He Is Called the Nazarene for You and Your Salvation

The example of St. Joseph is a beautiful confession of faith. And it is a good example, because the Lord our God is faithful in His mercy and compassion, in all His Words and promises; and because He has saved us from sin and death by His Son, the Child born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Truth be told, and all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, it is the Lord your God who has you and your situation and all things in His hands, in His care and keeping. Although you do have responsibilities to carry out, you are not in control of your life and your future. Not really. But neither are your enemies, no matter how big and strong and powerful they may ever seem to be.

No, the Lord your God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, He is the Author and Giver of Life, and He is the One who governs all of creation for the sake of His Church. He rules the universe for the benefit of His people. And He accomplishes His purposes in love, for the salvation of sinners, by His grace and mercy and forgiveness. Not only “in spite of” those who oppose His will, but even through them, contrary to their own designs — He fulfills His Word and promises.

So, too, He guides and guards His faithful people — including St. Joseph and you — by and with His Word: As written by His Prophets and Apostles in His Holy Scriptures, and by the preaching of His Law and His Gospel through His messengers, whom He sends to speak to you in His Name.

All that He has spoken, He has fulfilled in the Person of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, conceived and born of St. Mary. As He is the Word of God made Flesh, He is the accomplishment of God’s good and gracious will for you and for all people. And all that He is and does — as true God and true Man — is in accordance with the Word of the Lord. So do the Season of Advent and the Christmas story demonstrate and rehearse, year after year, that you should hear and believe in all that God has spoken through the Prophets and in the Person of His Son.

Again this morning, St. Matthew clearly indicates that the events in this story of the Holy Gospel are in fulfillment of the Old Testament Holy Scriptures. And that turns out to be the case even in ways that we would never have been able to guess or figure out for ourselves. In this case, for example, you’ll never be able to find any specific Old Testament Prophecy that says the Savior would be called a Nazarene. In the Hebrew language, though, the root word for both “Nazareth” and “Nazarene” is the word for “root.” And it was clearly foretold in many and various ways that the Christ would be the “Root” of Jesse — from the house and lineage of Jesse’s son, King David.

Sure enough, our dear Lord Jesus Christ is indeed great David’s greater Son, the Root or Nazar of Jesse, anointed by the Spirit of His God and Father to be the King of the Jews, to rule and shepherd His people Israel, the sheep of His pasture. And not for Israel and Judah only, but for all those who are the children of Abraham by faith in the Gospel. And yet, it is truly meet, right, and salutary that you will find this Lord and King, not in Jerusalem, but in the little burg of Nazareth.

He Himself, the Son of God and of St. Mary, is the Epitome of faith and trust in God His Father. To be sure, from all eternity He is of one substance with His Father, of one mind and one will, in and with the Holy Spirit. He is the one true God, now and forever. But in His own human flesh and blood, as the true Man from His conception, even in His Mother’s womb, He is fully devoted to God with His whole heart and mind, His body, soul, and spirit. His human will conforms entirely to the divine will, even to the point of His great anguish, suffering, and death upon the Cross.

In this, He has been consecrated and devoted to the Lord, much as the Nazarites were dedicated to the Lord by their vows and in their obedience. In His case, it is not only for a set period of time, but with His entire body and life, and with His very flesh and blood, even unto death.

It is finally on the Cross that He is called the Nazarene. For by His voluntary sacrifice, He fulfills the Scriptures of the Prophets, and He accomplishes the will of God for the salvation of the world.

His death and burial are on the horizon and anticipated from the beginning, as for example in Herod’s persecution, and in the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. But God the Father calls Him out of Egypt, just as He will draw Him out of the Red Sea waters of His Baptism. So does He finally call Him out of death and the grave. This, too, is “according to the Scriptures,” just as we confess in the Nicene Creed. And in this Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, God the Father calls you also out of death into Life, to be His beloved and well-pleasing son by adoption and by grace.

He calls you by the preaching of His Word to repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins, and to newness of life in Christ Jesus. He calls you, as He called St. Joseph, to live according to His Word within your vocation as a Christian, and within your own proper office and stations in life.

Although it is true that neither you, nor your life, nor your future are in your own hands — for they are in His hands — it is also the case that He accomplishes His purposes in you and through you, and He cares for others, including His Church on earth, by means of your faithful service.

Here, too, consider the example of St. Joseph, who quietly and quickly obeys the Word of the Lord in caring for his Bride, St. Mary, and for her Son, the Christ Child. Such a tremendous task it is, of such great importance! But God provides for the Child and His Mother, and He preserves their lives by the hand of His servant, St. Joseph. He does the same for your neighbor by your hand, as you work and serve according to His Word in the place where God has called you to be.

In a corresponding way, you know where and how the Lord is with you by giving attention to His Word and the ways and means that He has thereby designated. St. Matthew has made this clear and plain in his record of the Infancy Narratives, in the way that he refers to the Christ-Child always with “His Mother.” Over and over again, it is “the young Child and His Mother.” Not only in this Holy Gospel, but already in the Visit of the Magi that precedes it, as we shall hear on the Feast of the Epiphany tomorrow. Such is St. Matthew’s way of indicating and stressing, as Dr. Luther also stressed, that one should not look for God — nor will you ever be able to find the one true God — anywhere else than here in the flesh and blood of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God born of St. Mary.

Which is also to say that you should not look for God — nor will you ever be able to find Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God — except in His external Means of Grace, that is, in the preaching of His Holy Gospel, in His spoken Word of Holy Absolution, in the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism, and in the Holy Communion of His Body and Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and drink with your body in repentant faith and with thanksgiving. For these bodily Means of Grace are where and how the Lord Jesus Christ is present and available for you and for the many. These are the lap of His Holy Mother, wherein and whereby His flesh is given to you.

So, you find and receive the Lord Jesus in and with His Church, and as a servant of God you are called to love and support His Church on earth and His beloved children, His sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters in Christ: Much as St. Joseph was given to care for the Holy Family.

And as for St. Joseph, so also for you, the Word of the Lord directs you in the darkness of night, in the midst of great danger, and on paths of real difficulty. The world hates you, as it hates the One whose Name you bear. And the devil himself seeks your life more viciously than any King Herod. In the face of all that, you have only the Word and promises of God to go by, and there are times when, like St. Joseph, you are afraid of the foes who reign so fiercely in the world. The task set before you is too daunting, and yet, it is too important to fail.

Even so, get up and go! Hear and heed the Word that God the Father speaks to you by His own dear Son. Remember that you and your journey, the outcome of your duties, and your destination are all in the hands of Him who loves you. God has guarded the Child with His Mother, and so does He guard and keep you as a member of His Bride. He has been at work through St. Joseph, and now He is at work in you to will and to do His good pleasure for you and for your neighbors.

The guarantee is in the Body of Christ Jesus, who has been crucified for your transgressions and, yes, who has been raised for your justification. Out of Egypt God has called His Son, in order to bring about this great Salvation for you and for all. And by and with His Word in the waters of your Holy Baptism, He has called even you His beloved and well-pleasing son in Christ Jesus, and He has promised you eternal Life and Salvation in both your body and your soul.

With those precious Words and Promises of God ringing in your ears and going with you from this place, be encouraged by and emulate the good example of St. Joseph in heeding the Word that God the Lord has spoken to you by His Son. Not only in obeying His Commandments, as you are surely called to live the new life in Christ throughout this New Year of His grace. But, above all, in receiving and believing His precious Word of the Gospel, whereby He forgives you all your sins.

So does your God and Father call you out of Egypt and save you by His mighty deliverance, by the humility and meekness of the Cross and Resurrection of His Son. And so does He reveal and give to you that same Son, Jesus Christ, that you should live and abide with Him forever. This promise is for you and for your children, and for your children’s children and their children yet unborn.

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

Perfected in the Flesh of God the Word

A man does not hate his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes his body.  It’s not a matter of pride or personal affection, but of need and survival.  There may be all sorts of things that you really don’t like about your body, and yet you are constrained to care for yourself.  Your aches and pains are bothersome, but you give attention to them rather than ignoring them because they are your own.  Your flaws and weaknesses may frustrate you, and your blemishes and scars may embarrass you, but you deal with all of those things because you cannot separate your body from your self.

There is an immediacy to the demands of your flesh, which you simply can’t ignore.  So you do the best you can to protect and provide for yourself, even though you are not able to preserve your body and life beyond a limited point.  You’re driven to nurture and care for yourself for as long as you are able, all the while you are constantly confronted with the basic fact of your mortality. 

You do not hate your own flesh, but neither can you trust it.  You know that, sooner or later, it’s going to let you down, fall apart, or otherwise betray you.  You serve it every day, because you have to — it eagerly and greedily becomes your god — but your body cannot save you.  Instead, it makes you anxious, angry, and afraid.  Your own flesh discourages and disappoints you.

The whole of creation presents a similar challenge and temptation.  Though the rest of the world is not so personal as your own body of flesh and blood, there is still an immediacy to all the stuff that you can see and touch and taste and smell, surrounding you on all sides and pressing upon you.  It is so tangible, so present, and so solid, as though it were definitive and decisive, whether for good or ill.  Creation promises and threatens, seemingly without any recognition of the Creator.  Thus, faith and fear are misdirected from God to the world.  You either idolize or demonize it.

