The Sanity of the “New Normal” in the Self-Sacrifice of Christ Jesus

The fallen world is dumbfounded by the Self-Sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the Cross.  The world recognizes and admires the self-sacrifice of duty on the part of those who put themselves in harm’s way to save others; and by the same token, the world is critical of those who shirk their duties and run away from danger when it comes, including those who end their own lives to avoid difficulties.  But the fallen world is not able to comprehend the true glory of the Cross.

The world does not perceive the bullet that Christ Jesus takes on our behalf, the deadly bomb that He smothers and absorbs with His own Body to save us.  Nor does the world realize the ransom that Christ Jesus pays to redeem us all from the destruction we deserve.  The Cross appears to be, not the faithfulness of duty, but simply foolishness; not the glory of heroic rescue from danger, but a futile waste, a misguided effort, a failed mission, and a dismal loss.  Or, at best, the world might think of our crucified Lord Jesus as a martyr for some tragic ideological cause. 

Confronted with the Cross of Christ, the world slips easily into cynical unbelief and proud idolatry.  If that’s what God is like, well then, no thanks!  Cold reason kicks into gear and begins to calculate survival.  Hardness of heart sets in, not only against God, but also against the neighbor.  Sacrifice may be fine, to a certain extent, if there’s some return on the investment, some marketable glory to be gained.  Every move is governed by the twin goals of self-preservation and self-promotion.

Your own fallen flesh is no different.  But, ironically, by that way of thinking — by resisting and fleeing from the Cross — you run headlong into the spiritual self-destruction of apostasy.  In trying to protect yourself and preserve your life by rejecting the Cross and the Crucified One, you make a show of strength and competence, but you cut yourself off from the only true and lasting Life.

Alternatively, the fallen world and your fallen flesh sometimes simply fall apart when confronted by the Cross; that is to say, instead of cold logic and calculated strategy, there is a kind of craziness or madness that emerges and erupts in your thinking, speaking, and acting.  Not hardness of heart, but insanity, lawlessness, and perversity of every kind.  The nervous system comes unglued, the mind becomes unhinged, and open foolishness begins to reign.  Faced with the consequences of sin, the certainty of death, and the condemnation of the Law — which is precisely what you see in Christ Jesus on the Cross — there is the panic, the chaos and confusion of a waking nightmare.

So, what are you to make of all this, when the so-called “real world” seems so solid, so objective, and so certain, and yet so often explodes in ways that expose just how unstable and unreliable it really is.  If the whole past year has not made it obvious that this old world and your own flesh are perishing and passing away, you don’t have to wait long or go looking for many more examples to prove the point.  Just consider the ten people gunned down at the grocery store this past week.

At the same time, the true reality — that of the Holy Triune God and His Word, His Kingdom and His Righteousness — and His dwelling Place, the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens — that all sounds so imaginary and fantastic, so make-believe and fairy-tale foolish.

It all sound too good to be true, to begin with.  But then it turns out to be manifested and bestowed by way of the Cross and suffering — which seems and feels like exactly the opposite of good.

Your instinct says that sanity ought to be rather savvy, reasonable, and strong, the way the world likes it and wants it to be.  But here the “sanity” of God enters in with this strange foolishness, in humility and weakness, seated on a donkey’s back.  The Lord God empties Himself and makes Himself nothing.  He submits Himself, in utter poverty and human shame, to death upon the Cross.

This divine wisdom appears to be absolutely crazy, as though God were actually out of His mind.  And yet, you also are called to have this mind of God in yourself, to share this bizarre “sanity” of Christ Jesus, which is the mysterious divine wisdom of His Cross and Passion.  And that is yours only by faith in the Word of God.  It is not by sight or sense, nor by emotion and experience.

The fact is that outward appearances are utterly deceiving.  So, what is really going on here?

The “triumphal entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem is the Lord’s selection and identification of the true Passover Lamb.  That’s what’s going on in the Holy City on this day: God the Father chooses His own beloved Son, without spot or blemish, and hands Him over to be sacrificed for the Feast.

Hence, Christ Jesus comes and enters in; and then He becomes the King of the Jews — He saves His people now — by entering upon His Holy Passion and ascending the throne of His Cross.

He goes up to Jerusalem in order to enter the Most Holy Place once for all by His Self-sacrifice upon the Cross, by the voluntary shedding of His own Blood.  He thereby atones for the sins of the world and redeems mankind at the cost of His own Life, freely given in faith and love.

It is in this way that Christ Jesus establishes the New Covenant in Himself — in His own Body, with His own Blood.  That is to say, He reconciles the world to God in Himself.  Consequently, heaven and earth, God and Man are perfectly and permanently united and at Peace in Him.

The evidence and testimony of that reconciliation are given by God the Father in the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ Jesus.  For the very One who died for you, bearing your sins, has been raised up and seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  What is more, His reconciliation is also given here and now — to you — in the New Covenant of His Body and His Blood.

The Lord’s Supper is the Meat and Drink of that Passover Meal — of that Lamb who was chosen by God and sacrificed for the salvation of the world.  His Flesh feeds you.  His Blood cleanses you from sin and covers you from death.  And this is the Redemption that Christ has obtained for you.

This is the true wisdom of His Cross, the true sanity and stability of His salvation, the true victory of Christ which prevails for you against all of your enemies, against sin, death, the devil, and hell.

Therefore, wherever you have given up or despaired of any hope, return to this Stronghold, to this New Covenant of Christ the Crucified.  For this very day, He declares, He restores double to you.

The Lord is faithful, who calls you to Himself and promises to save you, and He will surely do it.

The world does have its own victories of self-sacrificing love, its own heroes, its own martyrs for good causes: Soldiers who put their lives on the line in defense of others.  Firefighters and police officers who brave real dangers every day for the safety of their neighbors.  Regular citizens who step into the breach.  Mothers and fathers who sacrifice in countless ways to care for their children.

For a good cause, for a good person, for a good friend, for their families, there are indeed many people willing to risk their lives, and even to die.  And man has no greater love to give than that.

The world, in its own way, honors those sacrifices, though it does so with sadness, with memories of the past and monuments to that which has been lost and won’t ever be gotten back again.

For all that, the Love of God in Christ Jesus and His Self-sacrifice upon the Cross are far greater.  For while we were yet sinners — not good people, but bad — not friends of God, but enemies at odds with Him — even then, the Father gave His Son, and the Son laid down His Life for us all.

And consider what His love has done: He has reconciled you and all the world to Himself.  He has befriended His enemies.  He has brought an end to the war that would not end, and now He speaks peace to all the nations.  In place of chaos, He bestows calm.  Instead of insanity and instability, He has become your solid Foundation, the wise Master Builder of a House that shall not fall.

In the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, He has given you a future and a hope.  Indeed, He is your Future and your Hope, your Life and your Salvation, your Strength and your Song, because He is not dead and gone but victorious and alive forevermore.  His dominion is from sea to shining sea; from the Tigris and Euphrates, and from the Jordan River, to the ends of the earth.

And here is the real irony of the Cross: The world is a better place because of His death; because, by His atoning Self-sacrifice, He has established a peaceful connection and profound communion between God and Man.  He has removed the great divide, brought down the wall of hostility, and replaced the stone cold loneliness of sin and death with His divine friendship and camaraderie.

That is the “new normal,” which is eternal and permanent in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus; and which is also true and real, sure and certain for you, as well.  The world is now a better place for you and for your neighbor, because of who you are in Christ Jesus — God’s own dear child, buried with Christ by your Baptism into His death, and raised with Him to newness of life.

So it is that your life in the flesh — even now in the midst of this fallen and perishing world — even now under the Cross — your life in the flesh and all your labors of love on behalf of all your neighbors, be they friends or foes — none of this is pointless but meaningful and significant.  Your faith in Christ and His Cross is not foolish but true divine wisdom, which is forever and ever.

For God has highly exalted the Crucified One, and has given Him the Name which is above every name.  Therefore, at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow — in heaven and on earth, and under the earth — and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What, then, shall we offer to the Lord for all His benefits to us?

Let us offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.  Indeed, let us take up the Cup of Salvation, which He pours out for you and for the many, and let us call on the Name of the Lord in peace.  For everyone who calls on His Name shall be saved.  This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

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

The Place and the Means Wherein the Lord Abides with You

Like the Tabernacle before it, the Temple in Jerusalem was the way and the means by which God the Lord dwelt among His Old Testament people with grace and mercy and forgiveness.  It’s not that God needed a place to stay; He was not homeless.  Nor could all the heavens and the earth contain Him.  But He established His House on earth to be a place of peace and rest for His people.

In fact, the Temple was the place where the Lord God caused His Name and His Glory to dwell.  It was neither accidental nor arbitrary, but very deliberate and particular.  As you have heard in Solomon’s prayer of dedication, wherever the people might be, in Israel or elsewhere, their prayer and worship were to be toward this place, this House in this City, according to the Lord’s promise.

The Temple was a means of grace for the people then, as surely as Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are means of grace for you.  For God is ever and always attaching His Word to particular places and things, to particular objects and actions.  So, just as otherwise ordinary water, bread, and wine become Sacraments of Christ Jesus at His Word, so was the Temple an actual place where God was tangibly present with His people.  And, as such, it was to be a House of Prayer.

At the heart and center of all prayer, as also in the Our Father, is the petition for the forgiveness of sins.  As Dr. Luther explains, if God does not forgive our sins, first of all, then we’ll not receive anything else, either.  And we hear that echoed in Solomon’s dedication prayer, as well.  Over and over, the thing for which he prays, and the thing for which the people will pray when they come to the Temple or look to the Temple, is forgiveness: “Hear, O Lord, from heaven, and forgive.”

