The Lord Jesus Christ, that expert Fisherman, has caught you in His Net, and He has brought you aboard His Boat, His Holy Church. He has made you a member of His Household. And here within His House, as a good and faithful Scribe, He teaches you all about the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is by the catechesis of His Word, and by the washing of water with His Word in Holy Baptism, that He has made you a disciple of His Kingdom, a fish in His Net. So, what kind of fish are you?
When it comes to the sorting of the fish at the close of the age, will you be among the righteous who are gathered in, or among the wicked who are thrown out?
If you would know and understand these Mysteries of the Kingdom, hear and heed the catechesis of Christ Jesus. You are to be holy, as He is holy. You are to be perfect, as He is perfect. You are to be righteous, as He is righteous. And you are to have no other gods besides Him.
Search for Him diligently. Seek for Him always. And when you have found Him, let go and leave behind everything else. Let go of all the treasures that you would otherwise cling to and depend upon, in order that Christ may be and remain your true and only Treasure on earth and in heaven.
Love Him most. Love Him best. Let Him be the priceless Treasure for which you willingly give up everything else. Let Him be the one great Pearl on which you fix your single-minded devotion.
Put away all the other gods (the idols) that occupy your heart, mind, body, and life. Put away all the other gods from your thinking, from your speaking, and from the way that you act. In short, do not allow anything to deter you or distract you from Christ Jesus. And do not allow anything or anyone to compete with Him for your time and attention, for your energy and your affection.
Favor the Lord Jesus Christ above even your own home and family, indeed, more than even your own life. Rather serve your home and family with Christ Jesus. Take care of them with His Word. Do not neglect the catechesis of those whom the Lord has placed under your care and supervision.
In particular, if you are a father, you are the head of your household and family, and the burden of responsibility for your wife and children falls especially on you. God has commanded you to teach them His Word, to pray with them, to bring them to church, and to see to it that they are kept safe and secure within the Net of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Do that, in order that they may live.
If there is any treasure in your life other than Christ, be done with it, and get rid of it. If there is anything that you value more than Him — anything that consumes you at the expense of His Word — Repent, and put all of that away from you, lest you be put out and cast away from Him forever.
What are those things in your life? Or who is it that you love and honor more than Jesus Christ?
What’s your price? If it’s not thirty pieces of silver, what does it take to buy you off? What does it take — how much, or how little — to turn you away from Christ and the hearing of His Word?
The truth of the matter is that, even if you were able to gain the entire world, if you let go of Jesus, then you have let go of everything. You have lost everything. And you, yourself, will be lost.
Again, what kind of fish are you? When that great Net is finally dragged to shore and all the fish are sorted, will you be gathered with the righteous or thrown out with the wicked into eternal fire?
You have no righteousness of your own. By your inheritance from Adam, there is nothing but sin and death in your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit. You are, as you have confessed, sinful and unclean. You have fallen far short of the glory of God, and you have gone astray from His Law in all your thoughts, words, and actions — by what you have done wrong, and by the good that you have left undone. Your faith and your love are not what they should be.
What hope, then, do you have? How shall you ever see or ever enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
Well, understand that the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing like you. The Kingdom of Heaven is not like your life on earth. The Kingdom of Heaven does not look like all your striving after stuff.
But the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand in that Man who has found you — who has sought you out and found you hidden in the world, a sinner among sinners — that Man who has given everything, even Himself, in order to redeem you, to purchase and win you for Himself forevermore.
You are His treasure. You are His pearl of great price. Not because of any merit or worthiness, strength or impressiveness in you, but solely for the sake of His divine and holy Love. It is for the sake of His Love that He has done this. And it is on account of the price that He has paid for you — when you were worth nothing — that you are of such exceedingly great and precious value.
It was in His Love for you, for the sake of His divine and holy Love, that He came down from His Father in heaven, and sought you out, and found you, in order to save you and to bring you with Himself into the Kingdom of Heaven, to the bosom of His God and Father.
It is with great joy that He has purchased you for Himself, ransomed and redeemed you, and paid for you — lost and condemned person though you were — not with gold or silver, but with His holy and precious Blood and by His innocent suffering and death, that you may be His own.
He delights in you. He truly does. He takes great joy in you. You are His greatest pleasure, you are His dearest treasure. For He has sought you out and paid the dowry of His own Body and Life, that you should be a member of His beloved and beautiful Bride, His Holy Christian Church.
And it is in His great joy and delight over you — for the sake of His Love, for the sake of His Beloved Bride — even for you who are His treasure and His pearl of great price — it is for all this that He has bought the entire Field. He has purchased and redeemed the whole wide world.
So, if you’re in the field, if you’re part of the world, Jesus has paid for you, and you belong to Him.
All this He has done because He loves you. There is nothing in heaven or on earth more sure and certain than that. When everything else has passed away, this Truth remains: That for your sake, Jesus has given Himself and paid for you with His own life; and not only you, but the entire world.
So it is that He causes His Gospel to be preached, even to the ends of the earth. He sends out His Apostles to preach, to catechize, to baptize, to absolve, and to commune disciples from all nations. In St. Mark, as I have often pointed out, He sends them out to preach the Gospel to all creation.
And it is by that great Dragnet of the Gospel that He has called you by name, and He has caught you into His warm and wide embrace, as surely as He has gone fishing for you by His preaching and Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins. That is how He’s taken you in hand.
He surely has not tricked you. He does not lie to you. Take it to heart that you are not in His Net by any mistake. You are not in His Net by accident. He knows right where you are. He has called you to Himself because, in love, He desired to make you His own — and His Gospel makes it so.
The One who has called you is faithful and sincere. By His Blood, your sins are forgiven. All of them. Every last one. He is not ignorant or naive, but in mercy He has forgiven you everything.
As Christ and His Holy Spirit have called you by the Gospel, so has He justified you with His own Righteousness — just as He is righteous. You will not be thrown out with the wicked, though that is what you deserve. Instead, you are gathered into the Kingdom of Heaven with Christ Jesus because, by His grace, through faith in His forgiveness of sins, you are righteous and holy in Him.
It is by and with that Gospel of His that He adorns you beautifully, and He glorifies you with His own Glory. As often as He preaches to you, as often as He feeds you with Himself, His Body and His Blood, so are you among His many brethren, abiding with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven.
He is the Head of His Household and Family, and as a good and faithful Head of His Bride and all the children of God, He takes care of you by and with His Word. So, then, you are the sort of fish that Jesus is, because by His Gospel He has declared you to be righteous and holy and perfect, as He Himself is righteous and holy and perfect. He is in the Field with you, in the Net, and in the Boat — He is here on the Altar in His House — in the Ciborium and Chalice, given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins — that you should be with Him in His Kingdom forever.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
22 July 2020
From the Dust of the Earth to the Glory of God
What would your Rabboni teach you by the example of His servant, St. Mary Magdalene, one of His dear little lambs? And what would He teach you by the example of His mercy toward her?
She is among those many people whom Jesus cleansed and healed by His Word and Holy Spirit. And along with a number of other faithful women, she followed the Lord Jesus as a disciple, as a member of His Church, and she supported Him and His Apostles from her own means.
She followed Him to the last, even to the foot of His Cross on Good Friday. And then on that first Easter Sunday morning, very early, while it was still dark, she went with several of the other women to show reverence and loving care for the Body of Christ Jesus by anointing it with spices.
She came to the tomb, and there it looked and felt as though all hope were dead and gone. Already her Lord had been crucified, put to death, and buried. But then, just when it seemed as though it surely could not get any worse, she found the grave emptied, apparently robbed, His Body gone. She could do nothing else at that point other than weep with deep sorrow and great mourning.
You also end up at the tomb, bereft of hope and everything you love. Sooner or later, your own body shall be laid to rest in the dust of the earth. Whence you were taken, thence you return. In the meantime, everything around you is likewise returning to the dust. Your parents, your spouse, even your children; cousins, brothers, grandparents, friends. One by one, they are taken from you.
Everything ends in dust. So, with Mary Magdalene you make your way to the tomb, and it is still dark, and you cannot see. Then you do not know where Jesus is. You do not know where or how to find His Body. There is only death, the grave is empty of hope, and there’s nothing you can do.
In fact, He is standing there with you and for you, and He would do for you what you cannot do for Him or yourself or anyone else. But you do not recognize Him, not through your tears, and not by your own reason and strength. Like those first Emmaus disciples, you do not yet know Him.
You take Him for a gardener, a man of dust and dirt, like the first man, Adam, and his first son, Cain, who were gardeners. That’s who Mary thought He was at first, and now you make the same mistake. Instead of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, you see only mortal flesh and all the practical logistics of death and burial — funeral arrangements, cemeteries, and grave sites.
Whether or not you break down and weep on the outside for anyone to see, you are broken and defeated by death and the grave. You are powerless to fix it, unable to find what you need, and helpless to feel any better. So you are sorely tempted to despair altogether and to give up hope.
But right there in the tomb, in the teeth of death, you behold the messengers of the Lord, clothed in white — like your baptismal gown; like the paraments of Christmas and Easter and the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene; like the robes of those who come out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb — because the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom has begun, and all things are made ready, on earth as it is in heaven. So it is that His messengers are sent to you here, to say, “Come, and do not weep, but rejoice!”
The messengers of the Lord turn your eyes toward Jesus — from the dust of the earth and the gates of Hades to the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — to the gates of heaven, opened by the Lord Jesus Christ. They point you to Him who was dead, and yet, behold, He lives! And by their preaching and teaching of His Word, He calls you by name and opens your eyes to behold Him.
He sends His messengers and speaks His Gospel to you. “I forgive you all your sins.” All of your doubts and fears, and death itself, He takes it all away. And in their place He gives you Himself.
That is what Jesus says and does; because, as much as you may love Him for all that He has done for you, He loves you so much more. And His love does not fail. His love is stronger than death.
The Church’s Husband sits in the gates of Hades — which He has broken open by His own Cross and Resurrection from the dead — and by and with His Word of the Gospel He adorns His Bride with His own Righteousness, even as He has glorified her with His own Name. So shall Hades not prevail against her, but as her Husband and her Head has risen from the dead, so she also shall rise.
Thus are you able to stop weeping, to dry your eyes and see clearly. You need not stare into an empty tomb and wonder what on earth you’re going to do. Neither your own dust and bones, nor the dust and bones within the tombs of your loved ones, tell the true story of your life and future.
For the Lord Jesus calls you by name from out of death and the grave into the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — from out of the darkness of your sin into the marvelous Light of His Gospel.