A case in point is the sun, which God created as a great light to govern the day.  It is surely an impressive and valuable gift, and, oh, how we miss it when it goes down at night or hides behind the clouds.  Of course, we also curse the sun when it beats down too hotly upon us and burns us.  But mostly we rely on it, so much so that we often express our hope for the future with reference to the sun coming up tomorrow.  That may be a confession of confidence in the Lord, who causes the sun to shine on both the evil and the good; or it may be yet another case of pagan idolatry.

You have probably heard, at some point or another, that the Feast of Christmas competed for a time with the pagan festival of sol invictus, the “unconquered sun,” which followed the winter solstice in late December.  The lengthening of the days appeared to be a triumph of creation over death.

Modern conceit is no better than ancient paganism in supposing that, with gadgets and electricity, we are now able to provide and control the light for ourselves, and to keep the darkness at bay.

Christians know and confess that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the true Light, and that by His coming into the world He enlightens every man.  He is the true Sun of Righteousness, who has risen upon us with healing in His wings.  He is neither a creature nor within anyone’s control; He is the divine Word by whom all things are made, and without whom there is nothing at all.  The sun, moon, and stars, the earth and the sea and all that is in them, all of these are His own creation, and He is the One who still preserves them and provides for them in His mercy and by His might.

The Light of this Son, Jesus, is the Life that is His by nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit, from all eternity to all eternity.  It is the holiness of His Life and His freedom as the one true God.  For He is neither constrained by anything nor in need of anything, but He is who He is: He was, He is, and He is to come.  So He remains, always the same, and all of Creation depends on Him.

But why, then, has He created the heavens and the earth?  Not out of boredom or need, but for the sake of holy Love!  Because the divine eternal Life of the Holy Triune God is Love, the Father for His Son, the Son for His Father, in the Holy Spirit, forever and always.  It is in this Love that He always remains, always the same.  And it is solely for the sake of this Love that He creates all things ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” in order to share Himself — His Life, His Light, and His Love — His Glory and His Holiness — with others outside of Himself, that is, with His own creatures.

That is the Grace of God, of which we so often speak, and for which we glorify His holy Name.

By this Grace, through His almighty and eternal Word, the Father created man in His Image; which is already to speak of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus — the Word-made-Flesh — from the very beginning, from the foundation of the world.  This is a great Mystery, indeed, that man is made in the form and the likeness of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Son.  The first Adam is created to be like the Second.  For the Lord Jesus Christ is the Image of God, the exact representation of His Being.

The Incarnation of our Lord is not an afterthought.  His conception and birth of St. Mary are not a “plan B,” they are the original creative purpose and gracious intention of the Holy Trinity, that God should become Man in this way, in order that man might receive and share the Life of God in Him.  Indeed, that is the very foundation upon which the entire Creation has been established.

From the beginning, it is this Word of God — the only-begotten of the Father — who fills Creation with divine Life and Light and Love.  Not only does He bring all things which have been made into existence, but He undergirds them and sustains them.  Neither man, nor the sun in the sky, nor any creature under heaven is self-existing or self-sufficient.  That is why the fall into sin is so deadly and destructive.  In turning away from the Word of God, man plunges everything into darkness.

Despite all that, we rejoice and give thanks on this holy day because divine Love has moved to rescue and redeem, to sanctify and save His fallen creation.  Not only does He restore man to the starting point, but He fulfills and perfects mankind, as He intended, in His Image and Likeness, in holiness and righteousness.  That is what God the Word begins to do in His becoming Flesh.

By His conception in the womb of St. Mary, and by His holy Nativity, He makes Himself one with His Creation.  He enters into it, and by doing so He becomes the definitive part of it.

He comes to His own, to the work of His own hands, and although He is neither comprehended nor received by those whom He has come to save, He accomplishes and brings about a New Creation in Himself.  He does not scrap it all and start over, but He restores all of Creation by the forgiveness of man’s sin, by the sacrificing of His own Flesh and the shedding of His own Blood.

In doing so, in laying down His body and life in this way, He does not hate His own Flesh, but in Love He gives Himself for you, so that you might become a member of His Body and His Bride.

Although this may seem self-defeating and tragic, namely, that the Son of God should suffer and die for sinners, it is precisely in this way that He brings about the fulfillment and perfection of His Creation.  It’s not as though sin and death were ever by the Lord’s design or doing, but they are utterly unable to thwart His purposes; they rather become the occasion for His great Salvation.

As God in the Flesh, He saves you from sin and death, and He gives you Life and Light and Love.  This, too, is a creatio ex nihilo, a “creation out of nothing,” for there was nothing and no one else  who could have done this thing.  It is God Himself, and He alone, who saves you.  But being also the true and perfect Man, He does so in perfect faith, in perfect love for His own God and Father, and in holy love for you and for all people.  Grace and truth are thus realized in Jesus Christ.  The faith and love required by the Law are accomplished and established in Him, in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood.  And so the “government” of the whole world is upon His shoulders.  The “economy” of the whole Creation rests on Him, and resides in Him, and shall not be shaken.

It is for this purpose that He became Flesh and was made Man, so that, by His Cross — and in His Resurrection from the dead — you who were dead in your trespasses and sin should be given the New Birth of the children of God by the washing of water with His Word and Holy Spirit.  Your Baptism into Christ Jesus is the New Creation by which you have become the man or the woman that God intended you to be, a beloved son or daughter after His own heart, in whom He delights.

No longer do you live and die in the darkness, because the Light of Christ has risen upon you and shines in your heart through His Gospel.  No longer are you driven by desperation to take care of yourself at the expense of others, since the Life of Christ now fills you and sustains you through His Word and Spirit.  No longer are you cast off and distant from God, because He has drawn near to you in Love, and you now live and abide in Him by faith in the Word of Christ, your Savior. 

The same living Word of God is with you, because God the Father speaks to you by His Son in the preaching of the Gospel.  And He is no empty or futile word.  He is not white noise or meaningless chatter.  No, the very One who speaks and is spoken to you is the creative and life-giving Word by whom all things are made.  By Him you are named with the excellent Name of God Himself, and sanctified by His Holy Spirit, and glorified with the radiance of His own divine Glory.

By the preaching of this Word, the Lord God Almighty bares His holy arm — the arm of Christ the Crucified He bares — to all the nations of the world, even to the ends of the earth.  And not only does He make known His Salvation, but His Gospel actually saves you and grants you His peace, because it does exactly what it says, which is to forgive you by the Cross of Christ Jesus.

That same Word of the Gospel becomes Flesh for you in this Sacrament.  The One who has become like you, now feeds you with Himself, so that you might become like Him.  The One who shed His Blood for you, now pours out His Blood for you to drink from His Chalice with the mouth of your own body of flesh, that you should thus be cleansed and refreshed with the Life and Love of God.

See, then, how solid, how present, how immediate and tangible this Word is for you.  See here how the true Sun of Righteousness now shines upon you.  See here the perfection of Creation in His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you.  And know that in this eating and drinking you are granted to become flesh of His Flesh and blood of His Blood; that you are thereby wed to Him as a member of His holy Bride; and that all of you are knit together as one holy Body of Christ.

This true and perfect Man surely does not hate you or any of the members of His Body.  He loves you dearly, and He nourishes and cherishes you with all that He is and has.  Not by any constraint, and not with any selfish desperation, but in the perfect freedom of His holiness and divine grace.

Nowhere is the heart of God more open to you than here at His Altar in His Body and Blood.

The Eucharist is the New Song that you sing to the Lord, the Good News that you shout joyfully to all the world; because the incarnate God, the Word-made-Flesh, here opens your mouth, your lips, and your tongue, to feed you in body and soul with Himself to the glory of His holy Name.

All the holy angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven worship Him who is your Savior, and all of Creation rejoices in His mighty works and great Salvation.  And of His fulness you receive, His grace upon grace everlasting, in His Word and in His Flesh which are for you.

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

God’s Covenant in Flesh and Blood

You know that it was not Abraham who chose God.  It was not Abraham who first called upon God, but rather God who called upon Abraham.  When he was living in a foreign land with his family, and though his family was worshiping idols, the Lord our God called Abraham to Himself.  He called him by name, and He gave him promises.  He called him to go to a place that Abraham did not yet know — yet, he heard and believed that Word of the Lord.  By the grace of God, he was a man of faith, indeed, the father of all who believe and trust in the Name of the Lord.

The promises that God gave to Abraham by His grace and mercy, for peace and life, were not only for Abraham, nor only for his own immediate children, nor only for his own descendants after the flesh.  Rather, God called Abraham, and blessed Abraham, and gave Abraham promises, and sealed those promises with a Covenant, also for your sake, and for all the nations of the earth; that all might call upon the Name of the Lord, who has mercy on all who call upon Him.

When God gave Abraham the Covenant of Circumcision, it was to seal with certainty the promise that God had given, the promise that He would fulfill in the Flesh and Blood of His own Son, born from the family of Abraham in the fullness of time.

What made Abraham faithful and the father of all who believe was the faith in his heart, which was by the Word and Spirit of God.  But even aside from Abraham’s faith, there would be given, from his own flesh, his own Seed, the Savior, who is Christ Jesus.

And so this Covenant of God with Abraham is given in his very flesh.  And it is utterly absurd.

God does such very strange things.  That Abraham and his sons, and all of his many sons who would come after him, should have a portion of the skin from their genitals cut off; and this would be God’s Covenant with Abraham and his family!  That is very strange.  It is painful.  It causes embarrassment and shame.  It causes blood.  And yet, this is God’s Covenant, sealed in flesh and blood, and attached to Abraham’s body, as surely as God’s Word should be held within his heart.

