28 February 2018

Living with God in Christ by His Word and Holy Spirit

As a summary of God’s holy and righteous Law, the Ten Commandments expose and condemn your sins, especially your lack of love and, above all, your lack of faith in the only true God.

Because your sin and unbelief cut you off from the Lord your God, they also cut you off and separate you from the life for which He created you.  For there is no true or lasting Life except in and with the Lord.  Apart from Him, you are subject to death, both here and forever hereafter.

If you are to live — if you are really to live, as the Lord God who created you intends — then you need Him to become your Savior.  You need Him to forgive your sins and deliver you from death.  You need God to give Himself to you in peace, and to bring you to Himself in faith.

All of this the Lord your God has done for you in love.  He has accomplished and established your Salvation in the Person of Christ Jesus, the incarnate God, as the Creed proclaims and confesses.

The very God who commands you to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, has created you for life with Himself forever.  He would be your God, that you might be His own forever and ever.  He would be your Father, that you might be His own dear child, that you might hear and receive His life-giving Word and abide with Him in His life-giving Spirit.  And so it is that, in spite of your unfaithfulness, He has acted in love to save you from your sins, from death and the devil.

The same Lord God who forbids you to misuse His holy Name, has given you that very Name — the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  He has named you with that Name above all names in the waters of your Holy Baptism, whereby He adopted you into His own family.  So has He also taught you and invited you to call upon His Name at all times and in all places, to pray, praise, and give thanks.  And He promises that all who call upon His Name shall be saved.

Likewise, the one true God who commands you to remember the Sabbath Day — to sanctify the Holy Day unto yourself by His Word and prayer — He gives you rest from all your works and labors by freely granting you salvation in His grace and mercy for you.  He works on your behalf, and He speaks to you in love, so that you may rest in Him and be at peace with Him in Christ.

It is this great Salvation that you are given to confess in the Creed, which you first received and confessed in your Baptism.  It teaches you to know and love the one true God, the Holy Trinity — to know Him rightly as He is, which is to say, to know Him by faith in Christ Jesus.  To know and love the Father in His incarnate Son.  To know the Holy Spirit in the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed.  To love and trust the Holy Trinity as the Author and Giver of Life, as your Savior and your God.

It is this Word of the Lord — which has its proper heart and center in the Gospel — this Word of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification, all of which are centered in Christ Jesus, your Savior — it is this Word that creates and sustains in you the one true faith in the one true God.  It is this Word that creates the fear, love, and trust of God in your heart and life, so that you live forever.

This Word of God that you hear and confess in the Creed does not simply convey and rehearse information.  It is more (not less) than real history and true facts.  This Word of God in the Creed, as in the Holy Scriptures and in the preaching of the Holy Gospel — the faith once delivered to the saints and handed over to this day — this Word and faith received and confessed by the Church conveys to you the Lord Jesus Himself, the Word-made-Flesh.  In giving you Jesus, it gives you His free and full forgiveness of sins.  And by that Word of forgiveness the Lord anoints you with the Holy Spirit, by whom you live with God in Christ Jesus, in body and soul, for ever and ever.

This Word of the Gospel — this Word that God the Father speaks to you by His Son, by which He breathes the Spirit into you — this Word of forgiveness and life and salvation is spoken to you in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, in the Ministry of the Gospel, in the Means of Grace.

The Lord God, the Creator of all things, who has Himself became a part of His own good Creation in the Incarnation of the Son, that same Lord God uses the stuff of His Creation to redeem you, and to sanctify you, and to give you life with Him, finally and forever in the resurrection of your body.

So it is by water and the Word that you are born again as a new creation in Christ Jesus, both your body and your soul.  Indeed, one of the early church fathers rightly noted that your soul has no salvation apart from your body.  It is by the Baptism of your body that your soul is cleansed.  And so also the feeding of your body feeds your soul with true Spiritual Life.  For with bread and wine the Word-made-Flesh gives to you His holy Body and His precious Blood to eat and to drink with your mouth, into your body, so that your body also shares His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  That is your hope and your salvation, no matter what plagues and ails your body here and now.

Just so, all of you who eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup are one holy communion in Christ Jesus.  You are fellow members of His Body and His Bride, the Church.  You are members of one another in Him.  You are bodied and blooded together with each other in the one Body of Jesus.

Consider what that means when any one of your brothers or sisters in Christ is hurting, whether in body, mind, or spirit.  As Christ cares for His Church, as a bridegroom cares for his bride, and as fathers and mothers care for their children, so are you given to love and care for one another.

The truth of the matter is that you are given to confess the Word of Christ, not in lonely isolation, but together with the entire Christian Church of all times and places.  You are given to repeat the patterns of sound words, to confess these sure and certain things, especially by way of the Creed, which has been handed over, generation after generation, from the earliest days of the Church.

In the Creed you say what is most certainly true, because you say back to God — and you say and confess before the entire world — what God has first of all spoken to you, especially in the Person of His own dear Son.  With these words you confess Christ Himself, the Word-made-Flesh.

Even as a little child, and regardless of your intelligence or education, you are given not only to hear but also to speak the most profound and precious Words in all of creation.  Presidents and kings are not able to say anything more important or powerful than this confession of the Lord Jesus Christ, which has been placed upon your lips by the grace of God and by the Holy Spirit.

So do you also participate in the living and life-giving work of God, who creates all things by and with His Word; who does all things by and with His Word; who forgives you all your sins and gives you life by and with His Word.  Created in His Image, you also speak His Word.

He speaks to you, and He grants you to speak His Word to Him and to your neighbor, because He loves you, and He desires that you share in His life and His love.  So does He also take care of you.  He daily and richly provides you with all that you need for your body and life on earth.

Rest assured that your Father will not let you go naked.  He will not let you starve.  He will not leave you homeless or alone.  As sure and certain as He provides you with life everlasting in Christ Jesus, so does He also feed and clothe and shelter you in the place where He has stationed you.

Even if your experience seems to deny it, bear this in mind: The same God who did not spare His own dear Son but gave Him up for you, He also gives you all good things and every good and perfect gift in that same Son.  By His Cross He has redeemed you from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  And in the Resurrection of that Lord Jesus Christ, He has opened Paradise to you in love.

So has the Holy Spirit called you by this Gospel of Christ Jesus from death to life, from darkness to light, and from unbelief to faith in the free and full forgiveness of all your sins.  There is nothing that is held against you.  There is no accusation that shall be allowed to stand against you.  By faith in His free grace and His forgiveness of sins, already now you live and walk before Him in the righteousness of Christ, in the innocence of Christ, in the blessedness and holiness of Christ.  You are given Christ Himself, and you are given to share His divine Life in the flesh, forever and ever.

So you may be sure and certain, and you may confess with all boldness and confidence, that even though your body grows weaker and is wasting away, returning to the dust a little more each day, and even though you will die — maybe sooner, maybe later — nevertheless, your body will be raised, immortal and imperishable, and it will be glorious, like unto the glorious Body of Christ Himself.  Then, with your own eyes, from your own flesh, you will see Him as He is, your Lord Jesus Christ; for you will be like Him, and so shall you live with Him in His Kingdom forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

25 February 2018

Dying to Yourself and Living with God in Christ Jesus

To be a disciple of Jesus is to follow Him and learn from Him.  To listen to and learn from the preaching and teaching of His Word, and to follow His example.  To live and to love as He does.  To be a disciple of Christ Jesus is to receive your life from Him, and so to live your life with Him.

But, given where He goes, and considering what He does and suffers, why would you want to be His disciple?  Why would you want to follow Him to death on the Cross?  For where is the profit in being a disciple at the cost of your own life?  And what do you gain in exchange for your life?

Here is the paradox at the heart of the Christian faith.  If you wish to save your life as you have known it, you will lose it altogether.  But if you lose your life for the sake of the Lord Jesus and His Gospel, then you will have saved it for eternity with Him.  Because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, and everything hinges on Him.  He is the only Savior of the world, apart from whom there is no salvation.  He is the Bestower of the Holy Spirit, by whom alone you live.

It is the Spirit who gives life.  It is by the Spirit that Adam is not just a clod of dirt but a living being, a man, created in the Image and Likeness of God.  And it is by the Spirit of God that old Abraham, his body as good as dead, his wife barren, yet becomes the father of many nations.  And so it is by the Holy Spirit that you also have life with God in Christ, both now and forever.

It is the Spirit who gives life, and it is Christ Jesus who gives the Spirit.  For Jesus is anointed by the Spirit in His own Body of human flesh and blood, in order to anoint you, in body and soul, with the same Holy Spirit.  He is anointed by the Spirit in order to breathe and bestow the Spirit upon you through the forgiveness of your sins, so that you might live with God and not die forever.

So has the Son of God become true Man, and taken the place of all men under the Law, under the curse of sin and death, in order to become the Savior and Redeemer of all the children of men.

He has become the Seed of Abraham, the promised Seed by whom old Abraham has become the father of many nations, as disciples of Jesus are called and made from all the nations of the world by the preaching and teaching of His Word, and by way of Holy Baptism in His Name.

This Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, the very Son of God from all eternity, and the Son of St. Mary in the fullness of time, He has accomplished and obtained the salvation of the world for you and for all people.  And He has done it by the way and the means of His Cross.

This is the Love of God, which is the Glory of God, that the Father hands over His Son to death on the Cross, and the Son willingly submits to that Cross, in order to redeem and rescue fallen, sinful, mortal man.  For such a sinner as you, and for your children, He lays down His life in love.

He makes His bed in the dust of the earth, He returns to the ground from which Adam was taken, to which you also shall return, so that, in His bodily Resurrection, in His rising from death and the grave, He thus also raises the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to newness of life with God.

He blazes a trail through the valley of the shadow of death into the life everlasting.  Having come down from the Father in heaven into the depths of Sheol, passing through the gates of Hades into death, He rises and returns to His Father in peace.  And because He does all of this for you, in your place, bearing your sins as your Substitute, and as your Champion, His Cross and Resurrection are your forgiveness, your reconciliation with God, your justification, your life, and your salvation.

So, then, if you want that life to be yours; if you want to have that life and live that life forever, it will be by the way and the means of the Cross of Christ.

That is, in fact, the way of life that you have received and taken up by the washing of water with the Word in your Holy Baptism.  And that is what your Baptism means and signifies, not only for that red letter day on the calendar of your past, but for every day of your life.  It calls you to bear and to carry the Cross and to follow after Jesus through death and the grave into life everlasting.

That is the way of life that you also receive and take up here in the Holy Communion, as you eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, which are the Fruits of His Cross and Passion.  Here is the atoning Sacrifice that has been offered to God, which in turn is given for you to eat and drink, that you might have communion with God in Christ the Crucified.  Thus are you bound to Him by the very Body and Blood that He has given into death upon the Cross for you and your salvation.

It is by and from the Cross that you are given life with God in Christ.  And it is by and with the Cross that you now live with God in Christ.  For you bear the sign of His Cross upon your forehead and your heart, upon your body and soul.  You are His own.  You belong to the Crucified One.

Nevertheless, as a child of Adam, in the face of the Cross you are tempted, just as Peter was, to rebuke the Lord and contradict His Word.  To do it nicely, politely, with the very best of intentions, no doubt, but even so: To rebuke the Lord.  To become Satanic in your thinking, like that of fallen man, instead of thinking and speaking with the mind and Spirit of God in Christ Jesus.  Your feet are still too much stuck in the dirt to which you will return, and the Cross seems foolish to you.

It is, after all, counter intuitive to invest yourself, your body, and your life, in the Cross.  To spend yourself in that way seems absurd.  There appears to be far more profit in the pursuits of the world, in this adulterous and sinful generation, as Jesus calls it.  That is not only to speak of what is illegal and immoral, but of all those passions that consume your heart, mind, body, and soul in this life.

Whatever it is that you pursue as though your life depended on it.  Whatever it is that you cling to as though it were your life and your salvation.  That is your god, and that is what you worship.  But if it is not Christ the Crucified, and if it is not by faith in His Word, then it is idolatrous and deadly.

In order to recognize and trust that your life and salvation are in the Cross of Christ, and to behold and recognize the Glory of God in the Cross, you must have an altogether different view of Life itself.  Indeed, you must die to yourself and to your instincts, to your natural reason and worldly wisdom, and to your own way of thinking.  You must become altogether other than you have been.  You must learn to live, no longer for yourself, but with God in Christ by the way of His Cross.

That is simply to speak of repentance, the daily dying and rising of repentance and faith that your Baptism signifies and indicates.  But such repentance is not something you can do for yourself.  That instinct must also be crucified and put to death in you.  For repentance and faith are the work of the Lord, which He works in you by His grace, precisely by the Word and Spirit of the Cross.

The Cross puts you to death.  It crucifies and buries your old Adam.  It returns you to the dust of the earth from which you were taken, in order to raise you up with Christ to a new and real life.  To raise you up from the dust of the earth to the right hand of His God and Father.  To raise you up by His Spirit through the Gospel, which is the forgiveness of your sins.  Forgiveness that comes from the Cross.  Forgiveness that flows with the Blood of Christ, in which there is life.

And because the Cross does this, because it puts you to death in order to raise you up to life — because, by putting you to death, it unites you with Christ who has saved you — so does the Cross also bestow the life of God upon you.  It is by and from the Cross that the Holy Spirit is poured out upon you and into your heart, so that the Love of God now fills your heart and life.

The Love of God.  That also is the work of the Cross in you.  As the Lord your God loves you by and with His Cross, so do you bear the Cross in love for your neighbor within your own calling and station in life.  In that way, also, you take up the Cross and follow after Jesus, right there in the place where God has positioned you, in relation to the people that He has positioned around you.  Thus do you bear the Cross of Christ by loving your neighbor, putting up with your neighbor, taking care of your neighbor, and forgiving your neighbor as the Lord your God forgives you.

That is where and how you bear and carry the Cross, as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a Christian, anointed by Christ with the Holy Spirit from His God and Father.  And sometimes it is very satisfying.  Sometimes it is for such joy set before you that you bear the Cross, as Jesus found His satisfaction and His joy in bearing the Cross for you, though it was painful and hard to do.

But often as not, bearing the Cross for your neighbor is painfully difficult and not at all satisfying.  After all, both you and your neighbor are sinful, and yet, God calls you to bear and carry the Cross for your neighbor.  To endure the stress and the trouble, within and without.  If not persecution, then the burden of nit-picking complaints and criticisms.  Or the toilsome and thankless jobs that you have to do over and over again.  Or the bad attitudes of those you are trying to love and serve.

There are difficulties, hurts, and disappointments under the Cross.  And yet, by the Spirit of God, your tribulation does not destroy you.  Instead, it forms and strengthens your patient perseverance, because you do not bear the Cross alone, but Christ, who bore it for you, now bears it with you.

So, then, in patient perseverance — which is really to say, in walking by faith, in living by faith — as you fulfill your vocations in this way, as you do your job, as you care for your neighbor, as you bear the Cross of Christ Jesus, your character is developed and proven in conformity with the Image and Likeness of God.  It is no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you.  By repentance and faith in His Gospel, you think and speak and live with the mind and Spirit of the Lord.

Here, again, is the great paradox of the Christian faith and life, which is now also your paradox, namely, that you have hope in, with, and under the Cross of Christ.  Your life is not hopeless.  Your situation is not hopeless.  Your future is not hopeless.  You are full of hope in Christ Jesus, who has been crucified for your transgressions and raised from the dead for your justification.

Therefore, because God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, the hope that is yours in Christ shall not be disappointed.  For your hope as a Christian is the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection, by which you are righteous and holy and at peace in the presence of His God and Father, already now by faith; and so shall it be hereafter, in and with your own glorified body and soul, forever.

Along with the Cross that you are given to bear and carry after Christ, this new and real life with God is what your Holy Baptism has given to you, and what it means and signifies.  And this, too, along with the Cross, is what the Holy Communion means and signifies and gives to you.  Not only the Cross, but the Resurrection and the Life of Jesus, by way of His forgiveness of all your sins.

So, as often as you sin, in love He says to you, “Get back in line and follow Me.  Listen to Me, and learn from Me.  I love you and forgive you.  So, come on, My Cross will bring you through death into the Resurrection.”  Though you lie in dust and ashes, you shall not be forgotten, nor shall your body be forgotten, but just as you have prayed, so God will do.  He will send His angels to gather you up in their arms, to bring you to the bosom of father Abraham, to the bosom of your God and Father in heaven, the God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ.  As you are His own dear child, all that you need is already yours, the Spirit of God and Life everlasting in and with Christ Jesus.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

21 February 2018

The Fasting of Faith and Love in the Sabbath Rest of Christ

There has never been a better summary of the Law of God than the Ten Commandments, which God Himself inscribed in tablets of stone and gave to His people Israel by the hands of Moses.  Those Commandments also instruct you in the way that you are to go in love for God and man.

The natural Law, which God has written on your heart, also makes known that you should treat your neighbor in the way that you yourself want to be treated, and that you are responsible for your actions and accountable to a higher authority than yourself.  Even so, though God has written His Law on your heart, and He reveals His Law also in His creation, sin has blurred your knowledge and understanding of the Law.  It perverts your heart and mind, so that you do not recognize what is good and right, nor do you realize your own faults and failings, leastwise not to their full extent.  In order to know the good and acceptable Will of God, to know what is good and right and true, therefore, you must rely upon the revealed Word of the Lord and the work of the Holy Spirit.

So you have the Ten Commandments, which instruct you in what you are to do, and in what you are not to do.  They show you what it means to live by faith and love toward God, and they show you how to live in love toward your neighbor.  They also protect your neighbor from the harm that you would otherwise do him, and they protect you from your neighbor, by curbing the impulses of sin, and by informing and strengthening your conscience in the Truth.

The Law in general, and the Ten Commandments in particular, can be summarized broadly and simply in two words: Faith and Love.  For God would have you fear, love, and trust in Him, and in such faith look to Him for every good thing.  Everything else follows upon that faith and love for God, in words and works of love for your neighbor.