It is by the preaching and Ministry of His Gospel that you find Him here, not within the tomb, but in His House and at His Altar. The Body of Jesus is here for you, that you might find Him and receive Him to yourself, and bear Him within your own body throughout your life on earth, until He shall call you home, both body and soul, to the true Garden — the Paradise of God — forever.
You find Him here, where He finds you with His Word. It is not yet by sight, but by the sound of His Voice, that you recognize your Good Shepherd, as He calls you to Himself by name.
If you want to know if it is Jesus Christ who is speaking, listen: Does the voice that you hear have the timbre of His Gospel? Does it sing the melody of forgiveness and salvation? Does it follow the rhythm of His Cross and Resurrection, the pulse of His Blood poured out for you? If so, then you know it is the Lord who is speaking and calling you by name; and you know to follow Him.
You follow and lay hold of Him here, where He lays hold of you. And He will not let you go. He will not cast you away from His presence. Nor will He allow you to be snatched out of His hand.
But He would not have you cling to Him as “the Gardener.” He would not have you cling to Him as the Man of Dirt. He would not have you cling to Him in the familiar things of this old earth.
His Word to Mary Magdalene, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father,” is challenging and hard to understand. Elsewhere in the Holy Gospels He does not speak this way. In St. Matthew the women lay hold of His feet and worship Him, and He does not tell them to stop. And in both St. Luke and this same chapter of St. John, He invites the disciples to investigate the wounds in His hands and feet and side; He tells St. Thomas to put his finger into the nail wounds, his hand into the spear wound. Yet, here He tells St. Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to Him.
Understand that He does give Himself into your ears, into your heart and mind by His Word, and into your hands, your mouth, and your body in the Holy Communion, that you might cling to Him — to His Body of flesh and blood — with both your body and your soul — by faith in His Word.
But whereas you also receive with thanksgiving all of His other good gifts in this body and life — your daily bread, your home and family, your body and soul, your reason and all your senses — all of which are sanctified by His Word and Holy Spirit — you do not cling to Him in those things. Nor do you cling to any of those things as though your life and salvation were found in them. You rather cling to Jesus by faith — and you worship Him by faith — in the Liturgy of His Gospel.
He would not have you cling to Him on the front side of the Cross and Resurrection. That is to say, He would not have you cling to Him as the Man from Nazareth on His way to be crucified, put to death, and buried — the Man St. Mary Magdalene had known and loved prior to Good Friday. But He would have you cling to Him on the far side of His Passion. He would have you cling to Him as the Lamb who has been slain, and yet, behold, He lives! He would have you cling to Him as the Crucified One, whose hands and feet and side still bear the wounds of His Cross and Passion. He would have you cling to Him as the One who has risen from the dead.
God raised this Jesus from the dead. That is the very heart and soul of the Gospel. Not in contrast to or contradiction of the Cross, but as the victory and outcome of the Cross. The Resurrection of the One who was crucified for your transgressions is your Justification; that is your Righteousness, that is your Absolution, that is your Hope, and that is your Life and your Salvation.
God raised Jesus from the dead. The One who bore your sins in His Body on the Cross, who died your death and suffered your damnation — God raised Him from the dead – for you – from the dust of the ground into the New Creation, of which His own resurrected Body is the First Fruits.
Do not cling to Him as a gardener of this dead and dying world, but as the Good Shepherd who has laid down His life for you and all His sheep, and who has taken it up again that you may live.
He ascends from death and the grave to His God and Father. And what a beautiful Word it is that He sends to His disciples by way of Mary Magdalene. She is not an Apostle, but in this case she is an “apostle to the Apostles,” as the Greek Church has always called her, because she is sent to speak this Word of Jesus to those men whom He calls His brothers. And the same Word has been written for you, as well; and it is spoken to you again on this night, as it is every Easter morning.
“Tell them,” He says, “that I go to My God and your God, to My Father and your Father.” And such a precious gift it is that He bestows upon you and all His Christian disciples with these words. The God of Jesus, who raised Him from the dead, is your God, who shall not fail you, but who shall vindicate you at the last. He shall not leave you dead and buried in the dirt, but He shall raise you up in glory at the Last Day, and He shall make you perfect, as Christ Himself is perfect.
So also, the Father of Christ Jesus is your Father, and you are beloved and well-pleasing to Him. He hears and answers when you pray, because He has first of all spoken to you by His Son, and He has called you by name. He has not only called you by your name, but He has named you with His Name as a beloved son or daughter in Christ, as a member of His household and family.
Thus do you live with Christ Jesus at the right hand of His God and Father in heaven, seated with Him in the heavenly places. That is where you live. Not in the dust of the earth, but in the courts of heaven. Even as Christ lives and abides with His Bride, the Church, in heaven and on earth.
Have you heard what He does for her? And what she does for her children, the children of God? He cleanses her, daily and richly He does. And He clothes her. He covers her shame with His honor. He covers her nakedness with His royal garments. And as she is cloaked in the purple of His Majesty, so does she clothe her children in the scarlet of His Sacrifice. So are you dressed in such scarlet and covered in such purple, as a royal son or daughter of the King, a member of His Holy Bride. He feeds you from His own hand, and He quenches your thirst from His own side.
As He thus stretches out His hands to feed you, to cleanse you, to clothe you, and to give you drink — you who belong to His Bride, the Church, likewise stretch out your hands to your neighbors. As you cling to Christ Jesus by faith in His Word, you cling to your neighbors in love for His sake.
And as Mary Magdalene went to preach that first Easter sermon to the holy Apostles, so do you also confess the same Gospel of the same Christ to your family, friends, and neighbors on earth — to your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus — and even to your pastors! For what the Lord did for St. Mary Magdalene and His disciples then, He does for you now, as for His whole Church.
He raises you from the dead. He casts out all your demons, heals your diseases, forgives you all your sins, and raises you from the death of unbelief, sadness, and fear, to the life that is yours in both body and soul by faith in His Gospel. That is what your Rabboni teaches you, and that is what He gives to you here and now, as He lays hold of you with His Word and Flesh and Blood.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
She is among those many people whom Jesus cleansed and healed by His Word and Holy Spirit. And along with a number of other faithful women, she followed the Lord Jesus as a disciple, as a member of His Church, and she supported Him and His Apostles from her own means.
She followed Him to the last, even to the foot of His Cross on Good Friday. And then on that first Easter Sunday morning, very early, while it was still dark, she went with several of the other women to show reverence and loving care for the Body of Christ Jesus by anointing it with spices.
She came to the tomb, and there it looked and felt as though all hope were dead and gone. Already her Lord had been crucified, put to death, and buried. But then, just when it seemed as though it surely could not get any worse, she found the grave emptied, apparently robbed, His Body gone. She could do nothing else at that point other than weep with deep sorrow and great mourning.
You also end up at the tomb, bereft of hope and everything you love. Sooner or later, your own body shall be laid to rest in the dust of the earth. Whence you were taken, thence you return. In the meantime, everything around you is likewise returning to the dust. Your parents, your spouse, even your children; cousins, brothers, grandparents, friends. One by one, they are taken from you.
Everything ends in dust. So, with Mary Magdalene you make your way to the tomb, and it is still dark, and you cannot see. Then you do not know where Jesus is. You do not know where or how to find His Body. There is only death, the grave is empty of hope, and there’s nothing you can do.
In fact, He is standing there with you and for you, and He would do for you what you cannot do for Him or yourself or anyone else. But you do not recognize Him, not through your tears, and not by your own reason and strength. Like those first Emmaus disciples, you do not yet know Him.
You take Him for a gardener, a man of dust and dirt, like the first man, Adam, and his first son, Cain, who were gardeners. That’s who Mary thought He was at first, and now you make the same mistake. Instead of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, you see only mortal flesh and all the practical logistics of death and burial — funeral arrangements, cemeteries, and grave sites.
Whether or not you break down and weep on the outside for anyone to see, you are broken and defeated by death and the grave. You are powerless to fix it, unable to find what you need, and helpless to feel any better. So you are sorely tempted to despair altogether and to give up hope.
But right there in the tomb, in the teeth of death, you behold the messengers of the Lord, clothed in white — like your baptismal gown; like the paraments of Christmas and Easter and the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene; like the robes of those who come out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb — because the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom has begun, and all things are made ready, on earth as it is in heaven. So it is that His messengers are sent to you here, to say, “Come, and do not weep, but rejoice!”
The messengers of the Lord turn your eyes toward Jesus — from the dust of the earth and the gates of Hades to the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — to the gates of heaven, opened by the Lord Jesus Christ. They point you to Him who was dead, and yet, behold, He lives! And by their preaching and teaching of His Word, He calls you by name and opens your eyes to behold Him.
He sends His messengers and speaks His Gospel to you. “I forgive you all your sins.” All of your doubts and fears, and death itself, He takes it all away. And in their place He gives you Himself.
That is what Jesus says and does; because, as much as you may love Him for all that He has done for you, He loves you so much more. And His love does not fail. His love is stronger than death.
The Church’s Husband sits in the gates of Hades — which He has broken open by His own Cross and Resurrection from the dead — and by and with His Word of the Gospel He adorns His Bride with His own Righteousness, even as He has glorified her with His own Name. So shall Hades not prevail against her, but as her Husband and her Head has risen from the dead, so she also shall rise.
Thus are you able to stop weeping, to dry your eyes and see clearly. You need not stare into an empty tomb and wonder what on earth you’re going to do. Neither your own dust and bones, nor the dust and bones within the tombs of your loved ones, tell the true story of your life and future.
For the Lord Jesus calls you by name from out of death and the grave into the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — from out of the darkness of your sin into the marvelous Light of His Gospel.
It is by the preaching and Ministry of His Gospel that you find Him here, not within the tomb, but in His House and at His Altar. The Body of Jesus is here for you, that you might find Him and receive Him to yourself, and bear Him within your own body throughout your life on earth, until He shall call you home, both body and soul, to the true Garden — the Paradise of God — forever.
You find Him here, where He finds you with His Word. It is not yet by sight, but by the sound of His Voice, that you recognize your Good Shepherd, as He calls you to Himself by name.
If you want to know if it is Jesus Christ who is speaking, listen: Does the voice that you hear have the timbre of His Gospel? Does it sing the melody of forgiveness and salvation? Does it follow the rhythm of His Cross and Resurrection, the pulse of His Blood poured out for you? If so, then you know it is the Lord who is speaking and calling you by name; and you know to follow Him.
You follow and lay hold of Him here, where He lays hold of you. And He will not let you go. He will not cast you away from His presence. Nor will He allow you to be snatched out of His hand.
But He would not have you cling to Him as “the Gardener.” He would not have you cling to Him as the Man of Dirt. He would not have you cling to Him in the familiar things of this old earth.