Among Abraham’s descendants there would be those who walked in the faith of their father, and those who did not.  But even Abraham himself was not always in all things faithful.  Nor Judah.  Nor David.  Those men of God lived by faith, by the grace of God, but it was God who always remained faithful to them and to His Covenant with them.

So from Abraham’s family there would come the One who fulfilled this Covenant of Circumcision, this Covenant of God’s gracious blessing, His promise that from Abraham would come a Blessing for the nations.  It was attached to the flesh of this family, until it should appear in the Flesh of God Himself, conceived and born of Mary, and on this Eighth Day circumcised according to the Law.

The Law itself was God’s Covenant with the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the sons of Israel.  For having brought them out of Egypt by His powerful arm and with His outstretched hand, He established His Covenant with them, again with flesh and blood, that is, the blood of bulls and oxen, there at Mt. Sinai.  There God appeared to them, and He sealed His Covenant with them with that blood which was sacrificed.  Not their own blood in this case, for they were spared, but blood nonetheless.  It is by blood that God forgives sins, and with blood that He gives life and salvation.

Thus, with blood He sealed His Covenant with Israel at Sinai, and He gave them His holy and righteous Law to set them apart.  As Abraham was set apart, both in his heart and in his body, so was Israel set apart to live by faith and by love.  Their lives and relationships would testify to the presence of God among them.  For they would be distinct from all the nations of the world.  They would worship the Lord in fear, love, and trust.  They would hear and heed His Word and call upon His Name.  They would be holy and perfect, as the Lord their God is holy and perfect.

So it was that He gave them His Law to discipline their flesh, to show them the way they should live and walk before Him.  But in this way, it also exposed and made clear their sins.  And it never would be fulfilled in the lives of the people, but only in the Life of Christ, who is God in the Flesh, in whom the Law is most surely written and fulfilled and completed.  Hence, even in showing them their sins, the Law also described that One who would be their Savior, the One who lives in perfect faith toward God and in perfect love toward both God and man: the Son of God, Christ Jesus.

It is to Christ that the Law has always pointed, and it still does.  True, the Ten Commandments per se were given to Israel, as part of God’s Covenant with those ancient people.  But those same Ten Commandments summarize the good and gracious Will of God, what is His good and acceptable Will, also for you.  In showing you how to live, His Commandments guide you in the way of faith and love.  They point you to your neighbor, that you should serve your neighbor as the Lord your God serves you.  And His Ten Commandments are also your tutor, pointing you to Christ Jesus.  To be sure, you are not under the Law in the way that ancient Israel was, for Christ has come, and you live under grace by faith in Him; but the Law does tutor your flesh in this poor life of labor.

A tutor in the ancient world was a trusted household slave who would take the children of the family, the sons of the father, and lead them to and from school, and help them with their lessons, and make sure they learned what they needed to know in order to live, in order to receive and use their father’s inheritance rightly.  So the Law serves this purpose for you.  It is your tutor.  It is not your salvation, but it points to the One who is your Savior.  It trains you in the way that you are to go in order to inherit the Treasures of your Father in heaven by the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

You are no doubt familiar with the way that we Lutherans have confessed the Ten Commandments, that they function as a mirror, as a curb, and also as a rule or guide for those who are reconciled to God in Christ, for those who are redeemed and righteous by faith.  The Ten Commandments are a tutor in this way.  They show you how to live.  And I suppose that is fairly easy to understand when it comes to loving and serving your neighbor.  You are not to hurt or harm your neighbor in his body, his possessions, his family, his income or reputation.  Rather, by your words and by your actions, you are to help your neighbor in all of these aspects of life.  Help him to protect his body.  Help him to keep his stuff, his wife and children.  Help to defend his name among his neighbors.

But the first three Commandments also serve as your tutor.  And this, not for your neighbor’s benefit, nor for God’s protection, as though you were going to hurt or harm Him.  No, the first three Commandments rule and guide and tutor you for your benefit, for your protection.  They direct you and even require you to do those things which are for your own good before the Lord.

Those first three Commandments direct you to look to the Lord your God; and in that command there is the certainty that He desires to hear you.  They command you to hear His Word, because it is by His Word that He gives you grace and every blessing.  It is by His Word that He names you with His own Name.  And because He has named you with His own Name, the way in which you speak and the way in which you live are a confession of who your Father is, of who your God is.

So the first three Commandments command you — with all your heart, with all your mind, with your body and your voice — to fear, love, and trust in the one true God above all things.  Not because He needs you, but you need Him.  He calls you to Himself in love, because He is your Life and your Salvation.  It is by faith that you receive all of His gifts.  It is in prayer that you call upon Him.  And it is with His Word that He serves you and answers all your prayers and all your needs.

His Word, ultimately — from before the foundation of the world, and even into eternity — the Word of the Lord is the Son of God, your Savior, Jesus Christ, whom the Father has given in the flesh and blood of Abraham.  He is the Seed of Abraham, the promised One in whom the nations of the world are blessed; in whom you also are blessed through the forgiveness of all your sins.

In Christ Jesus the Covenant that God established with Abraham has been satisfied and fulfilled.  And not in some abstract, general sort of way, but this Son of God, Christ Jesus, born of Mary, actually receives in His own flesh, in His own genitals, the Covenant of Circumcision.  He bleeds.  He hurts.  He suffers, already as an Infant, in keeping with the Law of God, which neither Abraham nor any of His other sons or daughters, nor you, could have kept or fulfilled.  But Jesus does it all.

Already as an Infant, and into His childhood, and into His manhood — throughout His Life, even unto death, and in His Resurrection from the dead — He has kept the whole entire Law of God.  Every jot.  Every tittle.  Every Commandment, He has kept.  And all that you have broken, He has repaired and rectified in His own Body, by His innocent suffering and death upon the Cross, and in His glorious Resurrection.  He has atoned for all of your sins by the shedding of His Blood.

In perfect faith and love He has lived.  In perfect faith and love He has died.  And so it is that, by His Cross and in His Resurrection, He has redeemed you from sin, death, the devil, and hell, and He has reconciled you to the Lord your God in His own Body, in His own Flesh and Blood.

This incarnate Son of God, Christ Jesus, is the Lamb.  He is the One whom God the Father has provided for Himself in the place of Abraham’s beloved Isaac.  He is the Lamb who is given in place of all the sons of Israel, while God humbles Pharaoh under His thumb.  He is the Lamb who is given for the sins of the world.  He bleeds and dies that you might live.  And He feeds you with Himself, with the Passover Feast of His own holy Body and precious Blood, so that you may live.

Not only that, but everything that He has done and accomplished, for you and for all people, has also been given to you by His Word and with His Name in the Sacrament of your Holy Baptism.

St. Paul calls Holy Baptism the Circumcision made without hands.  It is the Circumcision of your heart, mind, and spirit.  It is the Circumcision worked by the Word and Spirit of the Lord, who cleanses you, who purifies you through the forgiveness of your sins by the blood of Jesus Christ.

In the dying and rising of Holy Baptism, it is not only that the Law disciplines you by the way of the Cross, but all the more so does the Gospel forgive you by the Cross and in the Resurrection of the Lord.  It does so by laying Christ Jesus on your heart with the gift and promise of His grace; and not only on your heart, but on your flesh.  For the Word of Baptism is combined and included with the water of Baptism that washes over your flesh and cleanses you inside and out.  It cleanses your conscience before God, and it cleanses your flesh for the Resurrection unto everlasting Life.

In Holy Baptism, the Name of God, which Jesus has received and bears forever in His own Body of human flesh and blood, has been given to you in your flesh.  It has been written by His Cross and with His Blood upon your forehead and your heart, upon your body, soul, and spirit.  So, then, in the Resurrection of your body you shall be glorious in Christ, and you shall see Him as He is.

You are named by God.  And with His Name God has given you Himself.  And with Himself He has given you His Life.  You belong to Him.  You are a child of Abraham by faith in this God.  Even better, you are a child of God in Christ Jesus.  You are an heir of the Father.  You are a son most beloved.  Everything He has belongs to you.  With His Name He has given you everything.

With His Name, through the forgiveness of all your sins, He has cleansed and purified your heart.  He has also cleansed and purified your lips and your life in the flesh, so that you are able by His grace to sing, to pray, and to keep the Feast at all times and in all places, to the glory of His Name, because you belong to Him.  You are in Christ Jesus.  That is your identity.  That is your sonship, be you boy or girl.  That is your salvation of body and soul, here in time and hereafter in eternity.

All thanks and praise be unto God through this Savior, Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled God’s holy Law and given you Himself in peace and love, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

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

Fix Your Eyes on the Boy Jesus

How ordinary the childhood of Jesus must have been, although in many ways it’s hard to imagine.  He was a real Boy, and yet He was also the sinless Son of God, and none of us know any other little boys like that!  Even so, He had His friends and relatives and peers.  No doubt He played with toys, perhaps little wooden carts and creatures that His father Joseph might have crafted for Him.  He would have run and jumped and climbed and thrown things, because that is what boys do.  As the one true God in the Flesh, He lived the life of true Man from infancy to boyhood to adulthood.

He got dirty in the course of His days, just like you and your children.  He had to bathe His Body and wash His hands before meals.  He ate and drank.  As a little Guy He would have taken naps, and even as an older Boy He had to sleep at night.  He probably had a bedtime.  And during the day He did His chores, He studied His lessons.  He was taught things, and He learned.  He grew.