There are these two things, then, faith and love.  The entire Christian life is summarized that easily, that simply.  But the Law also reveals and makes plain that living by faith and living in love is no easy task for you, a sinner.  In fact, it is impossible for you to do so consistently and perfectly, as the Law requires.  So it is that, as the Lord commands you to live in faith and love, He drives you to repentance.  He turns you away from yourself to Him who is your Life and your Salvation.

God is always at work to do that very thing.  For His sole desire is to love you, and, in loving you, to give you life.  He is not seeking to get some work out of you for His own benefit.  Rather, He delights to work for your benefit.  In His love for you, He desire and delights to give you life.  And to that same end, what He commands is for your good.

If you would live according to His Commandments, your life would be better than it is.  You would be happier.  Your marriage would be more successful.  Your parenting would be more on the mark.  Your friendships would be richer and more fulfilling.  Your job would be more satisfying.  And you would experience that His Way is the Way of true Wisdom.  His Way is the Way of real Life.

To be sure, God’s Commandments are not intended as a way or means for you to gain life for yourself.  They simply set before you the way in which you are to live the life which God gives to you for His own sake, that is, by His grace, for the sake of His own divine and holy Love.

In all of this, in faith and love toward God, and in love for your neighbor, God’s Law — and His Ten Commandments, in particular — are really all about the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, as He describes Himself in the Gospel from St. Mark this evening.  If that is not intuitively obvious or easy to understand, then so much the more do you need God’s revealed Will to enlighten you.

His Law, from the beginning when it was written on man’s heart, and when it was given to Israel at Sinai, has always been concerning Christ Jesus, the Bridegroom who has come from heaven to call you to Himself as His holy Bride.  When God etched the Commandments in stone with His own finger, already He was anticipating the flesh and blood of the Man, Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, who writes the Law in His own flesh — who fulfills and satisfies the Law in His own flesh.  For it is the Bridegroom who lives perfectly, according to the Will of God.

It is the Bridegroom, the Son of God in His own flesh, who lives in perfect faith before His Father and in perfect love toward you, His neighbor.  In fact, not only has He made you His neighbor in becoming flesh and blood like you; He is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister, though you have fallen far from God’s glory and broken His Law.  His love for you has never depended on your performance, but rather upon His own heart, upon that Love which constitutes His Being.  It is with the Love of the Father for His Son, and of the Son for His Father, in the Holy Spirit, that the one true God, the Holy Trinity, loves you in the Person of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.

So the Bridegroom has come.  It is and always has been to Him that the Law points.  To the Man, Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the Son of Mary, conceived and born in time to bear your sins and be your Savior.  The Law directs you to Him.  And in directing you to Him, it directs you in the way that you are to go.  It reveals true Wisdom, which begins with the fear of God.  It shows you the path of life, the path of perfect life, which is life with God.  For there finally is no other life, and there is no other living, than that which is by faith and love in God.

The Law points you to Christ, and, in pointing you to Christ, it shows you what divine life and what faith and love look like in human flesh and blood.  For He is the One who has fed the hungry with good things.  He is the One who shelters the homeless.  He is the One who does not turn away from His own flesh but covers the naked and shelters the homeless in righteousness.  He covers you, not with fig leaves, nor with brick and mortar, but with Himself, and with His holy and precious blood, by His innocent suffering and death.  He does all of these things for you.  Your life depends entirely upon Him.  And so does the Law of God find its meaning and purpose in Him.

When you thus understand the Law in Christ Jesus, then you know what true fasting is, and you know the point and purpose of fasting.  It is not to appease God’s wrath or earn His favor.  That is not fasting but pagan unbelief.  Nor is fasting intended to impress your neighbor or win the admiration of men.  That is simply to gorge yourself on the idolatry of your own ego.

True fasting is rather a matter of faith and love.  You let go of those delicacies of life that your flesh craves, in order to affirm and exercise your trust in God.  You do not eat everything that lies at hand, because you trust that your Father will feed you at the proper time.  You do not horde to yourself everything that you want, but you maintain an ability to serve your neighbor in love, giving sacrificially and not simply from your abundance; contributing to charity and to the Church at your own expense, and not only from your castoffs and leftovers.  That is true fasting.  It is to love your neighbor as God loves you in Christ, who gives Himself for you and to you in peace.

So, then, from Sunday to Sunday you fast, and you live on the strength that comes from the Food that God gives to you.  Not only the food for your body, which He daily and richly provides more abundantly than you could ever deserve, but especially that Food which is God Himself, His Body for your body, and His Blood to cleanse you, to forgive you, to strengthen and keep you in Him.

From Sunday to Sunday you fast, that you might live by faith, and that your neighbor might live by your love.  You are to carry no debt except the duty you have to love your neighbor.  So, if there is some obligation that you owe to your neighbor, fulfill it.  Do not wait until tomorrow.  Do not put it off.  Nothing that you have, not even time, belongs to you.  Everything is God’s gift.  And He puts it into your hands, that you might use it to love, to serve, and to care for your neighbor.

It is when you know and practice this true fasting of faith and love that you also understand and rejoice in the true feasting with which God delights to serve you.

You feast upon Christ.  And as you feast upon Christ, the God who has become flesh, then you also learn how to feast on the good things of God’s creation.  You neither despise what God has given nor turn His creation into an idol, but you receive His gifts with thanksgiving, you enjoy them in faith and use them in love, and they are sanctified in your life by the Word of God and prayer.

Everything hinges on the Bridegroom.  You are able to fast in faith and love because you are fed by Christ and feast on Him.  You are filled by Him.  He does call you to discipline and repentance, to fasting, and to faith, not to deprive you of anything, but rather to fill you with Himself and with every good thing in Him.  What does He ask of you that He does not give to you many times over?

Even by way of His Commandments, He calls you to find your Sabbath Rest in Him.  But it is one of the greatest and saddest ironies and paradoxes in the history of fallen man, that men should take God’s Sabbath Commandment and turn it into a burdensome and onerous work.  That is the way it is with sinful man, and with your own sinful heart.  Where God would give you rest, you take work and burdens on yourself.  Where God would forgive you freely and give you life, you decline His gifts and strive to make a life for yourself, though that is nothing but a living death.

Repent, therefore, and live by faith in the Word and promises of God.  For when He commands you to rest, He calls you to rest in Christ Jesus.  And there you find that your sins are forgiven.  There you find that you have real and abundant life.  There you find that God is with you and for you.  For Christ Himself is the true Sabbath, who is given for the salvation of all the children of man.

The purpose of the Sabbath never was to make men work harder, but that man should cease from his own working in order to delight in the Word and works of God and rest in Him by faith.

And the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.  Not only because, for this Commandment also, He has satisfied the Law.  And not only because He has sacrificed Himself in order to atone for your sins against the Sabbath.  And not only because He has lived by faith and found His perfect Rest in the Word and works of His Father.  But Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath because He has become your Sabbath Rest in love for you.  He has taken all of your burdens upon Himself.  All of your faults and failings, He has borne.  For all that you should not have done, He has paid the penalty.  And all that you have failed to do, He has done for you and on your behalf.

And the Sabbath Rest of Christ remains forever.  He ever lives to love and serve His neighbor — to love and serve you, and to give you peace and rest in Himself.  This He does without ceasing, eight days a week, by and with His Gospel, in and with and from His crucified and risen Body.

So, if you would understand the Ten Commandments, if you would understand faith and love, if you would understand true fasting and true Sabbath rest, then look to Christ Jesus, your Savior.  He does for you now, as He did for His disciples then, what He has always done for His people.  That is, He feeds you with good things.  For He is your Good Shepherd, and He is your true King, and He is your merciful and faithful High Priest in all things pertaining to God.

So He takes the Bread of the real Presence, and He feeds both your body and your soul, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.  He places into your mouth and into your body the very best Gifts, His Body and His Blood.  And with these Gifts, by His Word, He forgives all of your sins.

The Law of God apart from Christ could only ever accuse and condemn you, and kill you forever.  In Christ Jesus, His fulfillment of the Law on your behalf gives you life with God instead of death, and peace and rest in Him, because with Him there is forgiveness and the righteousness of God.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

18 February 2018

Man in the Middle Between God and the Devil

The Kingdom of God is at hand in the Person of Christ Jesus, in His very flesh and blood.  He has entered the wilderness and passed through the waters of the Jordan, in order to join Himself to you, and you to Him, both now and forever.  Therefore, you also are a beloved and well-pleasing child of God in Christ Jesus, who has poured out the Spirit of His Father upon you.  He has named you with His Name, and whatever belongs to Him is now yours by faith in His Word.

With that, you now find yourself living in an arena between God and the devil.  Day after day you are driven into conflict with Satan, the accuser, the old evil foe, who tempts you to doubt and disobey the Word of God, to question His promises, and to contradict His commands.  Whereas your God and Father does not tempt you to sin, but He does test you, and He tries your heart and mind in the midst of adversity, in order to strengthen your repentance, faith, and life in Him.  Thus, by the Holy Spirit, you are daily being put to death and raised up to newness of life in Christ Jesus.