So the Temple was not only a House of Prayer but a House of Sacrifice.  Every morning and every evening, sacrifices were offered — in order that the incense of prayer could also then be offered.  As prayer depends on the forgiveness of sin, the sacrifices were offered every day for atonement, so that the prayers and intercessions of the people and the priests would be heard and answered.

Of course, all of these Old Testament things had their power and authority from the Christ who was to come, and from His coming Sacrifice upon the Cross.  All the blood of all those bulls and goats, lambs and sheep, all those prayers, and all that incense, it was all pointing to Christ Jesus.

The Temple was the place where God’s Name and Glory dwelt in the Old Testament, the location of His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and peace.  As such, it was also the place to which the people were called and returned in repentance and faith.  Whenever they wandered away, wherever they ended up, whatever sort of mess they got themselves into, the Lord was always calling them back to His House in Jerusalem, to the place of His promise, to the grace and glory of His Name.  And that is a picture, not only of Israel’s history, but of your life, also; for there is no one without sin.

Thus, God disciplines His children in love, because that is what a good father does.  Which is to say that He calls them to repentance — back to Himself — to His House and Home and Family.  In doing so, He teaches them how to live as those who bear His Name, and He keeps them safe and secure, close to Himself, at peace with Him and with each other in the forgiveness of His Gospel.

The Lord’s discipline always aims to bring His children out of harm and danger, away from sin and death, and closer to Him.  His desire is never to cast them away from His presence, but to restore them to divine Life in faith and love within His household and family.  That requires both Law and Gospel, the preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  And the Lord your God is the Master at doing this.  No one knows how to apply the Law and the Gospel better than He does.  So, that is what He’s all about when He disciplines you, both with His Word and by various other ways.

By way of example, Solomon mentions in his prayer that God will sometimes shut up the heavens and withhold the rain, or bring a famine or a plague upon the land, because the people have sinned and turned away from Him — that they should repent of their sin and call upon His Name in faith.

Dr. Luther similarly warned the people in his day that, if they persisted in despising the Word of the Lord and neglecting His good gifts of the Gospel, He would likewise send such a drought and famine of His Word upon them.  Then they would long for His Word and the preaching of it, but there would be not a drop or a crumb to be found.  It has seemed to me, over this past year, in particular, that our Lord in His mercy has exercised precisely such a discipline upon His people, in order to restore them to a genuine hunger and thirst for His Kingdom and His Righteousness.

God grant that we would learn not to despise or neglect His good gifts, but to call upon His Name at all times and seasons, to pray, praise, and give thanks, and to avail ourselves of His Gospel!

As you have heard, Solomon also prays concerning enemies, including those who defeat the people of God in battles.  And you have had such enemies and battles, too.  I’m not talking about your high school nemesis or workplace rival, but your real enemies of sin, death, and the devil, and the battles you wage with your addictions, the desires of your flesh, and countless other temptations that confront you in this mortal body and life.  How often have you lost those battles?  And then you are faced with the sting of defeat, with guilt and shame and doubts and fears, inside and out.

There are those enemies that carry you away and take you captive altogether — addictions that take over your life and become besetting sins, which may end up dogging you until the day you die.  So did Babylon take the people of Judah into captivity because of their rebelliousness, idolatry, and rampant disobedience.  But then, like the Prodigal Son, in that far country to which you have been taken, by the grace and mercies of God you begin to remember who you are and who your Father is; and by His Word and Spirit you turn back to Him with your whole heart and soul — you call upon His Name — and He hears and answers your prayer, forgives you all your sins, and restores you to faith and life in Him.  He brings you back to the Temple of His Church on earth.  That is, again, the point and purpose of His discipline, because He loves you and longs to save you.

In returning to the Lord in His Temple you confess that you have sinned against Him and deserve nothing but punishment, but that you also fear, love, and trust in Him and rely upon His mercy and forgiveness.  Such confession on your lips flows from a heart of repentance, a broken and contrite heart, which the Lord does not despise.  And though it is possible to confess hypocritically, that is, to say the right words while your heart remains cold and hard, it is hardly possible to repent with your heart without also confessing with your lips; for as you believe, so do you also speak.

You confess the faith and you confess the Creed because these things are true.  And for that same reason, in much the same way, you confess your sins according to the Word that God has spoken.  You do as both the Scriptures and the Catechism have taught you, which is to examine yourself in the light of the Ten Commandments, and then to confess the truth concerning your sins.

You have had other gods.  You have misused God’s Name to curse and swear, but have not called upon His Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  You have despised the preaching of His Word, and you have despised your parents and other authorities.  You have hated your neighbor in your heart and injured him with your words and actions.  You have been angry unrighteously and let the sun go down on your anger.  Instead of helping your neighbor you have neglected his needs and added to his woes.  You have lusted after your neighbor’s wife or husband.  You have coveted and taken what God the Lord has not given, thereby making idols of those things that are not God.

God calls you to repent for each and all of these sins, and He is serious in doing so, for they are not only wrong, they are deadly.  Your sins cut you off from God, because they contradict His Word and so destroy both faith and love.  They rob you of the Life that He desires to give you.

So He calls you to repentance and faith, away from your sins and back to Himself in His Temple.  He calls you and all the nations to find compassion, mercy, and forgiveness in His Name.  That’s not some kind of “pie in the sky,” nor is it merely some idea in your head or a feeling in your heart.  He calls you to the place and to the means wherein His Name and His Glory now abide for you.  He calls you to the Temple of His Church on earth, to the Ministry of His Gospel in His Church.

This Temple of His Church is established, now and forever, in the Body of Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, given and poured out for you and for the many in the preaching of His Word and in His Holy Sacraments.  Not only that, but you are a member of His Body, His Church — a living stone within His Temple — because you are baptized into Him, into His Cross and Resurrection, and because you eat His Body and drink His Blood in His Holy Supper.

It is in His Body of Flesh and Blood that Christ Jesus was crucified for your transgressions and made Atonement for all your sins, and not only for your sins, but for the sins of the whole world.  So it is from His Body — in the water and the blood that flow from His wounded side — in and with the Spirit that He breathes upon His Apostles in sending them forth in His Name — it is from His Body that forgiveness is given to the ends of the earth.  And it is in His crucified and risen Body that you are reconciled to His God and Father, justified and righteous in His presence.

As you have heard again from St. Paul this evening, “God has reconciled the world to Himself, not counting men’s trespasses against them; for He made Him who knew no sin to be Sin, so that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him.”  The Lord your God has done this.  He has reconciled you and the whole world to Himself in the Person of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son.  He is at Peace with you.  He loves you and forgives you.  And He calls you to Himself through the Ministry of Reconciliation, whereby His servants preach repentance and forgiveness in His Name.

You, then, be reconciled to God.  Turn away from sin and death, and return to the Lord your God.  Call upon His Name.  Seek Him where He may be found.  And know that He is found right here in His Church and Ministry of the Gospel, in the preaching of His Word and in His Sacraments.

The Ministry of Reconciliation surely includes all of the ways in which the Gospel is administered in the life of the Church: The preaching of the Word of Christ, the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism, and His Body given, His Blood poured out for you in His Holy Supper, a real Feast instead of drought and famine.  And along with all of these, there is also Individual Confession and Holy Absolution, resting on the sure and certain Word and promise of your dear Lord Jesus Christ, who says to His ministers, “Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven.”

Is this a matter of the Law?  Do you “have to” go to Confession?  No, that is not the point.  But there is a great benefit to this means of grace and forgiveness, which is the voice of God on earth.  It is one-on-one pastoral care, whereby the Good Shepherd guards and keeps you safe and sound as a sheep within His green pastures, beside His streams of water, and at His Table in His House.

Here is a means of repentance and reconciliation, whenever you are brought to a recognition of your sins and failings, and as often as you find yourself out of sorts and at odds with God and with your neighbors.  It is, as Dr. Luther often said, a return to the significance of your Holy Baptism, a way to reorient yourself, by God’s Word and Spirit, in faith toward Him and in love for others, that you might rest and reside at His Altar in peace, where His Name and His Glory dwell for you.

“By what authority?”  That’s the question they put to Jesus, right?  “By what authority do you do these things?”  How on earth is it that any man should presume to forgive anyone else’s sins?

It’s certainly not by my own authority that I speak the Lord’s Word of Holy Absolution.  But it is by the same authority with which St. John the Baptist came preaching and baptizing, and by the same authority with which Christ Jesus laid down His Life upon the Cross and took it up again in His Resurrection from the dead — the same authority by which He sent His holy Apostles to make disciples of all nations.  It is, indeed, by the special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners.  It is the authority of His Word, whereby your old Adam is put to death and the New Man is raised up in you.  It is the authority of His Gospel, by which He heals you, feeds and waters you, and gives you Life with God by the Tree of His Cross.

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

The Glory of Christ Jesus in His Baptism and His Cup

As the Christ of God, the Lord’s Anointed, in order to enter into the Glory of His Kingdom as our Savior, Jesus is on His way to suffer and die as the Servant of all, to shed His holy and precious Blood in Atonement for the world, and to give His own Body and Life as a Ransom for the many.  Appearances notwithstanding, His Cross and Passion are not His defeat but His divine Glory as the Son of God, the very way by which He establishes His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

In the footsteps of this Crucified King who serves the people of His Kingdom with His own Body and Life, His disciples are called to carry His Cross, to live and die by faith under His Cross, and to find their glory and their life, not “in spite of” His Cross, but precisely in the Cross of Christ.

To this end, His ministers are called to serve His people — like holy “waiters,” as it were — with His Cross and the Fruits of His Cross, as servants and slaves of His Cross, not seeking fame or fortune for themselves, but giving their entire lives for the benefit of others in His Name.

