simply trusts that God is working His good will in what appears to be very bad. The theologian of the cross looks to the cross of Jesus Christ and clings to his crucified Lord for help and deliverance, and for eternal salvation.

Beloved in the Lord, crucify the theologian of glory in you. Deny yourself. Die to yourself. Take up your cross and follow Jesus. But of course, you can’t do any of that by your own power or your own works. So here is the good news, though it will sound anything but good to your flesh. The Lord will make you a theologian of the cross, by His Spirit, by your death and resurrection in Holy Baptism, by His Word, by the Supper of His crucified body and blood. And by your suffering. And as a theologian of the cross, you can confess that suffering as His good gift to you, and recognize that His suffering sanctifies your own. And as you suffer, you know that He carries you, all the way to your final deliverance on the Day of Resurrection. A great blessing! That’s what the thing actually is. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Thesis 21 of the Heidelberg Disputation, AE 31:40.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-21T07:10:00.003-04:00

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 16)

August 21, 2011
Text: Is. 51:1-8; Matt. 16:13-20

Beloved in the Lord, in the Holy Gospel this morning our Lord Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against His beloved Church (Matt. 16:18). And yet, it sure looks like the gates of hell are prevailing. If you haven’t noticed, the general mood in our society toward Christianity is less and less friendly. Churches are shrinking, congregations are disappearing, denominations are all facing financial crises of one stripe or another, and the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod is no exception. And then there’s the difficulty with doctrine. Which doctrine is right? Is there such a thing as right doctrine? Many within the Church, never mind those outside the Church, contend that there is no such thing as right or pure doctrine. Postmodern society, where all things are relative, which means that your truth is true for you and my truth is true for me but we dare never assert our truth to be true for anyone else, has influenced Christianity to such a degree that we’re not even sure what we’re sure of or what we believe. Liberal Protestantism has already thrown out the baby with the bathwater. There is no doctrine in the mainline churches. Believe what you want, do what you want, just don’t forget to send in your offering. And don’t impose what you believe on anyone else. Not even in your own church. Not even if it’s in the Bible. Do you sense the demonic influence in all of this? Jesus, are you sure hell isn’t really prevailing against the Church after all?

That is why we live by faith, not by sight. If we lived by sight, we’d have to conclude that Jesus is dead wrong in His promise here. But faith believes the Word of the Lord in spite of what the eyes see. This is not to say that faith is blind. No, faith always has an object. Faith must always believe in something, or better, Someone. Faith believes in and trusts the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word of promise and comfort. But faith does not yet see the object of its trust. Otherwise it wouldn’t be faith. The writer to the Hebrews defines faith this way: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1; ESV). Faith is only necessary when that which is hoped for has not yet appeared. And such faith has always been a mark of God’s people. Our Old Testament lesson from the book of the Prophet Isaiah (51:1-8) is about precisely this. For God’s chosen people, the future looked bleak. Appearances were anything but hopeful. The LORD Himself had promised to give Judah over to her enemies, to send her into exile in Babylon because of her idolatry. Yet God spoke gracious words of comfort to those who would trust Him, through the preaching and pen of Isaiah. Judah would be saved. The people of Israel would once again possess the Promised Land. There would be a remnant, those faithful to YHWH who would be saved. And the promise isn’t just that those who are Jews by genealogy would once again come to inhabit Palestine. That is true, and that did happen, but there is a greater promise at work here. The remnant will include all who pursue righteousness (Is. 51:1), that is, all who long for the righteousness that only God can give to His unrighteous people, all who look in faith to YHWH for deliverance and salvation, people from every nation, God’s new Israel, His Zion, His holy Church.

For the promise in our Old Testament lesson is finally and ultimately this: God will send His Son. “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law,” a Torah, the Word, “will go out from me” (v. 4). Jesus is the Word made flesh who has made His dwelling among us. He is the Word who was with God in the beginning, the Word who is God, and who has taken on our human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. “I will set my justice for a light to the peoples” (v. 4). That’s Jesus, and the peoples who receive His light are not just Jews, but Gentiles, you and me. “My righteousness draws near,” says God (v. 5). That’s Jesus! … “my salvation has gone out…” That’s Jesus! … “and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.” Why are they waiting so hopefully for the LORD to judge with His arms? I mean, it sounds like God is about to obliterate sinners with His might. But how does God judge with His arms? The Son of God, Jesus, stretches out His arms on the wood of the cross, to receive the nails, to be pierced for our transgressions as the Father judges Him guilty of the sins of all the world, the sins of Israel, your sins, my sins, and the sins of all people. He is judged guilty of our idolatry and false doctrine and wishy-washy relativity. He is judged guilty of every offense against our holy God’s commandments. All so that you and I and all people may be judged righteous by the Father, with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You who pursue righteousness will find it only here, a righteousness that is outside of you, in Jesus, received by faith, in spite of all appearances.

And it is He that frees you from your exile to sin and death and hell by His death, and ushers you back into the Promised Land of righteousness and life and salvation by His resurrection. It isn’t simply Palestine that is promised here. It is the Promised Land of our Lord’s Kingdom. The promise is the new heavens and the new earth on the Last Day, of which Palestine is only a dim foreshadowing. The promise is your soul reunited with your resurrection body to live eternally with God and with His Son Jesus Christ in His paradise. This is the comfort the LORD speaks to Zion, His beloved people. You will be raised from the dead, resurrection bodies to live in a resurrected Eden. Paradise restored. That’s what He says in our text: “For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song” (v. 3; emphasis added). In the end, the gates of hell do not triumph. Rather, the old wily serpent who once prevailed in the Garden of Eden by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is overcome by the tree of life, the tree of the cross, and Eden shall be restored. Beloved, you will see it with your own eyes!

Therefore, “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath” (v. 8). Look at the created things that have been marred by the fall into sin. These things will not last. They will all perish. That means the visible institution sometimes called “Church” as well. And so we dare not place our faith in these things. That would be idolatry, exchanging the Creator for that which He has created. And that is a fatal mistake. “(F)or the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner.” This is what will happen on the Last Day when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. But, says the LORD… “but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.” The promise of God carries us through the changes and chances of this fallen world, through suffering and the cross, through death and destruction, and even through the final judgment. Because finally the only thing that stands is the salvation of the Lord. He will deliver us. He will give us eternal life. Because He said so. And He has never yet failed to make good on His promises. So we can believe His Word with absolute assurance and confess biblical doctrine with boldness. And so also we can stake our very eternal lives with joy upon the faithfulness of the LORD.

The LORD comforts Zion with His promises. Indeed, the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. And this means two things for us: 1. In spite of all appearances, there will always be a holy Christian and apostolic Church on earth, until the end of time, and 2. in the end, hell loses and the Church wins, because Jesus has already won. In fact, we are here this morning to celebrate the Feast of victory for our God, where Jesus gives us the instruments of His victory, His true body and blood. Beloved in the Lord, be comforted this morning. Believe the promises. Believe the Word. And go out with great joy into a world that is hostile to your Savior to confess his saving Name. You may catch hell for it, but hell is defeated by His cross. Your sins have been forgiven, loosed by the Word of the Lord. You have eternal life. Thanks be to God. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Commemoration of Johann Gerhard, Theologian

2011-08-17T14:05:00.002-04:00

"From now on, I cannot doubt the forgiveness of sins because it is affirmed by my partaking of the price that was offered for my sins, the very blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:19; Revelation 1:5; 5:9). From now on, I cannot doubt the indwelling of Christ because it is sealed for me in the imparting of His body and blood. From now on, I cannot doubt the assistance of the Holy Spirit because my weakness is strenthened by such a support. I do not fear the plots of Satan because this angelic food strengthens me to do battle. I do not fear the lures of the flesh because this life-giving and spiritual food strengthens me by the power of the Spirit. I eat and drink this food so Christ may dwell in me and I in Christ. The Good Shepherd will not allow the sheep, fed by His body and blood, to be devoured by the infernal wolf. He will not allow the strength of the Spirit to be overcome by the weakness of my flesh. Praise, honor, and thanksgiving to You, O kindest Savior, forever. AMEN."

--Johann Gerhard, Meditations on Divine Mercy, Matthew C. Harrison, Trans. (St. Louis: Concordia, 2003) p. 87.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-07T07:05:00.003-04:00

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 14)

August 7, 2011
Text: Job 38:4-18

Job is a comforting book, even if difficult to understand. Comforting, because we see in Job a beloved child of God whom God allows nonetheless to suffer unimaginable loss and misery at the hands of Satan. Difficult to understand, not just because of its poetic Hebrew structure, but also because, like Job, we want an answer to the question, “Why? Why, God, do You allow me to suffer?” And God’s answer to Job and to us is intellectually, and perhaps even emotionally, dissatisfying. God’s answer is that He doesn’t owe us an answer. Instead He asks a series of rhetorical questions that put us back in our place as His creatures and as His beloved sons and daughters. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!” (Job 38:4-5; ESV). On and on the questioning goes. It’s like God is being sarcastic. And in a way, He is. But He’s making an important point: Unless you had something to do with creating the heavens and the earth and everything that is, maybe you ought to just leave the running of the universe to the One who did create all things, and who still takes care of all things, namely, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He doesn’t owe you an explanation for what He’s doing, or how He’s working all things, even evil things, together for your good (Rom. 8:28). Faith waits upon the Lord, even when He is hidden behind tremendous suffering, even when He is hidden behind the cross. Because faith knows that after Good Friday, there is Easter; after death there is resurrection, that the Lord who WAS there when the foundations of the earth were laid, because He laid them, the One who did determine the earth’s measurements and laid its cornerstone when the morning stars (the holy angels) sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, He will deliver you in His time and in His way and according to His wisdom. And His deliverance will be greater than anything you could ever ask or imagine.

We don’t know who wrote Job, though tradition suggests it may have been Moses. In any case, Job was a righteous man, which means that He had faith in God as His Redeemer, and looked for the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. He was also a rich man with a large family, seven sons and three daughters whom he loved and for whom he would offer sacrifices lest they fell into sin during their feasts. One day the angels gathered before God, including the evil angel, Satan. And God asked Satan where he had been. Satan answered, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it” (1:7). He was out looking for trouble, prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). “And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’” (v. 8). Twice Satan appears before God and twice God suggests that Satan afflict His servant Job. Yes, it’s actually God’s suggestion that Satan make Job suffer. The first time Job loses all his possessions and his children. In the face of this great tragedy, Job tears his clothes and shaves his head and confesses in faith, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (v. 21). The second time Job is afflicted with “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2:7). God gave Satan physical liberty with Job. The only thing Satan could not do is take Job’s life. There he is, the pitiful figure, robes torn and head shaved and body covered with sores, scratching his skin with a broken piece of pottery. Even Job’s wife tells him to “Curse God and die” (v. 9). Can you imagine what great anguish this must have caused Job? Yet he remains steadfast and confesses, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” And the writer concludes, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (v. 10). Far from it. In the midst of tremendous suffering and anguish, Job confesses the faith. He blesses God and worships Him. Job even has this marvelous confession of Christ and the resurrection right in the middle of the book: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (19:25-27). It’s a marvelous confession of life in the midst of death on account of the resurrection of Jesus. It’s a marvelous confession of Job’s own resurrection from the dead on the Last Day. Indeed, Job is a model for us in our suffering.

But that’s not the point of our text. The point is God’s answer to our question, “Why?” Job’s three friends gather around him to commiserate and to answer that question for him. And they get it totally wrong. “Surely you must have committed some great sin to deserve this, Job,” they say. “Confess your sin, repent, and God will relent.” But that is not why God is allowing Job to go through these tribulations. It is true that Job is sinful, but God is not punishing Job for his sin. He said nothing about punishment to Satan. No, what did God say? Job is “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil” (1:8). God is actually allowing Satan to torment Job because Job is a faithful Christian! He is testing Job. He is molding Job into the cruciform image of His Son, Jesus Christ, who suffered for our forgiveness. He is driving Job to rely on God alone for help and salvation. This is what God does for His Christians. He gives them the gift of the precious and holy cross. Having been redeemed by the innocent suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, God now gives us crosses to bear, that we may take them up and follow Jesus, relying on Him alone for help and salvation, looking to Him in faith for relief, confessing Him even in the midst of tribulation. For we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

And yet there’s still no easy answer to the question, “Why?” We can say all of these things about our suffering, that suffering shapes and molds us into Christ’s image and that it drives us to Christ in faith and that it will all ultimately work out for our good. But those are all abstract answers. To be sure, they are true answers, but they are not specific answers. They don’t go very far with the mother who has just lost her child, or the husband who has just lost his wife, or the accident victim who has lost the use of his legs. And they don’t go very far with you when you are suffering. Because when you’re suffering, you want specific answers and you want immediate relief. And when God doesn’t give you what you want, it is easy to fall into despair. There is always this struggle between faith and doubt in the midst of suffering. Patience is foreign to our sinful flesh. Waiting on God and His salvation is easier said than done. In fact, it takes the Holy Spirit Himself to give you the faith and patience to wait on God and to confess the faith in the midst of suffering. It has to come from outside of you, from God Himself. That is, of course, the point of the whole business, that you recognize that you have no resources to provide for your own relief or answer your own questions, that you have nothing and that you are nothing outside of God and outside of Jesus Christ His Son. But the specific answer to the question, “why,” you have to leave to God. Because He is the Maker of heaven and earth, and you are not. He is all-knowing and all-wise, and you are not. He knows what is for your good, and you do not. He can accomplish your salvation, and you cannot. Faith lives with the question.