His Word to Mary Magdalene, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father,” is challenging and hard to understand. Elsewhere in the Holy Gospels He does not speak this way. In St. Matthew the women lay hold of His feet and worship Him, and He does not tell them to stop. And in both St. Luke and this same chapter of St. John, He invites the disciples to investigate the wounds in His hands and feet and side; He tells St. Thomas to put his finger into the nail wounds, his hand into the spear wound. Yet, here He tells St. Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to Him.
Understand that He does give Himself into your ears, into your heart and mind by His Word, and into your hands, your mouth, and your body in the Holy Communion, that you might cling to Him — to His Body of flesh and blood — with both your body and your soul — by faith in His Word.
But whereas you also receive with thanksgiving all of His other good gifts in this body and life — your daily bread, your home and family, your body and soul, your reason and all your senses — all of which are sanctified by His Word and Holy Spirit — you do not cling to Him in those things. Nor do you cling to any of those things as though your life and salvation were found in them. You rather cling to Jesus by faith — and you worship Him by faith — in the Liturgy of His Gospel.
He would not have you cling to Him on the front side of the Cross and Resurrection. That is to say, He would not have you cling to Him as the Man from Nazareth on His way to be crucified, put to death, and buried — the Man St. Mary Magdalene had known and loved prior to Good Friday. But He would have you cling to Him on the far side of His Passion. He would have you cling to Him as the Lamb who has been slain, and yet, behold, He lives! He would have you cling to Him as the Crucified One, whose hands and feet and side still bear the wounds of His Cross and Passion. He would have you cling to Him as the One who has risen from the dead.
God raised this Jesus from the dead. That is the very heart and soul of the Gospel. Not in contrast to or contradiction of the Cross, but as the victory and outcome of the Cross. The Resurrection of the One who was crucified for your transgressions is your Justification; that is your Righteousness, that is your Absolution, that is your Hope, and that is your Life and your Salvation.
God raised Jesus from the dead. The One who bore your sins in His Body on the Cross, who died your death and suffered your damnation — God raised Him from the dead – for you – from the dust of the ground into the New Creation, of which His own resurrected Body is the First Fruits.
Do not cling to Him as a gardener of this dead and dying world, but as the Good Shepherd who has laid down His life for you and all His sheep, and who has taken it up again that you may live.
He ascends from death and the grave to His God and Father. And what a beautiful Word it is that He sends to His disciples by way of Mary Magdalene. She is not an Apostle, but in this case she is an “apostle to the Apostles,” as the Greek Church has always called her, because she is sent to speak this Word of Jesus to those men whom He calls His brothers. And the same Word has been written for you, as well; and it is spoken to you again on this night, as it is every Easter morning.
“Tell them,” He says, “that I go to My God and your God, to My Father and your Father.” And such a precious gift it is that He bestows upon you and all His Christian disciples with these words. The God of Jesus, who raised Him from the dead, is your God, who shall not fail you, but who shall vindicate you at the last. He shall not leave you dead and buried in the dirt, but He shall raise you up in glory at the Last Day, and He shall make you perfect, as Christ Himself is perfect.
So also, the Father of Christ Jesus is your Father, and you are beloved and well-pleasing to Him. He hears and answers when you pray, because He has first of all spoken to you by His Son, and He has called you by name. He has not only called you by your name, but He has named you with His Name as a beloved son or daughter in Christ, as a member of His household and family.
Thus do you live with Christ Jesus at the right hand of His God and Father in heaven, seated with Him in the heavenly places. That is where you live. Not in the dust of the earth, but in the courts of heaven. Even as Christ lives and abides with His Bride, the Church, in heaven and on earth.
Have you heard what He does for her? And what she does for her children, the children of God? He cleanses her, daily and richly He does. And He clothes her. He covers her shame with His honor. He covers her nakedness with His royal garments. And as she is cloaked in the purple of His Majesty, so does she clothe her children in the scarlet of His Sacrifice. So are you dressed in such scarlet and covered in such purple, as a royal son or daughter of the King, a member of His Holy Bride. He feeds you from His own hand, and He quenches your thirst from His own side.
As He thus stretches out His hands to feed you, to cleanse you, to clothe you, and to give you drink — you who belong to His Bride, the Church, likewise stretch out your hands to your neighbors. As you cling to Christ Jesus by faith in His Word, you cling to your neighbors in love for His sake.
And as Mary Magdalene went to preach that first Easter sermon to the holy Apostles, so do you also confess the same Gospel of the same Christ to your family, friends, and neighbors on earth — to your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus — and even to your pastors! For what the Lord did for St. Mary Magdalene and His disciples then, He does for you now, as for His whole Church.
He raises you from the dead. He casts out all your demons, heals your diseases, forgives you all your sins, and raises you from the death of unbelief, sadness, and fear, to the life that is yours in both body and soul by faith in His Gospel. That is what your Rabboni teaches you, and that is what He gives to you here and now, as He lays hold of you with His Word and Flesh and Blood.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
19 July 2020
The Sons of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus
There is no problem with the Sower, His Seed, or His Field. These are all very good. But now there is a problem in His Field because, while His men were sleeping, His enemy was at work, prowling around, sowing seeds of lawlessness in the Sower’s Field. So, now there are weeds among the wheat. What shall the Lord and Master of the Field do about it? What should He do?
What would you do? If you were the Lord, how would you respond? Would you exterminate the weeds by whatever means or force necessary? Would you rip them out and throw them away?
Well, how often do you think and act as though you actually were God? When someone gets in your way, you remove them. When someone does something you don’t like, you push back as hard as you’re able. When someone encroaches on your space, steals your thunder, takes your stuff, messes with your plans, or otherwise cramps your style, you retaliate in order to have your way.
If you’ve worked hard on a project and someone messes it up, how do you respond? With anger and revenge, or with patience and forgiveness? And as for those things outside of your control — things you don’t understand, which cause you pain and suffering, grief and disappointment — how do you deal with those things? Do you aim to force the situation and fix it for yourself, as though you could? Or do you rail against the Lord and question His wisdom, as though you knew better?
But the true and only God does not think the way you think. And, Christ be praised, He does not act the way you act. His ways are not your ways, and His thoughts are not your thoughts. As you have heard, He does not pull the weeds at once, nor does He permit His servants to do so, because He has mercy. He is patient and long-suffering. He would preserve and protect His wheat from all harm and danger. And so, for the sake of His wheat, He will not destroy the weeds before the harvest. He knows the wheat would not survive the weeding, and He would save it from the fire.
As with the Parable of the Sower last Sunday, so also with this Parable today, the Lord Jesus is not offering a lesson in earthly farming or agriculture. He is teaching the Mysteries of His Kingdom, not the science and savvy of this world and its kingdoms. And with that in mind, understand that His enemy, the devil, is not capable of creating any plants of his own. The seeds the devil sows, those of the weeds, are not some new plant alongside the wheat, but a perversion of God’s good creation. The devil is no creator. He can only attack and abuse what God has done and given. So the weeds cannot be separated from the wheat, because they are actually a perversion of the wheat.
Don’t look around the congregation or cast about in your mind concerning your other neighbors, trying to figure out who the weeds are. Consider your own heart. Look at your own life. Listen to your own words. Examine your thoughts and attitudes in the light of the Ten Commandments.
Don’t look at your neighbor to find where the weeds are. Rather, look within yourself and groan; not with despair, but in repentance — and with hope for the mercy of God, because He is merciful.
The fact of the matter is, the weeds are not simply planted alongside you in the rows. They are planted in your own heart and in your flesh. They are entangled about your roots. And they have you in their grips, bearing their lawless fruits in your thoughts, in your words, and in your actions.
And all of that is already bad enough. But there is an even bigger problem, namely, the fact that you can’t tell the difference. In the Parable at hand, the particular weeds that Jesus describes are indistinguishable from wheat, especially early on. The Lord thereby underscores the perversity of sin, which prevents you from distinguishing between the weeds and the wheat.
You can’t read your neighbor’s heart, no matter how hard you try and assume that you can. But neither do you really know your own sinful heart. You don’t know the depths of your perversity, your sinfulness and guile. You actually think of yourself, most of the time, as being pretty good.
The most deadly and dangerous thing of all is that you do not know the Sower. You do not know His Seed, and you do not know the Fruits that He would harvest. You know none of these things, except by the Word and Spirit of God, who must teach you and must help you in your weakness.
It’s not simply that you and your neighbors are sinful, duplicitous and hypocritical, deceptive and deceived. It’s not only that you and your neighbors are hiding yourselves from each other, playing at charades, and practicing subterfuge in your dealings with each other, as though life were a big game. It’s worse than that. Not only do you not know the weeds from the wheat, but you don’t even realize that you don’t know the weeds from the wheat! Consequently, you call evil, “good,” and you call good, “evil.” And you have no idea how greatly mistaken you are.
All of which means that, when you set out to weed your fields, what you rip up and throw away are the fruits of grace, mercy, and peace. And the very things you cultivate, as though they were your crop, are the weeds of pride and envy, selfishness and greed. And still you do not recognize or understand what you are doing. In your judgment of others, and in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you are pious and faithful, and that by your wicked works you are reaping life.
But, no, if there are to be any sons of the Kingdom in the final harvest, then it must be the Son of Man who shall sow them, raise them up, and harvest them unto Himself in His Righteousness — by His judgment of forgiveness. The Lord knows that none of His wheat will survive otherwise.
The wheat cannot live choked out by the weeds. But the wheat cannot survive a weeding, either. It will die either way, if the Lord does not act. He alone is God, the King and Redeemer of Israel. And He sends no creature to save His Field, but He Himself comes and does it all by His grace.
And here is how He goes about it:
He hides Himself in the Field. He hides Himself in the Field. He comes unpretentiously, small and feeble, seemingly helpless. And He plants Himself in the ground, like the smallest of seeds, easily lost among all of those weeds. In fact, He allows Himself to become entangled in your weeds, to be completely overgrown by your weeds, until it seems as though He were utterly lost. He is choked, and He is strangled. He is crucified, put to death, and buried in the ground.
And then what? His Tree bears good Fruit. He rises from the dead. He has died, but, lo, He lives! He has overcome all of the devastating consequences of sin and the devil’s perversion of God’s good creation, all the weeds in your heart and life, and all the weeds in the world around you. And as such, His Word of the Cross is the good Seed of His Gospel. He proclaims the forgiveness of sins. He proclaims the free gift of Life and Salvation. And this He does throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth. He sows the entire Field with the Seed He has borne by His Cross.
