The Word of Christ Is Near to You

It’s a rough and tumble world, and it’s easy enough to get caught up in the crush of the crowd, with so many people pushing and pulling at you, threatening to trample you beneath their feet, or else to drown and destroy you with their endless chatter, everybody talking at you, telling you what’s what, and what to do, and what you should be like.  There’s lots of noise and confusion, lots of words and information, and lots of competition and jockeying for position.

It is overwhelming, and yet, in its own way, enticing.  Against the onslaught of the crowds, you are tempted to impress them and appease them, to protect yourself from the critics, and to promote yourself with the movers and shakers, in the hopes of becoming someone important.

But none of the people, neither the celebrities nor the crowds, are able to save you or destroy you.  They can neither make you nor break you, not really.  For each and all of them are mortal, like yourself, subject to death and decay and held accountable to the judgment of God.

It is in the presence of the Lord your God that you live your life and die your death: Coram Deo, that is, before God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth and of all things.  He is the One with all authority — the authority to judge all of creation — because He is the Author and Giver of Life.

Therefore, He is the One, not only with power to hurt and kill, such as fallen man presumes to do with those who are smaller and weaker than himself; but God has genuine authority to condemn both soul and body forever: To “Gehenna,” Jesus says (though it is sometimes translated “hell”).

Gehenna was the name of a valley alongside Jerusalem, where, at various times, even the Israelites had resorted to sacrificing their own children, and where an ongoing fire served the potters’ kilns and the constant burning of rubbish and every manner of refuse.  It provides a vivid picture of hell on earth, but only God Almighty has the authority to consign both body and soul to such a place.  And He alone has the power and authority to save you, in body and soul, for the Life everlasting.

Therefore, the Lord Jesus exhorts you, not to be afraid of the world and its power-brokers, but to fear, love, and trust in the Lord your God above all things.  For He is the only true God, who is Life and Light and Love within Himself.  He has created you in holy Love, both body and soul, in His own Image and Likeness, for Life everlasting with Him, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Not only that, but the almighty and eternal Lord, who changes not, has Himself become a part of His own Creation by the conception and birth of the Son from the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He has lived and died in the Body, with flesh and blood like yours; and God the Father has also raised this incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, bodily from the dead.  So shall your body likewise be raised at the last, and glorified like unto the crucified and risen Body of your Lord, unto Life eternal in Paradise.

Do not doubt that it is true.  The One who created the sparrows and still cares for them, though they are but a dime-a-dozen, cares for you all the more and provides for you all that you need, for this life and for the Life to come.  You are precious to Him and valued most highly.  Just consider the price that He has willingly paid for you: not gold or silver, but His own Body and His Blood.

He who was crucified for you — who has also risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever as your great High Priest, always interceding for you at the Right Hand of God the Father — He now serves you in body and soul with His tangible Means of Grace, His Holy Word and Sacraments.

The Word of the Word-made-Flesh penetrates your heart and mind, your soul and spirit, through the ears of your body.  And your conscience is cleansed before the Lord your God by the washing of your body with pure water, that is, with water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word in Holy Baptism.  And your Savior Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, feeds you with His true Body and gives you to drink of His true Blood, which you eat and drink with your mouth.

Therefore, your body also is justified and saved by the Gospel of God; and in fact, your soul is not saved apart from your body, for it has no access to God apart from His Word and Sacraments.

So, then, take it seriously that the life which is yours in Christ Jesus, which you have by grace through faith in Him, is lived not only in your heart and in your head, but likewise in your body — in your words and in your actions, in what you say with your mouth and do with your hands.

And yet, you know well enough that your insides and your outsides don’t always match.  You know that what you say is not always what you’re thinking and feeling.  And you know that your actions are not always in harmony with your convictions and your actual preferences.

Those differences are not bad, but good and right, when they stem from the discipline of your sinful flesh, so that you do and say what you should, instead of what your old Adam desires.

At other times, however, it’s not a matter of self-discipline, but of hypocrisy, whereby you make an outward pretense for the sake of good impressions but out of sync with your conscience.

In this respect, there is actually a two-fold danger of hypocrisy.  There is, on the one hand, the outward show of false piety, in which you act the part of godly reverence and you go through the motions of the fear and faith of God, while your heart and mind are still far removed from Him.  Then you are like a white-washed tomb, decorated pretty on the outside, but hiding death within.

On the other hand, there is the hiding and disguising of the Christian faith and life, as though you could carry on with Jesus privately, while outwardly you live like a pagan and talk like a pirate, whether it be out of fear of “persecution” (be it martyrdom or being laughed at), or maybe to compete with the world on its terms, contesting for popularity, power, and prestige, or whatever.

