In and Out of Egypt with the Lamb of God

Do not suppose that death has got the upper hand, nor that death will have the last word.  For out of Egypt God has called His Son — the same Son, Jesus Christ, who has come in the Flesh to bear your sins and be your Savior.  He has shed His Blood and died for you, and God has raised Him from the dead.  Therefore, death has no power over Him, and neither does it have any power over you, since you are baptized into Christ Jesus and belong to Him now and forever.

And yet, despite all that, it sure still looks and feels as though death were winning.  Examples abound on all sides, and you can hardly read or listen to the news without adding more on a daily basis.  Explosions, shootings, accidents, and illness.  And it strikes even closer to home too often.

“In the very midst of life, death has us surrounded.”  And the fear of death, under its many guises, enslaves and tyrannizes you, driving you to sin.  It is at the heart of all your selfishness and greed, your covetousness and idolatry, your deception and manipulation, and both your lazy negligence and your works-righteous legalism.  For death has come into the world on account of sin, and sin increases all the more in the fear of death.  It is a vicious cycle which erupts here and there, within and without, sometimes with cold calculation, and then again with aimless outbursts of violence.

Sometimes, like King Herod, you get angry and lose your temper, and you fight back and defend yourself with force — as though you were a god, with the power and authority of life and death.

At other times, like Rachel, you despair of any help or consolation — you weep and moan, refusing to be consoled or comforted — as though there were no God, no Savior, and no hope to be found.

Such fear of death, such anger, and such inconsolable grief are all sinful and unrighteous, because they are contrary to faith and to the love of God.

I tell you, then, repent of your misplaced fear, of your violent temper, and of your hopeless despair.

Wait quietly and patiently upon the Lord, and rise up at His Word to do what He calls you to do.  No matter how daunting, difficult, or discouraging the task at hand may be, get up and go in the hope of His grace, mercy, and peace.  Live and work as St. Joseph of Nazareth has done in caring for his wife and for her Son, as he flees with them to Egypt and waits upon the Word of the Lord.

So, then, about that story set before us on this day: Once again it would seem that death has got the upper hand, and that everything is out of God’s control.  After all, the little Lord Jesus has to be rushed away to safety in the middle of the night, while the innocent baby boys of Bethlehem are slaughtered in His wake.  Where is the justice or the hope in such events as these?

To point out that everything actually unfolds according to the Scriptures seems, on the surface, only to make matters worse.  For why on earth would God permit such atrocities to happen?

Why, indeed, does God permit you to suffer?

And why does the Lord your God permit you to hurt and harm your neighbor?

Truth be told, God does respond to and deal with evil, with sin and death, with fear and anger and despair.  But He does not respond as you would do, nor does He act like either Herod or Rachel.  He does not react with force, nor retaliate with the raw unbridled power of a temper tantrum.  He has no need to get “defensive,” as though He were backed into a corner and desperate for some way out.  Nor does He panic and throw up His hands in frustration.  He does not give up the fight.

True enough, there is a day of reckoning, a day of judgment, when God vindicates His people and punishes the sons of disobedience.  He does get glory over against Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt who are drowned in the depths of the Red Sea.  Herod also dies and is judged by the Lord.

But the Lord God demonstrates His almighty power over sin, death, the devil, and hell, chiefly by showing mercy to sinners, and having compassion upon them, and forgiving them all their sins.  He is patient and long-suffering, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  He establishes His righteousness in the midst of the nations, not by punishment to start with, but by redemption.  Else we should all be lost, completely and forever, and then there really would be no hope at all.

As it is, the Lord our God is faithful in His mercy, and He is righteous in His forgiveness of sins.  So it is that Herod’s treachery does not triumph, because death does not get the last word.  Herod’s slaughter of the innocents is no less sinful and wicked on that account, but neither does it win.

God does not fail or neglect the children of Bethlehem, but He calls them to Himself and rescues them from every evil, unto the Life everlasting in body and soul.  Their little bodies are cruelly butchered and put to death, but God gives them rest, and He shall raise them in glory at the last.

Meanwhile, Christ Jesus does not “run away” in fear from danger and from death, but He proceeds in faith to the Sacrifice of His Cross, which shall be at the time appointed by His Father in heaven.  No one takes His life from Him, but He lays it down willingly when that Day and that Hour come.

It is toward that purpose that He grows up — from infancy, through childhood, into adulthood — in order to redeem the whole of human life.  He lives in faith and love, from the first to the last, on His Way to the Cross.  And as true Man, He learns to refuse the evil and choose the good.  That is to say, He learns experientially to live by faith in the Word of God in the midst of sin and death.  He goes to the Cross, not as a helpless babe in His Mother’s arms, but as the Perfect Man of God.

In all of this, He does not escape the trials and tribulations of this life — which the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem are spared, though their mothers and fathers are not.  But He submits Himself to every bit of the Great Tribulation — for you and your salvation, and for the sake of all people.

He enters into Egypt in order to rescue and redeem His Israel from Egypt, in the certainty that His God and Father will call Him forth by the new and greater Exodus of His Cross and Passion.

It is not at Herod’s whim, but in fulfillment of God’s holy will, that Christ Jesus lays down His life in the hope of the Resurrection, trusting the Scriptures of the Prophets, the promise of His Father.

He thus becomes the Lamb who is given in place of beloved Isaac, sacrificed in place of the sons of Israel, put to death in place of all the children of men.  He is pierced for your transgressions, wounded for your iniquities, crucified, put to death, and buried; and by His stripes you are healed.

And now, behold, He is risen from the dead and lives forever in His own glorified Body!  For He is raised by God to life again, which is your justification, your righteousness and holiness before God in heaven.  Thus does the Son return to His own territory, to the Right Hand of His Father.

Beloved of the Lord, you now follow this Lamb, Jesus, wherever He goes, so that you are with Him where He is.  So it is by your Baptism into His death, and so too by the eating and drinking of His true Passover Feast, which is His Body given and His Blood poured out for you.

And so it is that you shall be with Him forever, alive with His Spirit in both body and soul, holy and righteous in the presence of His Father, residing in peace on the heavenly Mount Zion.

This is your future, and in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus it is your sure and certain hope.  Amen, Amen, so shall it be!  And that was likewise the case for the believing baby boys of Bethlehem when Herod put them to death, for he could not rob them of their life, which is in Christ Jesus.

To be sure, your time now under the Cross is not easy — in this wilderness to and from Egypt — as you must care for your neighbors in hardship and adversity, and as you mourn for those who die.  It was not easy for St. Joseph and the Holy Family, either, nor for the grieving fathers and mothers of Bethlehem.  And let us not make light of the Cross that is thus borne in this poor life of labor.

But the truth remains, that Christ has died, and Christ is risen from the dead.  And He has written His Name — the Name of His Father — with the sign and seal of His Cross upon your forehead.

Therefore, God calls you also out of Egypt in His Son.  Indeed, you are His beloved son in Christ!

Have no fear of death, for it has been undone.  Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for all your sins are forgiven.  The devil who sought your life is defeated; he cannot harm you anymore forever.  You are ransomed and redeemed by the Lord your God, and you are taught the New Song of the Lamb who has purchased and won you with His own Blood.

Even now you sing His Song in the strength of His Resurrection, which is the surety of your own resurrection from the dead; for He has become your Salvation, now and forever and ever.

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

So This Is Christmas

What is it that makes this day, December the 25th, special?  What makes today “Christmas”?

For most Americans, there is hardly any day of the year more important, if only for the sake of the economy, or perhaps because it is the primary “family gathering” occasion.  It’s certainly become a significant festival of the Church Year, as well, albeit a relative late-comer, historically speaking.

By the early fourth century, it does appear that some Christians (in and around the city of Rome) had come to identify December the 25th as the “birthday” of Christ Jesus — although He was far more likely born in the spring of the year, much closer to Easter.  “Birthdays,” in general, have never been prominent in the Church’s liturgical observances, but the Nativity of Our Lord is of course uniquely significant.  Even so, the occasion was not observed with any major festivities for many years.  The focus of the Church’s faith and life was rather on His Cross and Resurrection.

As for the coming of God the Son in human Flesh and Blood and His appearing as the God-Man on earth, the Christian Church (especially outside of Rome) originally celebrated that awesome, divine Mystery on January the 6th — what we know as the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord.  Until the end of the fourth century and beyond, that was the big celebration for most of the Church.

Many are convinced that December the 25th came into its own among Christians as a replacement for the pagan festival of the sun god — the victorious, “unconquered sun.”  This seems not only likely, but appropriate, since Christ Jesus is the true Sun of Righteousness who has come into this world as true Light in the darkness, and who has conquered all the enemies of man by His Cross.

Nowadays, we might wonder whether our culture and society have not turned the Christian Feast of Christmas back into another pagan festival, only without anything so specific or worthwhile as a sun god.  Be that as it may, let us not point fingers at the world outside.  Let us rather ask, what is it that makes this day, December the 25th, special for us?  Why are any of us here this morning?

The answer is nothing you have done or said or felt.  It is nothing in yourself or of your own doing.  It is, rather, “of the Father’s Love begotten.”  For it is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who makes Christmas happen by giving His own dear Son, His Only-Begotten, in the Flesh.

That is what Christmas is about, or, better to say, what Christmas is.  That is why the angels from the realms of glory appear and sing to shepherds here on earth — and why we sing with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.  For the Nativity of our Lord binds together heaven and earth, God and Man, which is something neither you nor anyone else could ever have done.  For you could not, by your own reason or strength, believe in God the Lord or come to Him; and in your native sinfulness, you did not even know Him or want to have anything to do with Him.