It’s not unusual to think of Jesus’ “birthday,” even as we celebrate His Holy Nativity every year.  But just think, His birthdays then meant that He was getting older, just like you.  He grew out of infancy.  He was weaned from nursing at His Mother’s breast to eating big boy food at the table.  At some point He was potty-trained.  So the very Son of God grew up, like any other ordinary boy.

He was a little Child in the midst of His people, experiencing the bump and grind and cut and thrust of daily life with all of its ups and downs and ins and outs.

Now, bear in mind that rearing the sinless Son of God was not easy.  Dr. Luther calls it a burden and a cross.  There were frustrations and anxieties, restless nights, and at least one frantic search.  And dear fellow parents, consider that, at least in the case of the little Lord Jesus, those worries, frustrations, and concerns were not due to any sins of the Child but to the sins and weaknesses of His earthly parents.  And so also with your children.  Though they are not sinless, neither are you.

So fix your eyes on this Boy Jesus, for He is your childhood’s pattern, the very Image and Likeness of God in which you have been created.  He actually lives the divine Life in His own human Flesh, the true human life as Man was created to live, as you are called to live in your own place.

Your duty as a child is to honor your father and mother through all the stages of life.  The keeping of the Fourth Commandment changes when a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, when a woman is given in marriage to her husband.  But the Commandment still remains.  Whatever your age, you are to honor your father and mother.  And when they are old and infirm, or when they have forgotten most things, you are then to care for them as they once cared for you.

And when your own parents have departed from this life on earth, then you have the privilege and the opportunity to care for other elderly and infirm neighbors, especially within the Body of Christ.

Your duty as a parent, if you are a parent, is to care for and catechize your children in the fear, love, and trust of God, in His Word and faith.  So St. Joseph did for his family as the Prophet Samuel’s father did for his family.  He took them to church.  He brought his wife, St. Mary, and the Boy Jesus to hear the Word of God and to celebrate the Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem.

Fathers and mothers are to care for their children in all kinds of ways, to feed and clothe them, to shelter and protect them, to teach them and train them.  And along with all of these good things, above all they are to catechize them in the Word of God, to teach them by word and example how to pray and confess His Word, and faithfully to hear and receive His good Gifts of the Gospel.

Likewise, whether you have children or not, your first and foremost duty as a Christian, as a child of God, yourself, is to listen to the preaching of His Word, to gladly hear and learn it.  For faith not only comes by the hearing of the Word of Christ, but so is it sustained and nourished by His Word.

Then, also, as a child of God, you are called to live a holy life according to His Word.  To worship Him in faith and love.  To fear, love, and trust in Him above everything else, no matter how much or how little you have in this world.  To confess what the Father has spoken to you by His Son.  And to call upon His Holy Name at all times and in all places, to pray, praise, and give thanks for all that He has said and done.  To go up to His Feast each week, and to live in the joy and peace of that Feast wherever the Lord has stationed you on earth; to love and serve your neighbor in that place, as surely as you care for your own body and life; and to forgive those who sin against you.

In all of this, fix your eyes on the Boy Jesus, and do not lose sight of Him in any of your activities.  For one thing, you ought to follow His example.  He is certainly far more than an example, but He is an example, as St. Peter writes in his First Epistle.  So, follow His example.  Not so much “What Would Jesus Do?” (in all sorts of situations He never encountered), but “What Did Jesus Do?”

For one thing, as you have heard this morning, He went to church.  He listened attentively to the Holy Scriptures.  He asked His pastors and teachers questions, and He listened to their answers, engaging them in conversation and discussion as a way of learning to know the Word of God.

He also honored His father and mother.  He submitted to their parental authority, even though they were sinful and He was not, because He followed and obeyed the Fourth Commandment.

Follow His example in these ways, and fix your eyes on Him — all the more so because He is far more than just an example.  Indeed, He is your dear Savior, in whom alone you have Life with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It is in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, that you know the Mysteries of God, His good and gracious Will for you.  It is in Him that God is your dear Father, and you are His dear child.  And it is through Him that you receive the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving Breath of God, the Pledge of your inheritance as a son of God in Christ Jesus.  Baptized in His Name, anointed with His Spirit, adopted by His God and Father, as Laura has been this morning, you belong to the Lord your God; you are His own, and He is with you, and in you, and for you.

It is in Christ Jesus that you live before God in the flesh, even now in your pilgrimage on earth, holy and blameless, righteous and pure in His sight.  You live a sinless life — shocking as that may sound — despite the fact that you daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment — because you live in Christ Jesus by faith in His Gospel, and His Righteousness avails for you.  Your sins are covered by His holy and precious Blood.  The Lord your God is at peace with you.

Remember that, and cling to that, when you find yourself in dire straits and desperate trouble — when you have done wrong, and when others have wronged you — when everything is crashing and burning around you.  Even then, your life is (and remains) safely hidden with Christ in God.

Christ Jesus is the Ark of the New Covenant.  His own Body of flesh and blood, conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified and risen from the dead, is the true and eternal Temple of God, wherein the Grace and Glory and Name of God abide with you and all His people here on earth.  And He is both your Priest and your King, the true Son of David, the true King of Peace.  He is the Whole Burnt Offering and the Peace Offering, the Sacrifice for your Atonement and your reconciliation with God and with each other.  For He is the true Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for you.

This dear Lord Jesus Christ gives you His own divine, eternal Life in both your body and your soul.  And as such, He gives meaning and purpose to your body and life here on earth, even now.

Fix your eyes on Him, therefore, and stay with Him.  Keep Him with you in all of your going out and coming in.  Abide with Him, as He abides with you, within the Temple of His Church on earth.

Too easily you depart from the Feast and return to your chores and regular routines, leaving Christ Jesus behind you — and not even realizing that you’ve done so!  He hasn’t left you, but you have left Him in the preoccupation of all your worries and concerns, projects and ambitions, as you turn your attention and your energies away from Him and His Word to other things.  You go along with the crowd, and how quickly a day — a week, a month, a year — goes by without a thought of Him.

Eventually you realize that something is terribly wrong.  Your life may be full and busy, hectic and overwhelming, and yet there is this deep lack, this gaping hole, this hollow emptiness.  And there is the distress and anxiety of duties you have neglected — promises and obligations you have not kept or fulfilled — friends and neighbors you have forgotten and failed to help — and your own family, missing you because you’re always gone even when you’re there, and you missing them.

But what’s really missing at the core of all of your troubles is Christ Jesus.  So, where do you go looking for Him?  Typically, according to your sinful nature and the wisdom of the world, you go looking for Him, His Life and Salvation, in all the wrong ways and in all the wrong places — in the ways of the world and your fallen flesh, in that which is already friendly and familiar to you.

With misguided zeal, you make a false god out of your family and friends and out of your own frantic efforts at life, all the while dying inside and becoming more and more anxious and afraid.

For all of that, it is the Lord who seeks you out and finds you and calls you back to Himself by His Word and Holy Spirit, by the preaching of repentance unto faith in His forgiveness of your sins.  He calls you back to the significance of your Holy Baptism, to the Temple of His Holy Church.

It is in His House and in His Word that the Lord Jesus is actively present, with you and for you.  And it’s not for you to fetch Him back to yourself, but He brings you home to His God and Father.

Remember that He has lived His divine Life in your flesh, and that He has also lived your human life in His own Flesh and Blood.  The almighty and eternal Son of God, from His conception in His blessed Mother’s womb, grew and increased through all the stages of human development.

Not only did His Body grow, but He got smarter and wiser.  He listened carefully, and He learned things.  In fact, He grew up and matured in all things, in favor with God and man, in holy faith and holy love.  He heard and availed Himself of the Word of God! — He who is the very Word of God in Person and in the Flesh.  He went up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to the Feast.  And there, in the fullness of time, when His Hour had come, by His sacrificial death upon the Cross He became the Temple of God and the Passover Feast for you and for all the people of all times and places.

Through death into life, by His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension, He has entered the Father’s House, that is, the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens.  Indeed, He is your Anchor behind the Veil.  As your merciful and great High Priest, He has entered the Holy of Holies on your behalf, and there He is your Anchor; so that, no matter how you’re tossed about by winds and waves and all the storms of this life, you’re anchored to Christ Jesus in the presence of God.

The Lord Jesus Christ has entered the Holy of Holies; and that is now your “childhood pattern,” the Way in which you live and walk with Him by His grace through faith in His Word.

You know the Way, because He is the Way.  And you know where and how to find Him, because He calls you by His Word and Holy Spirit; He calls you to Himself, and He reveals and gives Himself to you — here within His House — by and with and in His Liturgy of the Gospel.

Yet, even so, He  knows that you are sinful, that your mortal flesh grows weak and weary, and that you will lose sight of Him and lose yourself in all the cares and occupations of this life.  Therefore, in His great love for you — which is the true wisdom, grace, and glory of God — He tabernacles with you on the way.  For you, as for Laura, His Baptism remains and avails for you, wherever in the world you may be.  And His Flesh and Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink here at His Altar in His House, accompany you within your own body of flesh and blood.

In all your going out and coming in, from the day of your Baptism in His Name, yes, from before the foundation of the world, from this time forth, even forevermore, He goes with you all the way — unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Him.

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

To Sing of Christ in Peace and Joy

Now you are met, as Simeon & Anna were met, with the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ.