Because the Church is the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus, the Son of God who became Flesh and suffered death, she is altogether different than the world and its enterprises.  The Church is not a business, nor a political entity, nor a marketplace, nor a social club.  None of these models fit the Church.  She lives in this world, but not of it.  She rather takes her cues from Christ and follows His example; her “Declaration of Independence” is the Cross, and her only “Constitution” is the Word of her Lord.  And what He says to those who jockey for position, who plot and scheme and maneuver to get their way, is that greatness and glory in His Church and His Kingdom are a matter of humble, self-sacrificing service; and if you want to be the first, you must become the last of all.

It’s much easier, of course, and far more instinctive to your fallen flesh, to follow the bad example of the disciples in this case, instead of Christ Jesus.  If you’re honest with yourself, you know what I’m talking about: The way you cozy up to those in authority, seeking to wrap them around your finger in order to get what you want; and how you justify such manipulation on the presumption of your good intentions.  Or the way you may be too timid or too passive to attempt such things, yourself, but — coveting the same opportunities — you gossip and complain about those who do.

How shameful it is to engage in such worldly pride, sinful ambition, and passive aggression at the very foot of the Cross, in the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of the Living God, who humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death.

Handed over by His own Father to His innocent suffering and death on the Cross — and handed over to the Gentiles by His own people, the very ones He came to seek and to save and to serve — mocked and scourged, beaten up, and crucified — His divine greatness and glory as the Son of Man are precisely in these depths of His humble service.  But look at your own life in contrast!

Thanks be to God that Jesus does and suffers all these things, not to shame you or condemn you — and not only to provide you with a good example (though it is that) — but chiefly to save you from yourself and from your sinful pride and arrogance.  He does it to atone for all your sins with His own Blood, shed for you upon the Cross and now poured out for you in His Cup of Salvation.  So does He bear your sins and griefs and sorrows, all your burdens and sadness, in His own Body on the Cross, which He now gives to you in His Holy Supper, in order to strengthen and sustain your faith and life in Him, and to prepare you in both body and soul for the Life everlasting.

All of this He has done for you, and once-for-all, upon the Cross.  But so also, to this very day, and even to the close of the age, your dear Lord Jesus continues to care for you and serve you with His own Life, with His Body and His Blood, for the forgiveness of your sins and the Life everlasting.

You could not make it on your own, nor could you follow the example of Christ Jesus in this body and life as you should.  Rather, you daily succumb to pride and arrogance, to lust and ambition, to envy and jealousy, selfishness, backbiting contempt, and countless other temptations and sins.

The solution isn’t found in trying harder or doing your best, but in the daily forgiveness of your sins by the Gospel.  Which is why the Lord has so arranged everything in His Church on earth for the forgiveness of your sins through many and various ways and means — the preaching of His Holy Gospel; the washing of water with His Word in Holy Baptism; His spoken and personal Word of Holy Absolution; His Body given and His Blood poured out for you in the Holy Communion; and the mutual consolation and support of His Holy People, your brothers and sisters in Him.

So has He also called, ordained, and sent (apostelled) some of His Christian disciples to be His ministers of this Gospel of forgiveness within His Holy Church to each and all of you in His Name.

To be a “minister” of Christ Jesus is to be a waiter at His Table — not a Table at which He is seated as the honored Guest — but the Table of His Church, at which He serves and feeds His people with Himself.  That is what the Greek word for “minister” (in the New Testament) really means and implies: a waiter, serving his Master’s Food to his Master’s people at his Master’s Table, under the authority and according to the rubrics of his Master.  Such a minister of Christ  serves his fellow Christians by washing them in preparation for the Meal (in Holy Baptism), by carefully going over the “Menu” with them (by way of ongoing catechesis in the Word of Christ), and by faithfully feeding them with the Meat and Drink of their Lord (in His Holy Supper).

You have heard it yourself, again this morning, in the Words of Christ Jesus Himself.  He sums up everything that matters in His Kingdom in the terms of His Holy Sacraments, the Baptism with which He is baptized and the Cup which He drinks.  For it is by and from His own Baptism, first of all, that He fulfills all Righteousness; and His Cup is the New Testament in His Blood, which He pours out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of sins, unto eternal Life and Salvation.  These Means of Grace are at the heart and center of His own Life and Ministry, intimately bound to His Cross and Resurrection, and so also at the heart and center of your faith and life in Christ.

It is by His Baptism and His Cup that His Cross and Resurrection become yours, that your sins are all forgiven in His Name, and that you are seated with Him in the Glory of His Kingdom.  Thus, He gives to you what James and John requested, though they knew not what they were asking.

Let’s think about His Cup, first of all, which is the “New Testament” the Lord had promised to His people.  That is somewhat ironic and paradoxical to begin with, since “the Cup” was used by the Prophets as an image and description of God’s wrath and His judgment against sin; and that is indeed the first sense in which Jesus refers to it here, as again in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of His Passion.  It is no joke when He prays, “Father, if possible, take this Cup from Me!”

The physical pain of the Crucifixion would already be enough to cause the bravest and strongest hearts among us to faint.  But “this Cup” that Jesus drinks is far worse than that, as He takes upon Himself and bears in His own Body and Soul the divine wrath and eternal judgment of hell against the sins of the whole world.  That is the Cup He drains down to the dregs for you and all people.

But how, then, are James and John and even you given to drink this Cup of Christ?  And how are you able to drink it?  Surely you could not bear the wrath and judgment of God against even your own sins, far less the sins of the world.  But you are able to drink the Cup of Christ Jesus, because He has already drained it of God’s wrath and filled it with His Blood of the New Testament for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Consequently, what was wrath and judgment for Him is now mercy, grace, and blessing for you and all His people.  In drinking from His Cup, which He pours out for you in the Holy Communion, you drink to the dregs the fullness of His divine Life and Salvation.

It is quite similar in the case of His Baptism, with which you are also baptized.  From the moment that He stepped into the waters of the Jordan River and submitted Himself to St. John’s Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, our Lord took the sins and iniquities and frailties and burdens of the entire world upon Himself and bore them in His Body to the Cross.

As we considered at our Lenten Vespers this past week, Christ Jesus entered those waters sinless, holy, and perfect, but He emerged thoroughly soaked in all our sins.  And as such, He describes His Life — in this Holy Gospel and elsewhere — as one long continuous Baptism unto death, whereby He undergoes the death-dealing Flood of God’s wrath and judgment against all our sin.

So, then, as in the case of the Cup which He has drained in your place, the waters of Baptism are one thing for Him and quite another for you and all who are baptized in His Name.  In each case, it is a Baptism into His crucifixion, death, and burial; but whereas this Baptism is for Christ Jesus a drowning of judgment and wrath, it has thus become for you a rich and full washing away of sins and a gracious water of Salvation.  You enter into those waters thoroughly sinful and unclean, but you emerge and arise from the waters of your Baptism — not only once-upon-a-time, but day by day throughout your life, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting — clothed in the beautiful white robes of Christ’s perfect righteousness, united with Him as a beloved and well-pleasing son of His Father, anointed by His Holy Spirit, and born again as a new creation.

Now, as you receive this Gospel of Christ Jesus in His Baptism and from His Cup — as you are served by the ministers of His Cross — so do you share His greatness within your own calling and station in life.  So, too, your “greatness” as a Christian is not that of the world but of the Cross.

That does not mean that you go looking for martyrdom and persecution, nor that you must revel in suffering and pain.  Rather, your greatness in the Cross of Christ means that you live by faith in all manner of circumstances, neither prideful nor despairing, but confident in His Resurrection.

So do you dedicate your life to others, beginning with your own family and extending from them to your other neighbors in the world, according to your office and vocation.  You submit your will to the Will of the Lord, and you sacrifice your own ambitions to serve those He has entrusted to your care.  You do your job and work faithfully to glorify God and to support your family, but you decline the promotion that would take you too much away from them.  You prioritize time with your neighbors over leisure, entertainment, and wealth.  And you invest yourself in caring for those who cannot pay you back or advance your career, preferring what is good over what is popular.

The list of examples could go on and on, as there are countless ways that Christians patiently bear the Cross, living by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, sharing His glory in humble service, and trusting all the while — not in themselves — but in His Baptism and His Cup.

Yet, all the while you’re rejoicing in this life that you live in Christ Jesus, in the greatness and glory of His Cross, by His Word and Holy Spirit you also recognize the many and various ways that you are still seeking and striving for the glory of this perishing world — often as not at the expense of others, and certainly not to the glory of God and the benefit of your neighbor: When even your own husband or wife is neglected; when your friendships are selfish and self-serving; when your job is just a job and not a means of serving others; and so on and so forth, on and on.

Which is, of course, why the Son of Man was handed over by His Father to His Cross, that He should thus become the sacrificial Lamb who takes upon Himself and takes away the sins of the world — the Bridegroom who is always faithful and attentive, though you are not — the Friend who seeks not His own but always the best interests of others, even at great cost and hardship to Himself — the One who has come, not to be served, but to serve us with His own Body and Life.

So has He come, and so is He always calling you back to Himself, raising you up from your sins and death by the Gospel of His Cross.  By the ongoing significance of your Baptism in His Name, He continues to cleanse you of all unrighteousness, to anoint you with His Holy Spirit, and to usher you into His Kingdom.  And here within His Church He seats you at His Table, He girds Himself to serve you, and with His gracious Word of mercy He gives to you His Cup, the New Testament in His Blood, which is poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Paradise.