Yet, He has ever desired in love to give you true and lasting Life in and with Himself.  Therefore, since you could not come to Him — nor did you even want to come to Him — the Lord your God has come down from heaven to you in the Person of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, begotten of the Father from all eternity, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fulness of time.

He does so entirely in “Love.”  For God is Love.  That’s not just what God does or what He’s like, but “Love” constitutes His very essence as the Holy Trinity.  The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, in the perfect unity of the Holy Spirit.  And it is in that divine Love that He acts.

It is in that divine Love that God the Son comes in the Flesh as your Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is in divine Love that He gives His Body into death upon the Cross and sheds His holy, precious Blood to make Atonement for the sins of the whole world.  It is in divine Love that He has come to you in the waters of your Holy Baptism to cleanse and sanctify you, within and without, by His Word and Holy Spirit, and to make you a beloved and well-pleasing child of His own God and Father.  And it is in divine Love that He gives you His Body and Blood for the forgiveness of all your sins.

Thus does God the Father love you in and with His own dear Son, and by and with His Holy Spirit.  It is a divine, eternal Love that never ends or wavers, because it does not depend on you in any way, but it depends entirely on Him, on who He is.  It is as sure and certain as God Himself is true.

So, then, returning to the question of what it is that makes this day “Christmas” — which is to say, the “Christ-Mass,” the celebration of the Eucharist in celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord — it is because, not only “once upon a time,” but here and now, in this place, God the Father gives to you His only-begotten Son in the same Flesh and Blood that were conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Indeed, the same Flesh and Blood of the same Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, are given and poured out for you here at this Altar in His Holy Supper.

The King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth He stood, the Lord of lords in human nature, in His Body and His Blood, gives Himself to you and all the faithful as heavenly Food.

So, the fact of the matter is that today is Christmas Day because the Christian Church around the world is celebrating the Holy Communion and receiving the true Body and Blood of Christ Jesus in this Holy Sacrament.  Otherwise, December the 25th would be no different and no more special than any other day of the year.  By the same token, every day in which the Church celebrates and receives the Holy Sacrament is a Christ-Mass — and Epiphany, and Good Friday, and Easter!

It is the flesh-and-blood presence of Christ Jesus that does indeed make this day special.  For His presence as your Savior and your King, and the priceless Food and Drink with which He feeds and serves you, makes this Day and this Divine Service a festival and a Feast of His great Salvation.

Thus, “for you there is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  And as Dr. Luther has said concerning a similar Word of promise, “These words, ‘for you,’ require all hearts to believe.”

For you, right here and now, and for the Christian Church around the world, the “Christ-Mass” truly happens on this Holy Day — as the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus are given and poured out for you to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins.  Here this morning, on the corner of Milton and Dale, in the frailty of bread and wine (no more impressive than a manger), everything that matters in the world happens for you.  The Savior comes to you in His own human Flesh, as surely as He was conceived and born of St. Mary, in order to give to you His own divine, eternal Life, that you should live with Him, and with His Father and the Holy Spirit, in body and soul forever.

As I’ve delighted to say many times over the years, this Sanctuary is your Bethlehem.  This Altar is for you the stable of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Patten and the Chalice are the manger that bear His Body and His Blood for you.  And as He once came to dwell in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, so does He come to live and abide in you, that you might also live and abide in Him.

That is what makes the 25th of December so special.  Not the historical accuracy of the date, which is likely off by several months.  Not the nostalgic memories of the past.  But the coming of Christ Jesus in the Flesh for you and your salvation, that the Love of God the Father and the Communion of His Holy Spirit might also be yours in the Body and Blood of the same Lord Jesus Christ.

Be certain that this true meaning and significance of the “Christ-Mass” will continue throughout the coming year, come what may — and so long as day and night, seasons, and years persist on this old earth — as your Lord and Savior comes to you, week after week, to strengthen and keep you steadfast in the true faith, in His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul.  So do you abide with Him in peace and joy.

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

His Manger Is Your Paradise

Working at night is a different experience.  If you’ve been there, done that, you know what I mean.  Not for nothing is it called “the graveyard shift.”  Even nighttime carousers and the glare of neon lights can’t hold back the darkness; neither can they hold back the death which lurks in darkness.  Which is why there are those who must labor through the night to watch out for their neighbors.

God bless and keep all those who keep watch on this night, that we might be gathered in safety.  It is a lonely occupation, too quiet of comforting sounds, yet too loud with chaos and confusion.  The night and the darkness are ominous and threatening, a constant reminder of dangers at hand.  For the truth is that we are dependent on the light, which originates and comes from the Lord our God.  Even the sun is but His creature, deriving its light from Him by way of His creative Word.

It is the same Lord God who provides the various people who serve and protect their neighbors, by night as by day — firefighters, paramedics, doctors, and nurses.  So, cheers to them, and thanks be to God for all of them.  And thank you, also, for your work and service in this poor life of labor.

Whatever your shift may be, you also work in the darkness.  That’s not an insult, just a fact.  For your whole life — with all of creation — is shrouded in deep darkness under the shadow of death.  The nighttime simply reminds you and makes it more obvious, what is also true during the day.

The nations and the rulers of this world have it all wrong in their raging, in their quest for power, and in their aspirations.  All of their grand schemes are futile, and they will end in ruin, as even the heavens and the earth are passing away.  Rage on.  Win your wars.  Build your empires.  Then watch it all fall apart and crumble back into dust.  It’ll be folded up as quickly as a game of Risk, when it’s all said and done, whether you imagine that you’ve won the game or lost it decisively.

What about your own plots and best laid plans?  What raging or scheming does the little tyrant in your own heart and mind concoct?  Not only what you do with malicious intent — though by all means repent of that wickedness, which is deep darkness indeed — but all the ways by which you conspire against the Lord and His Anointed, perhaps with the best of intentions (and excuses), simply by disregarding His clear and ceratin Word and charting your own path and progress.

What is this thing that you have done?  What anxiety now grips you?  What nakedness and fear?

Living unto yourself apart from the Word of the Lord, this too is darkness, the long nighttime of sin and death.  It will not end well.  Not even if you are very nice, hard working, and successful.

Yet, even now in the midst of that dark night, the almighty Word leaps down from heaven to earth.  He enters the too quiet silence, as well as the too noisy chaos, with His speaking of the Gospel.  For this is the Father’s speaking of His Son, not only “in Person,” but in the Flesh of His Word.

This is the Truth that is truer than true, which we celebrate tonight and tomorrow and for the next twelve days: That God the Creator has become the central Part of His own Creation, in order to save the work of His own hands; to rescue His creatures from sin and death, from the evil serpent, and from all the enemies of man; to preserve all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve in peace; and to sanctify them forever and ever in His own divine holiness, in and with His own holy Flesh.

The almighty Word by whom all things are made has not only entered into His own Creation and become the central and defining Part of it, but He also gathers up all things into Himself, into His Body of flesh and blood.  And so it is that all things find their Life, their Light, and their Salvation, their meaning and their purpose, their today and their tomorrow and their forevermore in Him.

This is what it means for Jesus Christ to be the Light of the world, the Light that no darkness at all can overcome.  And He is the Light that now shines upon you in His preaching of the Gospel.  This is your future and your hope, both day and night, whether you are keeping watch or sleeping, in your grave or in your bed.  Even the darkness is Light to Him, the night is as bright as the day.

The Father has not hidden this Light of Christ under a bushel, no.  He has set this incarnate Word, this Son of His in the Flesh — this Christ, the Lord’s Anointed — upon the holy hill of Zion, that is, within the City of David which is called the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church on earth.

So does He send His messengers to all the nations, even to the ends of the earth, and now also here to you, to find you out in your field, in the midst of all your labors, and to call you and send you to His Manger in His Church.  His Word sends you to find and feast upon the Word-made-Flesh.

It’s not that you must now spend all your time, your every waking moment, day and night, at the Lord’s Altar.  Although, I dare say, you do invest a lot of time and energy into many others things which do not matter anywhere near as much, which will not last and cannot give you life.

But, like the shepherds then, come and go from this Manger, that is to say, to and from the Lord’s Altar in the Lord’s House.  Find Him cradled in the arms of holy Mother Church.  Come and go from His Manger, not once, but often.  And realize that this is the Center, the beating Heart of Life itself.  It is the Heart and Center of God’s entire Creation, and of your own life in body and soul.

As surely as all things depend upon the divine Word by whom and for whom they were made, so surely do the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, all things visible and invisible, find their Heart and Home in Him, who has become Flesh and tabernacles with you and all His people in His Church (on earth as it is in heaven), in the preaching of His Gospel and in His Holy Sacrament.

Here there is Life and Salvation for you and for all people — in this City of David, which is rightly called the House of Bread, and in the sacred Feed Trough of the Holy Communion.  For here the Word, who is both God and Flesh, is given and poured out for you and for the many in His Body and His Blood, that you should receive and feast on Him for the forgiveness of all your sins.

Here is Paradise found: Creation as it was meant to be, God’s very good gift freely given to you.

Come, then, and feast upon the Word-made-Flesh.  And go back to your flocks, to your office and your desk, to your classroom or your kitchen, and live like it matters, because it surely does.  Live as though it made a difference, because His Flesh and Blood make all the difference in the world.

In the Body and Blood of Christ the Lord, the Son of God, your Savior, creation is rescued and redeemed from sin, death, and destruction.  Not only is it restored and renewed, but it is realized in its true perfection.  Not only is the darkness driven back and held at bay, but the true Light now shines eternally upon the New Creation — and also upon you — in the living Flesh of Jesus Christ.