He is more than He appears, but by the Light of the Gospel He reveals Himself to you, so that, not only with your eyes, but into your arms, into your heart and soul, and with your mind and mouth, you receive Him, His Life, and His Salvation.

He is God’s Answer to your prayers.  He is the true Satisfaction of your deepest longing.  He is the Reason and Purpose for which you have been created.  And now He is here, with you and for you.

He is begotten of God the Father from all eternity, but now in the fulness of time He has been conceived and born of the Woman, St. Mary, in order to redeem you with His own Flesh & Blood.

That is why He comes to His Temple, and why He will enter the Most Holy Place once for all by His Self-Sacrifice upon the Cross, in His bodily Resurrection from the dead, and in His Ascension to the Right Hand of His God and Father.  He does all of this in fulfillment of the Law, in order to save you from sin and death, to justify you with His own perfect Righteousness, to sanctify you with His Spirit, and to glorify you with His own divine Glory as the Son of God.  These are things that only God the Lord can do, and by His grace He does them all for you.

He first of all becomes like you.  He takes human flesh and blood from His Mother Mary, in order to become true Man; and He opens her womb by His holy Nativity, in order to sanctify all the sons and daughters of man.  From conception and birth unto His death upon the Cross, His whole Body and Life are devoted to His God and Father, to do His will.  From infancy He is presented to the Lord, to grow up before Him — from true boyhood to true manhood — increasing in wisdom and stature, and learning to live (as you must learn to live) by grace through faith in the Word of God.

It is a great Mystery, indeed, that God should first of all become what He was not — without ceasing to be what He always was, and is, and ever shall be — and that He should then also grow in grace and truth, in faith and love, in His own human Flesh and Blood.  But so He does.  For in this way He keeps, fulfills, and satisfies His own divine Law as the true Man for all of mankind.

The incarnate Son lives by faith, entrusting Himself to His God and Father.  And in love for His Father, He lives in love for you and all His neighbors.  As a Child He honors His earthly parents and submits to their authority.  He is chaste and pure in human celibacy; and in faithfulness to His Bride, the Church, He cherishes her and cares for all her children in gentleness and peace.  He does not hurt or harm, but helps all people without prejudice, and He gives life in both body and soul.  He does not rob or steal, but freely bestows His generous good gifts on both the evil and the good.

He foregoes His wealth and makes Himself poor, in order to make you rich.  He turns the cheek to those who strike Him.  He forgives the sins of those who trespass against Him.  He loves His enemies, and He prays for those who kill Him.  So does He pray and plead for you with His own Blood and Righteousness, as your merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God.

So does He perform everything according to the Law of the Lord, even to the point of sacrificial death; for His flawless obedience of perfect faith and perfect love take Him to the Cross, which is already there on the horizon in His Presentation, whereby Mary and Joseph offer Him up to the Lord.  He is not redeemed or released from service, but He is consecrated for sacrifice.  For His Mother’s purification, “a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons” are paid, that is, the offering of the poor, because the Holy Family couldn’t afford the usual lamb.  But in this case, the Firstborn Male who has opened her womb is the Lamb who is given to God.  For He is the Passover.  His Blood is the Ransom.  His Flesh is the Meat.  His Cross and Passion are the Exodus from Egypt.

Therefore, if you would be released from the bondage of sin and death — if you would be set free from the house of slavery — receive this holy Child Jesus into your arms and bless God by faith in Him.  For He is your Life and your Salvation.  He is your true Light in the darkness, your sure and certain Hope when everything seems lost and hopeless, and your sweet Comfort in all sorrow and temptation.  He is your great Redeemer, who brings you out from under Pharaoh’s bitter yoke, through the hard wilderness in safety, and finally into the Promised Land of Canaan.

This Child who is born for you, this Son who is given for you, He is your Peace and your Sabbath Rest.  For He is the Christ of God who atones for all your many sins.  He is the Mighty Lord who conquers death by His Sacrifice.  He is the Seed of the Woman who crushes the accuser under His wounded heal.  And He is the Prince of Peace who reconciles you to God, His Father, and brings you into His presence, blameless before Him in body, soul, and spirit, both now and forever.

So it is that everything depends upon this Lord Jesus.  Yes, even upon this little Lord Jesus, who at six weeks of age is presented in the Temple.  And nothing else matters at all apart from Him.

As you are met with Him, so are you confronted by His Cross, and that is the Sign that first of all opposes you, the Sword that pierces your heart and your soul, dividing between your bones and your marrow.  It puts you to the test by forcing you to choose between the Christ and the Pharaoh, between the Exodus and Egypt, between God and the devil.  There really is no middle ground, no compromise or life “in-between” — other than the wilderness, which teaches you repentance by the Cross — by confronting you again and again, day after day, with the choice of life or death.

In theory, it should be easy, right?  Your life is in Christ Jesus — so, there you go!  But in fact, it is impossibly hard, because your heart is desperately sinful and you are deathly afraid of entrusting yourself entirely to God in Christ.  You neither understand nor trust the paradox of His Cross, that you must die to yourself in order to live with God; that you must fall in order to rise with Christ; that you must be humbled in genuine repentance in order to be exalted in faith and righteousness.

Between you and the Lord in the Holy of Holies there stands the Sign of the Cross, which threatens to undo you — and it does.  It is a swift and terrible Sword, which not only divides your heart and soul within you, but it also divides and redefines your family and all of your relationships.  The Cross of Christ Jesus calls you to belong entirely to Him, the Lord your God; and as such, you and your life are not your own but His — and all of your feelings, all of your friendships, and your whole family are reconfigured by His Cross.  That is how deeply this Sign of Christ divides you.

If this work of repentance were yours to perform and accomplish — for that is what this falling and rising is, this revealing of the heart, this division of soul and spirit — it is repentance — if this were your work, you would be lost.  You would have no peace or joy forever and ever.  For you cannot break the yoke of bondage that lies heavy upon you.  You cannot redeem yourself from the tyranny of sin and death.  You cannot preserve your life, nor can you save your mortal flesh.

But the work of repentance is the work of Jesus Christ.  It is for this work that He is appointed by His Father, for the falling and rising of many in Israel.  It is for this Cross that He is consecrated, in order to sanctify forever the children born of women by the offering of Himself once for all.  It is for this death of His that He is presented to the Lord, in order to bring you to God in Himself.

So He comes to you now, and He calls you to Himself, and He crucifies the man or woman, the boy or girl that you have been, in order to make you alive in His own Body of flesh and blood, to fill you with His Holy Spirit, and to grant you perfect Peace in the presence of His God and Father.

You see, His Redemption of Jerusalem and His Consolation of Israel are not only what He has done by His Cross and Resurrection, “once upon a time,” but this great Salvation is what He does for you and gives to you, even now, here within the Temple of His Church on earth.

It is for Redemption and Consolation that the Holy Spirit calls and gathers you here by the Gospel.  For this is where true Life and Salvation are found, for you, in the Flesh and Blood of Jesus.  Here is where the Glory of God fills the Temple in the Means of Grace, in His preaching of forgiveness and in His holy Sacraments, which are His Pillar of Cloud by day and His Pillar of Fire by night.

What is more, these Sacred Things are the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ.  In Him you behold the Face of God; and yet, you do not die but live.  For His great Glory is the Gospel of Salvation, which shines upon you here, that you may see and believe.

As the Holy Spirit brings you to this sacred place by the Word of the Gospel, so are you anointed, filled, and sanctified by the same Holy Spirit through the preaching of that precious and Life-giving Word.  Thus are you able to live by faith, to bless the Lord your God, to serve Him day and night in His Temple, and to love and serve your neighbor in the peace and joy of Jesus Christ.

As scary as the Cross of Christ is, it is now also your Comfort and your Peace.  For by His Cross you have already died with Him; and so by His Cross your life is safely hidden with God in Him.

It is hidden, yes.  But Christ is your Anchor behind the Veil, in whom you have entered into the Holy of Holies.  Even here and now at His Altar, as you eat His Body and drink His Blood, you rest in the Bosom of His Father, and you thus abide within the Inner Sanctum of the one true God.

Now you are released from the fear of death, and you are set free to sing unto the Lord, to sing the New Song of God and of the Lamb.  For He has done marvelous things for you and for all people, and here He feeds you with such Good Things which shall never be taken away.  He remembers His mercy and His faithfulness to you and His whole Church in heaven and on earth.  Everything is safe and secure in Christ Jesus, your Savior, so that your whole life is one of thanksgiving.

Now, I know that your heart and spirit are not always thankful.  For that I must say to you, Repent.  Do not give yourself over to discontent or grumbling.  But so am I also given to say that Christ is your Sacrifice of Thanksgiving, as He is also your High Priest and your constant Prayer of Faith.  He ever lives to make intercession for you, and His Spirit also helps you in your weakness.  For Christ is your Offering to the Father, your acceptable Sacrifice, and your sweet-smelling Incense.  Consequently, there is nothing lacking, nothing amiss, and no accusation that stands against you.  Instead, there is only thanksgiving for your Life and your Salvation in your Lord Jesus Christ.

Sing, therefore, beloved of the Lord!  Sing as the Scriptures teach you to do.  It is not pointless or futile, but meet, right, and salutary.  It is good for you, and it is good for your brothers and sisters in Christ.  For the Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs of His Word fill you and the household and family of God with His Life-giving Holy Spirit.  They catechize you in the true faith, and they strengthen you in faith and love.  And these Songs also bear the fruits of thanksgiving to God.