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

Baptized into the Entire History and Life of Christ Jesus

The Sacrament of Holy Baptism is the fulfillment of Lent and everything it is about.  The baptismal Font is the location of your own personal Holy Week, where you are drowned and buried with Christ Jesus in His death, and so also united with Him in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.

The waters of Holy Baptism, administered with the Word of Christ Himself, are the means by which Good Friday and Easter become “meaningful,” important, and significant for you.  For the Passion, Cross, and Resurrection of Jesus are not just ancient history or memorable events of the past; they are an eternal reality that you enter into and share with Him by way of this Sacrament.

So it is that the sacred Season of Lent, such as we have known it and observe it, developed as a time of preparation for Holy Baptism.  The older candidates for Holy Baptism would be engaged in a final period of focused catechesis in the foundational stories of the Holy Scriptures and the chief parts of the Christian faith and life throughout the “forty days” of Lent, in the hope and expectation that they would receive the washing of water with the Word at the Easter Vigil.

It is both interesting and instructive to consider the content of their Lenten catechesis.  In the last few weeks they would, for example, receive and memorize the Creed and the Our Father, the most basic confession and prayer of the Church, such as we have recently considered, which they would also confess and pray beginning with their Baptism in the Name of the Lord.  And in particular, along with those “chief parts” of the faith, their pastor or catechist would review the entire Old Testament history of Salvation — Creation, the Flood, the slavery of Egypt and the Exodus, the Manna in the wilderness, and the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Canaan.

Now, on the one hand, that sounds like basic Sunday School stuff.  And of course it makes good sense in that respect, also.  But more to the point is the connection between those Old Testament events and the cosmic reality and divine significance at work in the waters of Holy Baptism.

The fact is that everything God was doing for the life and salvation of His people throughout the Old Testament — and really throughout history — and all that He has done for the world in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son — He has done for you and given to you, personally, in Holy Baptism.

The waters of your Baptism are for you the waters of the New Creation — the great cosmic deep over which the Spirit of God hovers as divine and Life-giving Breath.  And again, they are the waters of the Flood, whereby sin, death, and all the power of the devil — your old Adam and all his cohorts, the whole motley crew — are drowned and destroyed; whereas the same waters of Holy Baptism uphold and support the Holy Ark of Christendom, wherein you are kept safe and sound, dry and secure, along with faithful Noah and his family.  And emerging from that deluge of the Font, like a newborn infant from the womb, you arise and live as a beloved child of God.

It is precisely in this way, by the catechesis of the Word of God and by the washing of the water with His Word, that you have actually become a part of that Christian faith and life and salvation which you have been taught to confess in the Creed.  Do you believe in God the Father Almighty? Yes.  Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord? Yes. And do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Yes.  Well, the Life and Light and Love of that Holy Triune God is the divine and eternal reality that you have received and entered into by the grace of God in your Holy Baptism.

Everything that you confess by the Word and Spirit of God along with the whole Church on earth, is now your story, your life, and your salvation in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, is the Key that has made all of this possible for you.  For He is the One who has conquered sin, death, the devil, and hell, by His Sacrifice upon the Cross.  And He is the One who has opened heaven to all those who believe and are baptized into Him.

So, too, it is the Baptism of Christ Jesus Himself in the Jordan River that has sanctified the waters of your Baptism to be a gracious washing of forgiveness, divine Life, and eternal Salvation.  For though He is the almighty and eternal Son of God from all eternity, holy, sinless, and perfect, He entered the waters of the Jordan and took upon Himself all of your sins and death and suffering, in order to carry all those things in His own Body and put them to death in Himself on the Cross.

Consequently, when you entered the waters of your Baptism, saturated with sin and weighed down by your own mortality, you received in exchange the Righteousness and Holiness of Jesus and all the benefits of His Sacrifice upon the Cross and His Resurrection from the dead.  All that He is and everything that He has done has thus been freely given to you and credited to your account.

So it is that you have become — and so you are — a son of God in Christ Jesus, regardless of whether you’re a boy or girl, a man or woman; because your relationship to God the Father is in His beloved Son, Christ Jesus.  As I have often said, the voice of God from His opened heaven now declares that you are His beloved and well-pleasing son, because you are baptized into Christ; which is how and why you have the blessed privilege of praying to God as your own dear Father.

So have you also received the Holy Spirit, as surely as He descended on Christ Jesus in bodily form as a dove at His Baptism.  For all that He has received is given to you, as well, by the ways and means of the Gospel.  The Spirit of God has been poured out upon you generously in your Holy Baptism, and now He wells up in you as a Spring of Living Water which flows outward in holy faith and holy love, in the prayer and confession of the Word that God the Father speaks to you in His Son.  The same Spirit preserves your faith and life in Christ within His Holy Church.

Accordingly, just as the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus are far more than just historical events of the past, so is your Baptism far more than just another memorable date on the calendar of your life.  Indeed, your Baptism has an ongoing, daily, and lifelong significance, which actually defines your entire vocation as a Christian and all that you do and say as a disciple of Christ Jesus.

The drowning and dying of your old Adam and all his cohorts, which began with your personal Flood in the baptismal Font, is a drowning and dying that must continue throughout your life on earth.  In this body and life, there is never a point at which you can say that sin is once and for all behind you.  It is a battle that rages both within you and all around you until the Lord shall finally call you from this fallen and perishing world to Himself in heaven.

But the battle you engage with sin and your old Adam is not won by your good intentions or firm resolutions on your part.  As Christ defeated Satan by clinging to the Word of God and allowing Himself to be killed, so do you triumph by clinging to His Word and allowing yourself to be put to death with Him.  And what that means for you, specifically, is daily contrition and repentance, the confession of your sins, and the exercise of faith in the forgiveness of the Gospel.

In this way, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism already anticipates and really initiates the Fifth Chief Part on Confession and Holy Absolution.  For Dr. Luther, confessing your sins and receiving forgiveness in the Name of Christ Jesus was simply the ongoing activity of Baptism in your life.  It is not only for those who find themselves in a crisis over some great unusual sin; it is the most natural thing in the world for Christians, who acknowledge their sins and yet cling to their Lord.

Indeed, repentance and forgiveness are yet another way in which Holy Baptism continues to bring the reality and significance of those Old Testament events into your personal story as a child of God in Christ.  This, too, belongs to your Exodus from the slavery of sin to the freedom of faith.

Baptism is your crossing of the Red Sea out of the Egypt of sin; and at the last, Baptism will be your crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Paradise.  Then shall you be raised from the dust of the earth to be glorified and live in your own body, like unto the glorious Body of Christ Jesus.  And in the meantime, you live in the desert with your Lord and with His people, feasting on the Manna from heaven which He alone provides, and trusting His providential care for all that you need in both body and soul, both for this life and for the Life everlasting.

As you live this way in Christ Jesus — walking, as it were, on the waters of your Baptism — you find that He and His Spirit live in you, as well.  Despite your sins and weaknesses, which persist throughout your life on earth, you also begin to live the New Life that is yours in Christ Jesus by the washing of water with His Word.  Hence, the Law of God, including the Ten Commandments, is no longer just a curb to restrain you or a club to crush you in your sins, but now also a positive description of who you are in Christ Jesus, a beloved child of God anointed by His Holy Spirit.

What it all boils down to is this: In Holy Baptism the Life of Christ Jesus has become your own — the Life that He lived and offered for you and for all, for the forgiveness of your sins and the hope of eternal salvation — and the Life He continues to live in you and through you.  It is His Life which defines your identity as a beloved child of God and permeates all that you do and say.

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

The Life and Light and Love of God in the Lifting Up of Christ Jesus

The very Life and Love of God — the Life of the Holy Trinity, the Love of the Father for His Son and of the Son for His Father in the Holy Spirit — that Life and Love of God Himself have come into the world in the Person of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, conceived and born of St. Mary.  He is the Light of the world.  He is the Light who has come to shine in the darkness, that the world might be saved through Him; that you might be saved through Him, unto eternal Life with God.

To believe in this one Lord, Jesus Christ — to trust in Him, to cling to Him, to rest and reside in Him — that is already to have Life with God in Him.  And to live in Him by faith is also to live and walk in love within all of your callings and stations, in your relationships and conversations.

This faith and life that are yours in Christ Jesus are in sharp contrast to the sin and death that you otherwise pursue apart from Him.  For in your native sinfulness you are a child of wrath, ensnared by the lies of that old serpent, the devil, who has bitten you with his fiery sting.  But all the while you are chasing after life on the basis of his wicked lies, the fact is that his bite is killing you.

Apart from Christ, you dwell in the darkness of your sin, yet you don’t even realize that it’s dark.  You persist in your sin, despite the Lord’s grace and mercy toward you, in spite of His good gifts, His Word and promises.  And in this you are no different and no better than Old Testament Israel.

In view of the Red Sea, through which the Lord had brought them out of Egypt by His miraculous and mighty power — along those very shores where they saw Pharaoh and his soldiers drowned in the depths of the sea — they complain and bemoan the misery of the wilderness.  On the one hand they say, “We have no bread,” and on the other hand they say, “We hate this miserable food,” that is, the daily bread from heaven which God was providing even in the midst of the desert.

It’s like when your children tell you that they have nothing to do.  They actually have plenty to do; they just don’t want to do it.  And it is the same for all of you, no matter what your age.  You have things to do, and you do have things to eat, but you are dissatisfied with what the Lord your God has provided.  Although His Word and promises ring within your ears and His good gifts are set before you in the Liturgy of His Gospel, you complain that it is not enough, that it’s not what you really need or what you want.  You thus despise His gracious Providence, the Food and Drink, the Word and Works of Christ Jesus, your Savior.  You grow weary and impatient with the journey.