But the question is not wholly unanswered. It is just that it is answered in a way beyond human comprehension, an answer grasped only by faith. The answer is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the answer of God to all human suffering. Jesus asks Job’s question and yours on your behalf: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46; emphasis added). And the answer is, God forsook Jesus, His Son, in His suffering on the cross, that He might not forsake you in sin and death, not even in the midst of suffering. Having redeemed you in the suffering and death of Christ, He will not leave you without relief. Your suffering will come to an end. God will grant you perfect healing. He will raise you from death to live eternally with Him and with His risen Son, Jesus. And God Himself will wipe away every tear from your eyes. Therefore you can confess with Job, even in the midst of great suffering: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

There is a happy ending to Job’s story. The Lord restores his health, and as for his possessions, the Lord restores to Job double what he had lost. Job also has seven more sons and three more daughters. And in this way God also restores his children double, for his seven sons and three daughters that he lost in the beginning are not really lost. They are in heaven, with the Lord. And now there are seven more sons and three more daughters. And this reminds us that the Lord does not always restore to us double in this earthly life. Sometimes relief comes at the end, when you are in heaven, with Jesus. Heaven is far better, beloved. In heaven, there is perfect healing for your soul. And in the resurrection, there is perfect healing for your body. So even if you are not relieved in this earthly life, there is a happy ending for you, too. Because the answer to your suffering and the suffering of all the world is the suffering of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. God does not always tell us the “why” of suffering. But He always tells us the solution. It is Jesus, your crucified Lord and Redeemer. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-17T08:03:00.003-04:00

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 11)

July 17, 2011
Text: Is. 44:6-8

Beloved in the Lord, this morning the LORD speaks to us of the First Commandment through the mouth and pen of the Prophet Isaiah. “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god” (Is. 44:6; ESV; emphasis added)! When God first gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and the children of Israel, He said, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex. 20:2). Therefore, on the basis of this great redemption, on the basis of the fact that no other god has been able to deliver you, because no other god exists, on the basis of the fact that I have purchased you to be my very own people, “You shall have no other gods before me” (v. 3). “What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things” (Luther's Small Catechism [St. Louis: Concordia, 1986]).

“You shall have no other gods before me.” Before me. The kids who went to Higher Things last week know the theological Latin phrase for this, Coram Deo, the theme of our conference. It means “before God” or “in the presence of God” or “in the face of God” or “in God’s sight.” Thus the First Commandment does NOT mean that we can have other gods as long as we put God first and don’t put the other gods before Him. No, it means this: You shall have no other gods in the presence of the one true God. Get them out of His face! Get them out of His sight! You are not to have any other god at all! Because the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has redeemed you to be His own people. As He brought the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He has brought you out of slavery to sin and death. It cost Him the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. It had to be done, because apart from Jesus, coram Deo, before God, you are an unrighteous sinner, a vicious enemy of God, and a stinking corpse. But now that Christ has shed His precious blood for you, buying you back for God, and now that you are baptized into that reality, baptized into Christ, into His death and resurrection, now… now you stand coram Deo, before God, as God’s own child, righteous, with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, His Son. Therefore you are to have no other gods. You are always in the presence of God, coram Deo, and in that presence, He alone is to be your God. He is jealous for you. He will not share you. You are to fear Him above all things. You are to love Him above all things. You are to trust in Him above all things (which is what faith is, by the way). Because He put you above all things to make you His own.

Well, you may be saying, the good news is, Pastor, that I only worship the one true God. I only come to church here. I only pray to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I don’t pray to the god of the Muslims or the Jews or the many gods of the other false religions. I don’t have any figurines carved of wood and stone to which I pray. So I have this commandment pretty much in the bag. I don’t have a problem with idolatry… Really? Of course, it’s true that there is such a thing as blatant idolatry, blatant worshiping of false gods, whether they’re carved from wood or stone or are the more sophisticated gods of the other world religions. Israel was guilty of this blatant idolatry, worshiping the idols of the nations in Canaan, and as a result, God sent them into exile in Assyria and Babylon. Isaiah was sent into this very context as God’s prophet, to announce God’s judgment against idolatry and to comfort the exiles with God’s promise to restore them as His people and redeem them from their sin. Israel’s idolatry serves as a warning to us in the New Testament Church. So if you’ve avoided that kind of blatant idol worship, good for you! But as you know, that doesn’t get you off the hook. Because a god is whatever you fear, love, and trust the most. Our society, for example, ever since the so-called age of Enlightenment, has displaced God with science and reason. Science and reason are two of the chief gods of this age. Health, wealth, and prosperity are three more in the pantheon. Sex and self-determination (autonomy) are two of the favorite deities in our culture. “It’s my life and my body and I’ll do what I want with it!” But the problem is not just society or culture or other people. It’s you. Because even though you do a good job keeping the First Commandment outwardly, even though you attend church regularly and publicly decry the evils of society, inside you are full of idolatry. Really. What do you fear? What do you love? What do you trust? That’s your god. It can be a thing. It can be a person. It can be (and is!) yourself. It is all of those things. If you’re counting on your 401-k or Social Security to provide for you in your later years, you’ve made those things into your gods. It’s not wrong to have them, but they could be gone tomorrow. God will provide for you. Trust Him alone. Money is a big god for Christians. Sex, too. If you love fornication, if you love looking at pornography (which, by the way, is demonic… it allows demons to come and wreak havoc with you), if you love these things even though you know they grieve your God, you have displaced Him with perversion. People can be gods, when you love your family or friends more than you love God, or trust them more, or even fear them more. Stuff can be gods, especially when you covet, because you are counting on the thing you covet to fulfill you and make you happy and whole. And of course, the main god universally worshiped among us is the self. That is, in fact, the definition of sin. It is to place the self before God as god. That is what Adam and Eve were seeking in the Garden. That is what you seek every time you sin. You say to God, “I will be my own God, thank you very much. I will decide what is good and what is evil. I will determine my own course. And as a matter of fact, I will save myself.”

Repent, beloved. Turn again to the God of your salvation who has purchased and won you with the holy, precious blood and the innocent suffering and death of Jesus Christ His Son. For your idolatry has separated you from God. Whatever god reigns in your life, when you unite yourself to a false god, you no longer stand before the one true God, coram Deo, in Christ Jesus, but you are once again in your sins, and you’re damned. Because none of those other gods can deliver you from sin and death and hell. None of those other gods can redeem you. Thus says the LORD to you this morning, “Who is like me? Let him proclaim it… Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any” (Is. 44:7-8). You’ve fashioned many gods after your own image, but the truth of the matter is, they are not gods. They are nothing like God. They can’t even begin to compare to God. For not only did they NOT create you, they cannot save you. They cannot help you. They can’t even hear you when you cry out to them. They don’t deliver on their promises. They don’t fulfill you, they don’t make you happy, and they don’t complete you. But God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, does. He is your Rock. He is your sure foundation. Great is His steadfast love toward you, so great that He sent His only-begotten Son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all your sins. He saves you and gives you life. He brings you out of exile in sin and the kingdom of Satan and brings you into the Promised Land of His Kingdom, the Church, and His heaven. He is the first and the last, the be all and end all, the beginning and the end. He created you for Himself. He redeemed you for Himself. And He will have you for Himself for all eternity, standing coram Deo, before God, with the righteousness of Christ, covered by the blood of Christ, God’s own child.

It’s happening here and now as you stand before this altar, coram Deo. God places His Name upon you once again, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Name into which you are baptized. He forgives all your sins. He speaks to you in His Word. And He places the very body of Christ on your tongue and pours His blood down your throat for the forgiveness of all your sins, that you may with all confidence stand here, coram Deo, without sin, because Jesus has taken all your sins away and nailed them to the cross. It is all by grace, without any merit or worthiness in you. Because that’s the God we have. He is longsuffering, gracious and merciful and full of steadfast love and faithfulness. Other gods? Why would you want them? Get rid of them! You have everything you need in the one true God, the King of Israel, the LORD of hosts. Look, He places His feast before you. Come with great rejoicing to His Table and kneel before Him to receive His gifts. For He is your one and only. He is the only God. And here He gives Himself to you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-10T08:16:00.003-04:00

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 10)

July 10, 2011
Text: Is. 55:10-13; Matt. 13:1-9, 18-23

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12; ESV). The Prophet Isaiah proclaims to us this morning that the Word of the Lord is so powerful and effective that it never returns to God without accomplishing that which He purposes and succeeding in the thing for which He sent it (Is. 55:10-11). It is 100% effective. When God speaks, His Word accomplishes what He says. God speaks: “Let there be light,” and there is light (Gen. 1:3). God speaks the whole creation into existence by His Word. God preserves the whole creation by His Word. By His Word God creates a people for His own possession, the holy Christian Church. By His Word, God brings you into His Church, to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. By His Word, the Lord preserves His people in peace. God speaks His holy Name over you in Baptism, and you are His own child. God speaks His holy Absolution through His called and ordained servant, and all your sins are forgiven. God speaks in Scripture and preaching and liturgy, and you are brought to a deeper knowledge of Him and of His will, your faith is strengthened, and you are enabled to live your Christian life in the world. God speaks, and bread and wine are now the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When God speaks, His Word accomplishes what He says. The Word of the Lord is performative. He speaks and it is done. Powerful stuff, the Word. Living and active, indeed!

The Word of God is like the rain and the snow that come down from heaven, says the LORD through the Prophet Isaiah. Before the rain and snow return to heaven as vapor, they water the earth, so that it brings forth fruit-bearing plants, “giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater” (Is. 55:10). This is how God provides our daily bread. But of course, “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3; cf. Matt. 4:4). The Word of God is like the rain that brings forth vegetation. The Word rains down in Scripture and preaching and Sacrament and it does not return to the Lord without watering the hearts of the hearers and, wherever the Holy Spirit pleases, bringing forth faith in Jesus Christ, and the fruits of faith, namely, love and good works. Thus preaching is never in vain. Your confession of Christ in your daily life and vocation is never in vain. Likewise, it is never in vain when you come to church or attend Bible class or Sunday School. It is never in vain when you read the Scriptures. You have here God’s sure and certain promise: His Word will always accomplish what He purposes and succeed in the thing for which He sent it.

The Word is living and active, and 100% effective. And of course, it’s all we’ve been given as the Church of Jesus Christ to be the rule and norm of our doctrine and life. The Church lives by the Word of the Lord. Everything else perishes. “‘All flesh is like grass and its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:24-25). The Word of the Lord abides. It is inspired by God, breathed into the writers, the apostles and prophets, by the Holy Spirit, so that it is absolutely trustworthy, inerrant, God’s pure Word. St. Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Likewise, St. Peter writes that we have “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, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:19-21). Thus the Holy Spirit is the divine Author behind all the various authors of the books of the Bible. This is God’s own Word to us. No wonder it is so effective. This is why the Church does not question or deny any part of God’s Word, but simply believes it and confesses it. This is why we rely on the Word of God alone to teach us the way of salvation, namely, Jesus Christ our Savior. And this is why we rely on the Word of God alone, not the whims of society or the scruples of political correctness, to show us what is good and God pleasing, and what is sinful and an abomination before the Lord. This is why the Word alone can grow the Church, and not our clever man-made gimmicks. Gimmicks may bring people through the front door, but gimmicks cannot bring people to faith. The Holy Spirit brings sinners to faith in Christ their Savior through the Word. It’s the only way. And since the Church is nothing less than holy believers in Jesus Christ, the Word alone can grow the Church. The Church lives by the Word, and we sing with King David: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105).

But there is a truth even more glorious about the Word of God. That is, the Word of God is not just words spoken or words on a page, though it is that. Most importantly, the Word of God is God Himself, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). The Word was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The Word became a Man for us men and for our salvation. The Word through whom all things were created when God spoke, is now flesh and blood, one with His creation. He came down from heaven, and He does not return to the Father empty. He accomplishes the purpose of God, and succeeds in the thing for which the Father sent Him. The Father sends the Son to suffer and die for the sins of the whole world. The Father sends the Son to make atonement for your sins. The Father sends the Son to rescue you from death and hell. The Son accomplishes the purpose of God when He suffers physical torture, hell (which is the forsakenness of God), and death on the cross. For you. In your place. That you may be saved and have eternal life with God. And He was successful in accomplishing your salvation. Therefore God raised Him from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep. God raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to His right hand, to rule all things for His Church. And yet He is not gone. He still comes to us, the Word made flesh, in His Word. And He comes in the flesh, with His true body and blood in the Supper. Wherever there is Baptism and Absolution and Scripture and Preaching and the Lord’s Supper going on, there is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, accomplishing the will of His Father, applying to you the benefits of His cross and death and forgiving all your sins. He is the Gardener, driving away the evil one who seeks to pluck the seed of God’s Word from you, removing the stones and weeding out the thorns, and tilling the soil of your heart to make it into good soil where the Word can take deep root and grow and sprout into saving faith, fruitful with love and every good work.

Indeed, the Word made flesh undoes the very curse of Eden. Remember the curse? In the sin of Adam and Eve, all creation was subjected to futility and now groans as in the pains of childbirth, awaiting the new creation (Rom. 8:20-22). Man has to work the earth by the sweat of his brow for his daily bread, struggling with thorns and thistles until he returns to dust in death (Gen. 3:18-19). But look at what happens in our text when the Word comes down from heaven (Is. 55:12-13). You shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. Not toil. Not enmity. Not death. Joy and peace. And creation? It no longer groans. The very mountains break forth into singing and the trees of the field clap their hands in praise of what the Savior has done. And the thorns and the thistles? Gone! Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle. By a tree, the serpent once led mankind into sin and death. But by the tree of the cross, the serpent has been defeated, and mankind restored along with all creation. The Word ushers us back into the Garden of Eden! You get a foretaste of it every time you eat and drink the fruits of His cross, beloved. For His cross is the tree of life. And one day, Eden will be revealed in all its glory, even more glorious than before, as creation is fully restored to perfection. And you will walk with God and see Him face-to-face and live. You will live because of His wounds, which you will see with your own eyes. Because the Word of God has accomplished His purpose and succeeded in the thing for which He sent it. The Word of God has redeemed you and restored you as God’s own child. God has spoken, and His Word does what He says. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Witness, Mercy, Life Together (Part III)

2011-07-07T08:27:00.003-04:00

Pastor’s Window for July 2011
Witness, Mercy, Life Together (Part III)

Beloved in the Lord,

The third component of our three-fold Synodical emphasis is Life Together, from the Greek word koinonia (κοινωνία), meaning communion, fellowship, close relationship, participation, sharing. This is the common life of the Church, the Body of Christ. We are brought into life together with our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in our Baptism. And so also, in this way, we are united to one another as individual members of Christ’s Body, the Church. This life together, this communion, is expressed most intimately and visibly in the Lord’s Supper, where we are united as brothers and sisters in Christ around the true body and blood of Christ given and distributed for our forgiveness, life, and salvation. When we come to the altar together, we confess that we are one Body, united in our confession of Christ, united in biblical doctrine, united in purpose as we proclaim Christ and Him crucified and extend His hand of mercy in our daily vocations.