He is not simply a means to some other end, but His Incarnation and your fellowship in His Flesh is the meaning of Life, the point and purpose for which you have been created and exist — that you should live and abide in Christ Jesus, and He in you, both body and soul, now and forevermore.

Thus, to and from His Manger — to and from this Paradise on earth — live, love, and work in the Light of Christ.  Don’t quit your day job (nor the night shift, if that is when you are given to work), but do now go about your labors in a whole new way.  For it is so, beloved, born of God the Word, that you now live in the never-ending Day of His crucified and risen Body.  And as He lives and reigns to all eternity, which is most certainly true, you also live forever and ever in His Peace.

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

Let Us Magnify the Lord in His House

You know the story of King David, the shepherd boy who was chosen and called by the Lord to shepherd His people, Israel, as King.  No doubt you recall his ups and downs — how David killed a man and stole his wife, Bathsheba, after committing adultery with her; and how his own son, Absalom, rebelled against him and then was killed in the course of his rebellion — but also his great courage in facing down and killing the giant, Goliath, with nothing but a slingshot and his fear, love, and trust in God; and his overall success as King, beloved of the Lord and the people.

It was after many years of warfare and conquest, when the Kingdom of Israel was prosperous, large, and secure — and David was comfortably seated upon his throne in a brand new palace — that he developed a pious and well-intentioned plan: He would magnify the Lord by building Him a house, a magnificent temple surpassing the royal palace.  So he intended to give thanks to God.

It sure sounded like a great idea, even to the Prophet Nathan.  And surely David’s intentions were good (notwithstanding what they say about the road of good intentions).  But he was mistaken in supposing that the humble things of this body and life are beneath the purposes of the Lord God; and he was wrong to be embarrassed that the Ark of God was dwelling in a tent (the Tabernacle).

It was the Lord God Himself who had chosen to cause His Name and His Old Testament Means of Grace to dwell among the people in the Tabernacle, that He should thereby deal with them in mercy and preserve them with His forgiveness of sins.  And it was likewise the Lord God Himself who had taken David from the humility of herding sheep to be the mighty shepherd-king of Israel.  So it was not for David to do any favors for God or to improve upon the purposes of the Lord.

The problem is that your own fallen flesh is prone to think and act in the same way that David was at that point, as though you could actually help God out and deal with Him according to your own ideas and with your own efforts, rather than relying exclusively on His Word and on His Gifts.

By the same token, it has always been rather sobering and instructive to me, as a pastor, to consider the way things went in this case with the Prophet Nathan.  When King David came to him with his idea for a temple, Nathan immediately replied, “Go right ahead; the Lord is with you.”  But the Lord actually had a very different message for David, with which He sent Nathan back to the King.

The Prophet had spoken out of turn, apart from the Word of the Lord; and so he got it wrong.  And so I am reminded how easy it is to fall into the same kind of error.  When people are actually eager and excited about some new project or program, when they want to contribute and get involved in some new effort or activity, the instinctive gut reaction is to encourage them to go for it.  It’s so easy, then, to speak out of turn, without considering the Word of the Lord, when you’re faced with enthusiastic volunteers offering to do something (even if it doesn’t really fit the situation).

The truth is that Nathan should have waited, first of all, to hear what the Lord would say.  And so must a pastor take the time to consider every potential activity of the Church in the light of the Lord’s clear and certain Word.  Likewise, I dare not enter this pulpit or attempt a Bible class, unless I can say with confidence concerning my preaching and teaching, “Thus says the Lord.”

But, again, our flesh is prone to go with the flow in thinking like David instead of the Lord.

Consider how easily and often you cringe at the “foolishness” of the Cross, if not as an historical event, then as the way by which the Lord God reveals and gives Himself to you now.  As St. Paul has written, the Cross is a scandal and a stumbling block to the world and to your own sinful heart, mind, body, and life.  Despite the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus do not compute with your feelings about “God” and what you think He should be like.

And by the same token, the ordinary Word of the Gospel and the humble Sacraments of the same Lord Jesus Christ do not square with the way you hope and expect that God will deal with you.  Are you not more readily pleased and impressed by the glories, successes, and monuments of the world than content and satisfied with the Means of Grace that God Himself has chosen and given  to you within the fellowship of His Church?  Does the Body of Christ not seem like a mere tent, as He tabernacles with you in His Flesh and Blood, seemingly unworthy of the God you desire?

Those who weary of the Sacrament of the Altar (and hearing about it) are of the same mind as King David when he presumed that he would build a temple for the Lord, something better than a tent. 

But, no, the Lord does not need your help or your advice.  Your ways are not better than His ways, and your thoughts are not as high (much less higher) than His thoughts.  On the contrary, you need Him and depend on Him for everything — every breath, every moment, every penny, every bite.  And with all of that, what you need from the Lord above all else is to be instructed by His Word and Holy Spirit, in order to learn His way of thinking and to forget the expectations of the world.

If the Lord your God chooses to dwell in a tent — if He chooses in love to hand Himself over to the Cross as the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the world — and if chooses to deal with you, to reveal and give Himself to you, in the humble simplicity of words and water, bread and wine — as He has done — then you’ll not improve upon His ways and means, but you must be humbled and taught the true wisdom of His apparent “foolishness.”  Instead of trying to liven up the Lord, you must be crucified and put to death to yourself by way of contrition and repentance.

It is fundamental that you must recognize your need for the Lord your God, and that you go to Him for all that He would do and say and give — by His own ways and means — instead of presuming to help Him.  In respect to your relationship with the Lord, “‘Tis far better to receive than to give.”

Which is not at all to say that you should simply sit around doing nothing and waiting for God and others to serve and care for you.  St. Paul shuts that way of thinking down elsewhere in his letters.  To begin with, you have your own particular calling and station from the Lord, just as David was called and anointed by God to be King over Israel.  So do you have your duties and responsibilities in this body and life on earth, in relation to the neighbors whom the Lord has set alongside of you.

What is more, it is quite right and appropriate, with respect to the Lord, that we should beautify and care for His House of Prayer and conduct ourselves in His presence with dignity and reverence befitting His Holy Name and His grace toward us.  But the key here is that His Name and His grace are His good gifts to His Church, which you receive and use and enjoy according to His Word.

Whatever you may do or give in support of His Church and Ministry of the Gospel is rightly a confession of His Word to you and a sacrifice of thanksgiving for all His gifts and benefits to you.  Likewise, all that you do and say and give in love for your family, friends, and all your neighbors (whether at Christmas or whenever) is a reflection and extension of the Lord’s divine love for you.  Everything begins and continues with the good and gracious Word and works of God, the Lord.

As the Prophet Nathan also learned after his premature blessing of King David’s plan, you are to live your life and worship the Lord in strict accordance with His Word, no matter how foolish or nonsensical it may seem to the world and your own flesh.  In sticking to His Word and clinging to His promises, you have done your part, even as the outcome and all things remain in His care.

That is the “obedience of faith,” as St. Paul has described in the Epistle.  For faith hears, receives, and believes the “Mystery” of the Gospel in the preaching of Christ Jesus, even though it remains a mysterious “secret” to the world.  As God alone is wise, so faith lives according to His Word.

You have heard an example of this “obedient faith,” a true Christian example of the proper way to “magnify the Lord,” in the response of the Virgin Mary to the Annunciation of Gabriel.  And here you find that King David’s dear descendent has been taught by the Word and Spirit of God.

The message the Lord delivers to St. Mary by the Archangel Gabriel fulfills the Word He spoke to David by the Prophet Nathan.  For here and now He is establishing the House of David in the Person of the Son of God, in His own Body of flesh and blood taken from the body of St. Mary.  His Name shall be “Jesus,” because He is the Lord, Yahweh, who comes to save His people from their sins.  As true God and true Man, He lives and reigns forever in His Kingdom without end.

It is true, of course, that David’s more immediate son and royal successor, King Solomon, did build a Temple for Yahweh (following David’s death).  But as magnificent as Solomon’s Temple was, it was a sign pointing forward to the true “House” of great David’s greater Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords, your dear Savior, Jesus Christ, who is Himself the House and Temple of God.

And St. Mary, a distant descendant of David, magnified the Lord in response to His Word, not by offering to do or build anything for Him, but simply by trusting His Word, despite the apparent nonsense of a virgin birth, and by receiving the Son of God into her womb in humility and faith.

In this Blessed Virgin Mary we have another example of God’s choice and preference to dwell in a simple “tent,” as it were, instead of a royal palace.  For she is no queen or princess of the world, but a meek and lowly young woman, little known or regarded by anyone other than the Lord.

That the almighty and eternal Son of the living God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, should thus become for us the tiniest of little human beings, an Embryo conceived within His Mother’s womb, then living and growing through all the stages of human life and development — that is an event of cosmic proportions and divine compassion beyond the comprehension of our finite human minds.  I daresay that none of us will ever grasp the magnitude of that divine Mystery; it is too much for us.  In the humility of faith we simply bow before the Lord in His own Flesh and Blood.

For it is in His Body of human flesh and blood (like your own) that His everlasting Kingdom is established, not only in heaven, but already here and now in the midst of this fallen, sinful world, full of sickness, sorrow, sin, and death.  Conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, put to death and buried, but now risen and ascended in His Body to the right hand of His Father — living and reigning in love to all eternity as the incarnate Son, the Lord’s Anointed, the King of all Creation — He establishes, nurtures and sustains, preserves and prospers His Church on earth, His Body and Bride, by His Word and Holy Spirit and by and with His Flesh and Blood, given and poured out for the forgiveness of sins, unto Life and Salvation with God in body and soul.  So the House of God in the Body of Christ Jesus is to be found wherever His Word is taught in its truth and purity and His Holy Sacraments are administered in accordance with His Gospel.