He does not uproot the weeds and burn them. On the contrary, what He does do is remarkable. He cares for the weeds along with the wheat for now. He waters both with His Word and Holy Spirit. He shines the sunshine of His love on both the evil and the good. He cultivates the whole Field by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name. He proclaims the Gospel to all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, without partiality or prejudice — with grace, mercy, and peace for those who have no grace, mercy, or peace. He preserves both weeds and wheat together in His Field. And He thereby plunders His enemy of any produce whatsoever.
The Lord takes it all in hand, and rather than exterminating the weeds, He cares for the Field. His Seed-bearing Fruit of the Cross gives new birth to the sons of God — the sons of the Kingdom, His brothers by grace — because His Cross has made Atonement for the curse. God’s cursing of the soil, the thorns and thistles that it bears around the world, and all the consequences of the Fall into sin, the Cross of Christ has made Atonement for all of it. And the Blood which Christ has shed does not cry out for vengeance, because it has cleansed, redeemed, and sanctified His Field.
His own crucified and risen Body is the First Fruits of a New Creation, wherein and whereby the weed-infested wheat is not lost — neither strangled by the weeds nor pulled up with the weeds — but it is rescued, justified, and made holy. The wheat is saved for the Lord’s great harvest at the last, as surely as the great Weed of His Cross has actually become the new and greater Tree of Life.
Now, to be sure, there will come the consummation of all things and the final harvest, when the Lord shall come in glory with power and great might to judge the living and the dead. Then all those weeds which still remain shall be purged and removed from the presence of God into the fire.
So, do not ever become comfortable or complacent with any other planting than that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pay no heed to any other word than His Word. And do not fall asleep, but be sober and watchful. Do not abuse the Lord’s mercy and long-suffering patience as an excuse to cultivate weeds in your life instead of wheat. Do not mock and despise the Son of Man by disparaging the Fruits of His Cross and serving His enemy. For all the ways in which you have done so, repent.
But in repenting, take heart, and have patience, that even those weeds which still remain for now — those that you produce in sin and shame within your body and life, and those that threaten to choke you and destroy you with suffering and sorrow, despair and death — the Lord, by His Cross, is using even these weeds to be working His work in you unto daily repentance, faith, and life.
By that which you suffer, by those weeds that beleaguer you day and night, He is calling you daily to repentance — to turn you from the sowing of the devil to the Lord’s own sowing of the Gospel. He disciplines you now, in both body and soul, not to hurt or harm you, but because He loves you; and by His discipline and His preaching, He is working to harvest you into His Kingdom forever.
He does not uproot you and remove you from His Field with all of your own weeds; nor does He remove all of the weeds that harass and hurt you in this old world of sin and death. But, by His Word of the Cross, He strengthens and sustains you, protects and preserves you, nurtures you with His forgiveness of your sins, and nourishes you with His Body given and His Blood poured out.
His Cross remains an accomplished fact, the Lord’s perfection of His good Creation, and it renders the weeds impotent against you. He forces even the weeds to serve His wheat, thereby forming you in His own crucified image and likeness. Therefore, even though you die, yet shall you live and abide forever with God in both body and soul. And even now, in your weakness, overgrown and hidden by weeds within and without, the Spirit of Christ intercedes for you and helps you.
Just think of that. God Himself is praying for you! Though that may seem strange, He does so that you might stand fast. He prays for you according to His good and gracious Will for your salvation; and even in His praying He is already acting to save you. As He speaks, so He does. It is true.
What now appears to be futile and fatal, He has made into a sure and certain hope — not yet seen, but already accomplished in the Body of Christ Jesus. It has not yet appeared what you shall be. What you see and feel in yourself for now, in this dying world, is nothing but weeds, and no wheat. But when the Lord appears in all His glory, you shall see Him as He is, and you shall be like Him.
In your death and in your resurrection at the last, unto the Life everlasting, all the weeds shall be purged and removed forevermore from your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit; and having thus been purified, as gold and silver are purified by fire, you shall nevermore be plagued by the threat of sin, the assaults and accusations of the devil, or the fear of death, but shall live in perfect peace and joy in the presence of God, in the Light of His countenance, and in the warmth of His Love.
Then the Righteousness of Christ — by which, in His mercy, He has declared you to be righteous by the Gospel — shall shine forth in you like the very Son Himself. And all the sufferings and sorrows, all the sin and shame of this present evil age, shall be gone and forgotten forever like a dream that is past. And so shall you abide in the Kingdom of your own dear God and Father.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
What would you do? If you were the Lord, how would you respond? Would you exterminate the weeds by whatever means or force necessary? Would you rip them out and throw them away?
Well, how often do you think and act as though you actually were God? When someone gets in your way, you remove them. When someone does something you don’t like, you push back as hard as you’re able. When someone encroaches on your space, steals your thunder, takes your stuff, messes with your plans, or otherwise cramps your style, you retaliate in order to have your way.
If you’ve worked hard on a project and someone messes it up, how do you respond? With anger and revenge, or with patience and forgiveness? And as for those things outside of your control — things you don’t understand, which cause you pain and suffering, grief and disappointment — how do you deal with those things? Do you aim to force the situation and fix it for yourself, as though you could? Or do you rail against the Lord and question His wisdom, as though you knew better?
But the true and only God does not think the way you think. And, Christ be praised, He does not act the way you act. His ways are not your ways, and His thoughts are not your thoughts. As you have heard, He does not pull the weeds at once, nor does He permit His servants to do so, because He has mercy. He is patient and long-suffering. He would preserve and protect His wheat from all harm and danger. And so, for the sake of His wheat, He will not destroy the weeds before the harvest. He knows the wheat would not survive the weeding, and He would save it from the fire.
As with the Parable of the Sower last Sunday, so also with this Parable today, the Lord Jesus is not offering a lesson in earthly farming or agriculture. He is teaching the Mysteries of His Kingdom, not the science and savvy of this world and its kingdoms. And with that in mind, understand that His enemy, the devil, is not capable of creating any plants of his own. The seeds the devil sows, those of the weeds, are not some new plant alongside the wheat, but a perversion of God’s good creation. The devil is no creator. He can only attack and abuse what God has done and given. So the weeds cannot be separated from the wheat, because they are actually a perversion of the wheat.
Don’t look around the congregation or cast about in your mind concerning your other neighbors, trying to figure out who the weeds are. Consider your own heart. Look at your own life. Listen to your own words. Examine your thoughts and attitudes in the light of the Ten Commandments.
Don’t look at your neighbor to find where the weeds are. Rather, look within yourself and groan; not with despair, but in repentance — and with hope for the mercy of God, because He is merciful.
The fact of the matter is, the weeds are not simply planted alongside you in the rows. They are planted in your own heart and in your flesh. They are entangled about your roots. And they have you in their grips, bearing their lawless fruits in your thoughts, in your words, and in your actions.
And all of that is already bad enough. But there is an even bigger problem, namely, the fact that you can’t tell the difference. In the Parable at hand, the particular weeds that Jesus describes are indistinguishable from wheat, especially early on. The Lord thereby underscores the perversity of sin, which prevents you from distinguishing between the weeds and the wheat.
You can’t read your neighbor’s heart, no matter how hard you try and assume that you can. But neither do you really know your own sinful heart. You don’t know the depths of your perversity, your sinfulness and guile. You actually think of yourself, most of the time, as being pretty good.
The most deadly and dangerous thing of all is that you do not know the Sower. You do not know His Seed, and you do not know the Fruits that He would harvest. You know none of these things, except by the Word and Spirit of God, who must teach you and must help you in your weakness.
It’s not simply that you and your neighbors are sinful, duplicitous and hypocritical, deceptive and deceived. It’s not only that you and your neighbors are hiding yourselves from each other, playing at charades, and practicing subterfuge in your dealings with each other, as though life were a big game. It’s worse than that. Not only do you not know the weeds from the wheat, but you don’t even realize that you don’t know the weeds from the wheat! Consequently, you call evil, “good,” and you call good, “evil.” And you have no idea how greatly mistaken you are.
All of which means that, when you set out to weed your fields, what you rip up and throw away are the fruits of grace, mercy, and peace. And the very things you cultivate, as though they were your crop, are the weeds of pride and envy, selfishness and greed. And still you do not recognize or understand what you are doing. In your judgment of others, and in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you are pious and faithful, and that by your wicked works you are reaping life.
But, no, if there are to be any sons of the Kingdom in the final harvest, then it must be the Son of Man who shall sow them, raise them up, and harvest them unto Himself in His Righteousness — by His judgment of forgiveness. The Lord knows that none of His wheat will survive otherwise.
The wheat cannot live choked out by the weeds. But the wheat cannot survive a weeding, either. It will die either way, if the Lord does not act. He alone is God, the King and Redeemer of Israel. And He sends no creature to save His Field, but He Himself comes and does it all by His grace.
And here is how He goes about it:
He hides Himself in the Field. He hides Himself in the Field. He comes unpretentiously, small and feeble, seemingly helpless. And He plants Himself in the ground, like the smallest of seeds, easily lost among all of those weeds. In fact, He allows Himself to become entangled in your weeds, to be completely overgrown by your weeds, until it seems as though He were utterly lost. He is choked, and He is strangled. He is crucified, put to death, and buried in the ground.
And then what? His Tree bears good Fruit. He rises from the dead. He has died, but, lo, He lives! He has overcome all of the devastating consequences of sin and the devil’s perversion of God’s good creation, all the weeds in your heart and life, and all the weeds in the world around you. And as such, His Word of the Cross is the good Seed of His Gospel. He proclaims the forgiveness of sins. He proclaims the free gift of Life and Salvation. And this He does throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth. He sows the entire Field with the Seed He has borne by His Cross.
He does not uproot the weeds and burn them. On the contrary, what He does do is remarkable. He cares for the weeds along with the wheat for now. He waters both with His Word and Holy Spirit. He shines the sunshine of His love on both the evil and the good. He cultivates the whole Field by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name. He proclaims the Gospel to all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, without partiality or prejudice — with grace, mercy, and peace for those who have no grace, mercy, or peace. He preserves both weeds and wheat together in His Field. And He thereby plunders His enemy of any produce whatsoever.
The Lord takes it all in hand, and rather than exterminating the weeds, He cares for the Field. His Seed-bearing Fruit of the Cross gives new birth to the sons of God — the sons of the Kingdom, His brothers by grace — because His Cross has made Atonement for the curse. God’s cursing of the soil, the thorns and thistles that it bears around the world, and all the consequences of the Fall into sin, the Cross of Christ has made Atonement for all of it. And the Blood which Christ has shed does not cry out for vengeance, because it has cleansed, redeemed, and sanctified His Field.