Our life together flows from the cross of Christ and the altar of His body and blood into and through the various activities of the Church. It includes not only our Sacramental life, but our worship together, our study of the Word together, our witness and confession of Christ, our works of mercy, our gifts of love, our mutual conversation and consolation, our intercessory prayers (remember, the Church always prays together, even when you pray alone! We always pray Our Father…), and everything that the Church does as the Body of Christ.

Our life together has multiple levels. We confess one, holy, Christian, and apostolic Church that includes the Church of all times and all places. Then there is our life together as a church body within the Body of Christ. The word synod, as in The Lutheran Church – Missoui Synod, comes from the Greek syn (with/ together) + hodos (way), so that the idea of a synod is that we walk the way together with our brothers and sisters in Christ of the same confession. Thus the Missouri Synod is an expression of our life together in doctrine and mission. The Synod, as a collective of congregations, is able to do things that we cannot do individually as congregations, like missions, publishing, relations with other church bodies, universities and seminaries, etc. We also participate as a congregation with other congregations in districts (we are a member congregation of the English District of the LCMS) and at the circuit level (a smaller group of congregations whose pastors meet regularly to discuss doctrine and practice). And at the congregational level, we recognize that together we are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it.

St. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 12: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many… Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (vv. 12-14, 27; ESV).

This also means that every individual is important to the functioning of the Body of Christ in our life together. St. Paul goes on to say, “as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?” (vv. 18-19). No, every member is important and placed where he or she is, in the role he or she has, by God Himself. In fact, “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor… But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (vv. 22-25). We are united in heart and mind and will in such a way that “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (v. 26).

And the point is, of course, that as Christians, we are not just autonomous individuals. We are parts of the whole, members of the Body. You belong to your fellow members of the Body, and they belong to you. In Christ, we are one. That’s why we miss you when you aren’t here on Sunday morning. That’s why we need you here. You’re important to us. You’re important to Christ. So important, He shed His precious blood to redeem you, that you may be His own, and be one with Him and with your fellow believers in our common life together.

Pastor Krenz

Third Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-03T08:25:00.003-04:00

Third Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 9)

July 3, 2011
Text: Zech. 9:9-12; Matt. 11:25-30

The Prophet Zechariah, preaching some 500 years before the birth of Christ, preaches to you today that your King, Jesus, the Savior, comes to you. And this is reason for great rejoicing! The Prophet preaches to the daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem, the holy Christian Church, you, beloved. Your King comes to you. He comes as a righteous King, just in His decrees, and full of justice for His people. Yet He does not come to condemn you in His righteousness, which of course, He could rightly do on account of your sin and rebelliousness. But this King comes having salvation. He comes to save you from your sins, from death, from hell, and from the power of the devil. He comes to suffer and to die in your place, and by His death He makes full atonement for your sins and reconciles you to the Father. He comes in humility, as one of us, God in the flesh, born in a stable, the Son of the Virgin Mary. Everything He does, He does not for Himself, but for you. Everything He speaks, He speaks not for Himself, but for you. He fulfills His ministry in a state of humiliation, only rarely using His divine powers as the Son of God, so that He can suffer unjustly at the hands of sinners, for the sake of sinners, for you. So He comes to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, the Passover Lamb led to the slaughter, for you. Behold, your King.

He does not claim His Kingdom by violence or force. He claims His Kingdom by suffering a violent death. His Kingdom, His precious blood-bought Church, receives the violence of the world, but she does not respond in kind. This King has brought an end to the chariot and the warhorse and the battle bow for His people. The only weapon of this King and this Church is the Word of the Lord, the Word of peace. This King speaks peace to the nations. This King speaks peace to you. He rules in peace over the whole earth, over the whole creation, for you, from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. He rules over all things for the sake of His people. And He comes to bring freedom by the blood of His covenant. In shedding His blood on the cross, the Lord Jesus frees you from the waterless pit of hell. Jesus Himself is your stronghold, your tower, your mighty fortress. Return to Him in repentance over your sins, trusting in Him for help and salvation, with great rejoicing. For He will restore to you double.

Yes, your King declares in our text that He will restore to you double. What does that mean? Remember that in the prophetic preaching the original context is the Assyrian exile of the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom, and the later Babylonian exile of the Southern Kingdom, Judah. In the immediate context Zechariah is proclaiming the joyful return of the exiles to the Promised Land. And He speaks of the coming Messiah who will restore Israel as the chosen people of God. This is a direct prophecy of Christ. When Christ comes, everything that has been taken away from you in exile, and more importantly, everything that has been taken away from you by your fall into sin: your relationship to God, your righteousness, your salvation, your life itself, will be restored to you double. In Christ, God gives you so much more than you’ve lost. He restores to you double. Not only are you restored as God’s people, you are called children of God. Not only are your sins forgiven, you are given the perfect righteousness of Christ. Not only are you restored to the Promised Land, you are given heaven and the sure and certain hope of bodily resurrection from the dead on the Last Day. Not only has death as the wages of sin been defeated, you are given eternal life with God, restored to His image. Not only does Israel come back from exile to inhabit Palestine once again. Messiah comes, the Christ, the Lord Jesus, as the true King of Israel, to lead His people to the true Promised Land of the Father’s Kingdom, and to expand the Israel of God, the chosen nation, the holy Christian Church, to include also the Gentiles, multitudes from every nation, tribe, people, and language, to include you, beloved.

The Lord Jesus fulfills this prophecy as He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of “Hosanna in the Highest! Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord” (cf. Matt. 21 and John 12), and as He sheds the blood of the covenant, the blood to which all the sacrifices of bulls and goats pointed, the blood that cleanses us of all sin. Jesus rides into Jerusalem to die! He sheds His blood and dies for Israel and for all people. He is risen, and lives and reigns to all eternity as the King of Israel, which is not only the physical descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but all who are sons of Abraham by faith, all Christians, all who believe in Jesus Christ. He leads you out of your Babylonian exile in this fallen world and in the kingdom of the devil. He frees you from the waterless pit of hell by His own blood shed on the cross. By Baptism, He makes you, who were not His people, who are Gentiles by birth, who are sinners by the nature of your corrupt flesh, to be His own people, His own possession. It is all by grace. It is all His undeserved mercy and kindness. That your King Jesus comes to you is reason for great rejoicing, indeed.

He came then in the flesh, to do His saving work. But how does He come to you now? He comes to you by revealing Himself to you in His Word. There is no other way to access Him. He does not come in such a way that human wisdom and understanding can comprehend Him. He comes as to little children who believe His Word, precisely because it is His Word. He comes to you in His Word preached and inscripturated. He comes in Absolution spoken in His stead and by His command by His called and ordained servants. He comes in water combined with God’s Word, and in bread and wine that by virtue of His Word are His true body and blood, the very same body and blood of the Word made flesh that was nailed to the cross for your salvation. That is how He comes to you. And He is received by faith. Faith is simply trust in Jesus, trust in His salvation, trust that what He says is true. Faith believes the Word by which your King comes to you. He still comes in humility, though He is now eternally in His state of exaltation, always and fully using His divine powers for you. Still, He comes in humility in this sense: He condescends to you in your weakness and limitation. He comes to you in a way in which you can grasp Him, by words and water and bread and wine. Through these means He comes to you right in the midst of your exile, right in the midst of your weariness and burden bearing, right in the midst of your weakness and the sins of your flesh, your idolatry, your lust, your covetousness. He comes to give you rest, the rest of sins forgiven, the rest of eternal life, the rest of joy in the Lord Jesus.

Notice He still comes in your midst to the shouts of “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!” He comes right to this very altar with His true body and blood to give you His rest. All of this to sustain you in the midst of your exile here in this fallen world of sin and death, to sustain you under the burden of the old sinful nature. For your exile is coming to an end. Christ will come again visibly. And that, also, will be a Day of great rejoicing. Because there is no fear of judgment for you. You are already judged righteous in Christ. That Day is a Day of deliverance for you, a Day when, with great rejoicing, you enter for all eternity the Promised Land of a new heaven a new earth. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!” (Zech. 9:9; ESV). Rejoice and sing, dear Church of Christ, purchased by His blood! Your King comes to you now. And He is coming soon visibly. He gives you His righteousness. He gives you His salvation. It is His free gift. He is your stronghold, O prisoners of hope! He restores to you double. Behold, your King! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

2011-06-26T07:54:00.003-04:00

Second Sunday after Pentecost (A – Proper 8)

June 26, 2011
Text: Jeremiah 28:5-9

Beloved in the Lord, today we begin a new sermon series that will last most of the summer, in which we will concentrate our meditations on the Old Testament lessons each Sunday. There are several reasons for doing this, among them being the fact that we’re just not as familiar with much of the Old Testament literature. We tend to know more about the New Testament. The Season of Pentecost, which is a season of growth for the Church in the Word and in faith and in the Christian life, provides a good opportunity to grow in our understanding of the Old Testament. Also, pastors are charged to deliver the whole counsel of God to their flock (Acts 20:27), and this includes the proclamation of the Old Testament prophets. Finally, and most importantly, by examining the Old Testament lessons, we will see that the whole Bible is about Jesus, that Christ may be found on every page, that Jesus is the whole content of the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments. Jesus Himself says, “You search the Scriptures,” meaning the Old Testament, “because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39; ESV). On the road to Emmaus, before the disciples realized it was the Lord, Jesus demonstrated that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer the cross and so enter into His glory (Luke 24:26), “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures (again, the Old Testament!) the things concerning himself” (v. 27).

So it is that we turn to our text from the Prophet Jeremiah, and happily this very day, June 26th, is the day set aside on the Missouri Synod’s calendar of observances to honor Jeremiah. You can read more about him in the observances section of your bulletin. In our text, we encounter Jeremiah debating with the false prophet, Hananiah. Let’s set the scene by examining the historical context. Babylon, during the reign of the infamous King Nebuchadnezzar, has taken the place of Assyria as the great world power. Babylon, near modern-day Baghdad, has become an expansive empire, a conqueror of nations. And now the armies of Babylon are knocking on Judah’s door. Judah has been unfaithful to her God. She has run after other gods. She has trusted in her own might and in the might of other nations. But Babylon is mightier yet. God has allowed His chosen nation, Judah, to be plundered by the Babylonians as a call to repentance. Babylon has already carried off many exiles. Babylon has already carried off the sacred vessels of the LORD’s house. And King Nebuchadnezzar has already replaced Judah’s King, Jehoiachin, with Zedekiah, who subsequently rebels against Nebuchadnezzar. Now the Babylonians are really mad, and they’re coming to Judah to finish what they started. The LORD is chastising His people, calling them to repentance. He sends His prophet, Jeremiah, to preach Law and Gospel, to call the people to repentance for their sins and idolatry, to call the people to faith in the one true God, YHWH. “Repent, or the Babylonians will destroy you,” Jeremiah preaches. But the people do not repent. They do not like Jeremiah’s preaching. They reject the prophet and his prophecy. You see, they much prefer the preaching of another, Hananiah by name, who assures them that all this doom and gloom preaching is only so much exaggeration. Within two years, Hananiah declares, the LORD will bring back those who have gone into exile, along with the sacred vessels of the Temple (see Jer. 28:3). Within two years, the real King of Judah will be restored and Babylon will never again be a threat (v. 4). Thus says, not the LORD, but the false prophet.

It has always been the case that there are false prophets a-plenty to tickle the fancies and scratch the itching ears of those who want to hear feel-good, patriotic, religious-sounding, spiritually optimistic preaching. Just tune in to a Joel Osteen or a Robert Schuller sermon sometime, and you’ll find that the spirit of Hananiah is alive and well. Sinners want to hear what they want to hear. Sinners do not by nature want to hear the Word of the LORD. Because the Word of the LORD will kill them. The Word of the LORD will kill them for the purpose of making them alive. Beloved in the Lord, the Word of the LORD will kill you, convicting you of your sins, of your idolatries, and pronouncing the whole thing damned. The Word of the LORD will do this, not to leave you in death and hell, but to bring you to repentance, and to drive you to your only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for you and gives you eternal life. This Word of the LORD is hard. You don’t want to hear it. But you need to hear it. Because there is no other way to be saved. The Babylonians are coming. In your case, death, hell, and the devil are coming because of your sin. The only escape is the precious blood of Jesus Christ and the salvation you receive by faith in Him alone.

That is why God sends the Prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah confronts the false preaching of Hananiah in the Temple. “Amen!” he says. Jeremiah wishes it were so. He wishes the optimistic prophecy of Hananiah could be true. “May the LORD do so; may the LORD make the words that you have prophesied come true, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the LORD, and all the exiles” (vv. 6-7). But here’s the problem. That’s not the Word of the LORD. That’s only a hopeful word of man. It is a lie, a deception. The true preaching is this. Babylon is coming. Repent, or you will be destroyed. The people don’t repent. And in 587 BC Jerusalem is leveled, the Temple is utterly destroyed, Judah no longer exists as a nation, and the people are taken into exile in Babylon. It will be 50 years before Jerusalem is rebuilt. False preaching cannot save. False preaching cannot prevent disaster. False preaching offers no lasting or real comfort. False preaching inevitably results in death.

True preaching of God’s Word brings salvation, because it brings Christ. Such preaching isn’t easy to preach, and it isn’t easy to hear, though. Even Jesus points out in the Gospel lesson this morning that true preaching of God’s Word can lead to earthly divisions even between family members. Preachers who proclaim God’s Word in its purity will face opposition from within the Church and persecution from without. Christians who believe and confess God’s Word in its purity will face rejection and mockery on the part of unbelieving family and friends. And you may even someday be called upon to suffer full-fledged persecution, beatings, imprisonment, loss of property, even death for the sake of Christ and His Word. Jesus says, “Whoever finds his life,” namely, by making peace with the unbelieving world, “will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39). You will be persecuted to one degree or another for faithfulness to the Word of God. But it’s worth it. Because Jesus Himself is your reward. He is your life. He is your salvation. And your inheritance is with Him, in heaven. So take up your cross in this life, and follow Jesus. The exile is not forever. The Temple will be rebuilt. Christ is risen. Sin, death, the devil, hell, Babylon is conquered forever.