And so it is that this earthly building we are in — built by sinful human beings out of perishable materials like bricks and wood — is rightly called and truly is the House of God, because Christ Jesus is actively present and at work in this place with His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood.

With St. Mary, we magnify our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, not by erecting monuments to Him, as David desired to do, but rather by honoring Him as our Host and receiving His hospitality as guests in His House, hearing and trusting His Word and relying on His good and gracious Gifts.

So do you magnify the Lord by praying and confessing that He will speedily help and deliver you and His whole Church by His grace and mercy.  You glorify His Name by confessing your sins and weaknesses, yet seeking His forgiveness, life, and salvation with confident trust in His Gospel.

That is chiefly what it means to be a Christian and a child of God — to depend on Him, as your Father in Christ Jesus, for all things — to receive all that He gives for this body and life and for the Life everlasting in faith and with thanksgiving — and so to love one another as He loves you.

God grant His grace and Spirit to you and to each and all of us, therefore, that we might pray and confess with St. Mary: “Thy Will be done,” O Lord! “Let it be to us according to Thy Word.”

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

To Be Prepared for the Coming of the Lord

Who is this John?  That is the question of the day.  And though it was asked antagonistically by those who came from the Pharisees, it is nevertheless a worthwhile question for us to consider.

To clarify, first of all, the John here in question is not St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, who has recorded for us this Holy Gospel, but St. John “the Baptist,” the Forerunner of the Lord.  And that is already to answer the question: He is the one who goes before the Lord to prepare His way.

That is the answer of the Holy Scriptures, both here and elsewhere.  And it points entirely away from St. John to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

From St. John the Baptist, concerning himself, we hear almost nothing at all, except what he is not.  To begin with, He is most emphatically not the Christ or Messiah; he is not the Lord’s Anointed.

And St. John is not Elijah.  Which might seem obvious up front.  The thing is, though, that Elijah had not died, but he was taken directly into heaven by the Lord; and the Prophet Malachi later declared that God would send “Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”  Not only that, but elsewhere the Lord Jesus indicates that St. John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to come.  So, which is it?  Is he Elijah or not?  The key is to distinguish between St. John according to his own person and St. John according to his office as the Forerunner of the Lord — as the last and greatest of the Prophets, whom Jesus identifies as “more than a Prophet.”

Yet, St. John is not that Prophet.  He is not that Prophet “like unto Moses,” whom the Lord would raise up from among the sons of Israel.  Back at Mt. Sinai in the Exodus, when the people were so terrified by the presence of the Lord that they begged Him (through Moses) not to speak with them directly, lest they die, He promised to raise up “that Prophet,” who would be like Moses, and who would speak the Word of God.  That Prophet is Christ Jesus, your Lord and Savior, the incarnate Son of God, the Word-made-Flesh.  So, to be sure, St. John the Baptist is not “that Prophet.”

And one more thing that he is not.  He is not worthy to unloose the sandal strap of the One who is coming, who is standing among the people yet unknown.  Though He comes after John, yet, He was before John, because He was in the beginning with God.  He is the One it’s all about.

Whereas St. John the Baptist prefers to say nothing about himself (but only what he is not), he is all the while intent on proclaiming, over and over again, who and what the Lord Jesus is: For Jesus is the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, the Savior-King from the House and Lineage of David who shall reign forever and ever, whose Kingdom has no end.  He is the Lord who comes to redeem His people, to free them from captivity to sin, death, and hell.  He is the Light of the world, and Life and Salvation.  He is the Lamb of God, who bears the sins of the world in His Body to the Cross.

That’s about all you’ll get out of St. John: Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus!  That’s really all he wants to talk about.  He’s not wrapped up in himself, and he’s not interested in talking about himself.  He isn’t sent to exalt himself, but to point to Christ Jesus and to prepare the people for His coming.

St. John’s whole identity and purpose, even from his mother’s womb, are bound up with this one thing — this single-minded purpose — that he must prepare the people for the coming of the Lord.  And so it is that, as the Lord Jesus comes and makes His appearance among the people, St. John’s life and ministry correspondingly come to an end.  As Jesus must increase, St. John must decrease.

So, let us return to that distinction between St. John’s person and his office as a messenger of the Lord, as a preacher and baptizer of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

It is, again, by virtue of his office that St. John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to come.  And that office — that Voice in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord — continues wherever the Lord is to come.  So must that “official Voice” prepare you, also, for the coming of the Lord.

As great as St. John’s person and personal significance are, they are subordinate to his office and ministry, and they are all the more subordinate to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Likewise, to this day, the ministers of Christ Jesus — the pastors of His Church — must be entirely concerned, not with themselves, but with their office as preachers of His Word, as liturgists of His Gospel.  In the footsteps of St. John the Baptist, Christian pastors are all about the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, who has come in the Flesh, who has conquered sin, death, the devil, and hell by His Cross, who is risen from the dead, and who is coming to judge the world in righteousness.

As also in the case of St. John the Baptist, the ministers of Christ Jesus prepare the people for His coming especially by the preaching and Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Thus are you turned away from your sins, from your idolatry and unbelief, to fear, love, and trust in the Lord your God, to receive Him as He comes to you in His Word and Flesh, and to rely on Him.

To begin with, the preaching of repentance first of all exposes your sins and your sinfulness.  It strips you of all pretense and lays you bare before the Lord Almighty, that you might recognize how desperate are your circumstances and how futile are all of your own reason and strength.  The Word of the Lord thereby stabs you through the heart, buries you, and condemns you in your sins.

But as you are cut to the quick and convicted by this divine Word of the Law, by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit, the messenger of the Lord then also preaches the divine Word of the Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins.  Thus are you raised from death to life, from out of hell into heaven.  Indeed, you are given a brand new life, both body and soul, in Christ Jesus; because the Gospel is not just facts and information, but the living and life-giving Word of God in Christ.  The preaching of His Gospel delivers the goods.  It actually does something for you, and it gives you everything you need.  It forgives your sins, it saves you, and it gives you life in Christ Jesus.

This is what your repentance is — being-put-to-death by the Law and being-raised-to-new-life by the Gospel.  None of this is anything that you are called upon to do for yourself, nor could you do it for yourself.  It is the preaching of the Word of God that works repentance in your heart, mind, body, and soul, unto faith and life in Christ Jesus, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

Along with this preaching of the Law and the Gospel, there is also the Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, which is also the work of God unto life and salvation.  It is especially by way of Baptism that St. John prepares the way of the Lord; not only as it prepares the people for the coming of the Lord, but as it is the Way by which He comes.  For the holy and righteous Son of God submits Himself to St. John and to his Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, even though our dear Lord Jesus had no sins of His own.  He thereby takes upon Himself the sins of the world and commits Himself to sacrificial death upon the Cross to atone for them all.

The Lord Jesus was thus baptized into His own death, just as you have been crucified, put to death, and buried with Him by your Baptism in His Name.  Only, everything is reversed for you and Him.  He goes into the water holy and sinless, and He comes out saturated with your sins, whereas you go into the water utterly sinful and unclean, and you come out cleansed and covered with His perfect righteousness.  From the waters of the Jordan He bears your sins in His Body to the Cross, where He suffers the death and damnation you deserve.  But you die with Him in your Baptism, so that you also rise with Him to everlasting Life with God in both body and soul.

So, then, in the waters of Holy Baptism there is again the dying and the rising which constitute your repentance.  You die to your sins, to the world, and to yourself, and you rise and live before God in the righteousness and peace of Christ.  Thus are you turned from sin and death to real Life.

This is what Christ Jesus is all about.  So this is also what St. John is all about, as He points to Jesus and says, “There He is, the Lamb of God.  He’s the One who matters.  Look to Him.”

Follow St. John’s voice and finger, therefore, always back to Jesus.  That’s how Dr. Luther liked to put it.  Listen to St. John’s voice as he proclaims the Lamb of God who takes away all your sins; and look to where St. John’s finger points — to the same Lord Jesus, your Savior and Redeemer.

Think of what that means, for Him to be your Redeemer, and cling to that.  Consider that He who is true God, begotten of His Father from eternity, is also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary; that He is your Lord, who has redeemed you, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won you from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy and precious blood, with His innocent suffering and death — that you might live with Him in His Kingdom, just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.

That is what St. John is getting at, even as he quotes from the Prophet Isaiah concerning himself.  For if he is the Voice of one crying in the wilderness, then the One who comes after him must be the Lord, who comes to redeem His people from sin and death and to comfort them with Peace.

This redemption of the Lord Jesus is implicitly expressed in St. John’s familiar comment, that he is not worthy to unloose the sandal strap of the coming One.  Commentators will typically say that St. John is simply being humble, expressing that he is not even worthy to be the slave or servant of the Lord.  That may be true enough, as none of us are worthy of ourselves; although St. John the Baptist surely is a servant of the Lord, even the last and greatest of the Prophets of the Lord.

But there is more to it than simple humility.  For the Jews, according to the Law of Moses, a man might be called upon to redeem his kinsman’s wife, or property, or honor.  For example, if a man’s brother were killed and his widow was left without children, the man was expected to marry his brother’s widow and to have children by her, in order to preserve his brother’s name and family.  If there were no brother, than a cousin or another close kinsman would be expected to assume this duty and responsibility.  But if the kinsman refused to do so, the widow would come to him in the presence of the elders, and she would unloose his shoe from his foot, so that he would henceforth be known as “the one whose shoe has been loosed.”