The truth is that life is a battlefield when the Kingdom of God invades the devil’s stomping grounds.  It cannot be otherwise.  There will be no peace, no truce, no armistice between God and the devil.  And if you are the Lord’s, you cannot remain neutral or be left in peace in the midst of the battle.  Nor can the Lord Jesus Christ.  For He has been baptized to be your Champion.  And so He is driven by the Spirit immediately from the waters of His Baptism out into the wilderness, there to be tempted by the devil and to engage that wicked foe in a strange and dreadful contest.  He is the Man in the middle, who goes down into the valley between God and the devil in order to fight for you.  He goes to meet the foe, to defeat him on your behalf, to win the victory for you.

It is in the wilderness that Christ engages this conflict and contends with Satan, because it is in the wilderness that you are tested and trained.  The wilderness is where fallen sinners learn how to live in Paradise again.  It is where you are called daily to repentance and taught to live in the Kingdom of God by faith in His Word.  And it is precisely at those two points that the devil attacks you, as he tempts you to continue in your sins, and as he wickedly denies the promises of the Gospel.

The devil has nothing but hatred and animosity for you, and he is driven to destroy you.  He often covers his vicious assaults under the guise of goodness and light, but he is not your advocate or friend.  Though he first of all entices you to sin, Satan is then also the first in line to accuse you.

The battle is waged at every point in your life, and it shall not be over until your Baptism is finally completed in your death from this world.  At all times, the Lord is at hand to sustain you with the preaching of His Word, whereas the devil keeps attacking with his lies and deceptions.  When you prosper, the devil tempts you to pride and complacency.  And when you suffer, the devil either brings to mind your many sins and condemns you, or else he shifts the blame to God Himself, as though the Lord did not love you and had no care or concern for you, in spite of His promises.

Sadly, the devil’s greatest ally in his hostility is your own covetous desire, your lust and greed and selfishness.  Those passions of your fallen flesh are the seed bed of all temptations.  And the devil stokes those flames into a relentless craving for what the Lord has not given you, and a desperate clinging to what you do have, as though such things were your god, your life, and your salvation.

But now, repent of your sins, resist the devil with his tricks, and return to the Lord your God.  Listen to the Word of God, which the Father in heaven speaks to you by His Son in the flesh, and do not doubt that what He says and promises is true.  In fact, let God be true, and everything else a lie.  Cling to His Word, come hell or high water against you, and do not despair of His mercy.

Do not suppose that you will ever be able, apart from His Word, to keep your bearings in the midst of temptation.  Your heart and mind, your wisdom, reason, and strength are all fallen and falling apart, as much or more so than your mortal body.  And you are no match for that serpent, the devil.  On earth is not his equal.  Left to your own devices, Satan will deceive you and destroy you.

Sometimes he is crass, and sometimes he is subtle, but the devil is always clever and crafty.  Make no mistake, he is smarter than you.  He knows not the wisdom of God in Christ, but the devil is no dummy in the ways and wisdom of the world.  He knows how to attack you at precisely those points where you are weakest.  And every sin to which he tempts you is dangerous and deadly.

There is no such thing as a harmless sin.  Do not excuse yourself by measuring your sins against your neighbor’s.  The only legitimate measure is the Word of the Lord, which you have not kept.  And do not suppose that, when you are tricked and deceived by the devil, you shall simply be let off the hook scot free.  “The soul that sins will die.”  That is both God’s Law and the devil’s boast.

Where, then, are you going to live?  That is the question.  Will you live in the Kingdom of God?  Or will you live with the devil in his prison house of death and despair?  That is what it all comes down to.  You cannot reside in both places at once.  You can’t have it both ways.  “Simul iustus et peccator” does not justify your sins or make them safe and okay.  It rather affirms that both the Law and the Gospel are the Word of the Lord.  So, where do you stand?  With God or the devil?

Repent of your sins, and do not despair, but do repent.  Now is the time.  Do not imagine that it can wait until tomorrow, or next week, or next year.  Have you not heard the preaching of the Lord and His servants?  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, therefore, and believe the Gospel.

Sacrifice your idols, no matter what they are, and no matter how precious they may be.  Is it your son, your only son, whom you love?  Is that what you must give up to fear, love, and trust in God?

“Abraham,” God said, “take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and sacrifice him to Me at the place where I will tell you.”  Abraham is always being called to go someplace he has no clue about.  But he goes in faith, his own dear son bearing the wood on which he is to be slain, because father Abraham trusts that God the Father in heaven will provide for Himself the Lamb.

So he stretches out his arm, and he is ready to sacrifice his son, in the confidence that God, the Lord, will raise Isaac from the dead, as needs may be, in order to keep and fulfill His promises.  And to be sure, the Lord is merciful.  He spares Abraham that which He does not spare Himself for you and your salvation.  For the Father gives His only Son in the flesh, who is indeed the Seed of Abraham, Christ Jesus, even to death on the wood of the Cross, the Lamb of God in place of all the sons and daughters of man.  And He raises this same Jesus from the dead for you and for all.

To sacrifice your idols, then, is not to put your children to death, nor to destroy the good gifts of God in this world.  It is, rather, to put to death in yourself your love and desire for creatures — in deference to the Lord your God, your Creator and Redeemer — by repentance and by faith in Him.

But is what God says to you too hard for you to believe?  And is what God commands and requires of you too hard for you to bear and do?  Does it sound crazy to suppose that living by faith in His Word and walking in the ways that He has set before you is ever going to prosper or work out?

But what is it that so frightens you?  Why do you cling so desperately to your spouse and children, to your stuff, and to your place in the world?  Is it because you think that your life is found there?  Will any of these people or things raise you from the dead or preserve you in the judgment?

Repent of your sins and sacrifice your idols.  Worship the Lord your God by faith in His Gospel.  Not that He needs anything from you, but that you need Him for everything.  Rest your hopes in Him and call upon His Name.  Rejoice in His forgiveness, and know that He well provides for you.  He saves you from every evil of body and soul.  He raises you up, even from death and the grave.

Remember that you are baptized, and remember what God has said to you and done for you by that washing of the water with His Word.  As father Abraham clung to the Covenant of Circumcision and persevered in the promises of God, so cling to the Word and promises of God in Christ Jesus, in whose Name you are baptized, whose Cross you bear, and whose Resurrection you share.

Renounce the devil, all his works and all his ways.  That’s not a one-time deal; it’s a lifelong battle and a serious business.  But your life and your allegiance belong to the Holy Triune God.

See here, you will not starve.  The Lord your God will feed you according to His mercy.  And you shall not go naked, for God the Lord will clothe and shelter you in peace.  Nor shall you die alone.  The Lord is with you, in death as in life, and in the Resurrection.  He is your sure and certain hope.

There is no temptation with which you are tempted that He has not also endured and resisted on your behalf — in flesh and blood like your own — even in the wilderness of your sin and death.  And there is no suffering that you suffer that He has not also suffered in your place, that by His Cross and Passion He should overcome them.  He has defeated your enemies.  He has atoned for your sins.  He has conquered your death.  His Resurrection from the dead is God’s own pledge and promise to you, which stands fast and forever, as Christ Himself lives and reigns to all eternity.

He has set Himself to be your Champion.  He is by your side upon the plain.  He has taken His stand against the roaring lion that threatens to devour you; He has smashed his teeth and broken his jaw.  He has crushed the serpent’s shifting, hissing head beneath His own bruised and bloodied heel.  He is faithful, and He does what He has promised.  There is no shifting or turning with Him.

The devil is always shifting and turning.  When one strategy fails, he simply switches to another.  He’ll tell you one thing in the morning and another thing at night.  From one day to the next, from one week to the next, the devil is full of nothing but constant lies and deceptions.  He cares nothing for the truth, but only for your death and your damnation by whatever means he might employ.

Your own sinful heart is likewise full of guile, and the world is also deceitful and dishonest. But not so with your Father in heaven.  He speaks from His heart in Christ Jesus, His beloved Son, and His Word is always the Truth.  He will not change His mind concerning you.  What God the Father says to you in Christ is and always shall be so.  You are sheltered under the shadow of His wings.

Christ be praised, the Kingdom of God does not rest upon your faithfulness.  It does not even rest upon your repentance or your faith.  It does not depend on you.  But the Kingdom of God is at hand for you in the Body of Christ.  It is as sure and certain as His Nativity, as His Baptism, as His life, His death, and His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  So it is that your repentance and your faith, your life and your salvation, rest firmly upon Him.  And He shall not be moved.

Consider the example of your Lord Jesus Christ, therefore — though it is always much more than just an example — because everything He does, He does it for you, that you might live in Him.

Amid the wild beasts and the wicked assaults of the devil, the Lord Jesus, in humility and faith, relies upon His Father and receives the ministry of His Father’s holy angels.  So, too, He sends His ministering spirits to care for you, both His holy angels and His mortal preachers of the Gospel, in order to preserve your faith and life in body and soul, even unto life everlasting.

He provides the sustenance that you need in the midst of the wilderness.  Not miraculous bread from desert stones, but the Living and Life-giving Bread of His own Body, which is given for you.  As He thus serves you with Himself, will He not also freely give you every good thing?