It’s taking too long.  It is too hard.  It is either too hot or too cold.  There’s not enough of the food that you would prefer to eat.  The work that you are given to do is too bothersome.  The neighbors you are given to love are not very loveable.  And so you get doubtful, perhaps you even despair.  You fall into disbelief and hardness of heart.  And you disobey the Word of the Lord your God.

In all of this, you follow in the footsteps of your first parents, Adam and Eve — who had the Word, the Promise, the Command, the entire Garden, and Life with God — who were given everything — and yet, they wanted more.  Thus did they acquire death for themselves and all their children.

That is your legacy.  Stung by the serpent’s venom, dissatisfied, discontent, and disobedient, your end is not life but death.  That is all you have deserved and gotten for yourself, for all your striving and complaining.  And yet, despite all that, in response to all of that, faith and life are wrought in you by God.  That is His work, and you are His workmanship, by His grace alone in Christ Jesus.

Whereas sin and death are your work and wages, faith and life are worked in you by God, by the preaching of the Cross of Christ, that is, by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name.  That you should be and live as a Christian disciple of Jesus, you are thus called to bear His Cross and follow Him.  And to that end, the preaching of repentance crucifies you, puts you to death, and buries you: to yourself, to the world, and to your sins of thought, word, and deed.

As surely as God sent those fiery serpents to bite the people of Israel, so does He expose your sins, and He puts you to death by the Cross of Christ, in order to raise you up with Christ through His forgiveness of all of your sins — forgiveness that likewise comes from that same Cross of Christ. 

It is an ironic paradox.  It is foolishness to the world, a stumbling block to Jews and Greeks alike, and so also to your own old Adam.  For it is very strange that Life should come by way of death.

Consider that bronze serpent in the desert, the means that God provided through Moses, by which the people were spared the punishment of their sins, that they not die but live.  A bronze serpent! An image of the very thing that was killing them!  That was the means of grace that God provided by and with His Word, so that whoever looked at that serpent, lifted up on that pole, would live.

So, too, it is by the Cross of Christ that God works faith and life in you, by way of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  The Crucifixion of the incarnate Son is the Light of God in the midst of the deep darkness.  For Christ Jesus, the Son of God, bears and becomes the Curse of sin and death.  He becomes the Serpent lifted up on the Cross, in order to undo sin and death, the devil and hell, in Himself, in His own Body — to defeat those ancient enemies, those terrifying enemies, and to release you from their reign of terror — to bring you out of the darkness into His marvelous Light.

That is what Christ Jesus does and suffers and accomplishes for you by His Cross and Passion.  He is lifted up by God the Father to the glory of His holy Name.  It was Moses who lifted up the serpent in the wilderness; it is God who lifts up His own dear Son upon the Cross — who lifts Him up as the priestly Sacrifice for the sins of the world — who lifts Him up like Incense, as Prayer and Intercession for you and all the children of Adam, for the whole world, unto Life and Salvation.

His Self-sacrifice is your Atonement and the Propitiation for all your sins.  His Body given and His Blood poured out are your Redemption from sin and death and your Reconciliation with God.

His voluntary suffering and death — bearing your sins in His Body and taking upon Himself all the punishment that you have deserved — that is the Love of God with which He loves you.

It is common to hear St. John 3:16 as though it meant something like this, “God loved the world so much that He was even willing to give His only-begotten Son.”  And to be sure, that is true.  He did love the world that much.  And for the sake of His Love He did give His only-begotten Son.  But that is not what St. John has actually written; it is not what Christ our Lord has spoken here.  The sense of it is rather, “God loved the world in this way — by giving His only-begotten Son.”

The Love of God is not separate from the giving of Christ Jesus.  The Love of God is embodied and manifested, personified, and given in, with, by, and through the giving of Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son, in His Body on the Cross.  And this same Love of God in Christ the Crucified — this Love of God which is your Light in the darkness and divine Life in place of death — that is what is preached and given to you in the Ministry of the Gospel.  That Ministry of Christ Jesus in His Word and Sacrament is now also the way in which God loves you, the way and the means by which He saves you from your sin and death and gives to you Himself and His divine Life.

The Lord your God has thus loved you with Himself in the waters of your Holy Baptism, in which you are united with Christ Jesus in His Cross and Resurrection.  And the Lord your God now loves you with Himself in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink in the Holy Communion.  These means of His grace and mercy and forgiveness are your Food and Water in the wilderness; the Red Sea in which the Lord has drowned and destroyed all your ancient enemies; and your Manna from heaven, the living and Life-giving Bread of God.

These Holy Sacraments of the Gospel are the Fruits of the Tree of the Cross, in which Christ Jesus is still being lifted up for you.  He is no longer being sacrificed; for He died once for all, and He has risen from the dead, never to die again.  But now He is lifted up and set before you precisely as the One who has been sacrificed.  His Body and Blood — the Meat and Drink of His Sacrifice — are now lifted up for you as the Sacrament of Salvation in the midst of this wilderness.

I know the way of repentance is hard.  The way of faith and life to which you are called is difficult.  It is a journey through a dry, hot desert wasteland.  There is pain and hardship, heartache, hurt, and disappointment, because you live in a fallen world and both you and all your neighbors are fallen, sinful, and mortal.  Even your nearest and dearest neighbors, whom you are given to love and serve and care for, sin against you; they speak unkindly, or they don’t speak, they don’t listen, they don’t help.  And you also sin every day, against your neighbors and your God, in heart, mind, and body.

So the journey is long and hard, the way set before you is arduous, tedious, and exhausting.  And all the while, your faith and life in Christ Jesus are contrary to the wisdom, reason, and desires of your old Adam, whereby you specialize in sin and death, pride and despair, idolatry and unbelief.  Vis-á-vis all those challenges, the waters of your Holy Baptism and the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper seem like miserable food and drink indeed, pathetically inadequate to your needs.

Nevertheless, these means of grace — for that is what they truly are — the Word of the Gospel, the waters of your Baptism, the bread and wine which are the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, crucified and risen from the dead — these are in fact the ways and means by which God calls you to Himself in Christ, who is lifted up that you might look to Him and live.

So, then, it is by these Fruits of His Cross that He brings you through death into Life.  And so does He make of you a brand new creature — no longer a child of wrath, but a child of peace, a child of God.  Not simply a son of Adam, but a son of God in Christ Jesus, with a new legacy, a new inheritance, a new way of life in the Resurrection and Ascension of the same Lord Jesus Christ.  For just as He has died your death upon the Cross, so does He share with you and give to you His rising from the dead and His ascending to the Right Hand of His God and Father in heaven.

He has been lifted up, not only in His death upon the Cross, but also from death and the grave to the Right Hand of the Father.  And so, by His grace, through faith in His Gospel — through the waters of your Holy Baptism and by daily repentance — you are lifted up from the dust of the desert and seated with Him in the heavenly places.  Your life is hidden with Christ in God!

Safe and sound in heaven with Christ Jesus, that is where your life is found.  That is where you live — even now, by faith, while you journey through the wilderness in and with the same Lord Jesus.

You live and walk in Him, in holy faith and holy love, because your faith in Christ is a gift, a gracious work of God.  And your life, also, both now and forever, is a gift of God; it is purchased and won for you by Christ; it is given to you freely through His Ministry of the Gospel.  It is all a gift, as surely as Christ Himself and His whole Gospel are a gift.  And this is God’s Love for you.

Daily He disciplines you, because that is what a father does in love for his children.  So your God and Father disciplines you, as He disciplined Old Testament Israel, not for destruction but unto salvation.  He calls you daily to repentance by and with the Cross, putting you to death with His Law, in order to resurrect you by His Gospel.  Not to condemn you or cause you to perish forever, but in order to lift you up from sin and death to this faith and life which are yours in Christ Jesus.

And so it is that He daily and richly forgives you all of your sins.  He freely and fully takes them all away.  And He feeds you daily with His own dear Son, His Word-made-Flesh, who is the very Bread of Life come down from heaven, that you should not perish but be saved for Life eternal.

Therefore, hear and heed His Word to you.  Listen to Him — look here to Him — and live in Him.

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

To Pray at All Times and Not Lose Heart

The Lord Jesus teaches you to pray at all times — day and night, throughout your life — and not to lose heart.  Not as a desperate last resort, but with the unwavering confidence of a little child, knowing and trusting that your prayer is heard and will be answered by your Father in heaven.

Such prayer is the voice of faith, which looks to the Lord your God and expects good things from Him.  Such faith rests upon His Word and promise in Christ Jesus and boldly calls upon His Name.  And whoever thus calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.  Believe that is so, and pray.

It is to catechize you in such faith and prayer that your dear Lord Jesus tells this Parable of the Widow and the Judge.  It’s one of His great stories.  You can picture the scene, the woman in dire straits, in desperate need of justice, probably in danger of losing whatever little property she has.  She needs someone to help her, to contend for her, to fight for her and not take advantage of her.

Out of necessity that poor widow goes to that hardhearted judge, though he has no regard for God or man.  He is an unrighteous judge who acts only in his own self-interest.  He looks with contempt on the widow; he does not want to bother with her, he has no interest in helping her, and so he does his best to ignore her.  Only, she won’t stop asking for his help, because she has no choice, no one else to ask.  And her persistence finally wears him down, to the point that he relents and gives her justice, not because he cares, and not because it is good and right, but just to get her off his back.

That’s the picture Jesus paints of constant prayer — that you should confidently call on the Name of the Lord who loves to hear and answer His elect, who grants them justice and does it quickly.