Jeremiah suffers for proclaiming the truth. He is mocked, scorned, abused, imprisoned, and often threatened with death. But such is his honor for faithfulness to God’s Word. Jeremiah is, in fact, a living picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, who proclaimed the truth and was nailed to the cross for it. Our Lord Jesus was mocked. He was scorned. He was abused and imprisoned and often threatened with death. And when the divinely appointed hour came, He was betrayed into the hands of sinners, Jews and Gentiles, that they might have their way with Him. He suffers and dies at their hands. He suffers and dies at our hands. Because He dies for us. He dies for our forgiveness. He dies not only preaching the truth, but as the Truth made flesh, that we might come to know the Truth and be saved. He dies that we might not perish, but have eternal life. And the reason He can do that is that He knows His vindication is coming. His vindication is that He is risen from the dead, and that His enemies, you, me, and all sinners, enjoy the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That’s why Jeremiah could boldly suffer for his preaching of the Word. That is why you can boldly suffer for believing and confessing the truth of Jesus Christ. Because Christ is risen, and your time of exile in the land of sin and death is coming to an end. You have died with Christ by Baptism into His death. So also, baptized into His resurrection, you have new life now. And on the Last Day, He will raise you from the dead, bodily, even as He is risen, bodily, lives, and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Holy Trinity

2011-06-19T07:38:00.003-04:00

The Holy Trinity (A)

June 19, 2011
Text: Matt. 28:16-20

In the Creed, we confess, “I believe in one God,” yet we go on to say “I believe in… the Father Almighty… And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God… And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son” (Nicene Creed). We are monotheists, believing, teaching, and confessing that there is only one God. And yet we believe, teach, and confess three Persons in the divinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Contemplation of the Holy Trinity is contemplation of that which is incomprehensible. One God, three distinct Persons, the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. Pretty soon we have to bring out the Excedrin. God is mysterious right down to His very essence. Which is to say, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a doctrine to be understood, but a doctrine to be believed. For the God who created us, body and soul; the God who redeemed us by His suffering and death on the cross; the God who sanctifies us and keeps us as His own; this God graciously reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, three Persons. We dare not go beyond what He reveals. We simply believe it and confess it.

This is a rather humbling Sunday. Humbling, because in the article on the Trinity we have to confess our intellectual limitations. Humbling, because we have to be content with not understanding something so mysterious and majestic. Humbling, because we realize that God doesn’t owe us an explanation about everything, not even about His essence. It’s like the child who asks his father, “why?” and the father responds, “because I said so.” God says so, that He is one God, yet three Persons, and that is enough for us. We are not to be so arrogant as to think we understand how this can be. If you think you understand it, you’ve got it all wrong! This makes this Sunday especially humbling for a poor preacher trying to adequately explain the Holy Trinity. There really aren’t even any good illustrations for the Holy Trinity, though many have tried. For example, St. Patrick apparently used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, three leaves on one stem, but even this illustration isn’t entirely adequate. We can more easily say what the Trinity is not. It is NOT the case that God is one person, who sometimes puts on the mask of Father, sometimes the mask of Son, sometimes the mask of Holy Spirit. NOR is it the case that there are really three gods, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each possessing their own divine essence, but working together as one. Both of these are ancient heresies refuted in the Athanasian Creed which we will confess in a few minutes. No, we have one God, who is three Persons. The three Persons are of one essence, yet they are three distinct Persons. How can this be? We can’t answer that. We can only believe and confess what we have been given by God to believe and confess. A humbling Sunday, indeed.

And yet this is a comforting Sunday, because the article on the Trinity is full of comfort for the Christian. God has graciously revealed Himself to us poor sinners. He didn’t have to do that. He could justly have revealed Himself to us only in His wrath. But instead He reveals Himself as God for us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Notice, He has community built (if we can even speak that way!) right into His very essence. The god of the Muslims is all alone, and it is not in the nature of such a god to be in community. So also, the god of the Jews is all alone, unapproachable, appeased only by strict adherence to traditions and laws. But our God, the one true God, is a God of community and communion. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one God. So when we say, along with St. John, that “God is love” (1 John 4:8; ESV), we mean it! He is love within Himself. We certainly love, and love is one of our characteristics, but God is love, because He is essentially in community. The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, and the Father and the Son love and are loved by the Holy Spirit. And so it is only natural that the love of God within God creates a new object of love, you and me. Just as the love of husband and wife begets a new object of love, a child to be loved, so the love of God begets us, His Church, the children of God, the bride of Christ.

It’s not just that God created us. He did, but He also created a lot of other stuff, and He doesn’t call that stuff His child. It is that God creates us to be His own. The love of God is never an abstract idea. God’s love for us is concrete. The Father sends the Son in the flesh to redeem His children who have fallen into sin. The Son is really conceived in a real womb of a real woman, the Virgin Mary. He grows up as a flesh and blood boy from Nazareth. He fulfills the Law of God as an obedient Son. He suffers in a real body, nailed to the real wood of the cross, sheds real blood, and dies a real death. He’s laid in a real tomb. That’s love. Almighty God, the Son, mysterious beyond all comprehension, dies. For you. For me. And then He rises from the dead, victorious over sin, death, and the devil, in His very real body, the same body that died on the cross. Behold, the wounds. They are mortal. Yet He lives.

And we live in Him. Because we are baptized into Him. His death is our death. His resurrection is our life. We’re born dead in sin, but He’s rescued us from sin and death. And though we die physically, He will raise us from the dead, in our bodies, just as He is raised in His body. It all starts at the baptismal font, the act of re-creation, where the Father speaks the Word, His Son Jesus, into the water, and the Holy Spirit is hovering over the waters. There God forms us for Himself and breathes into us the breath of life, His Holy Spirit, so that we believe in Him and come to new life in Him. There He places His Name upon us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that we become His disciples, gathered from all nations into one holy, Christian, and apostolic Church. Notice, “baptizing them in the name (one Name!) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (three Persons!)” (Matt. 28:19). The Name of the Triune God is written on you. You belong to Him. You are the object of His love. He created you. He redeemed you by the blood of Jesus Christ His Son. And now He sanctifies you by keeping you in the one true faith through the teaching, as Jesus says, “teaching them to observe” (again here, the word means to keep, consider, meditate upon, believe, and yes, obey), “all that I have commanded you” (v. 20). And then the promise. Jesus says, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He is with us as the revelation of God in the flesh. He is with us as God for us. He is the God of our salvation, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. And He’s with us in a very real way, in Baptism, in His Word, in the Supper of His body and blood.

So don’t ever think that Holy Trinity Sunday is “too high falutin’ doctrinal” for you. It is humbling, and it’s supposed to be. But it is also of great comfort. God has revealed His Name to you and placed His Name upon you, a Name mysterious beyond all telling. You belong to Him, purchased with His Son’s own blood. You don’t have to wrap your mind around it. You can’t. Just believe it and confess it, and marvel in the mystery of the God who is love, and who loves you. Rejoice that God’s Name is written upon you, and your name is written in the Book of Life, even Jesus Christ our Lord. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Day of Pentecost

2011-06-12T07:28:00.003-04:00

The Day of Pentecost (A)
Confirmation Day

June 12, 2011
Text: Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39

Pentecost, an Old Testament harvest festival fulfilled in our Lord’s New Testament Church as the Holy Spirit is poured out on the disciples in Jerusalem, resulting in a great spiritual harvest by the preaching of the Gospel. The Spirit comes as a mighty rushing wind filling the entire house where the congregation is gathered, and tongues of fire rest on the disciples’ heads as they speak the Gospel in foreign languages they had previously never studied. Beloved, the Spirit still comes today and fills the house where the congregation is gathered. We don’t get to hear and see the spectacular display of power these disciples in the early Church were privileged to witness. We don’t get the mighty rushing wind. There are no tongues of fire over our heads. None of us miraculously begin to speak the Gospel in foreign languages we’ve never before studied. And yet, the Pentecost miracle continues even today. The wind, the fire, the speaking in tongues are not the main things that happen in our text. For after these things, the greater miracles take place, the lasting miracles, the miracles that continue to happen today, even though we don’t recognize them as such. Here is what I mean: Peter stands up and preaches a sermon, Law and Gospel. And he doesn’t just pull it out of thin air or out of his own imagination. He preaches on a text of Holy Scripture, from the Prophet Joel, chapter 2, verses 28-32. We get the first part of his sermon in our text this morning. But as the account continues beyond our text in Acts chapter 2, we learn that the Spirit comes to the hearers through the proclamation of the Word. They are cut to the heart and desperately inquire of Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37; ESV). The Law of God has brought them to a realization of their sin and their lost condition. And Peter responds with the precious words of the Gospel, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (vv. 38-39). So they do. They repent of their sins and come to Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, men and women, adults and children, even infants, for Peter says explicitly here that the promise is for you and your children! And about three thousand souls are added to the Church that day (v. 41). And then they do what you do as members of the Church: “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (v. 42), which is just another way of saying they attended the Divine Service, listening to the Scripture readings and sermons, receiving the Lord’s Supper, and praying the liturgy.

So you see, the miracle of Pentecost continues right up to this very day, in this very place, among you. You may not witness the mighty rushing wind, the tongues of fire, or the speaking of tongues, but you have the greater miracles going on right now: The miracle of preaching, repentance, Baptism, the Communion of Saints, the Lord’s Supper, and the Prayers. It’s just the regular stuff that goes on in the Church. But in every case it is miraculous, because the Spirit is active in these things, bestowing faith in Jesus Christ and strengthening believers to remain steadfast unto the end.

And so finally the Pentecost event is what we celebrate in the rite of Confirmation. Today we rejoice in the Holy Spirit’s work in Curtis Ihle, Hannah Kelsey, Laura Scott, and Hannah Stark. For the Holy Spirit came upon them when they were baptized. They came to faith by water and the Word, and ever since they have lived the life of the Baptized, God’s own child, they gladly say it; gladly hearing and learning the Word; daily repenting of their sins and clinging to the Word of forgiveness in Jesus Christ; participating in the liturgy and the prayers of the Church, singing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; and finally, today, after much prayer and careful study of God’s Word, they join us at the Table of the Lord to receive His true body and blood for their forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is a concrete example of Acts chapter 2 happening right here before your very eyes. It’s a miracle!

It’s a miracle, because just like you and like every other son and daughter of Adam and Eve, the only exception being our Lord Jesus, these four dear children of our congregation were born in utter spiritual blindness, dead, enemies of God. This is called original sin. It means that you are not born a Christian, nor are you born with the ability to become a Christian or make a decision of your own free will to be a Christian. You have no natural inclination toward the one true God. You’re born dead, and you can do everything a dead man can do, which is to say, not a thing! If life is to enter you, if you are to live again and if there is to be spiritual light for you to see and believe, if you are to love God and live in fellowship with Him, this must come from outside of you. And it does. God does not leave you in death. He re-creates you and brings you to new life. What happens at the baptismal font is a re-run of the creation of the world. There you are, dead in your trespasses and sins, and your believing parents, by no choice of your own, bring you to the font, where God the Father speaks His creating Word, the Son, our Lord Jesus into the water. And the Spirit is hovering over the waters, just like at the creation of the world. And by His Word, God breathes His life-giving Spirit into you, just as He breathed the breath of life into Adam, so that now you are no longer dead, but living, no longer blind, but believing (because God has said, “Let there be light!”), no longer enemies of God, but lovers of God, dear children of God who love Him and trust in Him for all things needful. It is the creation miracle and the Pentecost miracle all wrapped into one, happing in real time to ordinary people at ordinary churches throughout the world. And it happened to you.

In just a few moments, these four baptized saints in Christ Jesus, will stand before God and this congregation to make their good confession, to solemnly vow that they would suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from this Christian faith which they have learned from the Scriptures and the Small Catechism. This is serious business, to say that you’d rather die than deny the Savior and His teaching. And it’s a miracle, because as St. Paul writes, “no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). Your confession of Christ is the fruit of your Baptism and a testimony of the Spirit’s work in your heart and mind and soul. The Lord here opens your lips that your mouth may declare His praise and confess His holy Name. This is, in fact, the promise Jesus makes to us in the Gospel lesson this morning. “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive” (John 7:38-39). You see, faith and the Spirit always go together. The Spirit is the One who gives you faith in the first place, so that you believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. And the Spirit is always present in and with faith, so that out of your heart flow rivers of living water, which is to say that the water that flowed from our Lord’s pierced side into the font and over your head now flows through you in the confession of Christ and deeds of love done for the benefit of your neighbor. This is all the work of the Spirit in you. Your confession this morning, your vow to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from your Lord, this is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is Pentecost once again happening before our very eyes. You may not be speaking your confession in foreign languages previously unknown to you, but the tongue with which you speak is just as miraculous. For it is a Spirit-filled word that you speak, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, by His grace and His activity in you. Moses exclaimed in the Old Testament lesson this morning, “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” (Num. 11:29). And Peter quoted the prophet Joel in our text from Acts (2:17), “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Beloved in the Lord, don’t miss the miracle this morning. These Scriptures are fulfilled this day in your hearing.

Preaching, repentance, Baptism, the forgiveness of sins, the Communion of Saints, the breaking of the bread in the Lord’s Supper, the Prayers, all the common, routine stuff of the Church. And all of it, miraculous. In all of it, the Spirit imparts Himself, imparts faith, imparts Jesus, who by His holy, precious blood and innocent suffering and death, restores us to the Father as God’s own dear children. It’s a miracle! Through these means the Lord continues to gather in His Pentecost harvest. Behold, the fruits of the Spirit in these four young Christians who make their good confession this morning. And rejoice as they come with you for the first time to the altar of God, to receive the Lord’s true body and blood. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Witness, Mercy, Life Together (Part II)

2011-06-07T15:28:00.002-04:00

Pastor’s Window for June 2011
Witness, Mercy, Life Together (Part II)

Beloved in the Lord,

The second component of our three-fold Synodical theme is Mercy, tied to the Greek word diakonia (διακονία – from which we get the English word “deacon”), which means service, especially in connection with merciful aid and the distribution of alms. In Acts 6, the apostles appoint seven men as deacons to take care of the distribution to the widows so that the apostles can devote their full time to the ministry of the Word (vv. 1-7). The early Church came up with the idea of hospitals and other charitable institutions established to relieve suffering. Throughout the Church’s history, clergy and congregational leaders have distributed alms to those in need. Only in very recent times in the West has responsibility for the work of mercy been transferred from the Church to the state. Though the Word is primary, mercy has always accompanied the preaching of the Word in the holy Christian Church. This is so because the preaching of the Word produces faith, which is always living, busy, and active in good works for the benefit of the neighbor.