Along those same lines, in the Old Testament story of Ruth, when Boaz desired to marry her, it was necessary that her deceased husband’s closest kinsman first relinquish his responsibility toward her.  And that kinsman did so by unloosing and removing his own shoe and giving it to Boaz in the presence of the elders of Israel.  In doing so he also said, “I cannot redeem this inheritance for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance.  Redeem my right for yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”  The text goes on to say that this was the custom in Israel.

This seems to be most likely what St. John the Baptist has in mind when he states that he is not worthy to unloose the sandal of the coming Lord Jesus Christ.  For although he and Jesus were kinsmen or relatives according to the flesh, St. John was neither worthy nor able to “redeem” the Lord Jesus; nor could he possibly redeem or accomplish what was laid upon Christ Jesus for the salvation of His people.  St. John could by no means redeem the inheritance of the Lord.

Indeed, no one else could do it.  Not even close.  No creature in heaven or on earth could redeem you or save you, but only the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.  And He has done so!

No one could unloose His sandal, nor did He remove or relinquish His sandal from His foot, but He has assumed the responsibility for you and for all people, for all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, who were His own creatures.  Not for His own benefit, but entirely in love, with divine compassion, grace, and mercy, for the rescue and salvation of all of us poor sinners.

Thus has He taken you to be His own.  He has redeemed you with His own holy and precious Blood, with which He also quenches your deepest thirst and meets your deepest need here at His Altar in the Holy Communion.  No less so has He cleansed you by the washing of the water with His Word and adorned you with His beautiful righteousness as His own beloved Bride forever.

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

By the Preaching of the Voice of God

This is where and how the Gospel begins — by and with the preaching of the Voice of God.  And so does it also continue.  This is how the Lord comes to you, to comfort you and give you life.  And this is how you are prepared for His coming — by this Voice that preaches to you in His Name.

The Lord sends a preacher to voice His Word, which alone endures forever.  It’s not a textbook in the wilderness.  It’s not an instruction manual that calls you to repent.  It is the Voice of God that speaks, that preaches, which stands fast and saves you.  The grass withers, and the flower fades, but this Word of the Lord endures forever — this Word by which He is preaching to you.

Everything else shall wither and fade, or it shall be destroyed by fire, but His Word remains.  His Word abides.  And so He sends a preacher to speak that eternal Word of His into your ears, into your heart, in order to turn your heart away from all of your false gods and idols to Him alone.

So, then, how is it with your heart?  What is it that you trust and depend upon?  What do you rely on to get you through each day?  What is it that makes you feel safe and content and at peace?

And what is it that your heart fears?  What causes your heart to tremble and quake, and makes your hands shake and your forehead sweat?  What are you most nervous and anxious about?

And what is it that your heart loves?  What is it that you live for — and for which you would be willing to give up everything, even life itself?  What is your passion?  What is it that you prize?

Whatever it is that your heart clings to with such devotion, that is your god.  Whatever or whoever it is that your heart fears, loves, and trusts more than anything else, that is your god.  That is what rules you.  That is what determines your thoughts, words, and deeds.  So, how is it with your heart?

Bear this in mind: Everything in the heavens and on this earth is passing away.  All the world’s works and all of its ways are perishing.  There is nothing that will remain except the Word of God.

And He is coming.  The Lord is coming.  The almighty One, the true and only God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, the Creator of all things, who was and is and is to come, He is coming.  He is coming to you here and now, and He will come at the last to judge the living and the dead.

So do consider how you will meet Him.  Where will your heart be when He appears in power and great glory?  Will you meet Him face to face in faith, in boldness and confidence, with great joy at His coming?  Or with your back turned away from Him in fear, running away, trying to hide?  Pleading for the mountains to cover you, looking for some cave, some hole in the ground, seeking to go down into the depths of Sheol or to scale the heights of heaven, in a vain effort to escape?

How will you meet the Lord who is coming?  It does matter where and how your heart is.  Indeed, it makes all the difference — not in His attitude toward you, but in the way that you receive Him.

Knowing all of this, what sort of person ought you to be?  How should you be living your life in the body here and now?  What should you be about and be doing when the Lord appears in glory?

Look to Him as He is coming to you now, and live by faith in His Word.  Today, if you would hear His Voice, do not harden your heart against Him.  Hear and heed what He is preaching to you.

If your heart is proud, humble yourself before Him.  Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you at the proper time.  If your heart is despairing, lift up your head in hope, because it is your Redeemer who draws near.  If your heart is greedy and selfish, give away your possessions to those who have nothing.  If you are consumed by some lust or addiction, give up those idols and seek the Lord where He may be found.  Call upon Him in the day of trouble.

Be broken of your sins.  Be broken of your unbelief.  Be broken of all your false gods.  Repent.  For a broken and contrite heart, the Lord does not despise.  He comes in mercy to the broken and downhearted, in order to heal you, to put you back together, to give you life instead of death.

Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ.  The promise is for you and for your children.  Repent, and believe the Gospel.  Know that your sins are forgiven by this Voice of Christ Jesus.  And with His forgiveness of your sins, there is also His Life and Salvation.

Repent, and be baptized.  Or, if you have already been baptized, rejoice in the Word and promise of God and His gift of Holy Baptism, and so return to those waters by which He has cleansed you in body and soul, in heart, mind, and conscience, by His Word and Holy Spirit.  Get back to that Jordan River where you were washed.  Confess your sins, and be absolved by the Voice of God.

Return to the significance of your Baptism, not just once, not only “once in a while,” but daily and throughout your life, unto the Resurrection of the body and the Life everlasting of body and soul in the neverending Day of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Be crucified, put to death, and buried with Him by contrition and repentance.  And then be raised to newness of life in and with Him, both now and forever, by faith in His forgiveness of your sins.  For that is what He has for you.  That is what His Voice speaks to you.  That is His comfort for your broken heart, your true peace and rest in Him.

Go out to the preacher whom God the Lord has sent to you.  Go listen to His preaching.  Hear the Word of proclamation in the midst of the wilderness, the Law and the Gospel, unto repentance and faith in the forgiveness of all of your sins.  Return to the waters of your Baptism and thereby enter into the Good Land that God has promised to you and to all who believe and are baptized into the Lord Jesus Christ.  Enter with Him into the New Heavens and the New Earth, the Home where righteousness dwells.  Return to the waters of your Baptism by going out to that “Jordan River,” confessing your sins, where the Lord your God causes His Word to be preached into your ears.

That is what “all the people” did, as you have heard.  All the people of Judea, all the people of Jerusalem, all the people of God who were waiting for the Redemption of Israel — they heard the Voice, and they did not harden their hearts, but they went, confessing their sins.  You go, too.

Confess your sins.  Say them out loud.  And thereby let the Word of God have its way with you.  Let His Law put those sins to death.  And let His Voice of comfort heal you with His forgiveness.

That is what a contrite and penitent heart does first of all.  It confesses the truth.  Having heard the Word of God, it can finally speak.  It has something worth saying.  It knows what is true, because the Lord has spoken.  The Word by whom all things are made, apart from whom there is nothing — He has spoken, and His Voice is true.  A heart of repentant faith confesses what He has said.

So, confess your sins, for that is the truth.  You are a sinner.  You deserve nothing but punishment.  Confess that hard truth.  But do so in the confession of Christ Jesus, in the confidence of His sweet Gospel.  Confess Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, who has not come to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him, and that you should live by His Word.

It is in such confidence that you confess your sins.  And that is not the end of the story.  Instead of your head on the chopping block, your heart hears and receives the comfort of God the Lord.

“Speak to the heart of Jerusalem.”  That is how the Lord instructs His Voice in the wilderness to preach.  “Tell her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.”  That is what His Voice now also speaks to you — into your ears — into your heart — that you may believe and be saved.

Do not take it lightly, and do not take the preaching of His Voice for granted.  And do not let go the significance, the strength, and the salvation of this Voice of the Gospel, this Word of Christ Jesus, this speaking of the Word-made-Flesh into your ears, into your heart, mind, body, and soul.

The out-loud proclamation of the Gospel matters.  The Word of the Lord is meant to be preached and heard, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.  It is such a Voice that God sends to prepare the Way of the Lord.  That is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God.  For St. Mark, in particular, that is where it all begins — with this Voice of the Lord in the wilderness, preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, to be sure, in the heart and mind of God, the Gospel has been established from before the foundation of the world.  Even before the beginning, before He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them by the speaking of His Word, the Father determined to speak His Word, His own beloved Son, into the Flesh, in order to redeem and save Adam & Eve and all their children for the Life everlasting in body and soul by the way and the means of His Cross and Resurrection.

In the presence of the Holy Triune God, it is ever and always accomplished and absolutely certain.  So it is that your redemption and your righteousness are entirely and solely by divine grace, prior to any and all works that you should do, and prior to any thoughts or feelings you might ever have.

But the Gospel begins for you with the preaching of this same Word, Jesus Christ, in a particular place and time.  It is fulfilled in your ears, as the Voice of the Lord speaks to your heart the Law that condemns and the Gospel that forgives you all your sins, comforting you with His mercy, and granting you His perfect peace, such as this world cannot give.  That is what He preaches to you.  And that is how His Gospel begins for you, whereby you are saved by His grace in Christ Jesus.

Hear and receive this comfort that is spoken to your heart.  The fierceness of the Lord’s Law is for the sake of bringing you to the sweet sound of His Gospel, His Holy Absolution of your sins and His free gift of Life and Salvation in the Body of Christ Jesus.  That is the divine Voice which speaks to you here in this place, at this Font, Pulpit, and Altar of the Lord.  And that is what makes this place a “Jordan River” in the midst of the wilderness — your entry into the Promised Land.