His own crucified and risen Body is the First Fruits of a New Creation, wherein and whereby the weed-infested wheat is not lost — neither strangled by the weeds nor pulled up with the weeds — but it is rescued, justified, and made holy. The wheat is saved for the Lord’s great harvest at the last, as surely as the great Weed of His Cross has actually become the new and greater Tree of Life.
Now, to be sure, there will come the consummation of all things and the final harvest, when the Lord shall come in glory with power and great might to judge the living and the dead. Then all those weeds which still remain shall be purged and removed from the presence of God into the fire.
So, do not ever become comfortable or complacent with any other planting than that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pay no heed to any other word than His Word. And do not fall asleep, but be sober and watchful. Do not abuse the Lord’s mercy and long-suffering patience as an excuse to cultivate weeds in your life instead of wheat. Do not mock and despise the Son of Man by disparaging the Fruits of His Cross and serving His enemy. For all the ways in which you have done so, repent.
But in repenting, take heart, and have patience, that even those weeds which still remain for now — those that you produce in sin and shame within your body and life, and those that threaten to choke you and destroy you with suffering and sorrow, despair and death — the Lord, by His Cross, is using even these weeds to be working His work in you unto daily repentance, faith, and life.
By that which you suffer, by those weeds that beleaguer you day and night, He is calling you daily to repentance — to turn you from the sowing of the devil to the Lord’s own sowing of the Gospel. He disciplines you now, in both body and soul, not to hurt or harm you, but because He loves you; and by His discipline and His preaching, He is working to harvest you into His Kingdom forever.
He does not uproot you and remove you from His Field with all of your own weeds; nor does He remove all of the weeds that harass and hurt you in this old world of sin and death. But, by His Word of the Cross, He strengthens and sustains you, protects and preserves you, nurtures you with His forgiveness of your sins, and nourishes you with His Body given and His Blood poured out.
His Cross remains an accomplished fact, the Lord’s perfection of His good Creation, and it renders the weeds impotent against you. He forces even the weeds to serve His wheat, thereby forming you in His own crucified image and likeness. Therefore, even though you die, yet shall you live and abide forever with God in both body and soul. And even now, in your weakness, overgrown and hidden by weeds within and without, the Spirit of Christ intercedes for you and helps you.
Just think of that. God Himself is praying for you! Though that may seem strange, He does so that you might stand fast. He prays for you according to His good and gracious Will for your salvation; and even in His praying He is already acting to save you. As He speaks, so He does. It is true.
What now appears to be futile and fatal, He has made into a sure and certain hope — not yet seen, but already accomplished in the Body of Christ Jesus. It has not yet appeared what you shall be. What you see and feel in yourself for now, in this dying world, is nothing but weeds, and no wheat. But when the Lord appears in all His glory, you shall see Him as He is, and you shall be like Him.
In your death and in your resurrection at the last, unto the Life everlasting, all the weeds shall be purged and removed forevermore from your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit; and having thus been purified, as gold and silver are purified by fire, you shall nevermore be plagued by the threat of sin, the assaults and accusations of the devil, or the fear of death, but shall live in perfect peace and joy in the presence of God, in the Light of His countenance, and in the warmth of His Love.
Then the Righteousness of Christ — by which, in His mercy, He has declared you to be righteous by the Gospel — shall shine forth in you like the very Son Himself. And all the sufferings and sorrows, all the sin and shame of this present evil age, shall be gone and forgotten forever like a dream that is past. And so shall you abide in the Kingdom of your own dear God and Father.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
12 July 2020
By the Seed That Is Sown
The Parable of the Sower is such a familiar story, one you’re no doubt well acquainted with. It’s easily remembered over time, and on the surface it seems so readily understood. Jesus even gives an explanation, so you might suppose the meaning should be obvious. And yet, the most crucial point of the Parable itself is the great difficulty with which the Word of Christ is understood at all.
One thing the Parable makes clear is that God’s Word is preached with reckless abandon, scattered to the four winds without prejudice. The Lord is not stingy with His Word. As Christ Jesus was crucified for the salvation of all people, so does His Word go out for all people without exception.
But the Parable is chiefly concerned with what happens to that Word in the hearts and lives of those who hear it. And that is where the difficulty starts in grasping the point at hand. Many want to make the success or failure of the crop depend upon the prior condition of the soil; which is to say, they want to make the success or failure of God’s Word depend upon those who hear it.
At face value, that sounds like an obvious interpretation. And yet, it’s another example of hearing the Word without understanding. The birds have flown off with the real meaning in their gullets.
What is it, then, that constitutes a genuine understanding of the Word of God? It is more than just knowing the facts about Jesus. As for that, a person could have the whole Bible memorized without really understanding any of it. But to understand the Holy Scriptures is to hear and believe God’s Word as the Gospel of Christ Jesus from start to finish. It all points to Him, to what He has done for you and all people, and to what He continues to do for and with His Church on earth.
Hearing His Word with understanding means repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins — knowing your sins and your unworthiness, and yet believing and trusting that the Lord has gotten forgiveness, life, and salvation for you by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, and that He bestows these good things upon you, by His grace alone, through the preaching of His Gospel.
The fact is, no one understands the Word of Christ and His Gospel by their own reason or strength. Apart from the Spirit of Christ Jesus, it is never more than “facts” and “information,” which will not save you. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is never absent from the Word of Christ. He is actively present and at work — through that Word — to open up your heart and mind, and to give you the ears of faith. As Jesus says to His disciples, therefore, “Blessed are your ears, because they hear!”
It’s frustrating to admit, but there’s nothing you can do to make yourself or anyone else believe the Gospel. For yourself, you can only listen to the Word — and leave it to the Word to do its work. Likewise, for others, you can only sow the Word into their ears — and leave their hearing of it to the Holy Spirit. Those who do hear and understand, who believe the Gospel, are blessed to do so.
Of the great crowds that gathered around Jesus, there were many who heard His saving Word and yet bore no fruit. So, too, those who heard the preaching of St. Matthew and the other Apostles.
And there are likely some of you here today, who hear the Word of the Gospel in this preaching and Liturgy, but who will nonetheless relinquish that Word — and who will thus whither and die.
God grant, by His mercy, that it would not be so. God grant that each of you would continue to seek out His Word and the preaching of the Gospel, and that you would always hunger and thirst for the precious Sacrament of His Body and Blood. For it is only by these holy Seeds of His grace and mercy that His Word will survive and grow within your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit.
In the Parable at hand, do not wonder that so much Seed is wasted and lost. Instead, praise God that anything grows at all! For in spite of the soil and its enemies — in spite of the rockiness of our hearts, and the ravenous birds of Satan, and the weeds of the world — the Lord still brings forth a harvest from the Seed that He has sown. And that is truly a miracle of His divine grace.
Consider those various enemies that are lined up in force against your soil. And think of all the many ways they are working together to root out the Seed of God and get a foothold in your heart.
To begin with, there are those who never hear the Word of the Gospel at all — no doubt many who are closer to home than you prefer to think about. And that ought to bring a sobering sadness to the heart of every Christian. Perhaps even worse, there are those who do hear the Word of God in some sense, but for whom the message of the Gospel is twisted and distorted by false doctrine. In such cases, the Seed is contaminated to the point of being altogether lost. That is surely one of the primary ways whereby Satan and his “birds” snatch the Word away from those who hear it.
In some cases, a church body or a preacher distorts the Gospel into a new kind of legalism, which effectively destroys the Word and steals it from the hearers. In other cases, it is the Law of the Lord that is denied or downplayed, to the detriment of repentance, faith, and love. Elsewhere, the Law and the Gospel are rightly preached unto repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins, but those who hear are scandalized by the straightforward simplicity of that Word of the Cross, which is so contrary to all the “wisdom” of this world. It makes no sense, it does not sink in, and so it is rejected. It sits on the surface of the road, until the hungry birds come to snatch it away forever.
In the second place, it is a sad irony of life in this fallen world that, whether things are going well or poorly, you are pulled away from the Word and promises of God. As Jesus here says, the thorns that choke the growing Seed are both the anxieties of this age and the deceitful appeal of riches.
When the anxieties of your life are piled high — when everything is going wrong, and the weight of the world is heavy on your back — then you are tempted to conclude that God has abandoned you. His Word of the Gospel seems powerless to help, whereas the challenges are so demanding — and so you are choked away from your only real hope, which is in Christ Jesus, your Savior.
In much the same way, when everything seems to be going right — when you are blessed with food and drink and all that you need to support this body and life — when your family and friends and your possessions appear to be safe and secure — then you are tempted to lose interest in God, as though you did not need Him. You ignore Him and favor the false security of material things. His Word seems so pointless, His Gospel so unnecessary, because you see no need for anything. But in this way, also, you are choked away from real security, which is found only in Christ Jesus.
In the third place, it is easy to see how the world and your flesh cooperate to strip away the Seed of Christ from your heart and life. By your inheritance from Adam, you are superficial, petty, and shallow. Going to church, hearing the Gospel, living the Christian life — well, that’s all fine and good from time to time and for awhile. Many Christians may be active and excited about God’s Word and faith at first. But even the simple passage of time can wear you down. You get bored and overconfident, imagining that you’ve heard it all before, that you already know it sufficiently, and that you’ll be just fine coasting forward without the preaching of God’s Word. All of which goes to show how little you comprehend His Word, its character, content, power, and necessity.
And what happens when the heat begins? When it falls on you to bear the Cross of Christ Jesus in a world that would eagerly put you to death? When you are called upon to stand up for the truth of the Gospel in the face of mockery, ridicule, and persecution? When you’ve already undersold the Word and oversold yourself, it is so tempting and so easy to throw in the towel and give up. You get tired of the hassle, and it just doesn’t seem all that important or worthwhile. So you shut your ears and harden your heart to the Word, and you refuse to let it put down roots within you.
What is it, then, that makes the difference from one type of soil to the next, in light of the fact that none of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are immune to the enemies of God’s Word? The disciples were themselves attacked — and sometimes overcome — by these enemies. Indeed, Christ Jesus Himself was assaulted by them, as you know from the story of His temptation. But how did Christ Jesus defeat those temptations? By relying on the Word of His God and Father.
Heed and follow His example, and resist the assaults and accusations of the devil, the world, and your own flesh, by availing yourself of God’s Word. Give attention to the preaching of the Gospel, eat and drink the Word-made-Flesh-and-Blood, and so receive the forgiveness of all your sins. Immerse your home and family in the Gospel of Christ Jesus by the catechesis and daily prayer of His Word. Bind it to your forehead, nail it to your doors, and speak it to your children when you get up, as you go about your day, and as you go to bed. That is how you hold on to the Seed.