It is most certainly true.  For you are beloved of the Lord.  You are a son or daughter of the Father in Christ Jesus, and He is well pleased with you.  That is the truth.  Your sins are all forgiven, and God holds none of them against you.  From the waters of your Holy Baptism, He has clothed you in the righteousness and holiness, the innocence and blessedness of Christ, the incarnate Son.  He cleanses and restores you with His holy and precious Blood, which is poured out for you to drink.

By Himself He has sworn, He has bound Himself to you.  He is yours, and you are His forever.  The heavens stand open, and the Kingdom of God is here, for you.  Amen, Amen, so shall it be.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

14 February 2018

Live and Abide in the Righteousness of Christ

Let it be noted that our Lord Jesus does not forbid or denounce prayer, fasting, or almsgiving.  He rather indicates the “why” and “how” of these fundamental Christian disciplines.  As an exercise of faith and love, they serve to cleanse the Christian life and facilitate the fruits of repentance.

To pray at all times and in all places is the calling and occupation of all Christians.  It is the very voice of faith and a participation in the priestly intercessions of Christ Jesus, who is our merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God. As He offered Himself once for all upon the Cross, and as He prayed for those who were putting Him to death, so does He teach you to pray without ceasing and not lose heart.  To pray and intercede, not only for yourself, but for all people, for kings and all those in authority, and for your enemies and those who persecute you, as well.  That is the central activity and practice of faith toward God and of fervent love for your neighbors.

To fast is an exercise of self-denial, a conscious and deliberate resisting of your fleshly appetites.  It stands in striking contrast to the grasping and eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve in the Garden, whereas it follows the example of your Lord Jesus, who fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness and even then rejected the devil’s temptation to turn the stones into bread.  By fasting, you train yourself to hunger, not for the food that perishes, but for every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and for the Living Bread with which He feeds you from heaven.

And to give alms is to provide for the care of the poor and needy with gifts of charity above and beyond your regular support of the Church and Ministry.  Almsgiving appropriately accompanies the discipline of fasting, as that self-denial allows for greater generosity in serving your neighbors. Not simply “giving up something for Lent,” but sacrificing yourself to love and care for others.

Each of these most basic disciplines can be helpful in turning you away from a preoccupation with yourself, and in turning your attention toward God in faith and toward your neighbors in love.

But prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are therefore not to be undertaken as a system or a process for obtaining a righteousness of your own, neither before God nor in the eyes of men.  The point and purpose are most emphatically not that you should try to impress anyone in heaven or on earth!

To be right with God is first of all a matter of the heart, prior to anything else you may do or say, whether praying, fasting, giving alms, or whatever else you may do.  It is a matter of the heart — that is to say, not the romance of Valentine’s Day, but genuine repentance and faith in the Word of the Lord.  It is in repentance and faith that you live before God in peace.  It is in repentance that you fast, and from a heart of faith that you pray to your Father in heaven.  And as you thus deny yourself and trust the Lord, calling on His Name for all that you need, so do you also sacrifice and give of yourself in love for your neighbors, dealing with them as the Lord deals with you in mercy.

Whatever it is that you treasure, that is where your heart abides and lives.  And by the same token, wherever you invest your heart, that is where your treasure is found, whether with the Lord, the one true God, or with the many and various idols of this perishing world.  Your “god” is whatever you fear, love, and trust, whatever you worship from the heart with your body and life, with your time, treasures, and talents, and with your thoughts, words, and actions.

The heart comes first, in so far as where you stand with God.  And when there is faith in His Word in your heart, then you will pray and fast and give alms in love for Him and for your neighbors.  But if you do not trust His Word, then nothing else you do (or don’t do) will make things right.

In hearing this admonition of the Lord, do not suppose that faith is the one thing you must manage and do for yourself.  The Lord is not directing you away from an external self-righteousness to a new self-righteousness of the heart.  Nor does He commend a self-righteousness of the head, either, as though you could think and know your way into the kingdom of heaven.  His goal, again, is not that you should refrain from praying, fasting, and almsgiving in favor of some new strategy.  It is rather that you be turned inside-out and away from yourself altogether, in order to hear and receive the Word and promises of God and to find your righteousness in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.

So there is both Law and Gospel here.  And to begin with, the Law confronts you with the question of where and how you are living in relation to God and your neighbor.  That is getting to the heart of the matter, as the attitudes of your heart are manifested in your outward actions.  How, then, do you think and speak and act with respect to God and the people He has placed around you in this body and life?  Are you trusting Him and loving them with all that you are and have?

The answers are not pretty, are they?  Not if you are being honest with yourself.  Your life in the flesh, your words, and your actions are often as ugly as a smudge of ashes on your forehead.  It is true that appearances are neither the problem nor the solution.  Neither what you do nor how you look doing it will justify or save you.  Apart from faith in Christ, you are dead and dying in your sins.  But you are called to live in faith toward God, to call upon His Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, to deny yourself and take up your Cross and follow Christ Jesus in love for others.

Realize, and take it to heart, that your entire life in body and soul, in heart, mind, and spirit, is lived in the presence of God.  That is always the case, whether you know it or not.  And in His presence there is no possibility of pretense.  Hypocrisy will not fool Him, who knows your heart and mind better than you know yourself.  But the answer and solution to hypocrisy is not to persist in sin, to neglect your neighbor and your duties, to ignore the life of the Church, or to abandon all piety.

As Holy Scripture says: “The judgment begins with the household of God.  And if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the Gospel?  If it is with difficulty that the righteous are saved, what will become of the godless and the sinner?  Therefore, let those who suffer according to the Will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.”

Which is to say that you bear the Cross in faith and love, in patience, in prayer, and in charity.

But how often do you go about your days and spend your nights as though you (not God) were the heart and center of all that is important?  And how often do you regard the Lord God Almighty as your Sugar Daddy in the sky — as a means to some end, a last resort, or your ace in the hole — as though He were your servant instead of your Lord?  Do you ignore Him until you realize that you need something from Him?  And do you then suppose that you will bargain or barter with Him in exchange for His goods and services, or simply pay Him off?  Do you live as though your body and life were your own to do with as you like, and not a sacred trust and a divine stewardship?

Such sinful, self-idolatrous attitudes and actions pervade your fallen heart and mortal flesh, as your deadly inheritance from Adam.  Which is why you return to the dust from which you are taken.  And because you are dying and slipping away from yourself back into dirt, your lack of faith in God is further manifested in relation to your neighbors, whom God has given to you here on earth.

Frightened by your own mortality and the transience of this world, yet lusting all the more for the flesh and its passions, you view and treat your neighbor as a competitor for these finite things.  You maneuver and manipulate and jockey for position, and you cut your neighbor off wherever you can, in order to gain something for yourself, despite the fact that it won’t last.  Consumed with yourself and your own ambitions, you consume the people whom God would have you care for.

When your neighbor has something you want for yourself, you’re willing to flatter and shmooze, to grovel and beg and grease the palm, or to scheme some strategy for getting it from him or her.

But when your neighbor appears to be useless and inconsequential for your purposes, you write him off and ignore him, as though he were a nuisance and a bother to be avoided or driven away.  You do not see your neighbor as a person like yourself, as a human being to love and care for, but as an object to be gained, as a tool to be used, or as something to be discarded and forgotten.

What may be even worse, as Jesus reveals this evening, is when you serve your neighbor with alms and charity, not out of love and mercy for the Lord’s sake, but so that you might exalt yourself and appear to stand above your neighbor as though you were his savior and his god.  The remedy, of course, is not that you should refrain from almsgiving, but that you should care for your neighbor in the quiet humility of repentance and faith, giving freely as you have received from the Lord.

These sins against God and your neighbor are not only the cause and consequence of your dying; already they are the death that reigns in your heart and in your flesh apart from the Spirit of Christ Jesus.  And yet, so great is your selfishness, so deep is the perversity of your heart and mind, that you justify your sins and presume to wallow in the filthy rags of your own self-righteousness.  But attempting to advance yourself in this way is simply to rush headlong into death and damnation.

The Gospel, therefore, is not a strategy of self-justification or self-advancement.  It rather replaces your sinful self-righteousness with the perfect Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has in fact become your Servant in peace and love.  He forgives your sins and gives you life in Himself.

It is not by your works, but by His works that you are saved.  Not by your piety, but His.  Not even your faith, but His faith and His faithfulness have become your righteousness and your salvation.

With fear, love, and trust in His Father above all things, He sacrificed His entire body and life and shed His holy, precious blood to atone for your sins and the sins of the whole world, to reconcile the world to God.  In love for you, His neighbor, He sacrificed Himself in order to save you.  He gave Himself over to death on the Cross in your stead, in order to give Himself to you in mercy by the Ministry of His Gospel.  Though you were at enmity with Him, He reconciles you to Himself.

It is His Righteousness that is credited to you in the presence of God forever.  As He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, so are you justified in Him.  In His crucified and risen Body, you are raised up from the dust of the earth to live with God in the Kingdom of heaven: Already here in time (by faith), and hereafter in the resurrection of your body to life everlasting.