One and the same person can be as pliable as Play-doh, shaped by the expectations — or by the perceived expectations — of the people around him.  So he may be pious and reverent at church, profane at school or work, and something else altogether by himself — probably lost and lonely without the crowd to play to, without an audience to perform for.

But the truth will come out.  It will.  Jesus says so.  And that is both a warning and a promise.  Your secret sins are not hidden from the Lord your God.  But so, too, your faith and life in Christ are also known to Him who loves you.  There is no concealing of your conscience before Him.

Where you actually stand with the one true God will be made known — in your life and in your confession, and in the final Judgment — whether for everlasting Life or everlasting punishment.

So, here is what you need to know: True Life is found only in Christ Jesus, crucified and risen, and it is had only by faith in Him, in His Gospel of forgiveness.  Not by your works, but by His.  And yet, such faith in Christ cannot be kept hidden in the heart.  It can’t — not without suffering loss.  No, faith in Christ is exercised, as it is expressed, with your mouth and with the rest of your body: In worship and in works of love — and in words of confession, whereby you speak as the Lord your God has spoken to you.  To say what He has said is how you know and speak the Truth.

Both faith itself and the words and works by which you confess the faith are the gracious work and the good gifts of God the Holy Spirit.  And He is near to you, indeed, He is actively present and at work in you, by and with the preaching of Christ Jesus.

The Holy Spirit calls you and brings you to faith in Christ by the Word of Christ.  There is no other way by which you believe and are saved.  And He likewise strengthens and sustains you in this true and saving faith by the same Word of Christ Jesus.  Apart from this Word, you die.  By it, you live.

The Holy Spirit preaches Christ to you, so that you believe in Christ and call upon His Name in prayer, praise, and confession of His Word.  What He speaks into your ears comes out of your mouth; for this is how the Spirit works in and with the Church, which is the Body of Christ Jesus.

The power and authority of this Word is the Gospel; for by the Word of Christ your doubts and fears, your denials and failings, and all your many other sins are freely and fully forgiven, just as He was crucified for your transgressions and God raised this same Christ Jesus from the dead.

So it was that Simon Peter, who denied Him, was forgiven and restored to faith and life in Christ.

But to set your heart and mind against the preaching of the Word of Christ is to resist and reject the Holy Spirit and His gracious work.  So it was that Judas Iscariot ended his own life in despair.

Beware that you do not harden your heart and mind in this way, lest you be condemned to the fire that burns forever, and your soul and body be consigned to a worse Gehenna than earth has known.

Rather, hear and heed the Word of Christ that is preached to you.  Hear and receive His Word of Absolution, that is, the forgiveness of all your sins; for with that Word He sets His own Cross and Resurrection before your eyes and thereby saves you from the fire forever and ever.

You need not scale the heights of heaven (nor can you!), as though to bring God down to you.  Nor can you raise yourself or anyone else from the deep dark abyss of death and the grave.  But the Lord your God has come down from heaven, and He has gone into the depths, into Sheol, into Gehenna, in order to raise you up with Himself.  God the Father has sacrificed His own dear Son, in order to atone for all of your sins and thereby to rob death and the devil of any claims on you.

Now the Son draws near to you in Peace, and He befriends you with His Word and Holy Spirit.  He reconciles you to Himself by the way of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  In this way He returns you daily to your Baptism, and He raises you up from sin and death to life with God.  For the Lord has surely set apart the godly for Himself, and you are godly by the grace of His Gospel.

With this Word of Christ Jesus the Holy Spirit teaches you what to confess, and He likewise gives you the confidence and courage to do so, come what may.

Cling to that Word with both your body and your soul, as He gives it to you generously in so many ways: by preaching and teaching, by the Holy Scriptures, by the Catechism, and by the Hymnal.

And for God’s sake, teach these things to your children, and to your children’s children, as you are given the opportunity; that they, too, may not die but live forever with God in Christ.  Read the Bible to them.  Sing hymns with them.  Pray with them and for them.  And bring them to church.

This Word of Christ is not powerless, it is living and Life-giving.  Indeed, the Lord Himself is very near you by and with His Word, as He preaches it into your ears, as He lays it upon your heart, and as He brings it to confession in your mouth.  So is He a very present help in every kind of need.

By His dying and rising He has received all authority in heaven and on earth, that is, the true power and authority of the New Creation — to forgive sins and to save sinners; to comfort you with His forgiveness, life, and salvation; to justify and save you in body and soul, for now and forever.

So does He grant you a quiet night, a restful sleep, and peace at the last.  And so does He raise you up in the true joy of His mercy, which is new every morning and ever shall be, world without end.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Confessing the God of the Font and the Altar

The one true God, the Holy Trinity, the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, is also the Author and Giver of life.  He has created you in love for life with Himself forever, and, not only does He give you life in body and soul, but He is your Life and your Salvation.  Not only has He made you — His creature — but He has graciously adopted you to be His own dear child.  Not only has He constructed your body, and not only does He cause it to function, but He enlivens your body and soul with His Holy Spirit, and He enlightens your heart and mind with His Word.