The thing of it is, no matter what the soil may be like, there simply is no produce whatsoever apart from the Seed. It is the Seed that grows and produces fruit after its own kind. All the soil can do (of itself) is hinder or destroy what the Seed would otherwise do. The advantage of the “good soil” is not in the soil itself, but rather in the fact that it hangs onto the Seed as it grows and matures. The other types of soil, for all of those various reasons, allow the Seed to get away from them. Likewise, your only hope for producing fruit is in clinging to the Word and Sacraments of Christ.
With all the many hardships lined up against the soil, those little Seeds of Christ seem so small and powerless. And as you face the trials and tribulations of this life, the Ministry of the Gospel in the simple Means of Grace appears to be of little or no help in preserving your body, soul, and spirit.
To be sure, the Gospel includes no promise of an easy or trouble-free life in this world. Quite the opposite is true. The Lord Jesus promises a cross and suffering to those who follow after Him — the very sorts of things that harass the soil in this Parable. It is therefore only by faith — and not by sight or sense — that you cling for dear life to the Seed in spite of its helpless appearance.
It is by faith alone that you know and understand this seemingly insignificant little Seed — the Word of the Gospel — to be the power of God unto salvation. For it is quite true that the Gospel gives no guarantees of any easy answers for your life in this fallen world. Likely as not, your life here will get worse, as the devil, the world, and your flesh rebel and rage against you.
Yet, that tiny Seed of the Gospel, buried underground (as though dead and gone), will accomplish the good and gracious will of God for your salvation. His Word will not return to Him empty or void, but it will accomplish all that He desires and achieve the purpose for which He speaks it.
Sprouting, and growing, and digging down roots deeper and deeper into your heart, mind, body, and soul — the mustard seed becomes a mighty tree! The grain of wheat becomes a bushel. And at the last, the Sower and Lord of the Harvest will gather His sheaves — and because of His Seed, He will gather you — into the harvest home of heaven. God is faithful, and His Seed will do it.
In the meantime, Christ Jesus is already bearing and producing His own good fruits in you by His Word and Spirit through the Ministry of His Gospel. For the Seed that He sows brings forth good fruits after His own kind. Which is to say that He brings forth the fruits of the Gospel in your life.
Thus do you bear the fruit of forgiveness for your neighbors. You bear the fruit of Christian love, not only for your family and friends, but also for your enemies. You bear the fruit of sacrificial service on behalf of others, not expecting payment or praise, but out of gratitude for the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus. In short, you live the Gospel in your life, as the Lord has lived and died for you.
Of course, you no doubt realize that you are daily falling short of such fruits of the Gospel. Even so, the beauty of the Gospel is that Christ Jesus keeps on coming after you with His Word and the preaching of it. He goes right on sowing His Seed with reckless abandon, planting His Word of forgiveness in your heart, and feeding you with the fruits of His Cross, His holy Body and precious Blood. He tills your soil with His Law, then sows again your rows and furrows with His Gospel.
And like the soil of creation — cursed by God in the Garden of Eden, in the hope of liberation from the curse of sin and death — you also wait in eager expectation for the Resurrection of all flesh, for the final healing of your soil, and for the redemption of your body unto everlasting Life.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
One thing the Parable makes clear is that God’s Word is preached with reckless abandon, scattered to the four winds without prejudice. The Lord is not stingy with His Word. As Christ Jesus was crucified for the salvation of all people, so does His Word go out for all people without exception.
But the Parable is chiefly concerned with what happens to that Word in the hearts and lives of those who hear it. And that is where the difficulty starts in grasping the point at hand. Many want to make the success or failure of the crop depend upon the prior condition of the soil; which is to say, they want to make the success or failure of God’s Word depend upon those who hear it.
At face value, that sounds like an obvious interpretation. And yet, it’s another example of hearing the Word without understanding. The birds have flown off with the real meaning in their gullets.
What is it, then, that constitutes a genuine understanding of the Word of God? It is more than just knowing the facts about Jesus. As for that, a person could have the whole Bible memorized without really understanding any of it. But to understand the Holy Scriptures is to hear and believe God’s Word as the Gospel of Christ Jesus from start to finish. It all points to Him, to what He has done for you and all people, and to what He continues to do for and with His Church on earth.
Hearing His Word with understanding means repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins — knowing your sins and your unworthiness, and yet believing and trusting that the Lord has gotten forgiveness, life, and salvation for you by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, and that He bestows these good things upon you, by His grace alone, through the preaching of His Gospel.
The fact is, no one understands the Word of Christ and His Gospel by their own reason or strength. Apart from the Spirit of Christ Jesus, it is never more than “facts” and “information,” which will not save you. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is never absent from the Word of Christ. He is actively present and at work — through that Word — to open up your heart and mind, and to give you the ears of faith. As Jesus says to His disciples, therefore, “Blessed are your ears, because they hear!”
It’s frustrating to admit, but there’s nothing you can do to make yourself or anyone else believe the Gospel. For yourself, you can only listen to the Word — and leave it to the Word to do its work. Likewise, for others, you can only sow the Word into their ears — and leave their hearing of it to the Holy Spirit. Those who do hear and understand, who believe the Gospel, are blessed to do so.
Of the great crowds that gathered around Jesus, there were many who heard His saving Word and yet bore no fruit. So, too, those who heard the preaching of St. Matthew and the other Apostles.
And there are likely some of you here today, who hear the Word of the Gospel in this preaching and Liturgy, but who will nonetheless relinquish that Word — and who will thus whither and die.
God grant, by His mercy, that it would not be so. God grant that each of you would continue to seek out His Word and the preaching of the Gospel, and that you would always hunger and thirst for the precious Sacrament of His Body and Blood. For it is only by these holy Seeds of His grace and mercy that His Word will survive and grow within your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit.
In the Parable at hand, do not wonder that so much Seed is wasted and lost. Instead, praise God that anything grows at all! For in spite of the soil and its enemies — in spite of the rockiness of our hearts, and the ravenous birds of Satan, and the weeds of the world — the Lord still brings forth a harvest from the Seed that He has sown. And that is truly a miracle of His divine grace.
Consider those various enemies that are lined up in force against your soil. And think of all the many ways they are working together to root out the Seed of God and get a foothold in your heart.
To begin with, there are those who never hear the Word of the Gospel at all — no doubt many who are closer to home than you prefer to think about. And that ought to bring a sobering sadness to the heart of every Christian. Perhaps even worse, there are those who do hear the Word of God in some sense, but for whom the message of the Gospel is twisted and distorted by false doctrine. In such cases, the Seed is contaminated to the point of being altogether lost. That is surely one of the primary ways whereby Satan and his “birds” snatch the Word away from those who hear it.
In some cases, a church body or a preacher distorts the Gospel into a new kind of legalism, which effectively destroys the Word and steals it from the hearers. In other cases, it is the Law of the Lord that is denied or downplayed, to the detriment of repentance, faith, and love. Elsewhere, the Law and the Gospel are rightly preached unto repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins, but those who hear are scandalized by the straightforward simplicity of that Word of the Cross, which is so contrary to all the “wisdom” of this world. It makes no sense, it does not sink in, and so it is rejected. It sits on the surface of the road, until the hungry birds come to snatch it away forever.
In the second place, it is a sad irony of life in this fallen world that, whether things are going well or poorly, you are pulled away from the Word and promises of God. As Jesus here says, the thorns that choke the growing Seed are both the anxieties of this age and the deceitful appeal of riches.
When the anxieties of your life are piled high — when everything is going wrong, and the weight of the world is heavy on your back — then you are tempted to conclude that God has abandoned you. His Word of the Gospel seems powerless to help, whereas the challenges are so demanding — and so you are choked away from your only real hope, which is in Christ Jesus, your Savior.
In much the same way, when everything seems to be going right — when you are blessed with food and drink and all that you need to support this body and life — when your family and friends and your possessions appear to be safe and secure — then you are tempted to lose interest in God, as though you did not need Him. You ignore Him and favor the false security of material things. His Word seems so pointless, His Gospel so unnecessary, because you see no need for anything. But in this way, also, you are choked away from real security, which is found only in Christ Jesus.
In the third place, it is easy to see how the world and your flesh cooperate to strip away the Seed of Christ from your heart and life. By your inheritance from Adam, you are superficial, petty, and shallow. Going to church, hearing the Gospel, living the Christian life — well, that’s all fine and good from time to time and for awhile. Many Christians may be active and excited about God’s Word and faith at first. But even the simple passage of time can wear you down. You get bored and overconfident, imagining that you’ve heard it all before, that you already know it sufficiently, and that you’ll be just fine coasting forward without the preaching of God’s Word. All of which goes to show how little you comprehend His Word, its character, content, power, and necessity.
And what happens when the heat begins? When it falls on you to bear the Cross of Christ Jesus in a world that would eagerly put you to death? When you are called upon to stand up for the truth of the Gospel in the face of mockery, ridicule, and persecution? When you’ve already undersold the Word and oversold yourself, it is so tempting and so easy to throw in the towel and give up. You get tired of the hassle, and it just doesn’t seem all that important or worthwhile. So you shut your ears and harden your heart to the Word, and you refuse to let it put down roots within you.
What is it, then, that makes the difference from one type of soil to the next, in light of the fact that none of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are immune to the enemies of God’s Word? The disciples were themselves attacked — and sometimes overcome — by these enemies. Indeed, Christ Jesus Himself was assaulted by them, as you know from the story of His temptation. But how did Christ Jesus defeat those temptations? By relying on the Word of His God and Father.
Heed and follow His example, and resist the assaults and accusations of the devil, the world, and your own flesh, by availing yourself of God’s Word. Give attention to the preaching of the Gospel, eat and drink the Word-made-Flesh-and-Blood, and so receive the forgiveness of all your sins. Immerse your home and family in the Gospel of Christ Jesus by the catechesis and daily prayer of His Word. Bind it to your forehead, nail it to your doors, and speak it to your children when you get up, as you go about your day, and as you go to bed. That is how you hold on to the Seed.
The thing of it is, no matter what the soil may be like, there simply is no produce whatsoever apart from the Seed. It is the Seed that grows and produces fruit after its own kind. All the soil can do (of itself) is hinder or destroy what the Seed would otherwise do. The advantage of the “good soil” is not in the soil itself, but rather in the fact that it hangs onto the Seed as it grows and matures. The other types of soil, for all of those various reasons, allow the Seed to get away from them. Likewise, your only hope for producing fruit is in clinging to the Word and Sacraments of Christ.
With all the many hardships lined up against the soil, those little Seeds of Christ seem so small and powerless. And as you face the trials and tribulations of this life, the Ministry of the Gospel in the simple Means of Grace appears to be of little or no help in preserving your body, soul, and spirit.