This Righteousness of Christ and His great Salvation are His divine charity for you, the alms that He gives freely to you and to all others, not to His own advantage but to your eternal benefit.  He fasted and humbled Himself as a Servant, even unto death upon the Cross, that He might now feed you with His Body and His Blood.  And as He prayed faithfully on His Way to the Cross, so does He also, in His Resurrection, ever live to intercede for you before the Throne of God.  He is your merciful and great High Priest, and it is in and with Him that you live and abide with His Father.

So it is that, as He calls you to repentance tonight, throughout the Season of Lent, and throughout all your days in this world — as He calls you away from yourself, away from your selfishness and sins, away from your death and damnation — He calls you to this Righteousness of His, which is yours by His grace through faith in His Gospel, that you might receive it from Him as a free gift.

His Life is an example for you to follow.  His prayer, fasting, and charity are the pattern in which you are to live and walk by faith, in love for Him, for His Father and the Holy Spirit, and for your neighbors in the world.  But His Life for you is more than an example.  It is your Righteousness.  It is the beautiful robe with which He covers your nakedness and shame, as He forgives all your sins with His blood, as He clothes you in and with Himself, and as He feeds you with Himself, from the waters of your Holy Baptism to the resurrection of your body in His glory at the last.

He calls you to hide yourself in Him, to live and abide in Him, and thus to stand before His God and Father in heaven with all boldness and confidence, in His Righteousness and purity forever.

It is true that you are dying.  That fact we acknowledge and confess.  But so do we also affirm and believe that, by your Baptism into Christ Jesus, you have already died — to yourself and to the world, to sin, death, and the devil — and that your life is now hidden with Christ in God: Hidden where no man can see, but your Father sees, who loves you as His own dear child for Jesus’ sake.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

11 February 2018

The Glory of God in the Body of Christ

The ministry of the Law is not without divine glory.  Indeed, it appears to be the height of glory.  And to be sure, the Law is the Word and Will of God.  It is holy and just, and it reveals what is good and right and true, what is acceptable and pleasing to the Lord.  His Law is impressive, and it is powerful.  It shakes the very mountains, and it crushes hearts.  It is not without divine glory.

But the righteousness of the Law cannot save you.  It does not make you righteous but condemns you.  It is not the Law with its rules and regulations, with its commandments, with its virtues, that reconciles you to God in peace.  Nor is it the Law that glorifies you with the very glory of God.

When you are confronted with the Law and its demands, with its commands and prohibitions, and with its threats and punishments, it will either terrify you by exposing your many sins and failings, or it will mislead you into selfish pride and presumptuous self-righteousness, as though you were actually keeping the Law and doing alright in your efforts and accomplishments.

The Law will either frighten or deceive you in these ways, not because the Law is bad or dishonest, but because of the hardness of your heart.  You cannot keep the Law.  You cannot save yourself.

But God never intended that the Law should save you.  His Law does not give you life but guides the Life that He gives you by His grace.  It points you to the life and love of God, which are in Christ Jesus, your Lord.  The Law points to Him.  And on the Mountain of Transfiguration it gives way to Him who is its perfect fulfillment.  Moses and Elijah cast their crowns, so to speak, at the feet of Him who is the King of heaven, who has come down in the flesh to justify and save you.

Now, you should understand that, because the Law of the Lord is the Word and Will of God, and especially because it points to the incarnate God, Christ Jesus, in whom it is fulfilled, to contradict the Law or disobey it, to disregard it or reject it, is all the more deadly and damnable than trying to save yourself by keeping it.  It is surely better to live according to the Law than to break it.  For if you reject the Law of God, if you disobey His holy Commandments, if you persist in unbelief and hatred for your neighbor and for God, then you will surely die in your wickedness.

It is no small thing to break God’s Law, to break His Commandments, to turn away from Him.  It is no small thing when you fail to pray, or fail to hear His Word and take it to heart.  It is no small thing when you make other gods out of your possessions, or your friends and family, or your security in this world.  It is no small thing when you disobey your parents and other authorities, when you disrespect them in your thoughts, words, or deeds.  It is no small thing if you fail to love your neighbor, if you hurt instead of help, if you take instead of give.  If you persist in such things, you will die in them.  They are contrary to the Word and Will of God.  Repent, and do otherwise.

Refrain from doing evil, and begin to do what is good and right according to God’s Word.  But do not suppose that you will save yourself by keeping the Law.  That you cannot do.  It will not work.  If you try to save yourself by keeping the Commandments, then you remain under the curse and condemnation of the Law.  You cannot keep it perfectly, so attempting to acquire life for yourself by the standard of the Law will not result in life but death.  Anyway, the purpose of the Law is not that you should save yourself, but that you should love and serve your neighbor and glorify God.

The fact is that you consistently fall short of that divine and holy purpose of the Law.  So, when God comes down with Commandments etched into stone and confronts your stony heart, then there is wrath and fear and terror and dread.  Not the promise of life but the threat of death.  You rightly quake at His presence, for you cannot stand before Him with any righteousness of your own.

But when the Lord your God comes down from the Mountain in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, then the greater glory of God is revealed in mercy and compassion.

When Moses had asked to see God’s glory — to see an indication that God would be and remain with His people — the Lord sheltered Moses in the cleft of the Rock.  And the Rock that followed them was Christ.  Thus showing His glory to Moses in the promise of Christ, God declared, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and compassion on whom I have compassion.”  That is to say, not according to any of the works of the Law, but according to the grace of God Himself.  That is the mercy and compassion of God which is found in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.

It is when He comes down from the high Mountain, as you have heard this morning — not with tablets of stone and Commandments of the Law, but with His own Body prepared for the sacrifice of His Cross — that is where and how the greater glory of God is revealed and manifested for you.

Everything that the Law of God commands — His good and acceptable Will, which is summarized in faith and love toward Him, and in love for the neighbor — it is all fulfilled and accomplished in the flesh of Christ, in His Body crucified and risen.  That is where everything is accomplished.

This good work of Christ in the flesh, the voluntary sacrifice of His Body on the Cross, and the shedding of His holy, precious Blood — that is not simply the penalty of your sin, the undoing of what you have done wrong.  It is more than the Lord cleaning up after your mistakes.  It is the Lord your God doing what He intended from before the foundation of the world.  It is God loving as He does, because He is Love.  It is the Father giving His Son, and the Son submitting to His Father in holy faith and perfect love for God and man.  It is the pinnacle of divine glory in the flesh.

This is what the Law was always really about.  Not your fulfillment, not your self-righteousness, not your self-salvation, but rather the gift of God in the Body of Christ Jesus.  His works are the true keeping of God’s good and gracious Will for you.  The life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son in the flesh is the full realization of His divine glory for you, that you should live and not die.

So, when Jesus comes down from the Mountain of Transfiguration, He is not leaving His divine glory behind.  He is proceeding to the divine glory of His Cross and Passion.  But of course that  contradicts everything you think you know and understand.  It contradicts your experience, your wisdom, reason, and all your senses.  Even the disciples who were catechized by Christ Himself, who saw His glory on the Mountain, were confused and frightened when His true and greater glory was accomplished by His Cross.  Yet, everything hinges and depends on that Sacrifice of Christ.

The glory of the Law must give way to the glory of the Cross, by which the Lord establishes His own righteousness for you in His Body of human flesh and blood.  That is the righteousness with which you are justified, by which you stand before God the Father in heaven and are at peace.

So also, all of the miracles that Christ performs — and those of His Prophets before Him and His holy Apostles after Him — all of those miracles are gathered up into the Resurrection of His Body from the dead.  All of the life that He grants to both body and soul are accomplished and fulfilled in His Body, which is transfigured by the Cross into the glory of His Resurrection from the dead.

It is in that same Body of Christ Jesus — crucified for you under Pontius Pilate and risen from the dead forevermore — that you behold the true glory of God and are brought to Him in peace.

You cannot see it with your eyes.  Even here at His Altar you do not behold His flesh.  And if you could see His crucified Body, then, just like the disciples, you would likewise be confused and frightened.  But do as God has spoken, as He has invited.  Listen to this beloved Son.  Hear His gracious Words to you.  For His Words in your ears declare to you what this hidden Body of Christ really is, and what it does, and what it means for you.  It is given for you, as His Blood is poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  And where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation.  There indeed is the glory of God, which is given to you by His grace.  It is all right here.

The Word of Christ Jesus, that is, the Gospel of His forgiveness, that is how you hear and know, believe and trust that God is now your own dear Father in heaven, and that His good and gracious Will is not to crush you, condemn you, and kill you, but to save you for eternal Life with Him.

Thus, the highest Mountain of God is not Mount Sinai, where He gave the Law to Moses and established His Covenant with Israel.  Nor is it the Mountain of Transfiguration, where the glory of Jesus was manifested in expectation of His Cross and Resurrection.  No, the highest Mountain of God is Mount Calvary, where the Son of Man fulfilled the entire Law and established the New Covenant in His Blood by His death upon the Cross.  That is where He is lifted up to the heights of true divine glory, for that is where He saves sinners according to His mercy and compassion.