His Voice makes all the difference.  For every sin which would destroy you is taken away by the Lord Jesus Christ, borne in His Body on the Cross.  And your painful, embarrassing repentance, the shame and humiliation of saying out loud what you don’t want to admit even to yourself, is yet the way by which the Word and Spirit of God unite you to Christ Jesus in His Cross, and by which His Gospel unites you with the same Lord Jesus Christ in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.

It is His Word that does everything for you.  That is ever and always the case.  So have the waters of your Baptism, by His Word, cleansed your conscience and given you peace in His presence through the forgiveness of all your sins.  His Word is Spirit and Truth, and it will not fail you.

So, too, this preaching of His Gospel does what His Voice declares.  Your sins are forgiven.  Your sins are forgiven.  Your sins are all forgiven, they are removed.  Thus says the Lord.

It is by this Voice of the Gospel, by this Word of forgiveness, that the Holy Spirit has opened the Way of Christ into your heart.  And so has He also opened the Way of Christ before you in love, that you should enter with Him into the New Creation, wherein you abide in His Righteousness, Innocence, and Blessedness, even now by faith, and henceforth in the Resurrection of your body to the Life everlasting of your body and soul, your heart, mind, and spirit, with God the Father.

Even now, it is the Milk and Honey of the New Heavens and the New Earth which flow for you here, in the midst of the wilderness, from the Altar of Christ Jesus, from His Cross, from His own hands, and with His own Voice: “Take, eat. This is My Body. Drink of it all of you. This is My Blood, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.”

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

The Sacrifice and Sacrament of Thanksgiving in Christ Jesus

In the Creeds of the Church, day after day and week after week throughout the year, we confess that God the Father Almighty, with His Son and Holy Spirit, is the Maker and Preserver of all things; that everything comes from Him and depends upon His ongoing providential care; and that each and every one of us, all that we are and have, all of our vocations and relationships, all are gifts of grace from His wide open hand.  Thus, it is our duty to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him.

Regrettably and tragically, God’s good Creation has been subjected to the curse and consequences of our sin — from Old Man Adam to the present day.  Our sin has separated us from God, turned us and driven us away from Him, and so cut us off from the only real Source of life and health.

Consequently, our sin has brought sickness, suffering, and death upon all of us and our children, and upon the whole of Creation.  The leprosy of those ten men in this familiar Holy Gospel from St. Luke is simply one outward symptom and example of the curse and consequences of sin.

It is only by the fatherly, divine goodness and mercy of God — with which He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them to begin with, and for which He created Adam & Eve as the King and the Queen of His Creation (in anticipation of Christ Jesus and His Bride, the Church) — it is solely for the sake of His goodness and mercy that He continues to provide for you and all His creatures, to guard and keep you and your children in body and soul, to defend and protect you from all harm and danger, and to keep you in life.  Above all else, it is by His grace alone that God the Father gives His own dear Son to save you from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  Indeed, it is for the sake of His beloved Son, Christ Jesus, that the Father loves you and gives you all good things.

Sadly, among the many consequences of your sin, one of the most tragic is your native inability to recognize the grace and providence of God, so that you add sin upon sin with your ingratitude.

But into all this mess comes the incarnate Son of God, our dear Lord Jesus Christ.  He takes every initiative in coming to you — and coming for you — in order to save you.  He enters into His own Creation, becoming the true Man, in order to carry all the sins and sorrows of the world in His own Body to the Cross, to sacrifice Himself on behalf of all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.  He bears the entire curse and consequences of your sins, in order to make Atonement for you, to redeem you, and to give you His own divine, eternal Life in place of your death and damnation.  He does it all by way of His Cross, and now He delivers the goods through His Means of Grace.

Consider the example of His dealings with these ten lepers.  They have been separated from God and from His people by their leprosy — an outward manifestation of sin’s curse and consequence.  But Jesus draws near to them, as He draws near to you.  And when they cry out to Him for mercy, He hears their prayer of faith, and He graciously responds to their need with His powerful Word.

At that point, to begin with, they have nothing but His Word to rely on and to go by, as He sends them to the priest in accordance with the Law of Moses before their bodies have even been healed.  Just as you have, for now, the Word and promise of the Resurrection, but you sure don’t see it yet.

It is in their going at His Word — in their proceeding by faith to do what He has given them to do — that their bodies are cleansed and healed by Christ Jesus, who is Life Itself in His own Flesh.

And so it is that you also are cleansed and healed, in both body and soul, by the powerful Word of the same Lord Jesus Christ — by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of all your sins in His Name, and by the washing of the water with His Word and Holy Spirit in your Baptism.  For He is your merciful and great High Priest, the fulfillment of the whole Law of Moses, and the one great Sacrifice-for-sin to end all sacrifices for sin.  Indeed, His own Body, crucified and risen from the dead, supercedes and replaces the Temple, so that you find peace and rest with God in Him.

Now, in this familiar story, as you well know, even though all ten of those lepers were healed, only the one returned to glorify God by worshiping the Lord Jesus and giving thanks to Him.  No doubt the other nine gave thanks to God in connection with the requisite sacrifices, but there is no indication that they returned to praise and give thanks to God in the Person of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.  Although it was His Word that healed them, they evidently did not perceive that He is God in the Flesh, that He is both Priest and Sacrifice, and that His Body is the Temple of God.

Unfortunately, their actions also offer an example of the ways that all of us poor sinners too often fail and fall short in returning thanks and praise unto our gracious Lord.

When it comes to the temporal Providence of God for this present body and life, it is far too easy to focus on His creatures and His gifts of creation, while losing sight of Him as the Creator of all things and the Author and Giver of life.  You fear not having enough or losing what you do have, whereas you love and trust the things that you possess more than you fear, love, and trust in God.

And when it comes to the spiritual gifts and blessings of God — the forgiveness of your sins, your faith and life in Christ Jesus, your righteousness and holiness in the presence of your God and Father, and the hope and promise of the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — you are prone to rely upon yourself, upon your own intellect, knowledge, and understanding, your gut feelings and personal intuitions, and your own self-styled efforts to be “pious and faithful and good,” thereby treating your life, your “Christianity,” and your salvation as one big “do-it-yourself” project.

Like those “other nine” men who did not come back to worship and give thanks to the Lord Jesus, you presume to worship God, to “pray, praise, and give thanks,” apart from His Word and Flesh, away from the Temple of His Body, without the Ministry of His Gospel and His Means of Grace.

But now, recognize and take to heart, in repentance and faith, the way that God the Lord, the Creator, deals with you and provides for your body and soul by the means of His good Creation:

In the first place, His fallen Creation has been redeemed, restored, sanctified, and perfected by the Incarnation of the very Son of God, by His life in the Flesh as true Man, by His innocent suffering and death upon the Cross, and by His bodily Resurrection and Ascension to the Right Hand of His God and Father in heaven.  For in His Body, crucified and risen, exalted and glorified, all things are made brand new — and are taken up by God to serve the purposes He intended from the start.

As such, His good Creation has been redeemed and sanctified for you, for your present and eternal benefit — just as you yourself are redeemed and sanctified, recreated, healed and cleansed in both body and soul, in the Body of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, by His creaturely Means of Grace.

The Lord your God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, deals with you graciously, and He gives Himself, His Life, and His Salvation to you, by and with the waters of Holy Baptism, by the spoken Word of the Gospel from the mouth of His servants into your ears, and by the very Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, given and poured out for you in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Holy Communion.  He thereby lays hold of you in both body and soul, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Christ Jesus, that you might live with Him in righteousness and purity forever.

It is by the same Means of Grace that the Holy Spirit is actively present and at work to call you and bring you, again and again, to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, to acknowledge His gifts and His merciful goodness, to return thanksgiving to God the Father through Him, and to live in Him.

It is by and with and in these Means of Grace, therefore, that your God and Father not only bestows His best and greatest gifts upon you, but also enables you to receive His gifts with thanksgiving.

So, too, the first and foremost way by which you thank, praise, serve, and obey Him, is simply by receiving His good and gracious gifts of the Gospel in His Word and Sacraments.  As you then live from His Font, His Pulpit, and His Altar, into your callings and stations throughout the week, and as you return, again and again, to His Means of Grace each Sunday, your entire body and life and all of your callings and stations in life are embraced by thanksgiving at all times and in all places.

In serving your neighbors, for example — in faith and with thanksgiving toward God the Father in Christ Jesus — you offer the meet, right, and salutary eucharistic sacrifice for Jesus’ sake, just as He has sacrificed Himself for you.  Not as though to redeem yourself, but as redeemed by Him!

And by the ongoing grace of God in Christ, as often as you fail and fall short — as indeed you do — rejoice, give thanks, and sing, that your dear Lord Jesus Christ has not failed you or fallen short, nor does He ever do so.  No, as He has given Himself for you, so does He continue to give Himself to you by and with His Word and Spirit, forgiving your sins, restoring your faith, cleansing you inside and out, and preparing you for the Resurrection and the Life everlasting in and with Him.

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

The Judgment of God in the Cross and Gospel of Christ Jesus

Your salvation hinges entirely on the Cross & Resurrection of Christ Jesus.  For He has atoned for all of your sins and gotten victory over death and the grave by His death upon the Cross, and He has opened the way of righteousness and everlasting Life to you in His Resurrection from the dead.  So, where and how you stand in the final Judgment depends on where you stand in relation to Him.

Are you on His right or His left?  A sheep or a goat?  Will you live with the Lord in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness?  Or will you be forever cursed and die eternally with the devil and his wicked angels?