To be sure, the Gospel includes no promise of an easy or trouble-free life in this world. Quite the opposite is true. The Lord Jesus promises a cross and suffering to those who follow after Him — the very sorts of things that harass the soil in this Parable. It is therefore only by faith — and not by sight or sense — that you cling for dear life to the Seed in spite of its helpless appearance.
It is by faith alone that you know and understand this seemingly insignificant little Seed — the Word of the Gospel — to be the power of God unto salvation. For it is quite true that the Gospel gives no guarantees of any easy answers for your life in this fallen world. Likely as not, your life here will get worse, as the devil, the world, and your flesh rebel and rage against you.
Yet, that tiny Seed of the Gospel, buried underground (as though dead and gone), will accomplish the good and gracious will of God for your salvation. His Word will not return to Him empty or void, but it will accomplish all that He desires and achieve the purpose for which He speaks it.
Sprouting, and growing, and digging down roots deeper and deeper into your heart, mind, body, and soul — the mustard seed becomes a mighty tree! The grain of wheat becomes a bushel. And at the last, the Sower and Lord of the Harvest will gather His sheaves — and because of His Seed, He will gather you — into the harvest home of heaven. God is faithful, and His Seed will do it.
In the meantime, Christ Jesus is already bearing and producing His own good fruits in you by His Word and Spirit through the Ministry of His Gospel. For the Seed that He sows brings forth good fruits after His own kind. Which is to say that He brings forth the fruits of the Gospel in your life.
Thus do you bear the fruit of forgiveness for your neighbors. You bear the fruit of Christian love, not only for your family and friends, but also for your enemies. You bear the fruit of sacrificial service on behalf of others, not expecting payment or praise, but out of gratitude for the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus. In short, you live the Gospel in your life, as the Lord has lived and died for you.
Of course, you no doubt realize that you are daily falling short of such fruits of the Gospel. Even so, the beauty of the Gospel is that Christ Jesus keeps on coming after you with His Word and the preaching of it. He goes right on sowing His Seed with reckless abandon, planting His Word of forgiveness in your heart, and feeding you with the fruits of His Cross, His holy Body and precious Blood. He tills your soil with His Law, then sows again your rows and furrows with His Gospel.
And like the soil of creation — cursed by God in the Garden of Eden, in the hope of liberation from the curse of sin and death — you also wait in eager expectation for the Resurrection of all flesh, for the final healing of your soil, and for the redemption of your body unto everlasting Life.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
05 July 2020
The Childishness of the Christian Faith
Most of you have probably been confronted, at some point, by those who question the practice of infant Baptism. Young children, they argue, don’t know what’s going on; they have no way of understanding the Christian faith, and no means of making a personal commitment. They reason that no one should be baptized until they’ve grown up enough to decide for themselves.
On the surface of it, by human standards and experience, that all sounds good and right. It seems like basic common sense. The trouble is that it does not fit or agree with the Word of the Lord, who actually reveals and teaches more-or-less the opposite of this worldly reasoning.
After all, what does Jesus say? Does He say, “let the grown-ups come to Me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as them”? No, He does not. Does He say, “unless you grow up and become like an adult, you will never enter the Kingdom of God”? No, He does not. Instead, the Lord Jesus indicates on various occasions that little children are the very model and example for everyone else, and that anyone who does not receive His Kingdom like a little child will not enter it at all.
Along the very same lines, in this morning’s Holy Gospel, what does Jesus say? He gives thanks that His Father has revealed Christ and His Gospel to infants, and not to the wise and intelligent.
Which means that you must become like an infant — like a helpless little child — if you are to enter the Kingdom of God. But what does it mean to become like an “infant” before the Lord your God? It clearly does not mean that only actual babies will know God, though it surely ought to silence anyone who would hinder and prevent the infants and young children from coming to the Lord Jesus. But no, for you or anyone to be and to live as an “infant” in relation to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to live by faith in His gracious charity and providential care.
No matter how many infants you may have seen — and we’ve seen a lot here at Emmaus over this past year — it’s still a bit of a shock to witness the utter helplessness and tiny frailty of a newborn. Even the largest of babies are completely unable to do anything for themselves. Someone has to do absolutely everything for an infant — feeding, clothing, cleaning, holding, rocking, soothing — every day, 24/7. Otherwise, the fact of the matter is brutally simple, the child will die.
And infants do have a sense of that. Call it “instinct,” or better yet, the gracious design of God, the Creator. But a newborn infant will automatically search for his or her mother’s milk. And a newborn infant will quickly respond with recognition to the voices and presence of Mom and Dad. A newborn infant rightly clings for dear life to the parents whom God the Lord has provided.
That is where you also stand in relation to the Lord your God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. That is the case for every man, woman, and child, whether they acknowledge Him or not.
It is the Lord who causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the evil and the good; just as He is the One who give daily bread to every person on earth. So has He taught you to pray and give thanks for His gracious hand of preservation in all things — in every breath that you take.
He must do absolutely everything for you — feeding, clothing, holding, soothing — every day, 24/7. Else you die. Thus, by faith, you wait upon Him for all that you need to support this body and life, and with the Psalmist you confess: “The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their meat in due season; You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
It is likewise by faith that you look to the Lord your God — to the Father in His Son and by His Spirit — for the forgiveness of all your sins, for the salvation of both your body and your soul, and for eternal Life with God in Christ Jesus. That is what it means to be an “infant” before Him.
Now, to be sure, being a “little child” can be a frightening (helpless) experience, especially as you are confronted by the big bad world with all its challenges. It is only by faith in Christ Jesus that you are able to make it from one day to the next with confidence, knowing that your Father in heaven has you and all things in His hands. That is the confident peace of an infant cradled in the powerful arms of a tender and loving Father. For He is your Father, and you are His own child.
Unfortunately, your sinful human pride often rejects the peace of God, as you persist in trying to make it through life on your own, to “grow up” and assert your independence — independence from God and from everyone else, even though such self-centered isolation is not freedom at all but captivity to the idolatry of yourself and the selfishness of your sin. You take a certain pride in going it alone, in doing it yourself, in standing your ground against all odds, in being your own man or woman. Sink or swim, with Ol’ Blue Eyes you want to be able to sing: “I did it my way!”
Eventually, though, you do reach a point where you realize that you aren’t going to make it on your own, no matter how hard you might try; a point at which you are reduced to “infancy” in the face of something that you simply can’t handle or control. Facing death, for example, may cause even proud adults to weep and cry like babies. No amount of stubborn human pride can ward off death for long (or at all), and so you are driven (hopefully) to seek out the strong, comforting hand of your Father in heaven. Without such trials in your life, you might never look to the Lord for the help you need. You might never become the “infant” you must be, clinging to Him for dear life.
But when the Lord has reduced you to infancy in this way, using the trials and heartaches of this life to drive you back to Himself, He then reveals Himself to you in Christ Jesus, and He brings you into His Kingdom like a newborn baby. That is the very essence of faith, a simple and childish trust in the Lord, like that of an infant in his or her parents. Thus do you rely upon your God and Father in Christ Jesus, and you rely on Him for all that you need, for both this life and the next.
Remember the story of Jesus and Nicodemous in St. John’s Holy Gospel? We heard it again this past week at Betty’s funeral. Nicodemous was befuddled and confused by the Word of Jesus, but he was actually much closer to the truth than he realized, when he asked, no doubt rhetorically and sarcastically, “Can an old man enter again into his mother’s womb, in order to be born again?” The answer, in one sense, is yes. He must be born again. He must become like a newborn child.
But the womb that he enters is not that of his earthly mother. It is rather the womb of the Church, that is, the Font of Holy Baptism. For just as the Church is described in the Holy Scriptures as the Bride of Christ Jesus, so is she also the Mother of all His Christians. From the waters of the Font she gives birth to the children of God by His Word and Holy Spirit. Thus, you do receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, because that is what you are — born from those holy waters.
Regrettably, there is a negative side to your “childishness,” a mischievous disobedience which is always seeking to crawl out from under the care and supervision of your dear Father in heaven. Like a strong-willed toddler you push the boundaries to test and see what you can get away with; and like a restless teen you rebel from time to time, in search of “freedom” and “independence” from the Lord (which is not life but death). You keep striving to feel as though you were really on your own, doing your own thing, making your own decisions, and standing your own ground.
When that is where you’re at — when you refuse to recognize or seek the gracious providence of God; when you do not look to Him and wait upon Him for all that is necessary to the life of your body and soul — then you are not an infant of the Lord, but one of those “wise and intelligent” adults who struggle and strive to make it on their own. And the Gospel of God is hidden from you.
But then you are also among the “weak and heavy-laden,” the “weary and burdened,” whom Jesus invites to Himself in this Holy Gospel. He refers to those who are worn out from their labors and burdened with a load of responsibilities. I reckon you know that feeling. Making a living in this world is often hard work, both mentally and physically exhausting. Such work is commendable, unless it belongs to your efforts to get by on your own apart from God. You’ll burn yourself out with those efforts eventually. But already they are running you in the wrong direction spiritually.
Christ be praised that, when you wind up running away like that, futilely trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, He does not leave you go and write you off. He is always going after you, setting out to save you from fatal disaster, and bringing you back to God the Father in repentance. And for Jesus’ sake, your God and Father welcomes you home with forgiveness, inviting you to be and to live as His child, to receive and to rely upon His Fatherly care for you.
When you thus wait upon the hand of God in this way, then you can live your life and go about your work with joyful confidence, knowing that He is with you and that He is taking care of you.
So, too, your life is not burdensome when you understand that Christ Jesus has already given you Himself and all good things — forgiveness, life, and salvation — freely, with no strings attached. His yoke is not another heavy load for you to bear, but a joyful privilege and a sharing in His life. Though you bear the Cross as His disciple, it does not weigh you down but raises you up in Him.
Your Lord is not a harsh taskmaster but a gentle Savior. He has not made you a child of His Father in order to enslave you and put you to work, as though He needed anything from you. No, He has made you a child of God that you might live freely as a member of His own household and family.
The yoke of the Lord Jesus might feel heavy and burdensome at times — until you find yourself out from under it, facing life without your Father and without your blessed Savior — until you once more hit the “wall” and are driven to fall back into His arms. Maybe it is sickness or death, maybe depression or grief, maybe a sense of failure or the accusations of your guilty conscience. There are plenty of things that you can’t handle in this body and life on earth. No one lives or survives a single day apart from the providence of God. And, honestly, I don’t know how anyone copes with all of the challenges apart from the hope that is ours in the Gospel of Christ Jesus. There are those who drag themselves through life without acknowledging the Lord, but the truth is, there is no purpose or meaning to life — there is no real life — except by faith in His Gospel.