The Church’s mercy toward those in need flows from the mercy of God poured out on us in Christ Jesus. The Lord beheld our great need, enslaved to sin and condemned to death and hell, and He acted in mercy. He sent His Son to suffer the punishment for our sins, in our place, and to take our death and hell upon Himself, that we might have eternal life. And the Lord continues to act in mercy. He graciously forgives our sins each day on account of Christ, and grants us His Holy Spirit, who bestows and strengthens faith in Christ through the blessed gifts of God’s Word and Sacraments. He also gives us all that we need for this bodily life, defends us against all danger, and guards and protects us from all evil. “All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in [us]” (1st Article of the Creed, Luther’s Small Catechism). And so, as God generously pours out His mercy upon us, our cup overflows in mercy toward our neighbor.

This mercy is concrete. St. John writes, “let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18; ESV). Mercy is not just having good thoughts about someone, not just saying “I’ll pray for you” (though we should do that as well!), but concrete deeds done for the benefit of our neighbor, the relief of our neighbor’s suffering, the promotion of our neighbor’s welfare. If our neighbor is in need, and we can fill that need, we should do so. If our neighbor is suffering, and we can relieve that suffering, we should do so. If we have an opportunity to do some good for our neighbor, even when he is not in need, we should do so. We should take every occasion to enrich our neighbor in body and soul. Why? Because that is what our Lord has done for us. He has filled our need, relieved our suffering, and enriched us in every way. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. His mercy endures forever. And He does not base His mercy on our worthiness. Neither should we base our mercy on the worthiness of our neighbor. We have mercy because our cup overflows with God’s mercy. And in this way we are privileged to be the merciful hands of God in the world, a little christ to our neighbor. God has mercy on our neighbor through our works of mercy!

St. Paul says to us: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10). Opportunities for mercy abound in our congregation. This is not a complete list, but here are just a few examples: our Good Samaritan Alms Box, located in the narthex, is always in need of funds. 100% of gifts given to the Good Samaritan fund go to someone in need. Our Food Truck is always in need of volunteers and financial donations. In this way, we are the hands of God in feeding our neighbors in need. There are opportunities for volunteer work at Project Hope, and they are always in need of donations of food and pantry items, and items for their thrift store. Other opportunities for mercy include special free-will offerings for various agencies, collections for Lakeshore Pregnancy Center, the seminary food co-op, our LWML collection for Christmas gifts and food baskets, appeals for help in times of natural disaster (especially with the work of LCMS World Relief and Human Care), various servant events, as well as any number of private opportunities to help a brother or sister in need. Do this in secret, and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matt. 6:1-4)! There are other opportunities for mercy outside of our congregation. In addition to the many secular opportunities, look at the many possibilities at our Synod’s website, www.lcms.org.

So beloved, serve with great joy, and be God’s hands of mercy in the world. And bask in the merciful love of God which has no end.

Pastor Krenz

Seventh Sunday of Easter

2011-06-05T07:31:00.003-04:00

Seventh Sunday of Easter (A)

June 5, 2011
Text: John 17:1-11

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

Jesus prays for His Church. We get a glimpse into Jesus’ prayer for His Church, for you, in what is known as the High Priestly prayer, the whole of the 17th Chapter of St. John’s Gospel. Jesus prays, for the hour has come, the divinely appointed hour, which is to say, the time for Jesus to suffer and be crucified for the sins of the world. Jesus prays that His heavenly Father would now glorify Him, glorify the Son. And in John’s Gospel, Jesus is glorified when He is lifted up on the cross for the salvation of the world. In this way, Jesus, the Son of God, also glorifies the Father, for this is what the Father sent Him to do. The Father gives the Son authority over all flesh, that He may give life to the world. Of course, as God, the Son has always had this glory and authority with the Father, even from all eternity. But now the Father bestows this glory and authority on the Son according to His human nature, because since the incarnation, you cannot separate the natures of Jesus. He is always God and He is always man, in one indivisible Person. And in this personal union of the divine and human natures of Jesus, our human flesh is glorified. God is one of us! He is flesh and blood! And He suffers in that flesh and sheds that blood to pay for the sins of the world and redeem us for Himself. Jesus prays for His Church. And the first thing He prays is that the Father would nail Him… to the cross. His glory is manifested in His weakness and suffering and death for the life of the world. By His death, beloved, you have life. The Father sent Him for this very purpose.

Indeed, Jesus is the revelation of the Father’s heart toward you, His love for you, and His saving will for you. Thus Jesus has manifested the divine Name to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Name placed upon you in your Baptism. God’s Name is on you. You belong to God. And here we come to the mysterious and comforting doctrine of election, that God has chosen you from all eternity to come to faith in Jesus Christ and receive eternal life. For Jesus says of those to whom He has manifested the Name of God: “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word” (John 17:6; ESV). God has chosen you as His own from all eternity, and He has given you to Jesus to be His disciple. You have been redeemed by the Savior’s blood. You belong to Him. He purchased you. And He has called you by the Gospel. You have kept His Word, which as we learned last week, means that you hear it, take it to heart, meditate upon it, believe it, and observe it. But that comes only after the fact that you belong to the Father, who has given you to the Son. Notice that it is God who makes you a Christian. He makes you a Christian precisely through the revelation of His Name and His Word in His Son Jesus Christ, by which the Holy Spirit creates faith in you. Jesus says, “I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (v. 8). The Father gives you to the Son, who gives you the words of the Father, by which you come to know intimately and believe that Jesus is your Savior, sent by the Father to redeem you by His glorious death and resurrection, to make you the Father’s own child.

Jesus prays for His Church, that you be kept in the Word and in the Name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the fellowship of the Triune God. In other words, He prays that you be kept in your Baptism. He prays that you be kept, that He continue to be glorified in you by your faith and love and good works (v. 10). And understand, this is not just a one-time prayer on the part of Jesus. This is not confined to the prayer recorded here on the night He was betrayed, as He reclined around the table with the apostles in the upper room. This is Jesus’ continual prayer for the Church. For even now, as our risen and ascended Lord, as He sits at the right hand of the Father, Jesus prays for His Church. He is our High Priest who continually makes intercession for us. The High Priestly prayer recorded in John 17 is just a little glimpse into what Jesus continually prays for His Church. Beloved, Jesus prays for you! And how could God ever deny His prayer? When God prays to God, the Son to the Father, God cannot deny the prayer! Jesus prays that you be kept in His Name and His Word and His death and resurrection. Amen! So let it be done! Yes, yes, it shall be so!

This prayer is so necessary because Jesus is no longer in the world in such a way as to be visible to the naked eye. He has ascended to the Father and sits at the Father’s right hand. He is now, even according to His human nature, glorified with the glory He had with the Father according to His divine nature from all eternity (v. 5). But for this reason, we can’t see Him with our eyes. We see Him, rather, by faith where He is truly and bodily present with us, where He has promised to be, in His Word where He continues to reveal the Name of God, in Baptism where He places that Name upon you, in the Holy Supper where He feeds you with His true body and blood. Jesus knows, though, that seeing Him by faith alone, and not by sight, is hard in this fallen world. Because in this fallen world, you have the temptations of the devil and your own sinful flesh to contend with, not to mention a world full of unbelievers who are hostile to Christ and His Christians, who mock you for your faith in Christ and belief in the Scriptures, who seek to convince you that your Lord’s Word is untrue, who reject you when you hold so tenaciously to the Savior. Who knows, you may even have to suffer real persecution someday for the sake of the Name, maybe even imprisonment, maybe even death. But understand that just as our Lord Jesus Christ is glorified in His suffering and death for you, so He is glorified in you when you suffer for His sake. When you suffer for Him, rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matt. 5:11-12). But of course, when you suffer, and as you continue to struggle in this life with the devil and with your sinful flesh, what a great comfort to know that Jesus prays for you. He prays that God would keep you even in suffering, even through suffering, even in times of temptation, even in spite of your sins and your sinful flesh, in the Name, by the Word, as the Father’s own dear child. Jesus prays for His Church.

What great comfort! At all times, in all circumstances, Jesus prays for you! How comforted you are when a brother or sister in Christ tells you that they’re praying for you, and rightly so! How much more comforted you are, then, when you recall that Jesus Himself is praying for you! When you sin, Jesus prays for you, that the Father would forgive you for the sake of His Son’s blood and death, and that the Father would restore you in repentance and faith by His Spirit. When you suffer the holy cross, Jesus prays for you, that you be preserved in your time of tribulation, that you not fall from faith, but be strengthened to persevere. When God blesses you with times of prosperity and joy, Jesus rejoices, and He prays for you, that you give thanks to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit, acknowledging God as the Giver of all good gifts, and that you not become presumptuous or arrogant on account of His blessings. And when you stand at death’s door, Jesus prays for you, that the devil be kept at bay, that you persevere by God’s grace unto the end, that Jesus may receive you face to face into the joy of His Father, with open arms and pierced hands, to enjoy with Him His heavenly glory. Jesus prays for His Church. Jesus prays for you. And of course now, even according to His human nature, He has authority to give you life. For He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Ascension of Our Lord

2011-06-01T13:47:00.003-04:00

The Ascension of Our Lord (observed)

June 1, 2011
Text: Acts 1:1-11; Eph. 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

We often live and act as if, in the Ascension of our Lord, Jesus has left the building, as if He is no longer present with us in any real way (only “in spirit,” which really means not present at all), as if we’re left on our own to muddle through this earthly life as best we can with whatever scraps He’s left to us in the Bible, and primarily with our own resources, our own reason and strength. We live and act as if Christ is confined in some sort of heavenly prison, at least in His body. This is the official theology of much of Christendom. And for all practical purposes, many Lutherans adopt this theology as well, as if Jesus is somewhere up there, and we’re down here, and in this earthly life, never the twain shall meet. This, dear friends in Christ, is to entirely misunderstand the meaning of our Lord’s ascension. Rather, in His ascension and session at the right hand of the Father, our Lord Jesus now fills all things and is present with His Church in His body, for in His incarnation at Christmas (His taking on of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary), He is no longer only spirit. Jesus is a flesh and blood God!

The Church confesses that 40 days after our Lord’s bodily resurrection from the dead, He bodily “ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” (Apostles’ Creed). We confess this in all three creeds. We confess this because it is clearly revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. And it means something for us and for our salvation. Our Lord doesn’t ascend into heaven so as to twiddle his thumbs until it’s time to come back on the Last Day. He ascends into heaven for the purpose of sitting at the right hand of the Father where He rules all things for the benefit of His Christians. This is the three-fold Kingdom you learned about in Catechism class: The Kingdom of Power, His rule over all things in the whole universe, seen and unseen, even over the devil and the demons; the Kingdom of Grace, which is the holy Christian Church on earth, the Church militant, which He rules by His Word; and the Kingdom of Glory, the holy Christian Church in heaven, the Church triumphant. And let us note with great care that He ascended bodily and sits at the right hand of the Father in His body. Our flesh is fallen and corrupt in the sin of Adam, but now it has been exalted and perfected in the flesh of our new Adam, Jesus Christ. His human flesh has been exalted to God’s right hand. That means that humanity itself has been exalted. And He goes to prepare a place for us (John 14:2-3), for where He has gone, we will go. We, too, are given a place in heaven, a place not just for our souls, but for our bodies in the resurrection. As God and Man, two natures in one person, our ascended Lord is our Mediator with God, our Advocate. He prays for us. The Father hears Him. The Father hears us for His sake. And our ascended Lord sends His Spirit who calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, gathers us into the Church, sanctifies us, and keeps us in the one true faith of Jesus Christ.

But all of that doesn’t mean Jesus has left the building. Far from it. He has not left us! In fact, He has promised to be with us always, to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20). And where Jesus is, He is there in His whole person. Jesus is one person with two natures, divine and human. But we dare never divide Him into two persons, as if there are two Jesuses, one divine and one human. He is never with us strictly according to His divine nature, anymore than He could ever be with us strictly according to His human nature. Ever since the incarnation, wherever the Son of God is, He is there as God and Man. That means that Jesus promises to be with you in His body. And this is so important, because a god who is not flesh and blood, a god who is so above you and removed from you, is finally not helpful to your salvation. He is either the God of Christianity, who is one with you, and you are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, thus He intimately cares for you, or He is the god of all the other religions, Islam for example, a god who is not love, who would never become one with you, a god whose favor you must earn.

But that’s not Jesus. Jesus is one with you in the flesh. He conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. In the flesh. And He gives Himself in the flesh. He gives Himself to death in the flesh on the cross, the punishment for your sins, that you might be forgiven. He suffers hell in the flesh, that you may be set free. He is buried in the flesh, sanctifying your grave as a bed of peaceful rest. He has been raised in the flesh, that you may awaken in your own flesh, fully healed of sin and all that ails you on the Last Day. So He ascended and is seated at the right hand of God in the flesh, where He continues to be present with you in the flesh, bodily washing you with His own blood in Baptism, really speaking to you in His Word, really forgiving you in Absolution, and giving His very body and blood to you in the Supper. His flesh is for the life of the world (John 6:51). Our texts this evening don’t say that Jesus has gone away in such a way that He is no longer present. No, a cloud has taken Him away from our sight (Acts 1:9). But He is not gone. He is with us, as He promised. He is with us right where He has promised to be. Don’t stand there like fools gazing up into heaven, as if He’s however many trillions of miles that direction, up in the sky. Look where He’s promised to be for you, really present, in His body, God and Man. Go to His Word and Baptism and the Supper. He’s present right here in the midst of His Church in His gifts, as St. Paul writes, He has been given “as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23; ESV).