His Word, indeed, is more than sounds and letters and data.  The Father speaks to you by His Son, the Only-Begotten: God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God.  This Word is always with God, from eternity to all eternity.  But what is more, this Word of God is God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, by whom the Father is known and the Spirit is bestowed.  For the Word of the Father and the Voice of the Spirit is the Christ, the Son of God, who in the fulness of time has been conceived and born of the Woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and crucified as true Man for all of us human beings, for our salvation.  The divine Word has thus become Flesh and abides with us.

This Word of the living God — the Father’s Son, Christ Jesus, the Bearer and Bestower of the Life-giving Holy Spirit — is written in the Scriptures, revealed in the preaching of the Gospel, confessed and prayed and spoken and sung by the children of God in the Church and throughout the whole world, from the rising of the sun to the place of its going down.  This is not the work of fallen man.  It is the good work and good gift of God Himself, which He performs and gives by His grace alone.  The Father keeps speaking His Son, and the Spirit keeps preaching the Christ.  Not because you or any of us are good, but because He is good, and He is merciful, and He is holy.

By this Word of God and the preaching of it — in the Church on earth, and from the Church for the life of the world — the one true God continues to shine His Light in the darkness, to create new life out of nothing, and to bring forth life from out of death, all for the sake of His own divine and holy Love.  He speaks, and it is so.  So it is that sinful mortal men, dying and as good as dead, not only receive new life in themselves, but they also become givers of life to others in faith and love.  Women with barren wombs conceive and give birth.  Doubters become believers, sinners become saints, the lost are found, the dead are raised, and even you are given life in Christ Jesus.

The Love by which and for which the Almighty and Eternal God does and gives such good and gracious things — the Love that constitutes His very Being and characterizes His divine nature — is the personal and permanent Love of God the Father for His Son, and of God the Son for His Father, in communion with the Holy Spirit.  Hence the grace of God.  It is not arbitrary, whimsical, or capricious.  It does not come and go, but as it is, so has it always been, and so shall it be forever.

That is the Love with which God loves you.  Or, better to say, He is the Love with which He loves you, just as He is the true Light that shines upon you through His Gospel.  And He is the Life with which He enlivens you, so that you now share and live the Life of God in and with Christ Jesus.

In order that you might have this Life, and know this Life, and live this Life — even now in your mortal body, and hereafter in the resurrection, in both your body and your soul forevermore — the Father speaks to you by His Son, and through that Word He breathes His Spirit into you.  Day by day He raises you up, and from the dust of the earth you become a living being: a man or woman recreated in the Image of God; a son or daughter of God the Father in His Son, Christ Jesus.

This divine Life is already yours in Christ Jesus, but it is not yet seen or felt or experienced for what it truly is, not in this fallen and perishing world.  Nevertheless, His Word of Life grants faith and hope, conviction, and assurance against all the darkness of death, against all the assaults and accusations of the devil, against false belief, despair, and every kind of wickedness.  His Word calls you daily to repentance, away from the false gods that have otherwise held sway over your heart, mind, body, and soul, unto Him who loves you, who is your Light and Life and Salvation.

The Word of God in Christ raises you from the dead and gives you faith and life, because by it He forgives you all your sins.  By His Word He justifies you and sanctifies you, which is to reconcile you to Himself in peace and love, and thereby to embrace and keep you in His own holiness.

All of this is so because the Word that God the Father speaks, which the Holy Spirit confesses to you in the Church and Ministry of the Gospel, is the preaching of Christ Jesus.  It is not only a preaching about Christ, nor is it simply that Christ is preaching through His Word, though both of those things are true.  But the preaching is Christ Himself, the Word of God, the Word-made-Flesh, graciously at work to give Himself to you.  He is actually spoken and sung into your ears, into your heart and mind.  And with Him, the Father gives to you His Heart, His highest Treasure, and Himself.  He binds Himself to you in love, in this Lord Jesus Christ and by His Holy Spirit.  And He so binds you to Christ that His Cross and Resurrection become yours, along with His faith and love, His righteousness and His good works, His life and His salvation.  All of these are yours.

He has taken all your sins upon Himself, and all their curse and consequence He has taken from you and into His own Body.  By His Cross He has put them to death and buried them in His tomb.  For with His holy and precious blood He has atoned for all your sins and redeemed you from the bondage of sin, death, and the devil.  In His Resurrection from the dead, He has raised you also, recreated and brand new, no longer dead in your trespasses and unbelief, but alive forevermore.