The judgment has already been determined by the Cross of Christ Jesus, and the verdict has been openly declared in His Resurrection from the dead.  And that has been accomplished for you and for all people, for the world, and for all the nations.  In Christ Jesus, crucified and risen, there is no more condemnation, there is no more punishment.  But, so too, apart from Him there is no life or salvation.  Either you are righteous and alive in and with Him, or wicked and dead without Him.

That is what it means for Jesus the Christ to be “the Son of Man,” to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to judge the living and the dead.

As He has come into the glory of His Kingdom and His Righteousness by the way of His Cross, His vicarious self-sacrifice of Atonement for all of your sins and for the sins of the whole world, so is His bodily Resurrection from the dead God’s open declaration of His Righteousness, and the justification of all those who belong to Him — of all who believe and are baptized in His Name.

So, then, because He desires all people to be saved, He calls all people to Himself by the Ministry of the Gospel.  He sends His messengers — not only His Holy Apostles to begin with, but the pastors of His Church in every time and place, even to the ends of the earth and the close of the age — He sends His messengers to make disciples from all nations by the way and means of Holy Baptism and the ongoing catechesis of His Word.  It is by this Apostolic Ministry that He gathers the lost and wandering sheep to Himself — unto Life everlasting with God in both body and soul.

The preaching of His Word is the Truth.  It is the sure and certain verdict of the Lord your God, now and forever.  By it you are crucified and put to death with Him, but so are you also raised up in and with Him to a brand new life.  In Him, the old has passed away, and you are a new creation.

Repent of your sins, therefore.  Repent of your unbelief, idolatry, and lack of love.  Turn away from sin and death, and live unto righteousness in Christ Jesus.  Receive and trust His Gospel, and live by that grace of God in Him.  Fear Him as the Lord, your King.  But so also trust in Him as your great Good Shepherd, as your merciful and great High Priest, as your Savior and Redeemer.

Love Him with all your heart, because He is your Savior and your God, your best and highest good.  But love Him so, not as though to get something from Him in return, but because you are already receiving every good and perfect gift from Him freely by His grace, by His Love for you.  Love Him, not to curry His favor, but because His favor and His righteousness are yours in His Holy Gospel.  Love Him righteously by faith in His Word, because you are justified by His grace.

It is entirely by His grace, that is, by the charity of God, by His utter charity in Christ Jesus.  It is entirely by His divine grace, because the truth is that He does not need anything at all from you.  He doesn’t need your stuff, all of which came from Him in the first place.  He does not need your work for His benefit.  He does not need anything from you.  But He gives you everything by grace.

So, too, there is nothing at all that you need which is not already yours in Him, freely given to be freely received, with no strings attached, no conditions or contingencies upon His tender mercy.

Love Him, therefore, because of who He is, and because He loves you faithfully and forever.

And in the confidence and courage of His Love for you, love Him by loving His Christians and all your neighbors in His Name and for His sake.  Such love is the evidence of your faith and life in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, that is how faith lives, without keeping score, and not at all self-conscious.  It is the good fruit that your dear Lord Jesus bears in you by the tree of His Cross in your life.  For by His Cross He brings you through repentance into the faith and life of His own Resurrection.  He brings you to God the Father in and with Himself, and He gives to you His own relationship — His own Sonship — with the Father.  So does He likewise give to you His own relationship of love with your neighbors.  For as you live and abide in Him by faith, He lives and abides in you.

So it is that you live in love toward your neighbors, especially your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, who also bear His Name as you do, who are sons and daughters of the same God and Father.  You live in love toward your neighbors because this is the life of Christ, which He also lives in love toward you.  He feeds and quenches your hunger and thirst; He shelters you from the cold, from darkness, and from death; He covers your nakedness and shame; He cares for you in every adversity; He heals your diseases, and He releases you from the prison house of all your sins.

Thus do you know, in turn, what you should do for others.  Feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the poor, visit the sick and imprisoned.  Do it for Jesus’ sake.  Do it in His Name, as He does it all for you.  Do it all as unto Him.  Not only the occasional extraordinary act of kindness, charity, and mercy toward someone you barely know or rarely encounter — someone to whom you can allot a certain portion of time and a certain percentage of stuff; and then after you have done your good deed, you can go your merry way, feeling good about yourself, and get on with your own life.  But so also exercise a steady and consistent, persistent and patient love and care for the neighbors whom the Lord has set right alongside of you and all around you in your daily and ongoing life — for those neighbors it is hard to continue loving and hard to keep forgiving, over and over again, even seventy times seven, for the same hurts, the same insults, the same neglect, the same apathy.

Learn to see Christ Jesus in your neighbor, in the stranger you’ve never met, in the acquaintance you barely know, in your own wife or husband, and in your parents, children, and siblings — your brothers and sisters here on earth, and all the more so the brothers and sisters who sit with you here in church.  Behold the Lord Jesus in them, and take it to heart that you love and serve Him in each and all of these people.  For the Lord your God, the One who needs nothing from you, has given you this opportunity to return thanks to Him, to love and serve and care for Him — and thereby to demonstrate your faith and exercise your fear, love, and trust in Him — by caring for each other.

When your spouse is grumpy and nags at you; and your children disobey and disregard you; and your parents don’t understand, and they don’t listen, and they don’t keep their promises; and your siblings fight and argue with you — look at them the way your Father in heaven looks at you, and see Jesus in them.  Don’t see their bad behavior, which He has covered with His righteousness.  Don’t hold their sins against them, because He forgives them all their sins, as He forgives you.  And don’t withhold your love from them, because He does not withhold His love from you.

It is precisely in His poor and needy ones, in those who are the most work — in those who have the biggest and seemingly never-ending needs — it is in the weak and lowly and despised — in those who smell funny, in those who look odd, in those who act strangely, in those whom nobody wants to be around — in the little ones of every age and kind — that is where you find your Lord Jesus, in order to love and serve Him, because that is how He has come to love and serve us all.

He has made Himself hungry, and He has thirsted.  He has been the stranger and the outcast, the One whom even His own family thought weird, perhaps even sick in the head.  And He has been abandoned by friends, left alone to bear the staggering burden of the Cross and Passion by Himself.  He has been imprisoned, stripped naked, tortured, mocked, and cruelly punished — not for any sins of His own (He has none!), but for your sins.  All the dirt, all the grime, all the crud in your life — He made it all His own, He bore that shame, and He suffered all its punishment.  Indeed, He has been sick with the sickness of this whole dying world, unto His death upon the Cross.

Consequently, it is not only in your neighbor’s weakness and poverty and need that you find the Lord your God, your great Shepherd King.  But He is also with you in your weakness and shame; He is with you in your nakedness and pain; He is with you in your hunger and fear; He is with you in your sickness and at the hour of your death.  And He is with you as your Savior and Redeemer in the Judgment.  It is as we sing in the Te Deum: “Lord, we believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge; therefore, we pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood.”  And assuredly He does.  He does help you.  He does have mercy upon you.

What is more, not only has He taken your place — in the midst of all your poverty, sickness, sin, and death — not only has He taken your place in His death upon the Cross — but so does He also give to you His place and His Righteousness in His Resurrection from the dead.  He gave it to you in your Holy Baptism.  For you know that in the waters of your Baptism, in and with His Word and Holy Spirit, you died with Him, and so have you also been raised up with Him to newness of life.

And here is what that means for you: His Righteousness is yours.  His works of love are yours.  Whereas all the sins that you have done He has made His own, all the works of love that He has done He has made yours.  He credits them to you.  He counts them as your works.

His whole Life, His Resurrection, His Salvation — all of that is yours.  All because the Atonement, the forgiveness, the reconciliation, and the peace of His Cross are yours — given and bestowed upon you by His Word and Ministry of the Gospel.  That is what the Gospel is and does.

It is the judgment of God that you are in Christ, that you are a Christian, by faith in His Gospel.  And everything that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of God who has become your Brother in the Flesh, who is your Strength and your Song because He has become your Salvation, who has died for you and risen again — everything that belongs to Him is yours.

Hear this Word of Christ and take it to heart, because it is already in this preaching of the Gospel that you truly hear and receive God’s verdict concerning you:  You are forgiven all your sins.  You are holy and righteous.  You are beloved and well-pleasing to your God and Father in heaven.  You are not guilty, but innocent in Christ Jesus.  And so it is that you are set free from the prison house of sin and death.  You are healed of every disease in both body and soul.  You are not found naked, but you are fully clothed in Christ and His perfect righteousness.  And you are fed, not only with meat and potatoes, vegetables, and even dessert, with turkey and gravy and stuffing and cranberries — because the Lord is generous to all of us poor sinners, even in this body and life — but you are fed with a far greater Feast than any of us will otherwise eat this week; because here you are fed with the very Body and the holy and precious Blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  And as He gives you Himself to eat and to drink, you know the very heart of God toward you.  You are blessed, and you are beloved of the God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ — and you are welcomed into His Father’s Kingdom, because His God and Father is now also your God and your dear Father.

That is the purpose, reality, and significance of the Church on earth, and of this congregation.  It is why the Lord has called and gathered us here this morning.  For eternal judgments are declared and delivered here and now.  Here the Son of Man exercises His authority to forgive sins, and with that forgiveness He gives to you His Life and His Salvation.  Here at His Altar He sits upon His glorious throne and, just as we sing, all of the angels are round about Him.  Here He gathers you to Himself, He enfolds you to His embrace, and He holds you in His strong arms.  He calls you and draws you here to Himself, in order to feed you, to clothe you, to heal you, and to give you Life.

Come, then, blessed of the Lord!  Enter into His Peace, and rest yourself in Him.