Of course, He will come back visibly on the Last Day. He will not be removed from our sight forever. Then we will see Him eternally with our own eyes. But even now we see Him by faith in the means of grace. So we can live and act as if He’s right here, because He is right here, delivering forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation. And this, beloved, is cause for great rejoicing. “God has gone up with a shout” (Ps. 47:5). But He has not left us. He takes us with Him in His bodily exaltation. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

2011-05-29T07:17:00.002-04:00

Sixth Sunday of Easter (A)

May 29, 2011
Text: John 14:15-21

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

Our Lord says to us this morning, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15; ESV). It makes sense. If you love the Lord Jesus, you will want to do what He says, both to please Him, and because you know that if He commanded it, it must be good for you. But there is a problem. You don’t keep His commandments. Even as a Christian, you try to keep them, you want to keep them, but as St. Paul says of himself in Romans 7, you do not do what you want to do (Rom. 7:15). The old sinful flesh continues to get in the way, and again and again you fall into sin. It’s very frustrating. And then a terrible thought enters your mind… Does this mean you don’t love Jesus? You begin to question your own heart, because you know after all that your heart is deceitful. “I think I love Jesus… don’t I? But I don’t keep His commandments. I try, but I fail. Maybe I don’t love Him.” Beloved in the Lord, recognize these thoughts for what they are… Lies of the devil! The devil is great at quoting Scripture to his own advantage. He knows the Bible better than you do. And he is very good at twisting it, taking what happens to be quite true from the Scriptures, and turning it against you to lead you to doubt and despair. Of course you love Jesus. How can you not love Him after all that He has done for you, giving His very life into death for you after suffering all the torments of the holy cross and hell itself, in your place? He is risen, and He continues to give Himself to you as He comes among you here in His gifts in the holy Church. Of course you love Him. But it is true, your fallen flesh continues to drag you down into sin. You do not keep His commandments. And for this, for these many and grievous sins, you are heartily sorry and sincerely repent of them. That godly sorrow, of course, is a fruit of your love for the Lord Jesus. So don’t let the devil misinterpret this text for you and thus lead you to despair. It is rather imperative that you gain a right understanding of this text so that you can revel in the treasures your Lord here presents to you in His Word.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But don’t stop reading there. Take careful note of what Jesus promises in the very next verse. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper” (v. 16). Paraclete is actually the word, and it can mean Helper, Comforter, Counselor, Advocate, and really all of the above together. Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit. Because if you are to keep His commandments, or even begin to desire to keep His commandments, this must come from the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. Jesus is promising Pentecost here, which we will celebrate on June 12th, which for us is also Confirmation Day. And Jesus is here promising that you also, in your Baptism and in hearing the Word of God and in the Holy Supper, will receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus asks the Father, who sends the Holy Spirit through the Son. It is a Trinitarian action. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. He is the Spirit of truth (v. 17), and will guide you into all truth (16:13), ever pointing you to Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life (14:6), your only Savior. The world cannot receive the Holy Spirit, because they are unbelieving. But you believe. You have been given faith by the Holy Spirit, and you receive the Holy Spirit by that Spirit-given faith through the divinely appointed means of such reception, the Word of God and the visible Word of God, the holy Sacraments. By these means of grace you know the Spirit, and He dwells with you and in you (v. 17). He calls you to faith by the Gospel, enlightens you with His gifts, sanctifies (which is to say, makes you holy) and keeps you in the one true faith of Jesus Christ. He daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers, and He will raise you up to eternal life on the Last Day. That is what Jesus promises the Spirit will do and is even now doing.

So if you are to demonstrate your love for Jesus Christ by keeping His commandments, you must have the Holy Spirit, whom the Father pours out on you through the Son in your Baptism and in the other means of grace. It is important, also, however, to understand what is meant by the word “keep,” as in “you will keep my commandments.” This doesn’t mean simply to obey the commandments, but to hear, heed, honor, observe, consider, meditate upon, believe, and yes, put into practice. And not just the Ten Commandments summed up by Jesus’ admonitions to love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30-31), but the whole instruction of the Lord, the whole Word of God, Law and Gospel. Through which Word alone, by the way, the Spirit of God works, not because He couldn’t work otherwise, but because He has graciously tied Himself to the Word, to the means of grace, so that you can always know where to find Him, and always know how to discern between the Holy Spirit and other, sinister spirits.

We sang in the Introit: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105). That is because through the Word of God the Holy Spirit enlightens us so that we believe in Jesus, love Him, and actually begin to do what He commands. We prayed in the collect that by God’s inspiration (literally His putting the Spirit into us) we may think those things that are right and by His merciful guiding accomplish them. Having been forgiven of all our sins in thought, word, and deed, we now pray that our thoughts, words, and deeds may be right, righteous, sanctified, made holy. We are not forgiven or saved by our good works, but we are always concerned to be doing good works and putting sin to death within us. We are saved by faith alone, but faith is never alone. It is always active in love and good works. It is always returning to Baptism to put the old sinful flesh to death.

Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The Christian’s keeping of the commandments comes not from fear of punishment, but from love. And this love comes from faith. For Jesus’ words here are not a threat, but a promise. If you love Jesus, you will keep His commandments. He will make it so. So you see, sanctification, too, is by grace alone. It is God’s gift to us, God’s action in us. It is a gift given and nourished in God’s Word and Sacraments. You come to church to be forgiven all your sins. But you also come to be strengthened in your Christian life. Because by the gifts of Christ, the Lord frees you from sin, from damnation, from the threats and punishments and compulsion of the Law. He frees you to love. He frees you to keep the commandments according to that same love. It is the love of God poured out on you and flowing through you in concrete good works. Now, you will never do this perfectly in this earthly life, as you well know. Again, this is because you always have the sinful flesh to contend with, which you continually need to crucify. But don’t let that stop you. Remember, Jesus died for you. All your sins are forgiven! Christ is risen. You have eternal life! All of this is by grace, without works, received by faith alone. So now you’re free to go do works without worrying about whether they are perfect (because they’re not!), or rightly motivated (because they’re not!), or whether they please God (they do, not because they’re so wonderful, but because they are the fruit of faith). Just go out with joy and serve your neighbor in love. Just rejoice that you are a child of God, and live the life of a child of God. That is what the forgiveness of sins does for us. It frees us from bondage. To forgive actually means to release. You’re released, freed from all bondage, when Jesus forgives you your sins. What a marvelous life of freedom and joy the Lord has given to us.

And He is with us in this Christian life. He does not leave us as orphans; He comes to us in His blessed Word and Sacraments (John 14:18). The world no longer sees Him, because His visible presence has been removed from us in His ascension into heaven. But He is still with us, just as present with us as He was in His visible earthly ministry. Now we see Him by faith. He is in the Father, and we are in Christ, and Christ is in us (v. 20). His Spirit is in us and moves us to keep His commandments. The Christian life is that life in which God is active in His Christians. And this is a gift bestowed by the Father in love, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Of course you love Jesus. Don’t let the devil tell you otherwise. You love because He first loved you (1 John 4:19), and gave Himself for you, that you might be God’s own child. You love Him, but more importantly, He loves you and has redeemed you by His death. But He is not dead. He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! And that means you are not left in death. You have eternal life now, a life of love and the sanctification of the Spirit. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

2011-05-22T08:03:00.002-04:00

Fifth Sunday of Easter (A)

May 22, 2011
Text: John 14:1-14

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

“Let not your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1; ESV). Believe in God. Believe in Jesus. There is much that troubles your heart in this fallen, sin-filled world. Your heart has been broken. You have felt abandoned. You have felt alone. And you have wondered where God is in the midst of all that troubles you. You have wondered about the way to God. In other words, doubts have plagued you. You have said to yourself, “If only… If only I had more money, if only I had a different job (or any job), if only I were younger, or older as the case may be, or retired, or had married someone else… If only (you fill in the blank), that would be sufficient for me. Then I would be set. Then I would be at peace. Then I would know God loves me.” You are not unlike the disciples in the upper room on the night Jesus was betrayed. Jesus was going away. He had clearly indicated that He would be betrayed by one of them, handed over to suffer and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. The disciples did not understand. The mood was somber. Their hearts were troubled. Jesus said to them what He also says to you this morning: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

Jesus is the answer for your troubled heart. Now, I suppose that isn’t very surprising coming from me. The answer is patently obvious. And yet, like Thomas and Philip and the other disciples, how quickly you forget, how quickly you begin to doubt. That is why Jesus speaks His comforting and enlivening Word to you, to remind you and to give and strengthen your faith. When your heart is troubled, when it seems as though God has abandoned you, as though Jesus has gone away in spite of His promise to be with you always, to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20), when you are in the midst of Good Friday and the Holy Cross, you need the Word of Jesus Christ, His comfort, His promises. He goes to prepare a place for you in His Father’s house, a place of heaven and of resurrection. He is coming back to get you, to take you out of this vale of tears that so troubles your heart, that you may dwell with Him and with His heavenly Father in eternal joy. In Jesus, you know the way, for He is Himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and in Him you come to the Father and know the Father as your Father. For in Jesus, you know that you have a gracious God. Jesus reveals the heart of the Father toward you. God loves you, wants you for Himself, and has given His only-begotten Son to die for you, that believing in Him, you may not perish, but have eternal life.

Thomas’ heart is troubled. He is afraid he does not know the way to where Jesus is going to prepare a place for him. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’” Thomas, don’t you see? Jesus is the way, the road, the path to salvation, to heaven, to the Father’s house and the Father’s heart. He reveals Himself to you as the way to the Father, as the Word made flesh, for He is the truth, truth in the flesh. He cannot lie. Other things are true, but Jesus is the Truth! And He is the life. Because He is not just a man. He is God. And it is God’s essence to give life. All life is from God. Jesus is God and man in one person. He bestows life by His suffering and death for the forgiveness of all your sins, by His resurrection from the dead whereby He wins the victory over the grave once and for all, and He distributes this gift of life in His Word and in His Sacraments. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. And this claim is exclusive. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” There are no other ways, no other paths of salvation. You only get to heaven through Jesus Christ. By faith alone. Not by works. Not by other gods. Not by being “a basically good person.” Christ alone. But this is good to know. Because if you have Jesus, you have salvation. And more than that, you have the truth, and you know that anything that conflicts with Jesus and His Word is not the truth. And you have life. You have eternal life. For your sins are forgiven, and Jesus has prepared a place for you in the Father’s house. Put away your politically correct notions about how these exclusive claims are so intolerant and unloving and arrogant. Those notions are not helpful. The answer to your troubled heart, and St. Thomas’ troubled heart, is Jesus: The Way, the Truth, the Life.

Philip’s heart is also troubled. Fine, Jesus, you’re the way, but just give us a little peek into the divine mysteries so that we can be assured. I mean, you’re asking us to stake our eternal lives on believing in you. “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (v. 8). But Philip, have you been with Jesus so long and still you don’t know Him, still you don’t understand? You’ve seen the Father… In the revelation of His heart toward you in Jesus Christ. To be sure, the Son is not the Father. They are two distinct persons in the Holy Trinity. But the Son is of one substance with the Father. They are one and the same God, along with the Holy Spirit. Three persons, one God. And Jesus is the revelation of that God’s heart, that God’s intention toward us, His creatures. If you know Jesus, you know the Father. Intimately. He is your Father, who loves you and sends His Son to rescue you and reconcile you by His suffering and death. Understand that everything Jesus does and everything Jesus speaks is by the will of the Father. The works of Jesus are the works of the Father, for the Father sent Jesus to do the works. The Words of Jesus are the Words of the Father, for the Father sent Jesus as the Word made flesh. That is why we preach Jesus, and Him crucified. Because in preaching Jesus, we preach the Father. Without Jesus, God is not your Father. He may be your Creator, but not your Father outside of Jesus. Outside of Jesus, you must deal with the naked God who, in His righteousness, cannot abide sin, who hates sin and (get ready for it, you’re not going to like this) hates sinners. And yet, in His divine wisdom and eternal will, He has decided to love sinners. This is the great mystery of God. This is grace, God’s undeserved kindness. He has decided to love you and make you His own. So He must reconcile you to Himself. He must do something about your sin. Never think that sin is something God just winks at or sweeps under the rug. If God is just, He must do something about it in justice. And He does. He sends His Son. He punishes His Son. He meets out justice on His Son. For you. In your place. And by virtue of His Son’s sin-atoning work, you are given to be sons of God, heirs of the promise, the Kingdom of God. Because by Baptism into Christ, you are God’s own child. This is why salvation is so exclusive: No one comes to the Father except by Jesus. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life. Because He alone has paid for our sins and reconciled us to the Father. God is our Father because of Jesus, the only-begotten Son of the Father. The Father works through the Son to make it so.

And if that is so, that you are a son of the Father (yes, a son, man or woman, a son, the heir, the inheritor of all of your Father’s good things), then your heart no longer need be troubled. Jesus is the answer. He has gone to the cross to prepare a place for you in the Father’s house. And now He is with you always, bringing you to that place He has prepared. You know the way. Jesus is the way. He has answered Thomas’ question, and yours. And you have seen the Father, because seeing Jesus by faith, you see the Father as your loving heavenly Father who sent His Son for you. Jesus has fulfilled Philip’s petition and yours. And whatever else there is that troubles your heart, ask the Father in Jesus’ Name, and He will answer. Ask, and you will receive. Ask, and He will do it. In His time. According to His perfect will, which is always for your good. According to His wisdom, which may seem foolishness to you at the time, but is beyond anything you could ever ask or imagine.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe in Jesus. No more “if onlys!” Only Jesus, His Word, His body and blood, can calm your troubled heart. In Jesus, you know the Father’s heart. God is for you. And if God is for you, who or what can be against you? You have not been abandoned. You are not alone. Not even in the midst of Good Friday and the Holy Cross. Jesus is sufficient. He will never leave you or forsake you. He is here, right here and right now, speaking with you and feeding you. And He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Witness, Mercy, Life Together (Part I)

2011-05-19T11:33:00.002-04:00

Pastor’s Window for May 2011
Witness, Mercy, Life Together (Part I)

Beloved in the Lord,

With our Synod’s new three-fold emphasis on “Witness, Mercy, Life Together,” and with our new banner of the same theme (a gift for the congregation purchased with Zeb Hempen’s memorial money), perhaps it will be helpful to consider each of these emphases individually. This month we consider Witness.