It’s interesting how closely this Parable lines up with the story of Jacob, who wrestled through the night with that “Man” who turns out to be the Lord.  You can imagine that situation, too.  He has basically had to flee from his Uncle Laban, who has become envious and jealous of the blessings God has bestowed upon his nephew.  Despite Jacob’s personal faults and shortcomings, the Lord has been with him according to His promise, and Jacob has prospered in his years with Laban.  But now he is returning to the scene of his crime, as it were — to the brother he deceived and swindled, who was previously determined to kill him.  So Jacob doesn’t know what will happen.

He does what he can to hedge his bets.  He hopes for the best and prepares for the worst.  He sends his wives and his children and all his worldly possessions across the stream.  And then, through the long dark night, he is left alone.  I’m guessing that all of you have had nights like that, when everything is falling apart, crashing down around your ears, and everyone else has gone away, or so it seems and feels.  In the darkness you are all alone.  And perhaps you have also spent such nights wrestling with the Lord, with cries and tears and groaning too deep for words, looking for some help, some comfort, some peace and rest, a blessing in the midst of danger and heartache.

The “Man” comes and wrestles with Jacob.  That is the key.  Jacob refuses to let go of Him — but does anybody really think that God the Lord could not get away?  God has come to wrestle with Jacob, and God holds on to him.  He teaches Jacob how to pray.  And so does He also teach you.

Jacob finally lets go when he receives the blessing he has sought.  That’s what he’s after when he asks for the “Man’s” Name.  For it is by and with His Name that Yahweh blesses His people, as in the Benediction, whereby Aaron and his sons bless the other sons of Jacob with the Name of the Lord.  So in this case, the Lord blesses Jacob with His Name; and He gives to him a new name.

This is how you should pray, as well, calling upon the Name of the Lord and refusing to let go until He lays His Name upon you and blesses you with His Name.  So has He taught you, invited you, and commanded you to call upon His Name in every trouble and temptation, to pray, praise, and give thanks at all times and in all places.  And of course, you are given to seek and receive the blessing of His Name especially in the Liturgy of His Gospel, in His own Word and Sacraments.

But you do not know how to pray as you should.  And you do not pray as you should, because of your weakness, because of your sinful doubts and fears and lack of faith.  You do not listen to the Word of God, you do not trust it, and so you are too timid or too proud to pray.  Of yourself, left to yourself, that is how it is.  You do not listen to the Lord, and you do not call upon His Name.

But in His tender mercy and compassion, in His deep love for you, the Lord does for you what He once did for Jacob.  He prevails with you and for you.  He comes to wrestle with you, and He strives with you, and He teaches you how to pray.  Not only that, but He Himself prays for you.  Your dear Lord Jesus Christ, your merciful and great High Priest, ever lives to intercede for you.  And the Holy Spirit also helps you in your weakness, He prays and intercedes for you at all times.

Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit pray and intercede for you; and they also teach you to pray, first of all by calling you to repentance and to faith in the Gospel, and then also by giving you the very Words with which to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. . . .”

“When you pray, say this.”  So the Lord Jesus has instructed you with reference to the Our Father.  Not to restrict you, but to supply you and support you.  He puts these Words upon your lips and in your mouth, where you would otherwise have no right words and nothing to say.  He thereby gives you the Wisdom of God and the Spirit of God.  Consequently, during those long dark nights when everyone else has gone away, and everything is in danger, and you are threatened and afraid and seemingly all by yourself — you open up your mouth, and out come these Words of Christ.

In your Holy Baptism this Lord Jesus Christ has given you His Name.  The Lord renamed Jacob, “Israel.”  The Lord has renamed you, as well, with the very Name of God, the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Name of Christ Jesus.  So you bear His Name.  He has blessed you.  He has given you His Spirit and made you a dear child of His own God and Father.

“Do you not know that all of you who are baptized into Christ are sons of God in Christ?”  So, God is your Father.  You don’t have to be afraid of Him.  You don’t have to bribe or bargain with Him.  You are His child, He is your Dad.  So, call upon His Name, the Name which He has given you.

That’s how you pray the Our Father.  It is in virtue of your Holy Baptism, whereby He has given you the new birth of water and the Spirit.  You thus share in the Sonship of Christ Jesus, so that His God and Father is your God and Father.  When you open up your mouth and pray the Words that Christ Himself has given you, and when you open up your mouth to pray from the heart of faith that Christ has worked in you by His Word and Holy Spirit — and when that Spirit of Christ Jesus prays in you and with you — what your Father in heaven hears is Jesus, His beloved Son.

Will the Son of Man find faith when He comes upon the earth?  Indeed He does, because He has first of all established such faith and faithfulness in Himself, in His own Flesh and Blood, for you and all the children of man, for widows and orphans in distress, once and forever.  And now by His Word and Holy Spirit He calls you to fear, love, and trust in Him, to be raised up and live in Him.

He brings you into that faith and life by His Cross, by way of your Baptism, and thereafter by His preaching and catechesis.  He puts you to death and raises you to life, He wounds you in order to heal you.  His Cross thus brings you to repentance.  His Cross brings you to faith.  And so by His Cross He brings you into His own ongoing prayer and intercession, which arises to His Father in His Resurrection from the dead.  As He rises from the earth and enters into heaven, as He sits at the Right Hand of the Father, so does your prayer ascend to the Father in heaven.  For Christ Jesus Himself is your Prayer, and you are heard and answered as surely as He lives and reigns forever.

The fact is that, by His Cross and Passion, He has wrestled with God and prevailed on your behalf.  Think of His agony in the Garden, how He prays with great drops of blood falling from His brow.  “Father, if it be possible, take this Cup from Me; yet, not My will but Thine be done.”

He calls upon the Father there in the Garden, as St. Mark tells us, with the very words that you are given to pray by the Holy Spirit: “Abba! Father!”  For there in the Garden of Gethsemane He has taken your place through that long dark night of the soul on the far side of the river, with family and friends far away, falling asleep, everything stripped away, and only His Father to call upon.

And it seems as though His Father will not help Him but destroy Him, hand Him over to the Cross, and leave Him to suffer and die in such brutal agony, bearing the sins of the entire world in His beaten, bruised, and battered Body.  It is the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose hip is put out of joint; for His own Cross and Passion were already in view as He wrestled with Jacob at Penuel.  And in that Hour, it is for you that He strives and wrestles.

It is in this way that God gives justice to His elect.  It is by this way and means that He justifies you and declares you righteous.  It is in this way that He vindicates you in the face of all your enemies — by handing over His Son, Christ Jesus, to the Cross — and then by raising Him from the dead.

So, let’s think again about that widow and that judge.  Although it may seem obvious that the judge is somehow supposed to represent God, and that the widow represents you, it is not you who have been so persistent.  It is God who has been so persistent in bringing you from your unrighteousness to faith, in breaking your heart of stone and granting you a heart of flesh, and in converting you from someone who cares for neither God nor man to someone who loves God and your neighbor.

It is Christ Jesus who has accomplished all of this for you, and it is Christ Jesus who now works such faith and prayer in you.  By His Cross and in His Resurrection He teaches you to live and to pray as He does.  He strives and wrestles with you through the night, and He prevails upon you, to bring you to repentance and faith.  And in this way, by the way of His Cross, He teaches you to pray in the sure and certain hope and confidence of His Resurrection.

Your suffering under the Cross prompts you to pray in this way.  It reduces you to nothing but the one hope that you have had all along, which is your God and Father in Christ Jesus and His Word and promise; so that, in suffering you are brought into hope, to call upon the Name of the Lord, to rely upon His Word and Holy Spirit.  It is like ancient Israel in the wilderness, when God let them go hungry, and then He opened His hand to feed them.  And again, it is like Israel in the Land of Canaan, which God gave them as He promised.  Over and over again the people abandoned the Lord and turned away from Him to other gods; so the Lord, in His mercy and love, would send enemies to discipline the people, to call and bring them to repentance; then they would call upon His Name for deliverance, and He would hear and answer and send the judges to rescue them.

So does the Lord your God likewise discipline you, as a father disciplines the son whom he loves.  He lays the Cross upon you, to put you to death and raise you to life; not to destroy you, though it may feel that way at times, but that you would open up your mouth and call upon His Name.

And as you are united with Christ Jesus in His Cross and Resurrection by your Holy Baptism in His Name, so is He both your Prayer and your Father’s Answer to your prayer.  He is God’s “Yes” and “Amen” to your every need, and to each and all of those Petitions He has taught you to pray.

It is in Christ Jesus, the beloved Son, that God is your own dear Father in heaven.  It is in Him that God’s holy Name has been given to you.  It is in Him that God’s Kingdom comes to you, and in Him that God’s good and gracious Will is done for you, unto everlasting Life and Salvation.  It is in Christ Jesus that you are fed with daily bread for this body and life and for the Resurrection.  It is by Him that your trespasses are forgiven; that you are protected from all trials and temptations; and that you are delivered from the old evil foe and from every evil of body and soul.  And so it is that, in and with Him, you shall at last be raised up from this valley of death to your Father in heaven, as surely as He is risen from the dead and lives forever.  “Amen! Amen!”  It shall be so!

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

The Law is Fulfilled in the Body of Christ Jesus

For Christ Jesus to replace the Temple with His own Body of Flesh and Blood, crucified and risen, as He reveals in this Holy Gospel, belongs to His fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures, all the Law and the Prophets.  For He brings to completion, fulfills, and supersedes the entire Old Testament by His Incarnation, His Cross and Passion, His Resurrection from the dead, His Ascension to the Father, and His ongoing Ministry of the Gospel within His Church on earth to the close of the age.