So, too, the true Mount Zion, where the glory of the Lord resides, and where His holy Name abides among His people on earth as it is in heaven, is not the Temple in Jerusalem, which has long since been destroyed.  The true Mount Zion is right here at this Altar, the Altar of the Holy Communion.  It is therefore to this place that the Word of Christ brings you in love.  It is here that you find life.

Here at His Altar is the center of Life, the very Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.  And here, by His Word, with His own Body and His Blood given and poured out for you — regardless of your age or education, no matter how much money you make or have, or what you have done in the past, or what you will yet do and accomplish — here God feeds you with Himself, His flesh for yours.

Thus are you transfigured by the glory of God in the flesh of Christ.  Your body of flesh and blood is transfigured by His Body and Blood to live by faith in Him and with love for your neighbors.  Not by impressive deeds of glory and grandeur in the eyes and estimation of the world.  No, the glory of God transfigures your life in such a way that you go about your days in humble service and self-sacrifice.  And even if no one else notices, your Father in heaven sees you.  He beholds you in the very glory of His beloved Son.  As you are baptized into Christ, to you also He says, “You are pleasing to Me.  I love you and delight in you.  All of Mine is yours.  So, even though you die, yet shall you live.  And so shall you be raised in your body, glorified and perfect forever.”

The gracious Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Gospel of forgiveness, has clothed you in His garments of righteousness and holiness.  You are not condemned, you are forgiven, and you are set free.  You really are free.  Free of guilt and shame and condemnation and death.  Free to live.

Your flesh also is glorified by the flesh of Christ.  Not simply in your heart and head, but in your body, too, you live in love, both here in time and hereafter in the resurrection to Life everlasting.

By His Cross and in His Resurrection you are saved, as sure and certain as God Himself is true.  For Christ the Lord has in fact set up His Tabernacle on earth among men.  Not on a high mountain that you could never hope to climb, but right here in your presence, His flesh for your flesh, His Body for your body.  This is where He lives for you.  And as He lives, so shall you live forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

04 February 2018

The Lord Jesus Brings Forth the Fruits of His Word

What you are to learn, above all, from the Parable of the Sower, is that everything depends upon the Word of God in Christ — who is Himself the Word-made-Flesh.  Everything depends upon God’s Word, and specifically upon His preaching of that Word, His sowing of that Seed.

Apart from the preaching of this Word of Christ, there is no Christianity; there is no genuine faith, no discipleship, no forgiveness of sins, no real life, and no salvation.  There are no such things at all except by the preaching of Christ Jesus.  For His Word is all knowledge, all truth, and all faith.

Those who claim to worship any god at all — by whatever name — apart from the Word of Christ, are idolaters.  They have been deceived, and they have become deceivers.

But let us get personal and right down to it.  The Word of God in Christ is your true spiritual food.  It is your sustenance, your breath of life, and your hope for the future.  In short, the preaching of His Word is the source and substance of your entire Christian faith and life.

Here then, from this pulpit, is that Seed which is the Word of God, which even now is being sown among you by the Sower, who is none other than your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  If you have been given ears to hear, therefore, hear what Jesus says to you this morning.  Receive His Word into your heart, and keep it always close at hand.  That is what it means to be His disciple.

It is by this preaching of His Word — by this sowing of His Seed — that Jesus Christ, the Word-made-Flesh, gathers people from all nations to Himself and calls them to discipleship.  And it is then to His disciples, by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, that Jesus explains the Parables and reveals the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God, which cannot otherwise be known or understood.

“Discipleship” and “Catechesis” are two sides of the same coin, two sides of one and the same way of life in Christ.  That is the life that is lived by faith in the preaching and teaching of Christ.  It is not optional but essential, not as a means to some other end, but as your very life with God in Christ Jesus.  For the “knowledge” of His Mysteries is not an academic exercise, nor simply a matter of memorizing theological facts, but a living and active relationship with the Lord Himself.

Such life with God in Christ is rooted in the Ministry of His Gospel, by which He accomplishes His purposes in you.  He plants the Seed in your heart by the preaching of His Word.  He waters that Seed and causes it to thrive by your Holy Baptism and its ongoing significance.  He prunes and cultivates the plant that emerges, and He weeds and plows your soil, with His Law and His Gospel, especially in Confession and Absolution.  And He nurtures the growing plant within your body and life by the means of His own holy Body and His precious Blood in the Holy Communion.  It is thus by His Word and Sacraments that He bears His good fruits in you a hundredfold.

It is Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, who accomplishes all of these good works by His grace.  For the Mysteries of the Kingdom are found in Christ Himself, in His own flesh and blood, conceived and born of St. Mary, in His Cross and Passion, and in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  But these great Mysteries of God are made known to you — indeed, they are given to you and shared with you — in the Mysteries of Holy Baptism, the forgiveness of your sins, and the Body and Blood of Christ, given and poured out for you and for the many by His grace alone.

Bucking up against this gracious work of Christ Jesus, every catechumen, every Christian, every disciple of Jesus is hindered by the devil, by the world, and by the sinfulness of your fallen flesh.  Those enemies conspire to snatch the Word from your ears, from your heart, and from your life.

So are you tempted to sin, distracted from the way of life in Christ to which you are called, and driven from His Word into false belief, despair, and all manner of shameful vices.  Sin, death, and the devil are out to end your life forever.  They aim to prevent you from the final resurrection of your body from the dust of the earth on the last day.  And they will stop at nothing to destroy you.

The devil, to begin with, is a wicked and powerful foe, who will lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to drag you from the Word, and the Word from you!  He is like a roaring lion, St. Peter warns, always on the prowl and seeking to devour you, as surely as his birds devour the Seed.

As if that were not bad enough, the devil is aided and abetted by your own flesh, which hardens itself against the Word of Christ and constantly resists the dying and burial of your sinful nature, and so also the rising of the New Man in your body and life.  You resist and flee from the Word of the Lord, because you love and trust yourself more than you fear, love, and trust in Him.

Not only that, but all around you the world with its treasures and pleasures entices you with its false and empty promises of life and happiness.  Thus are you so easily entangled by the passions and pursuits of sin, whether gluttony and pride or jealousy and bitter resentment.  Either way, the Seed of Christ is choked and suffocated and prevented from growing and producing fruit in you.

But now, let us think about these challenges more concretely, with specific reference to the actual life of the Church.  As of this Sunday (Sexagesima) we are roughly sixty days from the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord, eight weeks from those most sacred and life-giving Mysteries of the Kingdom of God, which are the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord.  It is therefore not long before the season of Lent will begin, for the purpose of preparing you for those life-giving Mysteries by the means of the Word of God, by His Law and His Gospel, calling you to repentance and faith.

So the question is, Will you hear that Word of God and keep it?  Will you read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it?  Will you hungrily consume every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God?  Or will you despise God’s Word and turn a deaf ear to it?  The Third Commandment has taught you to fear and love God by gladly hearing and learning His Word and the preaching of it.  But do you?  Are you truly glad whenever you are told, “Let us go up to the house of the Lord”?

It is fine that you are here this morning.  Christ be praised!  But is the Seed penetrating your ears into your heart?  Or does it enter one ear and exit the other?  Are you hearing and heeding this Word of the Lord, or is your mind wandering elsewhere?  Are you eager and delighted by this Word of Christ, or must you constantly fight the urge to check your watch or drift off to sleep?

Do you seize every chance to be planted with the Seed that is sown?  Or do you perhaps consider your Sunday morning brunch to be more satisfying and worthwhile than Bible class?

Do you give attention to the Word of God throughout the days of your week?  Are the rhythm and routine of your life governed by the prayer and confession of His Word and faith in harmony with the liturgical life of His Church, or by politics, sports, and the entertainment industry?

How often do you remember your Baptism and what it means for your life and behavior as a child of God?  And how often do you practice what the Catechism has taught you — which you swore to uphold, even at the cost of your life, when you were confirmed — that is, to consider your place in life in view of the Ten Commandments, and on that basis to confess before your pastor those sins which are brought to light in your thoughts, words, and deeds?  All for the sake of hearing and receiving that most precious Word of Christ: His Word of Holy Absolution.

Actually, each and every Word of Christ is so precious — and so vital to your Christian faith and life and salvation — that you ought to be scrambling to lay hold of every Seed that you can.  There should not be a single Seed wasted!  But it would seem that the devil knows better than you do how essential that Seed is; for he knows that, without the Word of Christ, you are not able to believe, you cannot live, and you will not be saved.  How tragically sad, that the devil and his birds are more zealous to snatch the Seed away from you, than you are to hear it and take it to heart!

As Dr. Luther chastised the people of Germany in his day, where such contempt for the Word of the Lord persists and prevails, He will send such a famine of His Word upon you that you will finally learn to hunger for it, and yet you will find nothing, and you will perish forever without it.  That is what ingratitude for His Word and neglect of His Word rightly merit and deserve.