To sing of Christ is both a principle part and a paradigm or pattern of the entire Christian life.  It is a godly work of faith and love, which both a little child and an old man or woman can do by the grace of God, by His Word and Holy Spirit.  And to sing of Christ chases away the devil, glorifies the Holy Trinity, and allows the joy and gladness of heaven to echo throughout all of Creation.

How shall a song do all of this?  And how shall your mortal voice accomplish such great things?

It is because the almighty and eternal Son of God has Himself become Flesh and Blood like you.  He has a human voice like yours, with which He speaks and sings the Word of His Father.  And in His Body, crucified and risen from the dead, all of Creation has been redeemed and sanctified for God — including you, your lips and tongue, your mouth, and your voice.  And in the Temple of the Lord all cry out and sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and Peace to His people on earth!”

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

Communion with God in the Word-Made-Flesh

Beloved of the Lord, Christ Jesus is your Savior, not only by what He does for you, but because of Who He Is, the Son of God in the Flesh.  For salvation involves not only being rescued from danger, death, and damnation through the forgiveness of your sins, but also being brought into the safety and security of eternal Life and Light in the presence of the Holy Triune God.  Indeed, such Life and Light do not merely come from God; they are of God Himself and in Him alone forever.

It was for the sake of His own divine and holy Love that God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, created all things, in order to share His Life and Love with others outside of Himself, that is, with His own creatures, by His grace alone.  In creating all things out of nothing by His Word, God the Lord was giving Himself, His Life and His Light, to those whom He created.  In particular, it was in Love that He shared Himself, and nothing less than Himself, with those whom He created in His own Image and Likeness — of which Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, is the Archetype.

To be created in the Image of God is ever and always to share the Image of the Word-made-Flesh, St. Mary’s Son, who is both God and Man.  For it was always God’s intention that He should fill His Creation with His own divine Life, that is, with Himself, by becoming part of His Creation.

Hence the Lord’s friendship and communion with Adam & Eve, the Man and the Woman, the King and the Queen of His Creation, in the Garden prior to the Fall into sin.  And from the beginning, such communion or fellowship with God has resided in the Person of His Word, the beloved Son, who would in the fullness of time become Flesh and tabernacle with us as the Son of St. Mary.  It is for His sake that the Father created you and all creatures, and it is for His sake that He saves you.

Now, to be sure, the Fall into sin broke the harmonious relationship between God and man, and it made fellowship with God impossible for the children of men until there should be atonement for sin and reconciliation.  Thus, for example, from your conception and birth you were at enmity with God and separated from Him and His Life by your sin.  And that is not to speak primarily of all the naughty things that you have done, nor of all the good that you have failed to do, but chiefly of your inability to fear, love, and trust in God, and your lack of faith in His Word.

By such sin in the very heart of you, God Himself and His Life and Light and Love are rejected, and you cut yourself off from the fellowship with God for which you have been created.

There is every cause for great rejoicing on this Holy Day and in this sacred Season, therefore, because the Son of God, your Savior Jesus Christ, has become Flesh of your flesh and Blood of your blood.  He has come to redeem you from your sin and death and to reconcile you and all the world to His God and Father.  Indeed, He has done so by His voluntary suffering and death upon the Cross, and God and man are reconciled forever in the Resurrection of His Body from the dead.

But not only has He rescued you and all the children of men from the bondage of sin and death.  By His Holy Incarnation, the Son of God has also accomplished within Himself — in the unity of His own divine Person — the perfect and permanent communion of God and Man.  For the Lord your God has taken flesh and blood and your entire human nature to be His very own, in which He entered into the depths of your darkness and has been raised and glorified in the heavenly places.

Your salvation, therefore, and your deliverance from sin, death, the devil, and hell, do not involve an escape from your life in the body, nor from the world of flesh and blood into which you have been conceived and born.  Rather, in Christ Jesus your body is redeemed along with your soul, your soul with your body, and your flesh and blood are sanctified for a bodily Life with God.  For the Body of Christ Jesus, conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, and risen from the dead in divine Glory, is the First Fruits of the New Creation, in which the very-goodness of the original Creation has not only been restored, but fulfilled, perfected, and exceeded.

The Lord your God has spoken His Word into the Flesh, and the Word of God is henceforth never without His own Flesh.  In holy Love, the Father speaks to you now and forever by His incarnate Son, who is the Light of the world and the Life of man.  His Body of flesh and blood is the Light that shines upon you in the darkness, so that you behold and live with God the Father in Him.  Indeed, your communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is in the Body of Christ Jesus.

As there simply is no Life or Light at all apart from the Word of God — for all things are made through Him, and without Him there is nothing — so there is no communion or fellowship with God apart from His Word-made-Flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ, conceived and born of St. Mary.

Everything has been accomplished and established, once and for all, forever and ever, in Him, in His holy Body and with His sacred Blood.  That is to say, both the rescue from sin, death, and hell, and the permanent safety and security of Life and Salvation with God, are found in Jesus Christ.

So it is that your rescue and redemption, your safety and salvation — that perfect Light and divine Life and holy Love for which you have been created by God — become yours and remain yours, only insofar as you are united with Christ Jesus in body and soul by grace through faith in Him.

To that end, because He loves you dearly and desires your salvation, He comes to you and calls you to Himself by the ways and means of His Word.  By and with the preaching of His Gospel, both Christ and His Holy Spirit are actively present and at work to lay Christ Himself upon your heart and mind, to justify you with His Righteousness, and to sanctify you with His Holiness.

From the very beginning, and after the Fall into sin, it has ever and always been so.  God speaks to give Life by His Son.  By the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament was preparing for and leading to the New Testament in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.  Then St. John the Baptist came, a man sent by God to preach and to baptize, that all might believe in Jesus, the Light of the world.  Likewise, in turn, the Apostles and Evangelists and the ministers of Christ to this day.

As in the case of St. John, and so also to the close of the age, the preaching of the Word goes hand in hand with the washing of water with the Word and Spirit in Holy Baptism.  Crucified and raised with Christ in those waters, you are born again as a child of God in Him.  And this new birth of Holy Baptism parallels the miraculous conception and birth of Christ Jesus Himself.  For as He was conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so are you also conceived and born again in Him — in each case by His Word and Holy Spirit, and not by any will or cooperation of man.

In particular, in Holy Baptism you are united with Christ Jesus in His Cross & Resurrection, and you are thereby brought into the fellowship of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Having thus entered into fellowship with God in Christ through Holy Baptism, you are granted the privilege of feasting upon Him — of eating His holy Body and drinking His precious Blood — in the Holy Communion of His Altar.  So does He live and abide in you.  He tabernacles with you in the flesh, both His and yours, so that you also live and abide in Him, both body and soul.  And by such communion with the Son of God, your fellowship is also with His Father and the Holy Spirit.  That is not simply a means to some other end.  That is your Life and Salvation with God in Christ.

As the almighty and eternal Word of God sounded in the ear of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was thereby conceived and made Flesh-of-her-flesh within her womb, so does the same Word of God — whom you have heard in this Holy Gospel — continue to give Himself in the Flesh, to you and to the many, by and through and with His Word of the New Testament in this Holy Sacrament.

So does the Mystery of the Incarnation — the profound “Sacrament” of the Word-made-Flesh — continue for you at this Altar in this place.  And here, in this Sacrament of His Body and Blood, the one true God is revealed to you.  Indeed, the Maker of the heavens and the earth gives Himself to you in the Flesh of Jesus Christ, and in His Body you share His Life and Light and Salvation.

As He created all things out of nothing with the first “in the beginning,” solely by His grace and power (which are the grace and power of His Word), so does He make a new “in the beginning” for you — out of your nothingness — by and with His Word-made-Flesh.  And, behold, this Word of the Living God declares concerning you and your Life in Him, that “It is very good!”  In which there is nothing else for you to do, but simply to receive it freely in faith and with thanksgiving.

That is what the ChristMass truly is, and that is what “Christmas” is all about.  Not only on this day, nor only for the next few weeks, but all year long and always.  So, come, let us adore Him!  Let us worship and bow down before the Lord our Maker, who is Jesus Christ our Savior!

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

Finding the Son in the Father's House

One of the most remarkable things about being a parent is watching the children grow and develop, as they learn to walk and talk, as they get taller and stronger, as they add to their knowledge and understanding, and as they increase in wisdom and maturity.  Even as you watch it happening over the course of weeks and months and years, it is both delightful and breathtaking; and then, as you look back, you wonder how they “suddenly” went from where they were to where they are now.

We have something of that sense in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ on this Second Sunday of Christmas, as we have gone from His circumcision to His “Bar-Mitzvah” in just a few days.  And whereas we are accustomed to the familiar images of the Christ Child in the manger or nestled in the arms of His Mother, we have really only this one Gospel story from His subsequent childhood.  But of course, for Mary and Joseph, and for Jesus Himself, those thirty years or so between His Holy Nativity and His Holy Baptism were not incidental, inconsequential, or insignificant.

Indeed, the great Mystery of the Incarnation — that God became Man, the Word became Flesh — that the almighty and eternal Son of the Living God was conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, becoming flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, in order to be our Savior — that is no less awesome and amazing in His adolescence than it is in His conception, birth, and circumcision.