The Scriptures were ever and always about Him.  To Him they pointed from the start, and in Him they find their rest.  He is the very heart and center of the Holy Scriptures and the fulfillment of all God’s promises, because He is the Word-of-God-made-Flesh.  He is the manifest presence of God in the midst of His people, in whom the Name and Glory of God are found, in much the way that God dwelt with His people in the Tabernacle and the Temple — but ever so much more so.

Like the Ten Commandments and God’s Covenant with Israel, the significance of the Temple began with God and His activity in the Exodus — the Lord’s rescue of His people, not only from slavery in Egypt, but from sin, death, and the power of the devil.  It was by His merciful choosing, and by His mighty arm and outstretched hand, that they were His people, and He was their God.

That they might be and live as His people, the Lord first gave them the Liturgy of the Passover — a sacrificial meal of remembrance, in which the Israelites of each new generation would become participants in the Exodus from Egypt and recipients of the Lord’s Salvation.  The body of a lamb was their meal of deliverance, its blood covered them from death; and all who ate that Passover Feast, in accordance with the Word and promises of Yahweh, were delivered from their bondage.

From out of Egypt the Lord called His chosen people to Himself, and He established His Covenant with them at Mt. Sinai.  It is within that Covenant, sealed with the blood of sacrifice, that He gave the Ten Commandments.  As He bound Himself to them — and as He bound them to Himself — He revealed the character and content of their life as members of His household and family.

So, what does this mean for you, baptized into the Exodus of Christ Jesus and fed at His Table with the Body and Blood of this true Passover Lamb?  The Ten Commandments describe the life that you are given to live as a member of His Body and Bride, the Church, a beloved son or daughter of His God and Father.  They guide your life within His household and family.  At the same time, as a perfect summary of the Law that is written on man’s heart, the Ten Commandments also serve to curb and restrain the outright hostility and violence of sin, to keep it within bounds.

But on account of the deep-seated perversity of sin within the heart, mind, body, and soul of all the children of Adam & Eve, the first and foremost function of the Ten Commandments is to expose your sins for what they really are, and to demolish all your arrogant pride and self-reliance.

In this way, the Ten Commandments are always driving you back to the mercies of the Lord, to find your refuge and strength in Him alone, instead of in yourself or anyone else.  The Law is thus a constant reminder of your need for Atonement, Redemption, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation.

In the Old Testament, all of these needs were provided in the sacrificial service of the Tabernacle, first of all, and then the Temple in Jerusalem, in the Liturgy of the Lord on behalf of His people.  That priestly purpose was the true and great significance of the Holy Temple — which Jesus here cleanses with aggressive zeal and will soon replace with His own Body, sacrificed and glorified.

The Temple was the House of God, wherein He dwelt among His people with His Gospel and all His Means of Grace.  There He caused His Name and His Glory to be found, so that His people might abide with Him and worship Him in peace.  As that was not possible without the forgiveness of sins, the Temple was also the place of sacrifice and atonement, as provided by the Lord in the Law of Moses.  It is where the people went to confess their sins, in order to hear and receive the forgiveness of the Lord, in connection with those sacrifices.  It is where the Lord was actively present and at work, according to His Word and promise, to share His Life with His people.

All of this is now accomplished, established, and provided in the Body of Christ Jesus — crucified and risen from the dead, now present for you, given and poured out for you, in His Holy Supper.

As St. John indicates already in the first chapter of his Gospel, the only-begotten Son of God — the Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, who is God, by whom all things are made — He has become true Man, flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, and He tabernacles with us in His own Body of Flesh and Blood as the One who reveals God the Father to us.  Already in His Incarnation, He thus begins to take the place of the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple.

As the true and perfect Man, as the one true God in human Flesh, He has satisfied the entire Law of God on your behalf, in your stead, and for your benefit.  In this way He has established and sealed the New Covenant between Yahweh and His people in His own Body and with His own Blood.  He is both the Priest and the Sacrifice, as well as the Temple of God.  And as both God and Man, He has done for you and all people what you and all the children of man have failed to do (and never could have done).  He has not only established the Covenant in Himself, but He has fulfilled it and lived it in His Body, in accordance with the good and acceptable Will of God, in steadfast faith and in perfect love for His Father and for you and all His neighbors.

As your merciful and great High Priest, He sympathizes with you in your weakness, for He has suffered and been tempted in every way that you are, save only without sin.  And not only has He preserved Himself from doing wrong, He has also persevered in doing what is good and right.

Thus, for example, in His fear, love, and trust of His Father above all things, your dear Lord Jesus Christ does not murder, but He gives you life; He does not steal, but He gives you all good things; He does not testify against you, but He defends you and forgives you all of your offenses.

But what about coveting, or jealousy?  For the Lord Himself declares that He is a jealous God.  And as the Lord Jesus aggressively cleanses the Temple in this Holy Gospel, the disciples observe that He is consumed with zeal.  But “zeal” is simply another translation of the word for jealousy.

Indeed, Jesus is jealous for His Father’s House — in reverence for His Father, first of all, because the House of God is not to be profaned — but likewise for the sake of His people, for whom the Temple of the Lord was the Means of Grace, the presence of God in their midst for their salvation.

It is by and for their salvation that Christ Jesus is “consumed” or “eaten up,” even to the point of His Crucifixion.  He gives His entire Body and Life into death for you and your salvation.  So, too, He now gives His Body and His Blood for you to consume, to eat and drink, for your salvation.

All of this He does for you, that you might live and abide as a member of His Bride, the Church.  From heaven He came to seek her out, to cleanse and redeem her, to sanctify her by His Blood, to take her as His very own: to love and to cherish, to have and to hold, unto Life everlasting in Him.

Hence His zeal — His jealousy — for that House which was the visible Church on earth, His “Body” in the midst of His people.  As her true and heavenly Bridegroom, He jealously guards and protects His beloved holy Bride, as surely as God the Lord is likewise “jealous” of His people’s affections, loyalty, and faithfulness, in His Covenant or “Marriage Contract” with them.

For you, that divine and holy Marriage has been joined in the waters of your Baptism, in which you were united with Christ Jesus in His Cross and Resurrection.  And your marriage to Christ Jesus is consummated (so to speak) each time you are joined again so intimately with Him, with your body in the flesh, in the eating of His very Body and the drinking of His holy and precious Blood.

So the Lord is rightly “jealous” for your affections, for your loyalty and faithfulness to Him alone.  You are to have no other gods, no other husbands, no other fathers but Him.  So, the command that you shall not commit adultery applies — not only in but also beyond your earthly human marriage — to your holy Matrimony with Christ Jesus, which even death shall not be able to put asunder.

It is with that righteous jealousy of a Husband for His Wife that Jesus “cleans house,” removing all the clutter and distractions from your heart and life, because your body is the temple of His Holy Spirit, and commanding your undivided attention to His Word, to His Cross, to His Body and His Blood.  Whatever it is that competes with Him in your heart, mind, body, and soul, He must drive it out; not for His benefit, but for the sake of your life and salvation, which are in Him alone.

The temple of your body and life is not cleansed by your own good intentions or sincere efforts.  You cannot cleanse or heal yourself, nor can you forgive your own sins and failings.  Neither is your temple cleansed by the force of the Law, which can only serve to expose the clutter of your sins and the idolatry of your affairs.  By itself the Law drives you further away from Christ, as it condemns you along with your sins, as it scatters your pride and overturns your self-confidence.

But your heavenly Bridegroom does not cast you out of His House forever.  He rather woos you back to Himself, reconciled and forgiven by His Gospel.  It is thus with compassion and grace that He wins your heart and reunites you with Himself.  He does not punish you, as you deserve, but He has taken all your punishment upon Himself; He has suffered and died in your stead; He has allowed the Temple of His Body to be destroyed, that He might raise you up in and with Himself.

So has He become again your Lord and God, your Savior and Redeemer, who has brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, into the Promised Land of Paradise, into the House of God.

Just so, He who is the true Passover Lamb of God has mercy upon you and grants you His peace, because He has already taken upon Himself and taken away the sin of the World.  As He has been sacrificed for you and for all, He now also feeds you with the Flesh of His own Body, which is your Meat indeed; and with His Blood He seals and strengthens His Covenant with you and covers you with His Righteousness, guarding you against all the assaults of sin, death, the devil, and hell.

This sacred Supper of your Lord Jesus is the true Holy of Holies, in which and by which you come boldly into the presence of the Holy Triune God, to stand before the Throne of Grace in the Body of the Son — to find divine mercy, to receive help in every need, and to abide in perfect peace.

The central importance and fundamental significance of the Lord’s Supper is revealed in His Word to you this morning: “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.“  But He said this concerning the Temple of His Body, which has superseded the old Temple of Jerusalem as the gracious presence of the one true God at the very heart and center of the Christian faith and life.  And if you then also consider the zeal of Christ Jesus for His Father’s House, you will begin to understand the zeal of your pastor for the administration of Jesus’ Body in this Holy Sacrament.

It was in and with the same Body of Flesh and Blood that He was crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification.  That is the Body which is given for you here in this House of God — which is the House of God because of His Body, present according to His Word and promise.

The same Lord is here for you in the significance of your Holy Baptism, which is your crossing of the Red Sea out of Egypt with Him.  He is here for you in His Word of Holy Absolution, His forgiving of your sins, whereby you come into His presence in faith and with thanksgiving, without fear.  He is here for you in the reading and preaching of His Holy Scriptures, which are fulfilled in Him — in His Body — for your Salvation.  And so is He also here for you in His own Flesh and Blood, in His crucified and risen Body, which is the true Temple of God, that He might live in you, and you in Him, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul.