Witness is a translation of the Greek word martyria (μαρτυρία), from which we get the English word “martyr.” The word means “testimony,” a historical and legal term. One who witnesses testifies to what they have seen or experienced. When we speak of Christian witness, we mean the testimony that a Christian gives about Jesus and what He has done for us and for our salvation. We are speaking of our Christian confession of Christ. Of course, when we call ourselves witnesses, we recognize that we cannot be witnesses in the same technical sense that the first Christians were witnesses. A “witness” in the technical, Scriptural sense is one who has physically witnessed Jesus Christ to be alive after the resurrection. Relatively speaking, only a very few of the vast numbers of Christians who have ever lived are in this sense “witnesses.” But what we cannot see with our physical eyes, we see by faith through the Holy Scriptures and the Sacraments. In these means of grace, we actually encounter the risen Christ, who really speaks to us in Scripture and preaching, really washes us in Baptism, really forgives our sins in Holy Absolution, and really feeds us with His true body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. So in this sense, we, too, are witnesses, and we are called to testify, to confess Christ to the world, beginning with those among whom God has placed us in our daily vocations.

Needless to say, the idea of “witness” is a key component of what it means to be the Christian Church. The Church is called to proclaim Christ. Our risen Lord Jesus declares to the apostles, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8; ESV). He commands His apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). Witness leads to discipleship, which is accomplished through Baptism and teaching. Our Lord further commands, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16). Witness happens in the preaching and catechesis (teaching) of the Church, through which the Holy Spirit grants faith. Witness continues in the sacramental life of the Church. The Spirit makes disciples/witnesses in Baptism, and as St. Paul says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).

Of course, the Holy Spirit is responsible for the results of our witness, whether the person we witness to comes to faith. We are simply called to testify. “(I)n your hearts honor 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” (1 Peter 3:15). And we are to do so no matter what the consequences. Remember, “witness” is a translation of martyria, from which we get the English word “martyr.” Witness can lead to martyrdom. The martyrs, those who have suffered and died for the faith, bear the ultimate witness to Christ. “I will also speak of your testimony before kings and shall not be put to shame” (Ps. 119:46). “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11-12). The Holy Spirit has already taught you what you should say. You know the Creed. You know the faith from attending church and Sunday School. That is what you should say. And you can take the consequences, knowing that when the world persecutes you, you are blessed (Matt. 5:11). “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (v. 12).

It is a great privilege to be a witness of Christ. Because in Baptism you bear the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are a living witness of Jesus Christ wherever you go. The “Witness, Mercy, Life Together” banner will remind us of this every time we see it.

Blessed Easter!
Pastor Krenz

Fourth Sunday of Easter - Good Shepherd Sunday

2011-05-15T08:15:00.002-04:00

Fourth Sunday of Easter (A)
Good Shepherd Sunday

May 15, 2011
Text: John 10:1-10

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

Too many voices. There are so many voices in the world, in society, even in the Church, vying for our attention, trying to get into our heads and plant the seeds of their teaching, whether for good or evil. For example, there is the ever-expanding media, no longer just newspaper, radio, and television, no longer just the Big Three networks, but countless channels, the internet, blogs, social media, podcasts, a barrage of voices that even assault us on the tiny phones we all carry around, texting, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook. Many of us are connected. Some pridefully boast that they are not connected to any of these things. But don’t let this become your standard of self-righteousness. Technology is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It is the use or abuse of technology that determines whether it is bane or blessing. And there is no denying that such technology can overwhelm us. Why? Because of the voices, all saying different things, all seeking to influence you in the battle for your mind and heart. Which, by the way, is a spiritual battle, waged not just by human beings, but by unseen spiritual forces of good and evil.

Don’t be fooled. There is no such thing as an unbiased media, and this goes far beyond the realm of politics, the Kingdom of God’s Left hand. Understand that every time you open up a book, the author and the publishers are seeking to shape your mind and heart. Every time you watch a television show or movie, the writers, directors, and producers are seeking to shape your mind and heart. The same is true of the news media, of bloggers, even of musicians. Again, it’s not all bad, but you need to know going in that this is what is happening. You need to discern the voices. I’m not suggesting that you should cut yourself off from the world. I’m not suggesting you should avoid all media. That would be a Law answer to the problem, not a Gospel answer to the problem. And it would never work. Nor is it ever suggested in the Bible. If anything, it would become another source of self-righteousness. What I am suggesting… in fact, stating as a fact for your Christian life, is that the answer to this problem is Jesus, and His voice, really speaking to you in His Word. Because the voice of Jesus will shed light on all the voices that are not Jesus. Beloved, you need to be discerning. And only the voice of Christ in His Word can give you the gift of such discernment. Of course, not everything that claims to be moral, or appeals to your fallen heart as moral, is, in fact, moral. But more importantly, not everything that claims to be Christian, or appeals to your fallen heart as Christian, is, in fact, Christian. Wolves appear in sheep’s clothing. Jesus warned us about that: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15; ESV). That means that the wolves, the false teachers, appear to be sheep, Christians, and so we can easily be taken in by them. In our Gospel lesson, Jesus calls these wolves, these false teachers, “thieves and robbers” (John 10:1). And the aim of the false teachers is clear: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (v. 10). But Jesus’ aim is different. In fact, it is the polar opposite. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (v. 10). What we see here is the profound difference between all the unfaithful shepherds in this world, and the Good Shepherd, Jesus.

You see, then, that in the mélange of voices vying for our attention, there is only one voice to which we should listen, the voice of our Savior Jesus Christ. For only His voice brings life in abundance. As our Good Shepherd, He cares for the sheep. He keeps us safely in the sheepfold, the holy Christian Church. In the parable Jesus tells this morning, He is the Good Shepherd who enters through the narrow door. The Father is the Gatekeeper who opens the door immediately for the Shepherd. The thieves and robbers are the false teachers, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and all the sectarians and false religionists of today and throughout history. Jesus protects us from these by becoming the door of the sheepfold. “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep… I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (vv. 7, 9). The Shepherd becomes the door of the sheepfold by laying Himself down in front of it. Jesus lays Himself in front of the door in death. He sacrifices Himself for the sake of the sheep. He gives Himself into the hands of the thieves and robbers, that the sheep may go free. He does this because He loves His sheep. He loves those who are His own, even unto the death of Him. And then He rises again for the sake of His sheep. The sheep find life and immortality in their crucified and risen Shepherd.

So we must follow no other voice. The voice of the Shepherd, Jesus, brings life. All other voices bring death. There is no substitute for the voice of Jesus. Therefore we have to discern among the voices. And how do we do that? How do we know if it is Jesus speaking, or someone else, a false teacher, our own sinful flesh, the devil? This is a very important question, because remember, this is a spiritual battle for your mind and heart. And it has eternal consequences. Thankfully, there is a very sure way to know if it is Jesus speaking. He has promised that He will speak in one place. It is His Word. He has tied Himself to His Word so that you don’t have to be confused. How do you know whether the feeling in your heart is Jesus speaking or just a bad can of chili? Go to the Word, the Scriptures. Jesus has not promised to speak to you by feelings in your heart, but He has promised to speak to you in the Scriptures. How do you know whether the voice in your head is the voice of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, and not just a delusion, or even a demon? Go to the Word, the Scriptures. Jesus has not promised that the Spirit will speak to you in your head, but He has promised that the Spirit will speak to you in the Scriptures. Jesus has promised that His communication to you will be by His Word in the Scriptures, and in preaching, and in Absolution, and in the visible Word of the Sacraments, Baptism and Holy Communion. He does not promise to speak to you in any other place. And this is good. Because now you can know whether it is the voice of your Good Shepherd, or just some other pretender. Jesus says of Himself as the Good Shepherd, “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name… A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (vv. 3, 5). You hear the voice of Jesus in His Word. He calls you by name in Baptism, gives you the Christian family Name, the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And He feeds you with His true body and blood. As you abide in His Word, you learn ever deeper to recognize His voice and follow Him, and to discern between His voice and the dangerously beguiling voices of strangers.

What actually happens as you abide in the Word of Jesus Christ, is that you begin to recognize the voices that claim to be Christian, but are not. As you regularly attend the Divine Service, receiving the gifts of Jesus Christ; as you pore over the Scriptures in your devotional reading and prayer each day; as you come to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures and grow in understanding and wisdom by attending Bible class; it gets easier to spot a false teacher coming and recognize him for the thief and robber that he is. But of course, we cannot, for that reason, let our guard down. Even the wisest of Christians can be sucked in by a false teacher. Even Adam and Eve, in the state of perfection, believed the lies of the serpent, and fell into sin, dragging us all down with them. That is why we confess that the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit Jesus promised to His disciples to lead them into all truth (John 16:13), keeps us in the one true faith of Jesus Christ. This also is by grace alone. And how does He do this? By the Word, to which He has attached Himself. By His Word, the Spirit wins the battle for your mind and heart against the spiritual dark forces that want to claim you. By His Word, the Spirit delivers you from the power of the devil and brings you to faith in Jesus, and preserves you safely in that faith unto life everlasting.

The Word of God is the green pasture about which the Psalmist, King David, waxes so ellquent in the 23rd Psalm. Our Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus, restores our soul by the green pastures of Scripture and preaching and Sacrament, and the still waters of Baptism. He leads us in the paths of righteousness, His righteousness, imparted to us in the means of grace, received by faith, giving birth to our own walking in righteousness. He is with us. He comforts us. Even through the valley of the shadow of death. He comforts us by speaking to us. His tender voice, in opposition to all other voices, promising that even as He is risen from the dead, we will come out on the other side of the valley, risen, alive, eternally and abudantly. For that is why He came. That we may have life, and have it abundantly. And as He bestows that abundance upon us, our cup runneth over. The goodness and mercy of the Lord are with us throughout all the days of our life, and we know without a doubt that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There are many voices vying for our attention. But only one voice connects with us in mercy to grant us eternal life. It is the voice of Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd. And He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Third Sunday of Easter

2011-05-08T07:21:00.003-04:00

Third Sunday of Easter (A)

May 6, 2011
Text: Luke 24:13-35

He is Risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

Word and Sacrament, the Means of Grace… we throw those terms around a lot. You hear me use those terms in one form or another in almost every sermon. And there is always this danger that the terms become meaningless for us because we are so used to hearing them, or worse, that they have no meaning at all, because your pastor has simply taken for granted that you remember what they mean from Catechism class. As a result, some confessional Lutheran clergy maintain that we shouldn’t use the terms at all. I am not of that persuasion. But I do recognize the danger. It would be tragic if, in using these terms to lead you to a deeper appreciation for our Lord’s dynamic gifts so that you are zealous to receive them as often as possible, instead you were led to tune out the terms as nothing but a familiar relic from Confirmation days gone by. The terms “Word and Sacrament” and “Means of Grace” are invested with meaning and power by the holy things they signify, through which holy things God acts: That God actually speaks to you in Scripture and preaching; that God actually washes your sins away in real water combined with God’s Word, as He did today for Owen, in Holy Baptism; that God really pronounces your sins forgiven, done away with, nailed to the cross of Christ and buried forever in His tomb, in Holy Absolution; that God really gives you the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, the very body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins on the cross, the very body and blood of the risen Christ put in your mouths to eat and drink; that is what we mean by these terms. When you hear the terms “Word and Sacrament” or “Means of Grace,” we are speaking of a very real, tangible encounter with the living God.

And that is precisely what the doleful disciples need as they trudge the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. There are two of them, one of them named Cleopas, the other unnamed. They are not from the 12 Apostles, but from the wider group of Jesus’ disciples, those who believed in Him, those who had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. But now their hopes are dashed, or so it seems. That is the content of their conversation on the road. They are talking about the things that have happened, and how these things have not happened according to their plans. Jesus has been delivered up by the chief priests and rulers, condemned to death, crucified. It is not supposed to be this way. How could this be the Messiah? And now there are these rumors floating around, gossip, crazy wives tales, that He is alive. But how could that be? Dead men don’t live.

Suddenly a Stranger comes astride. They don’t know who He is, but you do. It is Jesus Himself, in the flesh, with them in a very real way, even though their eyes are kept from recognizing Him (Luke 24:16). And He speaks. There is power in the Word. It is the very Word of God from the mouth of the Word made flesh. It is a dynamic Word, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12). This is the Word that is able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15). Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). The disciples on the road to Emmaus need such faith. For Jesus has not lived up to their expectations. They had expected a Messiah who would defeat Israel’s enemies in a blaze of glory and usher in the golden age for the Jews. Jesus, by contrast, is executed by Israel’s chief enemy, Rome, as a common criminal, on an accursed cross. How can anyone believe in that? Jesus comes and speaks. “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26; ESV). Indeed, it was divinely necessary, the very will of God, that the Christ should suffer, that He should die to ransom them and you and me and the whole world from our real enemies: from sin, from death, from hell and the power of the devil, not with perishable things such as gold or silver, but with His precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). “And so beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,” from Genesis all the way through Malachi, “he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Because the whole Old Testament is about nothing else save Jesus Christ. It’s all about Him and His saving work, His death and resurrection. Jesus preaches a sermon to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They still don’t know who He is, but their hearts are burning within them as He opens the Scriptures to them (v. 32). The imperishable seed of the abiding Word of God gives them the new birth of faith (1 Peter 1:23). Yes, Jesus saved us from our enemies precisely by His suffering and death. And He is, in fact, risen from the dead. That is the Christian faith.

The disciples reach their destination, and they beg this Stranger to stay with them, to abide with them, for it is toward evening. The darkness is coming and the day is far spent. And they know that this Man who has opened the Scriptures to them can give them light, enlighten them with His gracious Words. So He stays, He abides. Such is His grace. He gives them the gift of His presence in the darkness. And as He joins them at the supper table, He does something remarkable: He takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. Sound familiar? It should. Because in the breaking of the bread, the disciples recognize that it is the Lord. And He is really present, in the flesh. Suddenly, He disappears from their sight. But He is not gone. He is with them just as substantially as before. They, and you, are to recognize His bodily presence in the preaching of the Scriptures and the breaking of the bread! And through this same Proclamation and Meal, He bestows upon you the saving benefits of His cross and empty tomb. Word and Sacrament! Means of Grace!

The Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, works through the Word and the Sacrament, the Means of Grace, to call you to faith in Jesus Christ, and enlighten you with His gifts, to sanctify and keep you in the one true faith of Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And Jesus Himself is present, really, bodily, in the Word and the Sacrament, the Means of Grace, to forgive your sins and to strengthen you for your Christian life in this fallen world, to give you His life in the face of death, to reconcile you to your loving heavenly Father. It begins in Baptism, where you become God’s own child, where all your sins are washed away and you are united to the death and resurrection of Jesus. And it continues for the rest of your life as the Lord Jesus speaks His Word to you and absolves you of your sins and feeds and nourishes you with His Supper. Jesus gives Himself in Word and Sacrament. You receive His gifts in the Means of Grace by faith.