The incarnate Son of God was not only a little Baby, but He also grew, He got bigger and taller, stronger and faster.  His hair and arms and legs got longer, and as a young man His muscles began to fill out, His shoulders widened, His voice changed and deepened.  All of that may seem normal enough, because you already know that He went from a Babe in arms to the Man on the Cross, and that didn’t happen over night but over several decades.  But along with the growth of His Body from infancy to adulthood, there was also the growth and development of His mind over time.  He learned things.  He asked questions, and He listened to the answers.  He got smarter and wiser, and He interacted with the world around Him with increasing insight and understanding.  And while that is remarkable in the case of any child, it is all the more remarkable in the case of this Child.

That God the Son became true Man means that He did not simply pop into existence, but He took human life from its very inception and made it His own; He lived and grew through all its stages from the womb to His tomb.  Cell by cell He got bigger within the body of His Mother, and so also from His birth into His teen years and beyond.  He laughed and played, He ran and jumped and climbed things.  He learned to eat new foods.  He went to school.  His mind expanded.  His abilities increased.  His skills were sharpened.  “He grew in wisdom and in stature.”

Jesus wasn’t goofing off or playing games with the teachers in the Temple when He engaged them in conversation.  He was gladly hearing and learning the Word of God, just as you are given to do.  For He has taken your human nature to be His own, and so has He lived your human life, as well, save only without sin.  He has lived as the true Man, that you might live the divine Life in Him.

To live and grow, to learn and develop belongs to the goodness of life as a creature of God, and the almighty and eternal Son has made that His own as the Image and Likeness of His God and Father in human Flesh and Blood.  But He also took upon Himself the curse and consequences of sin, the circumstances and conditions of fallen man, subject not only to growth and change but to injury, illness, infirmity, and death.  He made Himself, not only truly human, but vulnerable and mortal.

He has done so, bearing your sin and death in His Body, in order to sacrifice Himself in your place, for all of your sins; that He should become the Sacrifice of Propitiation, not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  For He is not only the Son of God and the true Man, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who gives Himself as your Meat and Drink indeed.

So it is that your reconciliation with God, your redemption, and your righteousness are in Christ Jesus.  In Him you have divine Life and eternal Salvation.  Apart from Him, you have only death.

How, then, shall you hang on to the Lord Jesus and not lose sight of Him?  By what wisdom shall you grow and abide in Him, that you may have true and lasting Life in and with Him?  And if you are a parent, how shall you secure Him for your children?  That is the single most important thing you are given to do as a father or mother — to secure Christ Jesus for your sons and daughters, from their infancy through each stage of development.  How shall you not lose Jesus to yourself and to your children, so that you and they shall not be lost forever under the curse of sin and death?

You have a good example, to begin with, in St. Mary and St. Joseph, who faithfully went up to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Feast of the Passover in accordance with the Law of the Lord.  They were pious and faithful.  They went to church, to say it simply, and they took the Boy Jesus with them.  They went to hear and learn the Word of God in the fellowship of His people Israel.

Parents, that is how you keep from losing Jesus for yourself and for your children.  You go to the House of the Lord.  You give attention to His Word and the preaching of it.  You see to it that you and your family call upon the Name of the Lord in the fellowship of His Holy Christian Church.

By the same token, note that even such faithful and pious parents as Mary and Joseph managed to leave the Lord Jesus behind and to lose Him, simply by going on their way without Him.  Heed the warning of that example, and guard your heart, mind, body, and life against such temptations and dangers.  Do not leave the Lord Jesus behind as you return from here to your everyday routines.

The problem is usually not found in your activities per se.  After all, you have your responsibilities, your God-given callings and stations in life to serve and carry out — and it is quite right that you should do so.  But take Christ Jesus with you by the prayer and confession of His Word.  And when your activities distract your heart and mind from Him and His Word, Repent: Turn back around.

That’s what Mary and Joseph finally had to do.  After a day of fruitless searching among all those things that were so familiar to them, they had to turn around and go back to Jerusalem.  And in that you are given a picture of what your own repentance and return to faith in Christ will look like.

To begin with, when you first realize that He is missing — when you finally notice the big hole in your life where the Lord Jesus ought to be — then what anxiety and what dread settle upon your heart.  In many cases, you probably can’t even identify what’s wrong; but even so, when Jesus is missing from your life, then everything is utterly out of sorts.  You might even be doing all the right things, and yet they’re still all wrong.  If you have not held on to Jesus, then you have lost what is most important, most necessary and essential to both your body and your soul and to all of life.

So you start looking, and you search for what is missing, but just like Mary and Joseph at first, you look in all the wrong places, in all the wrong ways.  You suppose that you will find Jesus among your family and friends, in that which is comfortable and familiar to you.  Even if it’s not “Jesus” that you think you’re looking for, you attempt to find and make a life for yourself in those things and in those places; whereas you’ll have no true or lasting life apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.

You’ll not find life with God in your family or among your friends apart from Christ Jesus.  You’ll not find life with God in your job, in your hobbies and pastimes, or on vacation, if the Lord Jesus is not with you.  When Jesus is missing, you’re as good as dead, and He’s as good as dead to you.

But His Resurrection from the dead — on the Third Day — His Resurrection for you and yours — is in His Father’s House, in His Church, in His Word, in the hearing of the Word of God in Christ.

That’s the sort of heart that Solomon prayed for, and that God gave to Him by His grace.  English translations generally refer to a “discerning” heart, but the text actually says that he prayed for a “hearing” heart, that is, a heart that listens and gives attention to the Word and wisdom of God, which is the root of all true discernment.  It is when your heart hears the Word of the Lord that your heart is faithful, and trusting, and loves God, and obeys His commands, and lives by His grace.

It is in the hearing of the Word of Christ that you find Jesus, because it is by and with His Word that He finds you.  And you hear the Word of Christ in His Church, in the preaching and Ministry of His Gospel.  That is where you find Him; because, again, that is where and how He finds you.

And you should already know that, because the Lord your God has taught you and trained you to find the Son in the Father’s House.  Indeed, that lesson is at the very heart of the Passover Feast.

You know the story of the Exodus from Egypt, how the Angel of Death went throughout the land, but each of the fathers was instructed to take a lamb and sacrifice it, to put the blood of the lamb upon the door, and to feed his family with the flesh of the lamb, because it was the Lord’s Passover, and He would spare the sons of Israel and bring His people out of Egypt.  The sons of Israel were safe when each of them was in the home of his father, in the home where the lamb was sacrificed in place of the firstborn son, and eaten by the family in fellowship with the Lord and with each other.  That’s where and how the sons of Israel were kept alive, and preserved, and safe from death.

So, the Boy Jesus is exactly right, of course.  He is found precisely where He ought to be, that is, in His Father’s House.  So should Mary and Joseph have known and expected from the Passover.

Indeed, all of God’s people are to be found within their Father’s House — where the Lamb who has been sacrificed is found — where the Flesh and Blood of that same Lamb are given and poured out for the Household and Family of God in holy fellowship with Him and all His dear children.

What God did in the first Passover for the households and families of Israel in Egypt, what fathers did according to the Word of the Lord for their own households and families on that occasion, God did for the whole household and family of Israel in King Solomon’s building of the Temple in Jerusalem, where year after year the Passover lambs were sacrificed for the keeping of the Feast.  It was for this very purpose that Mary and Joseph took the Boy Jesus up to Jerusalem every year.

But now, in this Boy, the Lord has provided for Himself the one Lamb who is given in the place of all the sons of Israel — and for all the children of man, for all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.  He is the true Passover Lamb of God, who is sacrificed for the redemption of His people.

Where He is found, therefore, is in His Father’s House.  That is where the Flesh and Blood of this true Lamb are given and poured out for you and for all the children of God to eat and to drink in the Holy Communion.  That is where you and your children are to be.

This one Lord Jesus Christ is the true Solomon, the true Son of David, the true King of Peace, who has established the true Temple of God in the true Jerusalem, that is to say, His Holy Church, the place where His Word is spoken and His Body and Blood are administered according to His Word.

It is here in that House of God, in His Church on earth, that His Flesh is given to feed you unto Life and Salvation.  It is here that His Blood covers you from sin and death, and protects you from the devil and hell.  It is here in His House that you find Him.  It is here in His House that He finds you.

So this is where you and your children belong.  This is your true home, and this is your true family.  This is your Father’s House, wherein your anxious heart and troubled mind find Peace and Sabbath Rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, your Brother in the flesh, who has been sacrificed for your sins and raised for your justification.  It is here that you are raised up with Him from the fear of death to faith and life with His God and Father, who is now your God and Father.

It is here within His House that the grace of God is upon you, in such a way that you can live — and not just go about your activities, and go about your days and weeks and months and years, and go through the motions of your relentless routines, but you can actually live and learn and grow and thrive.  In your callings and stations, in your home and family, even at play, you can live and thrive and grow to and from this House — to and from this Altar, where the true Lamb is given to you as Meat and Drink indeed.  It is in Him that the grace of God is upon you.  And He shall not abandon you.  If you lose Him, He shall not lose or let go of you, but by His grace He seeks you out and calls you always back to His Father’s House, which is your own house and home forever in Him.

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

So This Is Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seek the Lord Where He May Be Found

We have only this one story from the time of our dear Lord’s childhood between His Holy Nativity and His Holy Baptism.  But if it is at all typical of those years, then we must agree with Dr. Luther that rearing the sinless Son of God was a Cross for St. Mary and St. Joseph to bear!  So is it often the case that your greatest honor and blessing can also be among your heaviest burdens, as well.