Hence His Word to you this morning, emphasizing not only your helplessness and weakness, but especially His strength on your behalf, His gracious salvation, and His aid and comfort for you and all the children of God. The Lord is both almighty and all-merciful, and He has openly declared His good and gracious will toward you by the Cross and Resurrection of the incarnate Son. So it is that He governs the whole of His creation — He rules all things in heaven and on earth — for the blessing and benefit of His household and family, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
His almighty power would be quite threatening and scary, were it not for the gentleness and tender mercies of the Lord for His beloved children. You see that especially in Christ Jesus, the obedient Son of the Father, who humbled Himself unto death as the Lamb led to the slaughter. In fact, the Holy Triune God is not revealed or known rightly at all, except in Christ the Crucified. But so does He continue to humble Himself among us, feeding the children of His Father with Himself — His precious Body and His Blood of the New Covenant — under the earthly means of simple bread and wine. Here is where you know God as He is, a gentle Savior caring for His children.
Thus, as in the familiar and well-loved Parable of the Prodigal Son, you have here the evidence and every indication that your Father’s house remains wide open to you, and that His arms are always stretching out to gather you back to Himself. Time and again, your Savior tenderly invites: “Come unto Me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest!” And by His grace, He makes you a little child once more — an infant, cradled gently in His embrace, safe and sound forever.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On the surface of it, by human standards and experience, that all sounds good and right. It seems like basic common sense. The trouble is that it does not fit or agree with the Word of the Lord, who actually reveals and teaches more-or-less the opposite of this worldly reasoning.
After all, what does Jesus say? Does He say, “let the grown-ups come to Me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as them”? No, He does not. Does He say, “unless you grow up and become like an adult, you will never enter the Kingdom of God”? No, He does not. Instead, the Lord Jesus indicates on various occasions that little children are the very model and example for everyone else, and that anyone who does not receive His Kingdom like a little child will not enter it at all.
Along the very same lines, in this morning’s Holy Gospel, what does Jesus say? He gives thanks that His Father has revealed Christ and His Gospel to infants, and not to the wise and intelligent.
Which means that you must become like an infant — like a helpless little child — if you are to enter the Kingdom of God. But what does it mean to become like an “infant” before the Lord your God? It clearly does not mean that only actual babies will know God, though it surely ought to silence anyone who would hinder and prevent the infants and young children from coming to the Lord Jesus. But no, for you or anyone to be and to live as an “infant” in relation to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to live by faith in His gracious charity and providential care.
No matter how many infants you may have seen — and we’ve seen a lot here at Emmaus over this past year — it’s still a bit of a shock to witness the utter helplessness and tiny frailty of a newborn. Even the largest of babies are completely unable to do anything for themselves. Someone has to do absolutely everything for an infant — feeding, clothing, cleaning, holding, rocking, soothing — every day, 24/7. Otherwise, the fact of the matter is brutally simple, the child will die.
And infants do have a sense of that. Call it “instinct,” or better yet, the gracious design of God, the Creator. But a newborn infant will automatically search for his or her mother’s milk. And a newborn infant will quickly respond with recognition to the voices and presence of Mom and Dad. A newborn infant rightly clings for dear life to the parents whom God the Lord has provided.
That is where you also stand in relation to the Lord your God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. That is the case for every man, woman, and child, whether they acknowledge Him or not.
It is the Lord who causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the evil and the good; just as He is the One who give daily bread to every person on earth. So has He taught you to pray and give thanks for His gracious hand of preservation in all things — in every breath that you take.
He must do absolutely everything for you — feeding, clothing, holding, soothing — every day, 24/7. Else you die. Thus, by faith, you wait upon Him for all that you need to support this body and life, and with the Psalmist you confess: “The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their meat in due season; You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
It is likewise by faith that you look to the Lord your God — to the Father in His Son and by His Spirit — for the forgiveness of all your sins, for the salvation of both your body and your soul, and for eternal Life with God in Christ Jesus. That is what it means to be an “infant” before Him.
Now, to be sure, being a “little child” can be a frightening (helpless) experience, especially as you are confronted by the big bad world with all its challenges. It is only by faith in Christ Jesus that you are able to make it from one day to the next with confidence, knowing that your Father in heaven has you and all things in His hands. That is the confident peace of an infant cradled in the powerful arms of a tender and loving Father. For He is your Father, and you are His own child.
Unfortunately, your sinful human pride often rejects the peace of God, as you persist in trying to make it through life on your own, to “grow up” and assert your independence — independence from God and from everyone else, even though such self-centered isolation is not freedom at all but captivity to the idolatry of yourself and the selfishness of your sin. You take a certain pride in going it alone, in doing it yourself, in standing your ground against all odds, in being your own man or woman. Sink or swim, with Ol’ Blue Eyes you want to be able to sing: “I did it my way!”
Eventually, though, you do reach a point where you realize that you aren’t going to make it on your own, no matter how hard you might try; a point at which you are reduced to “infancy” in the face of something that you simply can’t handle or control. Facing death, for example, may cause even proud adults to weep and cry like babies. No amount of stubborn human pride can ward off death for long (or at all), and so you are driven (hopefully) to seek out the strong, comforting hand of your Father in heaven. Without such trials in your life, you might never look to the Lord for the help you need. You might never become the “infant” you must be, clinging to Him for dear life.
But when the Lord has reduced you to infancy in this way, using the trials and heartaches of this life to drive you back to Himself, He then reveals Himself to you in Christ Jesus, and He brings you into His Kingdom like a newborn baby. That is the very essence of faith, a simple and childish trust in the Lord, like that of an infant in his or her parents. Thus do you rely upon your God and Father in Christ Jesus, and you rely on Him for all that you need, for both this life and the next.
Remember the story of Jesus and Nicodemous in St. John’s Holy Gospel? We heard it again this past week at Betty’s funeral. Nicodemous was befuddled and confused by the Word of Jesus, but he was actually much closer to the truth than he realized, when he asked, no doubt rhetorically and sarcastically, “Can an old man enter again into his mother’s womb, in order to be born again?” The answer, in one sense, is yes. He must be born again. He must become like a newborn child.
But the womb that he enters is not that of his earthly mother. It is rather the womb of the Church, that is, the Font of Holy Baptism. For just as the Church is described in the Holy Scriptures as the Bride of Christ Jesus, so is she also the Mother of all His Christians. From the waters of the Font she gives birth to the children of God by His Word and Holy Spirit. Thus, you do receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, because that is what you are — born from those holy waters.
Regrettably, there is a negative side to your “childishness,” a mischievous disobedience which is always seeking to crawl out from under the care and supervision of your dear Father in heaven. Like a strong-willed toddler you push the boundaries to test and see what you can get away with; and like a restless teen you rebel from time to time, in search of “freedom” and “independence” from the Lord (which is not life but death). You keep striving to feel as though you were really on your own, doing your own thing, making your own decisions, and standing your own ground.
When that is where you’re at — when you refuse to recognize or seek the gracious providence of God; when you do not look to Him and wait upon Him for all that is necessary to the life of your body and soul — then you are not an infant of the Lord, but one of those “wise and intelligent” adults who struggle and strive to make it on their own. And the Gospel of God is hidden from you.
But then you are also among the “weak and heavy-laden,” the “weary and burdened,” whom Jesus invites to Himself in this Holy Gospel. He refers to those who are worn out from their labors and burdened with a load of responsibilities. I reckon you know that feeling. Making a living in this world is often hard work, both mentally and physically exhausting. Such work is commendable, unless it belongs to your efforts to get by on your own apart from God. You’ll burn yourself out with those efforts eventually. But already they are running you in the wrong direction spiritually.
Christ be praised that, when you wind up running away like that, futilely trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, He does not leave you go and write you off. He is always going after you, setting out to save you from fatal disaster, and bringing you back to God the Father in repentance. And for Jesus’ sake, your God and Father welcomes you home with forgiveness, inviting you to be and to live as His child, to receive and to rely upon His Fatherly care for you.
When you thus wait upon the hand of God in this way, then you can live your life and go about your work with joyful confidence, knowing that He is with you and that He is taking care of you.
So, too, your life is not burdensome when you understand that Christ Jesus has already given you Himself and all good things — forgiveness, life, and salvation — freely, with no strings attached. His yoke is not another heavy load for you to bear, but a joyful privilege and a sharing in His life. Though you bear the Cross as His disciple, it does not weigh you down but raises you up in Him.
Your Lord is not a harsh taskmaster but a gentle Savior. He has not made you a child of His Father in order to enslave you and put you to work, as though He needed anything from you. No, He has made you a child of God that you might live freely as a member of His own household and family.
The yoke of the Lord Jesus might feel heavy and burdensome at times — until you find yourself out from under it, facing life without your Father and without your blessed Savior — until you once more hit the “wall” and are driven to fall back into His arms. Maybe it is sickness or death, maybe depression or grief, maybe a sense of failure or the accusations of your guilty conscience. There are plenty of things that you can’t handle in this body and life on earth. No one lives or survives a single day apart from the providence of God. And, honestly, I don’t know how anyone copes with all of the challenges apart from the hope that is ours in the Gospel of Christ Jesus. There are those who drag themselves through life without acknowledging the Lord, but the truth is, there is no purpose or meaning to life — there is no real life — except by faith in His Gospel.
Hence His Word to you this morning, emphasizing not only your helplessness and weakness, but especially His strength on your behalf, His gracious salvation, and His aid and comfort for you and all the children of God. The Lord is both almighty and all-merciful, and He has openly declared His good and gracious will toward you by the Cross and Resurrection of the incarnate Son. So it is that He governs the whole of His creation — He rules all things in heaven and on earth — for the blessing and benefit of His household and family, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
His almighty power would be quite threatening and scary, were it not for the gentleness and tender mercies of the Lord for His beloved children. You see that especially in Christ Jesus, the obedient Son of the Father, who humbled Himself unto death as the Lamb led to the slaughter. In fact, the Holy Triune God is not revealed or known rightly at all, except in Christ the Crucified. But so does He continue to humble Himself among us, feeding the children of His Father with Himself — His precious Body and His Blood of the New Covenant — under the earthly means of simple bread and wine. Here is where you know God as He is, a gentle Savior caring for His children.
Thus, as in the familiar and well-loved Parable of the Prodigal Son, you have here the evidence and every indication that your Father’s house remains wide open to you, and that His arms are always stretching out to gather you back to Himself. Time and again, your Savior tenderly invites: “Come unto Me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest!” And by His grace, He makes you a little child once more — an infant, cradled gently in His embrace, safe and sound forever.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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