We all love the hymn, “Abide with Me” (LSB 878), which is based on this very text, our Gospel lesson. Why is this hymn so endearing? Because we recognize that in our case, too, “fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens…” The world is shrouded in darkness, the darkness of unbelief, the darkness of sin. Our own sinful flesh is nothing but darkness. And the day is far spent (Luke 24:29). Our life is far spent. Death is immanent. For each one of us, death could come at any moment. So it is critical that the risen Lord Jesus abides with us. We need His presence every passing hour, holding His cross before our closing eyes. And this must be a real presence. This cannot be a figurative presence or a spiritual presence, whatever that means (when I say “I’m with you in spirit,” I mean by that that I’m really not with you at all). What good is it to you if Christ is, in fact, risen from the dead, but you never have any sort of face to face encounter with Him… If He’s never actually present with you and for you in His risen body? God answers the prayer you pray when you sing this hymn by giving you the presence of the living God, the risen Jesus, in the flesh, in Word and Sacrament, the Means of Grace! “Abide with Me” is a request fulfilled in sermon and Supper! “Abide with Me” happens because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a present reality for you, right here, right now, right where He’s promised to be. So receive the gifts with all eagerness and zeal. And never let the terms “Word and Sacrament” or “Means of Grace” be meaningless to you again. They indicate that Jesus is with you always, in a very real way, until the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20), in a way that far exceeds your expectations. For He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Second Sunday of Easter

2011-05-01T07:47:00.003-04:00

Second Sunday of Easter (A)

May 1, 2011
Text: John 20:19-31

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

Fear! On the evening of Easter, even after the wondrous (and downright confusing) news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the disciples are locked away behind closed doors “for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19; ESV). You would be afraid, too, if you were in their situation. After all, the disciples saw just what the Sanhedrin was capable of: the mock trial; delivery of an innocent Man, THE innocent Man, to the Roman governor for execution; the suffering, crucifixion, and death of Jesus Christ. With Pilate’s permission and full cooperation, they had placed a guard at the tomb of Jesus, to make sure no one got out! But now the body is gone. Christ is risen! But you can’t expect the Sanhedrin to go along with that story. They quickly concoct another explanation for the missing body to fit their agenda. “(T)hey gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, ‘Tell people, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep”’… And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day” (Matt. 28:12-13, 15). As far as the disciples are concerned, and especially now that Jesus’ body is no longer in the grave, the Sanhedrin may be after THEM now, to persecute them, arrest them, crucify them!

Suddenly, Jesus appears to them, in their midst, in His body. He comes out of nowhere, or perhaps better, He comes out of everywhere, for in His risen and glorified body, Jesus fills all things (Eph. 4:10). Jesus appears in their midst, even though the doors are locked. In His risen and glorified body, no door can keep Him out any more than a large stone and armed guards can keep Him in the grave. Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples’ fear and He speaks: “Peace be with you” (John 20:19). And then He shows them His hands and His side. He shows them His wounds. Because the peace of the Lord flows from His wounds, from the mortal wounds of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. What is this peace? It is peace of God that surpasses all understanding, that guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:7). This is the peace of which Jesus speaks earlier in the Gospel of John when He says to His disciples: “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” (14:27). This is the peace that proceeds from the Father and the Son as the Spirit is breathed into those spiritually dead, bringing them to life and faith in Christ. This is the peace of Holy Absolution, of sins forgiven, as Jesus institutes the office of the Holy Ministry for this very purpose, beginning with His apostles, when He says: “If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld” (20:23). The Lord has given pastors to His Church for the purpose of forgiving and retaining sins, and everything a pastor does is about the forgiveness of sins: preaching, teaching, sacraments, visiting the sick, even withholding forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent. It is all about the forgiveness of sins. Holy Absolution, the Office of the Holy Ministry, the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, it all flows from the wounds of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ.

He comes right into the midst of fear, to cast it out. That is what absolution does. It distributes Jesus’ peace in the midst of fear, to kill fear. Because all fear ultimately comes from sin. You can pretend you are unafraid, but the reality is that you have fears as terrible as the disciples who are locked away. I have mine, too. It scares me to death, the terrible things that could happen to my family, my wife and my daughters, as a result of evil people who like to do evil things. It scares me, what could happen to any one of us as a result of terrorism. It scares me to know that the next tornado to come through Dorr may be bigger and do more damage and even take lives, as the tornados have done this past week in the South, and that you and I may be in its destructive path. It scares me every time I fill my gas tank and cringe at how much money I’m spending, because what if I’m unable to provide for my family, what if I can’t feed them, clothe them, put a roof over their heads, protect them from harm and danger, and give them a good life? Every single one of the fears I just mentioned, beloved, is a sin against the 1st Commandment. Because God is God, and I am not. And my fear betrays the fact that I don’t trust God to be God. I think I can do better. The truth is, I cannot ultimately protect and provide for my family. That is God’s job, and insofar as He has chosen to use me as an instrument in His protecting and providing, that is a gift of His grace. But He is finally responsible for my family’s and my own safety and welfare. I cannot control tornados. That’s God’s job. I cannot control terrorists. God must deal with them. I cannot control the economy. God must provide. And perhaps right now the best way He can provide for us is by chastening us with economic recession and depression. To suggest otherwise is to sin against the 1st Commandment. You have your fears, too, and your fears are sins against the 1st Commandment, and the other Commandments as well. You do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things. What is needed, then, as the antidote to fear is Jesus’ peace, His absolution. And that is why it is so crucial that He come here, right into our midst, and announce His peace. Which is exactly what He does for us in the Divine Service.

He’s here! Right in our midst, speaking His peace, showing forth His wounds, the risen Lord Jesus Christ, bodily present! He’s here, bestowing His peace because He knows that we are a fearful people. He knows that we are a doubting people. Like Thomas, we doubt. Fear breeds doubt. Unbelief is really the better word. It’s not just that Thomas doubts, it’s that he refuses to believe. Thomas was not with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them on the evening of Easter. “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails,” he said, “and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). Only the peace of Jesus Christ flowing from His wounds can deliver Thomas from his unbelief. And so Jesus appears to the disciples again, eight days later, right in their midst, once again in spite of locked doors, out of nowhere, or better, out of everywhere, and speaks His peace: “Peace be with you” (v. 26). It is an absolution for fear and unbelief. “Go ahead, Thomas. You want to poke around in my wounds? Please do. These wounds are the cure for all that has wounded you. From these wounds flows your peace.” “Do not disbelieve, but believe” (v. 27)! And so from the wounds of the risen Christ, by His speaking and His Spirit, flow Thomas’ faith and confession: “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28). From the wounds of the risen Christ, by His speaking and by His Spirit, the disciples are no longer fearful and unbelieving. They can even say to the Sanhedrin they had so feared before, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), and so suffer beatings and persecution for preaching the crucified and risen Christ (v. 40). They rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer dishonor for Jesus’ Name (v. 41). And so it is with you. From the wounds of the risen Christ, by His speaking and by His Spirit, flow your peace, the forgiveness of your sins, boldness and confidence in place of fear, faith in place of doubt and unbelief. That is why it is very important that you recognize that Jesus is not here this morning only in some figurative sense. From the actual bodily wounds of Christ, who is bodily risen from the dead, and actually, bodily, present here with you now to really speak to you and to really feed you with His true body and blood in your mouths, comes real peace. If Jesus is only here figuratively, then you only have a figurative peace. If Jesus is only here spiritually, then He can’t really help you with the very real fears and doubts and hurts you struggle with. He can’t really help you with your sins.

Thanks be to God, He’s really here, breathing His Spirit through His Word, forgiving your sins through His called and ordained servant of the Word who speaks in His stead and by His command, placing His true body and blood in your mouths to strengthen and nourish you, to dwell in you, and that you may dwell in Him. In Holy Communion you touch His wounded body as surely as Thomas beheld the wounds and believed. Thomas saw the wounds of the risen Christ, the apostles saw the wounds of the risen Christ, and so they wrote and preached the Christ who was wounded for our transgressions, but raised for our justification. St. John has written these things down for this very purpose, that we may know this blessed reality, and so believe. “(T)hese are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (v. 31). Peace be with you. No more need to fear. Your peace, your forgiveness, your life flow to you in abundance from Jesus’ wounds. And you confess it. You confess Him, your Lord and your God. On the basis of His peace, you confess Him to the world. You confess Him now to one another. For He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Resurrection of Our Lord

2011-04-24T08:37:00.002-04:00

The Resurrection of Our Lord (A): The Miracle of Easter[1]

April 24, 2011
Text: Matt. 28:1-10

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead shakes things up, to say the least. It turns out Easter is not all bunnies and chocolate. It is really a fearful thing for the first witnesses of the resurrection. Toward the dawn of the first day of the week, the women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, come to the tomb, and as they approach, there is a great earthquake (σεισμός in Greek, from which we get the English word “seismic”). We heard about earthquakes in our Lenten series. It was one of the miracles of Lent upon which we meditated this season, that when our Lord died there was a great earthquake. The curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth shook, the rocks split, and the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised (Matt. 27:51-52). Earthquakes in the Bible are a sign of God’s presence, either in wrath or in mercy. Earthquakes are a sign that God Himself is speaking. They are an indication that we had better pay attention, because we are about to have an interaction with the living God. And this interaction isn’t gentle. It is seismic. It puts the fear of God into you. When the women come to the tomb just before dawn, there is a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descends and rolls back the stone and sits on it. His appearance is like lightening and his clothing is white as snow. This causes the guards to have a seismic event of their own. Your English translations say something like “the guards trembled” (Matt. 28:4; ESV), but the Greek word indicates seismic activity once again. They are shaken, and they become as dead men. And now the women are really afraid. Because the angel turns from the guards to look at them. What will happen? Will they drop dead, too? Undoubtedly, they begin to shake, as well.

But there is a difference between the women and the guards. The guards seek to keep Jesus in the tomb, to lock Him in death. They are posted at the tomb because Pharisees had come to Pilate concerned that the resurrection might just really happen, or at least that the disciples would make it look like it happened. “Sir, we remember how that imposter said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first” (Matt. 27:63-64). Thus Pilate makes provision for the guards to be posted at the tomb. By order of the Roman Governor of Judea, no one is to get out of that tomb! The women, by contrast, come to get into the tomb to see Jesus. To be sure, they are expecting Him still to be dead. Their faith is ill-informed. But they come seeking Him nonetheless. This is a profound difference. The guards want to hide Jesus away in death. The women want to see Jesus, who has given them new life. Then the angel appears and the guards shake and fall down as if dead, betraying the truth that they really are spiritually dead, unbelievers, enemies of Christ. The angel turns from the guards to the women. The women are fearful. You would be, too, if you saw an angel of the Lord in all his glory. What will happen now?

The angel speaks: “Do not be afraid” (28:5). It is the Word of the Lord that the angel speaks, a Word that stills trembling hearts in the midst of seismic events. And how can the angel say this? On what basis can the women cease to be afraid? “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified,” says the angel. “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said” (vv. 5-6; emphasis added). And just so there is no doubt that this is an honest-to-goodness bodily resurrection, the angel bids them, “Come, see the place where he lay” (v. 6). There’s nobody there anymore. Just the linen cloths. The women are charged to go quickly and tell the disciples the earth-shaking news. And as they go, they meet the risen Lord Himself, in the flesh, He who once was dead, standing before them, scars and all, alive. “Greetings!” He says (v. 9), in the joy of His resurrection victory. “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (v. 10).

Easter is not all bunnies and chocolate for us either, and if we really stopped to think about the reality of this event, if this really happened (and it did!), that He who once was dead is now risen and living in His once dead body, this is earthshaking news for us. Because even without the appearance of a majestic angel, we have our fears that shake us to the very core of our being. We’re sinners, and we know it. Try as we might, we can’t shake the guilt of sin. We try to forget the evil things we’ve done, but the wickedness of our fleshly hearts betrays us. We fear the wages of sin: death (Rom. 6:23). In the grave of every loved one who has died we stare our own impending death in the face. We fear the punishment of sin: hell. As is the trend these days, we’d prefer to deny hell’s existence, but ultimately, we know this is a lie. And in addition to all of this, we fear all that sin has caused in this fallen world: sickness, war, poverty, famine, broken relationships, loneliness, despair. We tremble. We shake. Like the guards, we are as dead men. Until Jesus speaks. “Do not be afraid.” There is no more need for fear. Christ is risen! He died for your sins. He is raised for your life. He has redeemed you from sin and death and hell. He has bought you back. He has reconciled you to God. And He promises, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

It changes everything that God, the Son of God, has come in real flesh and blood, born of the Virgin Mary, for you. It changes everything that the Son of God suffered and died in His real flesh and blood, for you. It changes everything that the Son of God rose from the dead in His real flesh and blood, that He has passed through the valley of the shadow of death and come out the other side, alive again! In His body! It changes everything that you are baptized into this reality, that in a very real way, His death is your death, and His resurrection is your new life, that you are raised spiritually now, and will be raised bodily on the Last Day. It changes everything that, as our crucified and risen Lord, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, distributes and places His crucified and risen body and blood into your mouth for the forgiveness of your sins, that you also may live in Him and not die, that you may be raised in your body when He comes again. The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an earthshaking event that continues to rumble and shake us nearly 21 centuries later. But do not fear. You no longer need to fear. Your Lord has spoken. He has cast out fear. He has conquered sin in His sacrificial death (His blood covers your sins!), and He has been raised for your justification, that He may be your righteousness and life. He has conquered death by His resurrection. The grave could not hold Him, and it will not be able to hold you when He calls you forth from the grave. He has conquered hell and Satan and all the powers of darkness. They no longer have any claim on you, for He has purchased you for God by His blood. His resurrection shows the new reality. So don’t even fear all the bad stuff that can happen in this fallen world. It is only for a short season. The victory has been won. The tomb is empty. Your deliverance is coming soon. Fear no more. Rather, go and confess: He is risen! He is risen, indeed!! Alleluia!!! He lives! And because He lives, you live! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] The theme and many of the thoughts in this sermon are from Miracles of Lent (St. Louis: Concordia, 2011).