On this occasion St. Mary is reminded that her precious and precocious young Son belongs not to her but to His Father in heaven.  That is uniquely true in the case of her Son, to be sure.  But do you not also pray that it would be so for your children, as well, that they should be the Lord’s.  And yet, you must also be prepared, along with dear St. Mary, for the burden of that blessing, which is indeed granted to you and your children through Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary’s Son.

Today, as you can well imagine, there is the Cross in Mary’s sorrow and anxiety over her missing twelve-year-old Boy.  In the first place, there is the normal anxiety of any parent over a lost child.  For those three days of anxious searching, increasingly fearing the worst, it is as though He were dead — until He is finally “raised again” for Mary and Joseph when they find Him in the Temple.

They find Him on “the Third Day,” which is by no means a minor detail of chronology, nor merely a coincidence.  In the Holy Gospels, “the Third Day” is always the Day of the Resurrection.  But there is first of all the Cross and the tomb.  It is likewise often the case that God allows you to wait and “hunger” for a while, before He reveals and gives Himself to you within His Church of the Gospel-Word and Sacraments.  And then it is for you the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the death of His Cross — and it is your own resurrection from the dead in Him — on the Third Day!

In the specific case of this Holy Gospel, there is also the additional anxiety that St. Mary must have felt in view of her responsibility for the very Son of God, her Lord, the Messiah.  Salvation itself — not only for St. Mary, but for all the world — suddenly seemed to be at stake and in jeopardy, all because of her failure to keep the Lord Jesus in her sights and to hang on to Him.  And it is certain that, if salvation really did depend upon St. Mary, or any of us, then all would be lost!

Adding insult to injury, there is the guilt that descends upon you and accuses your conscience when things go wrong, because you know that you have failed in your duties and responsibilities, and that you have failed to keep the Lord Jesus in your sights and to hang on to Him for dear life.

Like Mary and Joseph then, you may suppose you know where Jesus is.  In the hustle and bustle of a your hectic life, you simply assume that He is there, too, in the midst of all your busyness.  And so long as things appear to be going smoothly, you see no reason to worry.  But when you turn your back and leave the Church and the Word of God behind, you are not with Christ Jesus, and you do not know where He is.  Yet, at first, you may not even realize that you are without Him.

When you are then confronted with the reality of your situation — perhaps by some tragedy, or sadness, or hardship, or sin — perhaps by the fear and panic of a lost or missing child — then, because your fallen and perishing flesh is subject to the accusation and condemnation of the Law, and you are prone to evaluate your place on the basis of your own works and achievements, you wonder if God has now written you off and given up on you.  Along the same lines, St. Mary also may have wondered — as she frantically searched for her Jesus — whether God the Father would now decide that she was no longer worthy or responsible enough to care for His incarnate Son.

That is what your guilt and shame will do to you.  It is one of Satan’s most powerful and effective tools, leading you away from faith and confidence in the gracious mercy and forgiveness of your dear Lord Jesus Christ to the doubt and despair of your own works and your own righteousness — which is to be cast upon the hopeless misery of sin, death, and hell.  And at that point, because you are already set upon the wrong track, you go about looking for Jesus in all the wrong ways.

That is what happened with Mary and Joseph, when they finally discovered His absence and set about trying to find Him.  They started out looking for Jesus in all the wrong places.  They sought Him in what was already comfortable and familiar to them.  They expected to locate Him among their family and friends.  But in all of that, they kept on coming up empty.  And so also for you.  Those are not the places where Christ Jesus is present for you.  That is not where He is to be found.  But how often don’t you attempt to find the Lord Jesus in all the “wrong places” of your own life?

In fact, the answer to St. Mary’s sorrow, anxiety, and guilt is not discovered in her own striving, no matter how earnest and well-intentioned it might be.  The answer is found only in Christ Jesus.  There is no peace or rest at all without Him.  And He is found only in the Temple of His Church, in the hearing of His Word — where you are likewise granted to seek and to find the Lord Jesus.

“Why is it that you are seeking Me?”  That is the question that Jesus poses this morning.  But it is a rhetorical question.  To whom else shall you go?  The Lord Jesus alone has the Word of Life!

To begin with, today there is the example of Jesus Himself — living your life in the flesh, as you must live in Him — remaining in the Temple of His Church, even when His nearest and dearest kin have left.  So must you remain and abide with Him, even if everyone else might go away.

There is also the lesson to be learned and taken to heart, that St. Mary and St. Joseph find the Lord Jesus, and they find all of their answers in Him, only when they have returned to His Church in Jerusalem and look for Him there, that is, in His Temple, in the speaking and hearing of His Word.

To reiterate this absolutely crucial point, the Lord Jesus is not found among the relatives and acquaintances, but in the Temple, in the Lord’s House, in the City of God.  For you now, in the New Testament, it is Christ Jesus Himself who has actually become the new, divine, and eternal Temple of God in His own Body, crucified and risen.  He is found, therefore, in the Temple of His Church on earth, in the preaching of His Word and the administration of His Flesh and Blood.

So it is that you are here called to follow the example of the sinless, almighty, all-knowing Son of God, who humbled Himself to sit at the feet of His teachers and pastors, in order to hear and learn His own Word from them.  He likewise submitted Himself in obedience to His earthly parents, to His Mother Mary and His Guardian Joseph.  He kept the Third and Fourth Commandments in holy faith and holy love.  And you no less are also called to humble yourself and submit to those authorities whom God the Lord has placed over you in this body and life on earth, and to hear and learn His Word from those teachers and pastors whom He has placed over you within His Church.

Now, it will always be the case that those who hear the Word of Christ Jesus — who seek and find Him in His Church — must be astonished and amazed by Him and His Word.  For the Lord is so very different from all the standards and expectations of the world and your own sinful reason.  Truth be told, His divine and holy Wisdom is foolishness to you and all the world around you.

So, then, what is it that you hear and receive from the Word of the Lord in this Holy Gospel?

First of all, you are taught to know the Lord Jesus Christ, who He is and what He does for you.  And then you are also taught what this means for you and your children in living the Christian life.

Every Pastor is asked, just as St. John the Baptist, Christ Jesus, and the Holy Apostles were asked, “What should we do?”  Certainly, as a Christian you know that you ought to be doing something to serve the Lord, His Church, and your neighbors in the world.  And the answer to the question is once more found in Jesus.  Indeed, you have His own example here for you and your children.

Simply put, you have the example of the Lord’s own obedience to the Ten Commandments — to the First, Third, and Fourth, in particular, which bid you to hear and heed the Word of God from both your pastors and your parents, and to fear, love, and trust in the Lord above everything else.

In this light, therefore, the first and most important answer to the question, “What should we do?” is one that contradicts the inclinations of your sinful heart, which otherwise assumes that you must do something for God or give something to Him in order to obtain His favor.  But, no, in absolute contrast to such reasoning, the answer is that you must listen to His Word and hear what He has to say; that you are to seek and pray for all things from Him, by grace alone, through faith in His Word; and that you are to receive His good and gracious gifts with thanksgiving.  It’s not what you do or give or say to Him that matters, first of all, but what He does and gives and says to you.

All of which is to say (as Christ Jesus Himself demonstrates for you today) that the most essential thing you are given to be doing as a child of God is to be in His House, hearing His Word, and receiving the Holy Sacrament of His incarnate Son.  That is where and how you will find Him and all the answers that you need — in the Holy Temple of His Church, in His own flesh and blood.

As Jesus says, “Do you not know that it is divinely necessary for Me to be in My Father’s House?”  Or, as some English translations legitimately put it, “to be about My Father’s business.”

Here again is the implicit recognition, first of all, that you and your children belong to God.  And as such, there is a divine necessity that you and your children must also be about the business of your Father in heaven — that is, to be in His House, in His Word, in the Body of His Son.

To parents is thus given the additional responsibility, not only to hear and heed the Word of the Lord for themselves, but also to bring their children to the Temple of His Church, where they too may hear and learn His Word and receive His gifts.  And as the Temple in Jerusalem has been replaced by the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, and His Body is the Holy Church, parents bring their children to the Temple first of all through Holy Baptism — wherein they are buried with Christ in His death and raised in His Resurrection.  In this way parents “lose” their children in the Temple, they entrust them to their own God and Father in heaven.  Of course, parents still have the responsibility to rear their children in the fear and faith of God, to feed and clothe and otherwise care for them in wisdom and stature.  But they must also leave them in the Temple to be about their Father’s business — which is to say, to be hearing His Word and receiving His Word-made-Flesh.

In this alone is found their forgiveness and life and salvation — because of the divine necessity that Jesus Christ from Nazareth, in particular, had to be about His Father’s business, that is, to give Himself over completely to God on behalf of sinners, and to humble Himself as a Servant even unto the death of His Cross.  In those divine works, you are not called to follow His example but simply to receive, along with your children, the gifts and benefits of His Cross and Resurrection.

And from His Cross and Resurrection, you may best follow the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary in faith and love, as St. Luke has portrayed her in his Holy Gospel.  For by the grace of God she sought and found the dear Lord Jesus in the Temple, in His Word.  And having thus received Him in and with His Word, she kept Him close to her and pondered His Word as a treasure in her heart.  You also are given His Word — the Word of His Gospel, and the Word-made-Flesh in the Feast of His Body and Blood.  For Christ, our true Passover, has been sacrificed.  He is your Temple and your great High Priest, in whom you have all peace and joy and the Life everlasting.

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