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

Hallowing the Name of the Lord by Confessing the Word of Christ Jesus

I’m sure you’ve probably heard the slogan, “Deeds, Not Creeds!”  Theology by way of slogans is always a risky business, not least of all because they are prone to be either legalistic or licentious.  But it’s fair enough to insist that, if you’re gonna “talk the talk,” you better also “walk the walk.”  The Holy Scriptures also teach that we are to be doers of the Word, and not hearers only.  Even so, let your doing begin with your hearing and your speaking, your confessing, of the Word of God.

To listen to the Word that God speaks, and then to pray and confess what He has spoken, is the first and foremost thing that you are called to do as a Christian.  To do so in faith is to worship the Lord your God, to glorify His holy Name.  It is also the first service of love for your neighbor, to speak what the Lord has spoken, just as God Himself does everything by His Word.  Indeed, we know from the New Testament that our Savior, Jesus Christ, is Himself the Word-made-Flesh.

So, when you speak the Word of God, you speak Jesus.  That is not a small or insignificant thing.  It is the most powerful thing you are given to do.  And everything else you do in faith toward God and in love for God and your neighbor flows with that speaking of the Word of Christ Jesus.  For it is by the preaching, teaching, hearing, confessing, and praying of His Word — and so also by living in accordance with His Word — that God’s Name is sanctified and kept holy among us.

You honor the Lord your God by saying the same thing that He has spoken to you in Christ Jesus.  That is what confession is, to say the same thing that God has said.  What is more, there is nothing better you can say to your neighbor than the Word that God has spoken to us by His Son.  That is to speak both the Law and the Gospel unto repentance and faith in Christ Jesus.  Above all, it is to speak mercy and forgiveness in love for your neighbor, as God forgives you with His Word.

It is by the hearing and speaking of His Word that the Spirit of your God and Father speaks in you.  In this way, no matter how little you may be, no matter how young, no matter how uneducated or simple, you do what God the Father in heaven does.  You speak the Word who is the Son of God, Christ Jesus; and in speaking the Word of Christ, you breathe the Holy Spirit upon your neighbor.

This is a high and holy calling that you have been given as a Christian, to confess what God has spoken.  And to be sure, let all your deeds be in harmony with such speaking.  What you confess, that is also how you are to live to the glory of your God and Father.  But bear in mind that your speaking of His Word is already an activity, a deed, a work of love that you perform with your lips and mouth, whereby you give life to your neighbor.  And Holy Scripture takes this very seriously.

What you say with your mouth matters.  Your words are not incidental, but they are significant.  They matter very much.  Your speaking makes a difference for you and for your neighbor, whether for good or for evil, depending on whether what you say is right and true or wicked and wrong.

Consider the case of Job, for example.  In spite of what he suffered, the Word of the Lord declares that Job did not sin with his lips.  He had his doubts and fears, he had his questions and concerns, but he did not do what his wife advised — he did not curse God — he did not sin with his lips.

Eventually, the Lord restored to Job all that the devil had been permitted to take away from him.  But prior to that final restoration, Job confessed with his words his faith in his Redeemer and his hope in the Resurrection; and he confessed the Almighty, that God is righteous, just, and wise, that He is the Maker of the heavens and the earth, and that He has the prerogative to do as He will with His own Creation.  Then God Himself says to Job’s would-be friends that they have been wrong, that they have spoken wrongly concerning God, and that Job has spoken rightly about Him.

What is more, God sends those men to Job, instructing them to ask Job to pray for them.  He does pray for them, and he is heard.  What is spoken matters.  It means something and does something.

Now, tonight you have heard the case of Nebuchadnezzar, and his words also mattered, first for evil and then for good.  The word in his mouth to begin with was met with the voice of God from heaven, it was met with the Word of God.  And whereas the words of Nebuchadnezzar had been false and powerless, the Words of God were immediately fulfilled.

When Nebuchadnezzar spoke in praise of himself, he was driven to madness.  For this is the true madness, to exalt yourself above the one true God, and to credit yourself with all that you have been given and received as a gift from the Lord.

So, Nebuchadnezzar was driven to madness, driven away from other people to live with animals.  And the once mighty king became like a beast himself, without words and without reason.

The animals cannot speak as man does.  They honor and acknowledge God by looking to Him and relying on Him for everything they need; and in this they are both wiser and more innocent than fallen man.  But the animals cannot speak as man does, and so they cannot confess the Lord in the way that man is able to confess; nor do they blaspheme His holy Name as man has so often done.

The ability and capacity to speak, as God Himself speaks, is both powerful and dangerous.  With your mouth and lips and tongue you are able to call upon the Name of the Lord, but so are you also able to curse His holy Name.  With your mouth you can speak truly, or you can speak falsely.  You can help or hurt your neighbor with your words.  And you are held accountable for what you say, just as the king of Babylon was.  The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.

Nebuchadnezzer was driven to be like an animal, and in this way he was humbled by the Lord who brings down the lofty and exalts the lowly.  Just so, when God had humbled Nebuchadnezzer, the Lord then lifted up his eyes to heaven.  Nebuchadnezzar looked up to the Most High.  He no longer exalted himself, but he praised God.  His reason returned to him, the genuine logic of right words instead of blasphemy.  Hence, he praised the true God with his speaking, with his confession.

As surely as it is real madness to speak falsely about God, to praise yourself instead of Him, this indeed is real wisdom and right reason, to speak the Truth concerning the Lord Most High, both His Law and His Gospel — to confess what He has spoken and revealed concerning Himself.

With this sort of speaking or confessing, with such a Creed, you praise and honor the one true God, the Holy Trinity.  You exalt and magnify His holy Name.  And as I have already said, you also serve, support, and strengthen your neighbor with that Word of God.  You call your neighbor to repentance and to faith, and you comfort your neighbor with the mercies of God in Christ Jesus.

Do not underestimate how important your words are to your brother or sister in Christ.  Do not be ashamed or afraid to speak the Gospel to your neighbor.  You don’t have to come up with your own clever words to do so.  Speak as you have been taught from the Bible and the Catechism; speak as you have heard in the Liturgy; speak as God the Father speaks to you in Christ Jesus.

In particular, as you are gathered together as the people of God, as a congregation of His Church, as one Body in Christ Jesus, you serve and support and strengthen each other by your praying, by your confessing, and by your singing of His Word.  St. Paul mentions this more than once in his Epistles, that by the singing of Psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs the Spirit of God dwells among you richly.  You fill each other up with the Spirit of Christ Jesus, unto faith and life in Him.

Do not doubt that as you sing the hymns of the Church, as you confess the Creed alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ, and as you join the whole congregation in praying and confessing the words of the Liturgy, your voice strengthens and sustains your neighbors in ways that you might never realize.  Not only that, but here in the gathering of His Body, here within His Church, the Word of Christ rings out, so that you also are strengthened and sustained by your neighbors.

Parents, you have the special privilege and the special responsibility to do much the same thing for your own children.  Indeed, the Lord your God commands you to catechize your children in the prayer and confession of His Word.  And you do so by telling them the stories of the Bible; by rehearsing the Catechism with them; by singing hymns with them in your home; and especially by bringing them faithfully to church for the Lord’s Liturgy of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.

By this catechesis and confession of Christ, you fathers and mothers do the most wonderful and amazing thing that you can possibly do for your children.  With the Word of the Lord you fill them with the Holy Spirit, you fill them with Christ Jesus, you strengthen and sustain them in the one true faith, and you bring them to their God and Father in heaven, as others have done for you.

For thousands of years Christians all over the world have been confessing the same priceless Word of the Lord, rehearsing and savoring the salvation of God in Christ Jesus, His Love, His mercy, and the Life that He bestows by His Ministry of the Gospel.  By taking that Word of Christ upon your lips, even as you treasure it in your heart and mind, not only are you strengthening your neighbor, but you are likewise strengthened in the one true faith — and you are armored against the devil.

In St. Paul’s Letter to the Church at Ephesus, he admonishes you and all Christians to put on the full Armor of God and to take up the Sword of the Spirit by praying and confessing the Word of the Lord.  The Creed and the Our Father are surely a great place to do both of those things.

When you call on the Name of the Lord and when you speak His Word, you resist the devil and chase him away from your heart, mind, and life, because the devil cannot stand before the Word of Christ Jesus.   That “one little Word” still defeats that old evil foe.  That Word strengthens your faith and sustains your life against the assaults and accusations of Satan.  For the Word of Christ Jesus drowns out the devil’s Big Lie.  It drowns out the false word of wickedness with the true Word of Wisdom, for the Word of Christ is Spirit, Truth, and Life; it is both living and Life-giving.

This is something you can and should do as a Christian, because you are baptized and catechized in the Name of the Lord, you are a disciple of Jesus.  And it is enough for you, as a disciple, to be like your Master, to speak as He has spoken.  That is something you can and should do.  But it is not your own work.  It is not by your own reason, wisdom, or strength.  It is the gift of God, and it is His Logic, His Righteousness and Peace, which are given to you by His speaking of His Word to you — that Word in which you rest — that Word by which you live in Christ Jesus.

It is by and with and in that Word of Christ that the Lord is ever near you and abides with you even to the end.  It is by His Word that He foils the tempter’s power.  It is by His Word that He guides you and guards you and keeps you, as your Staff and Stay.  It is by His Word that He is kind to you, gentle, and good.  It is by His Word that He heals you of all infirmities and all iniquity.

It is by His Word that He sets His Cross before your eyes, in order to bless you by the forgiveness of that Cross and to uphold you in the one true faith, in life, in death, even unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul.  So, too, He opens up your ears to hear, He opens up your heart and mind to believe and comprehend the hope and promise of the Gospel, and He opens up your lips and your mouth to declare His praise and to glorify His holy Name by the prayer and confession of His Word

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