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

Enter into the Joy of Your Lord by Faith in His Gospel

Whatever you have, whatever your talents, whatever your possessions and abilities, none of these are your own; they are the Lord’s good gifts, which He has entrusted to you as a stewardship.  And as the Scriptures testify, it is required of a steward that he or she be found faithful.

Whatever money you have, it is the Lord’s.  And whatever you are especially good at, those talents, too, are from the Lord — and for the Lord — just as you yourself are His own workmanship.  If you are smart, it is from the Lord.  If you are fast or strong, it is from the Lord.  If you are good at math or music or languages or art, any and all of those skills are a stewardship from your Lord.

Likewise, your callings and stations in life are the positions and responsibilities within which the Lord would have you serve His purposes in faith toward Him and in love toward your neighbors.  And whatever you may hold within your hands, that is not only God’s good gift, but it is His own “stuff,” just as you also are His.  Your whole body and life are a sacred stewardship from the Lord.

Be faithful, therefore, in the use of your talents.  In the fear and faith of God, use them according to His Word.  Use whatever you have to the glory of His Name.  Use it for the benefit of His Kingdom.

Don’t look around at your neighbor to see what he or she has been given to do.  Don’t be counting, comparing, and competing.  Do not harbor pride or envy in your heart.  Do not consider whether you or your neighbor has more or less, because it all remains the Lord’s in any case.  Do not be down in the mouth if you have less, and do not be arrogant if you have been entrusted with more.  Rather, use faithfully however much or little you may have, however many or few your talents.

When you covet what the Lord has entrusted to your neighbor — when you despise or resent your Lord for the ways that He has distributed and managed His own things — then you presume that His things are really yours (or should be), as though by right or merit.  But that is not the case.

Use what God has given you in faith and love — not selfishly, for your own profit.  Be responsible, and take care of yourself and your family, to be sure, but not as though your life and future were in your own hands.  Remember that all you are and all that you have is from the Lord and ever in His hands.  And so use what He has given you in the ways that He intends — in order to return thanks to the praise and glory of His Name, especially by serving and caring for your neighbors.

Don’t be afraid to use the talents God the Lord has entrusted to you.  Don’t be afraid to exercise your stewardship.  Do not be frozen by indecision, as though success or failure depended on you making all the exactly right choices and decisions, doing and saying all the right things.  But rather trust the Lord, and so be faithful in using His good gifts according to His good and gracious Will.

You know His Will from His Word.  He has not left you in the dark.  He has told you what to do.  He has given you guidance in using what He has placed into your hands.

He distributes His gifts according to each man’s ability — and of course, each man’s ability is also from the Lord your God.  So your stewardship is not too hard for you.  Have confidence in your Lord, who has created you and called you in Wisdom, and who continues to care for you in Love.

Do not hoard His gifts, but use them as He intends.  Do not misuse them, but do use them rightly.  Use His Name, which He has given to you in Holy Baptism, by calling upon Him in every trouble, by prayer, praise, and thanksgiving under every circumstance.  Do not despise the good gift of His Word and the preaching of it, but gladly hear and learn it.  Do not despise your parents and the other authorities whom the Lord has placed over you in love for your good, but honor them with obedience, love and serve them, pray for them, and submit to them for God’s sake.  Do not hurt your neighbor, but help him as you can, and provide for his needs of both body and soul.  Do not take your neighbor’s stuff, but help him to guard and keep whatever God has entrusted to him.

Do not covet or jealously desire the position and possessions that God has given to your neighbor according to His divine Wisdom and His good and gracious Will for the repentance and salvation of all people.  Rather, use wisely and well whatever God has entrusted to you.  Serve faithfully within your place, within your position in life.  It is for that that you will be judged and rewarded.

Just as a pastor is a steward of the Mysteries of God, and it is required of him to be found faithful in that stewardship, so is it also required that you be faithful in your stewardship, whatever it may be, whether it is big or small, and whether or not it involves lots of money or people or things.  “Be thou faithful unto death,” trusting and believing that the Lord will give to you the Crown of Life.

If you are a husband, use your gifts — use God’s gifts — to love and serve your wife, to protect her and provide for her, to care for her.  And if you are a wife, use the gifts that God has given you to love and serve your husband, to do what is good and right, and to care for your own family.

If you are a father or a mother, use the gifts of God to love and care for your children, to teach them what they need to know, not least of all the Word of God.  Bring them to church and teach them how to pray.  Teach them by your words and by your example.  That is your stewardship.

If you are a child, use the gifts that God has given you to love and serve your parents and siblings, your playmates and your peers.  If you are a student, use the gifts of God to study faithfully, to learn, to grow in knowledge and wisdom.  And if you are a teacher, use the gifts of God to teach.

Whatever your occupation, work to benefit your employer and to serve your customers and clients.

And whatever your calling and station in life, enter into the joy of your Master.  That is to enter into the joy of repentance and faith, of life and love, of righteousness and peace, justice and truth.

Do not use your talents for wickedness, certainly.  Do not squander God’s possessions on foolish things or wicked things.  But do not be lazy, either.  The lazy and wicked slave who is condemned in our Lord’s Parable is not a man who has squandered his Master’s money on fast living, but one who has simply not used it at all.  So, then, do not neglect the talents with which the Lord your God has blessed you, by failing to do what is good and right according to your abilities and the position in life that He has given you.  For it is to this that you are called.  It is a sacred trust.  Your entire life is lived before the Lord, to whom you are accountable for all that you do with His gifts.

What shall be the settling of accounts when your Lord returns from His long journey?  When the books are opened, what will the ledger show?  What will you have to say?

Where you have not used the talents that God has given you to glorify His Name and to serve your neighbor in love, Repent.  Turn away from evil and begin to do what is good and right.

Do not devise excuses for yourself.  Do not claim fear or ignorance, as though this would get you off the hook.  But invest yourself and your talents in bringing forth the praise and glory of God, in bearing fruits worthy of repentance, in bearing fruits worthy of your Lord and Master.

Indeed, let us consider what sort of Man the Lord is.  What is He like?  Is He a “hard man”?  Is He a harsh taskmaster?  Does He care only about what He can get from you, this One who has given you everything you are and have?  Is that what He is like?  Is He a “hard man” because He reaps where He has not sown and gathers where He has not planted?  Or is it not, rather, that He is gracious and merciful, that He is generous and kind in calling all men to Himself?  Why?  Because He needs something from them?  Not at all.  It is rather because He desires all men to be saved.

What sort of Man is He when He causes His Seed to be sown and His Word to be preached even to the ends of the earth?  In point of fact, He does not take anything away, but He freely gives everything to His own creatures.  If you listen carefully, He’s not at all the sort of master that third slave claims Him to be.  He takes the one talent back from him, but He doesn’t take it for Himself; He gives it to another servant.  He clings to nothing for Himself.  He is gracious.  He is generous.  He is kind.  He is not harsh but bounteous in bestowing His gifts upon His people.  Upon you.

This Rich Man has actually made Himself poor to the point of death, in order to make you rich with all the wealth and riches of His Kingdom.  He has liquidated everything, His whole Body and Life upon the Cross, in order that you should have divine, eternal Life with God forevermore.

That is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  The King has gotten a Sacrifice for Himself.  He has gotten a Lamb for Himself to offer.  The King has buried His singular, greatest Treasure, His own beloved Son, in the ground of the earth.  He has put Him in the dark.  He has buried Him.  That is the journey on which your Lord Jesus has embarked — by the way of the Cross, through death and the grave, through the valley of the shadow of death — in order to atone for your sins by His own holy and precious Blood, and to justify you in righteousness before His Father in His Resurrection.

He has borne your sin and shame.  He has borne your failure to use the talents He has given you.  He has borne your falsehood.  He has borne your arrogance and fear, your pride, and your despair.  He has borne it all, and He has suffered for it.  He has been cast out into the outer darkness of death and the grave.  You know that He has done it.  And He has done it all for you.

But He has not returned from His journey void or empty-handed.  He has not come back looking for you to help Him.  But in His own crucified and risen Body He has become the Firstfruits of an abundant harvest.  He does indeed reap where He has not sown, and He gathers where He has not planted, in this respect: He reaps life from out of death, from the curse of your sins.  He gathers victory from out of the grave — which was not His own, but He made it His, that it should not be yours forever.  He has compounded interest on His investment, far more than you could ever count.

And here is the currency of His Kingdom.  This is the coin of His realm, as I’ve often said.  Not gold or silver, not dollars and cents, but the free and full forgiveness of all your debts and all your trespasses.  Not the money in your bank account, but His own holy Body and His precious Blood, given and poured out into your mouth — into your body — for the forgiveness of all your sins.

That forgiveness is the foremost talent with which He blesses you.  That is the treasure that He places into your hands — the forgiveness of all your sins.  And with that forgiveness, He gives you Himself, His Life and Salvation, and all good things.  That is what He gives you here and now.

He has been faithful in much.  He has been faithful in everything, in order that He should freely bestow upon you all the treasures of His divine and heavenly Kingdom.

Therefore, as you are forgiven much — as you are forgiven everything — so also love much.  Trust the Lord your God, your Savior and King.  Love Him, and so also love your neighbor in the Name and for the sake of this dear Lord Jesus Christ.  As you are forgiven much, love much, and forgive those who trespass against you.  Multiply the talents of Christ by forgiving as you are forgiven.

That is the marvelous divine paradox of your Lord’s Kingdom.  His talents bear interest as they are given away.  His Gospel increases as it is spoken.  His forgiveness is multiplied as it is shared.

So, then, forgive as you are forgiven.  And by His forgiveness, enter into the Joy of your Master.

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