Thanks be to God that He has not taken His Word away from you.  Not yet.  The Sower continues to sow His Seed here in this place, in your hearing.  Indeed, He is so reckless in His grace and generosity, so foolish in His divine Wisdom, that He sows the Seed even where it would seem to have no chance whatsoever of growing: By the wayside, on the rocks, and among thorns.  Which is to say that He is so reckless, and so gracious, that He preaches His Word even to you!

Not only that, but the Word that Christ the Sower preaches to you — the Seed that He sows — is chiefly His Word of the Gospel, that is, the forgiveness of all your sins, by which He also changes your heart of stone into a heart of flesh.  And by its own mysterious power, which is the power of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, this Seed, the Word of Christ, is able to implant itself within you, and to convert your trampled, rocky, weed-infested heart into a noble and good heart.

Do you see, and do you hear and understand?  It is not the soil but the Seed, that is, the Word itself — the Word of the Gospel of Christ — which grows and brings forth fruit.  And as such, the key to the good soil, and the key to its fruitfulness, is entirely in the hearing and keeping of that Word.

The only way by which the enemies of the Word are overcome is by the hearing of the Word, and by continuing to hear it; because the Word itself is the only remedy for all that stands against it.

It is a sure and certain remedy, because it is a sure and certain Word.  “My Word, which goes forth out of My mouth, shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the purpose for which I speak it.”  Thus says the Lord!  And as He has spoken, so has He done, according to His good and gracious Will.

As God the Father has spoken to you by His Son, the Word-made-Flesh, even unto death on the Cross, so has He raised Him from the dead as the Firstfruits of the New Creation.  And the same Lord Jesus Christ has called you to Himself by the persistent preaching of His Word, by the faithful sowing of His Seed.  He has thereby made you His disciple.  And He has made known to you the truth, even the Mysteries of His own divine Kingdom.

He has not only caused you to hear His Word, but He has also enabled you to “keep it.”  And what is more, because that Word is chiefly the Word of His Gospel, “keeping it” means, primarily, not obedience (as to some rule or command) but receiving and trusting (as with a gift and a promise).

Thus does your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, sow His Seed within your heart, and cultivate your field, and bring forth in you the fruits of faith.  And so shall He also raise you up in the flesh on the last day, and bring forth you and all His disciples as the fruits of His own Resurrection.  From start to finish, it is His preaching of His Word that accomplishes everything for you, and in you.

So, then, at all times and in all places, in every situation and circumstance, take it to heart that everything depends upon the unfailing Word of Christ: Not upon you; nor your own goodness, which is nothing; nor your sincerity, resolve, efforts, or striving, none of which are capable of producing anything but more and more sinfulness apart from Christ.  But everything depends upon His Word, which will not fail to accomplish the purpose for which He continues to preach it.

By His Word, He has forgiven all your sins, and He continues to forgive you.  He has granted you faith in Himself and in His Word, and by His grace He keeps you steadfast in His Word and faith throughout your life.  He has made known to you the Mysteries of His Kingdom, which He also bestows upon you and shares with you here and now, by and with and through His Word, in the gracious giving of His own Body and Blood, which are indeed the firstfruits of His Holy Gospel.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

03 February 2018

Blessed Is She Who Believes the Word of God

This Word of our Lord confirms what His servant St. Luke has demonstrated from the beginning of the Holy Gospel — that the Virgin St. Mary is doubly blessed.  She who conceived and bore the very Son of God within her womb, who nursed Him at her breast and nurtured Him in childhood, also heard the Word of God, believed it and confessed it, and kept it in holy faith and love.  She is the first and foremost of all saints, who treasured these things and pondered them in her heart.

There is no competition between the blessings of the Blessed Virgin.  That she became the Mother of God by His Word and Spirit does not exclude but invites her fear, love, and trust in Him who remains her Creator and Lord even as He becomes her Child, the Fruit of her womb.  He is her own Savior and her God, even as He becomes and remains forevermore her own dearly-beloved Son.

Blessed is she both in faith and in love within her vocation and station and life, as you also are blessed by God’s Word and faith and by His calling within your own office and your place in life.

She is highly favored by the Lord, as He declares to her through the Archangel Gabriel.  She is the object of His grace and mercy, and she becomes the specially chosen instrument of His peace.  As a true daughter of Abraham, both according to the flesh and according to faith in the promises of God, she is holy and righteous in the presence of the Lord.  And His Word is fulfilled in her — for you and for all people — as she conceives and bears the promised Seed of Abraham in her body.

It was that same Word of God, made flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, which she also kept and pondered in her heart by faith, as in her body by grace.  To that Word she submitted herself, and by that Word she lived.  She learned from her Son, as you are likewise taught, to pray to God, “Thy Will Be Done.”  “Behold the servant of the Lord.”  “Let it be to me according to Thy Word!”

St. Mary’s confession, her prayer, and her faithfulness are exemplary throughout all generations.

Thus do we give thanks to God the Father for this Blessed Virgin, this sainted Mother of His Son, our dear Lord Jesus Christ.  For she is most assuredly a gift of His grace for our salvation.  From the Garden of Eden to the Resurrection of the dead and the Life everlasting, she is the Woman whose Seed has crushed the head of the serpent, that old dragon who is called the devil and Satan.

We are strengthened in our faith by the mercy of God toward St. Mary of Nazareth, as also by His mercy toward all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve in giving Himself to us poor sinners as her own dear Son in the flesh.  For it is by His great mercy and not according to any human merit.

And again, we are strengthened in our own life and in the works of our callings by the example of St. Mary.  For she has done exactly as she has advised: “Whatever the Lord says to you, do it!”

Beyond all that, in a special way, we see in the Blessed Virgin Mary a living icon of the Church, the Bride of Christ, the Woman who conceives and gives birth to the children of God by His Word and Holy Spirit.  To that blessed, holy Church you also belong by the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, your Holy Baptism and your faith and life in Christ are no less miraculous and merciful than the conception and birth of the Lord Jesus Himself.

And the life to which you are called is lived under the Cross in the hope of the Resurrection, no less than St. Mary’s entire life was lived in the shadow of the Cross of Christ, her Son.  She, like you, was given to rely upon and cling to the promise of His Resurrection.  And so was she, like you, sustained in her faith and saved from sin and death by the fulfillment of that sweet promise.

We are not wrong to consider the “passion” of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  For God the Holy Spirit prophesied through Simeon that a great Sword would pierce her own soul on account of Christ, her Son.  This Child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, not least of all His own dear Mother, St. Mary.  Her sufferings and her sorrows save no one, not even herself.  But sufferings and sorrows there were throughout her life.  Long before she would stand at the foot of the Cross, she bore the Cross in her vocation as the Mother of the One who would be crucified.

And yet, together with the whole Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been crucified for our transgression and raised for our justification, blessed is she under His Cross.  Indeed, blessed is she by the Cross, unto the Resurrection of her body and the Life everlasting of her body and soul in the crucified and risen Body of her Son.

Blessed is she among women!  More blessed, indeed, is the Fruit of her womb.  For her Son, Jesus, is her own Savior as well as yours.  He is the promised Seed of the Woman, the Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Seed of Judah and of David, in whom all the nations of the world are blessed.

To bear this Seed, this Fruit of her womb, is surely her great work of love within her vocation, all by the grace and choosing of God.  Not that she deserved it, but that she did it by holy faith, by the strength that God provided through His Word and Holy Spirit.  So are you also called to live and to love, to serve your neighbor in peace, and to bear the fruits of faith in Christ within your place.

To be sure, they are great and mighty things that God has done for His handmaiden, the Blessed Virgin Mary; and not for her only, but through her for you and for all the children of men.

It is all the more remarkable and marvelous that her singular blessing as the Mother of God — her unique blessing as the Woman who bore the incarnate Son of God and nursed the infant Lord Jesus at her breast — that blessing which belongs to her alone is exceeded by the blessing that you and all the baptized are granted to share with her in Him whom she bore for us men and our salvation.

As you have heard from the lips of Jesus Himself this morning, that greater blessing is to hear the Word of God and to keep it.  To treasure all these things by faith; to ponder them in your heart and mind, in your prayer and confession; and to live according to the Word and promises of God in Christ Jesus, in the confidence that He is faithful and that He will surely do what He has spoken.

To be and to live as such a child of God, by such faith in Christ, the Word-made-Flesh, is finally and forevermore a surpassingly greater grace and blessing than even to be the Mother of God!

And all the more so shall we say that she is blessed indeed who is both the Mother and a child!

For she became the Mother, so that you also might become a child of God in Christ, her Son.  Through her He became like us, of the same flesh and blood as your own, so that, through Him, you should become like God and share with St. Mary and all saints in the Kingdom of His Father.

It is true that none of you will ever become the Mother of God.  St. Mary alone is blessed in that way, for which we give all thanks and praise to her Son, Jesus, and for which we rightly honor her on account of Him.  But here for you is something even better:

As God the Son received St. Mary’s flesh and blood and made it His own, conceived and born as true Man within her womb, so does He give His Body and His Blood to you.  As He nursed at her breast, so does He feed you at His Altar with His own flesh, by and with His Word.  Thus does He abide in you, and you in Him, both body and soul, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

Blessed are you who believe what He says!  For so shall it be to you according to His Word!

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.