All of this the Lord Jesus Christ has already done and accomplished in Himself, once and for all.  It’s a done deal, and there is nothing at all that remains to be done in this regard.  There is nothing lacking in Him, in His work, in His Cross or Resurrection.  There is nothing whatsoever amiss.

So certain is the Lord’s great salvation that it stands fast from before the foundation of the world, not only to the end of the age, but to all eternity, forever and ever.  Amen, amen, it is and always shall be so.  In Christ Jesus, God has reconciled the world to Himself, so that sins are no longer counted or considered, and death has been defeated.  For God raised this same Jesus from the dead, and it is very good.  This is the Sabbath Rest that remains for you and for all the people of God.

And yet, the fact remains that you do not see it.  You do not feel or experience this in yourself, and you sure don’t find it to be so in the world around you.  Sin continues everywhere.  If anything, it only gets worse and worse.  Death remains rampant.  Idolatry is commonplace, along with all manner of sacrilegious blasphemy.  Fornication and false witness are taken for granted.  Even your fellow Christians sin against you, and day by day you also trespass against them.  Your thoughts are vile and perverse.  Your words are hardly better.  Your actions are not those of faith and love, but too often they proceed out of guilt and fear, out of pride and selfishness, out of a covetous heart of bitter envy and jealousy, in violent anger on the one hand, in deep sadness on the other.

What then shall we say?  And whatever shall you do?  You lift up your eyes, and all you can see is sin and death, within and without.  Where, then, shall you find any help?  Consider the Psalm: Your help comes from the Lord, the true and only God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth.

He does not slumber or sleep, but day and night, week by week, and year by year, as you lay down to sleep, and as you get up to face another day in this poor life of labor, He guards and keeps you from all the evil that surrounds you and threatens to undo you.  He shall not suffer your foot to be moved, but in all your going out and coming in He stands fast and guards you round about.  And even though you die, yet shall you live, as surely as your Savior Christ Jesus has risen and lives.

He calls you to Himself each day, again and again, as He has called you to Himself by the Gospel to begin with; not because He has to, but because He loves you, and He has created you in love to live with Him forever.  He has not moved and acted to save you because you are so faithful and sincere, so righteous and so holy, but because He is righteous and holy and faithful and just, and because it is His great glory to be gracious and merciful: to create anew and give life to the dead, to forgive and rescue sinners, to seek and to save the lost.  He never does grow weary of doing so.

The Father speaks His Son to you from His great heart of love; and this Word of God, who is your Savior Jesus Christ, fills you with His faith and love, with His assurance and conviction.  By the hearing of that Word of Christ you believe.  For the Lord your God is still creating good things out of nothing, He is still calling forth Light out of darkness, and He is still raising the dead from the dust of the earth to live.  And as you believe the Word of Christ, so do you confess.  You speak the same thing that He has said to you, and it remains His sure and certain Word upon your lips and tongue, even when you stammer and stutter.  It is His Word, and it is true against all that is false.

You speak and say what God has spoken to you by His Son — you sing the Word that He sings in you by His Spirit — and that Word perseveres and prevails where you could not even begin.

This very Word of God, your dear Lord Jesus Christ in your ears, in your heart, and on your lips, He is the new and greater Noah, who in reverence has prepared an Ark for the salvation of His household and family, that is, the holy Ark of His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

And He is the new and greater Joshua, who has brought the people of God through the waters into the good land, and who has gone before them to defeat all their enemies.  He has brought down the walls of hostility, and He has built a better city for His people, for His brothers and sisters: for you!

As for Him, the Son of God who has become true Man — your Brother in the flesh, your kinsman Redeemer, your Savior from sin and death — He has served His God and Father in perfect faith and love, in such a way that His entire household shares in His faithfulness and righteousness.

Put away your false gods, therefore, and live here in peace within the House of the Lord your God.  Hear and heed His Word to you, and pray and confess it.  However meager it may seem, this is the same Word by which all things have been made and are sustained.  This is the same Word that forgives sins, and raises the dead, and gives life and salvation to all of creation.

This Word is now your strength and your song, because this is the Word of your Savior, who has become your Salvation.  This Word is spoken to you, and it is given to you to believe and to confess — and it remains the Word of God, the Word of Christ Jesus, the Son of the living God.

By this Word you live, and you confess the God who gives you life and is your Life.  By this Word you love Him who first loves you.  By this Word you walk in His Light, even in the midst of deep darkness, even as you journey through the valley of the shadows of death.

By this Word you confess the Maker of the heavens and the earth, who is your God and Father in Christ Jesus.  And by this Word, no less, you confess the God of the Font, who cleanses you from all unrighteousness and clothes you with Christ Jesus and His righteousness.  And you confess the God of the Altar, who feeds you with Himself, with His Body and His Blood — in whom all of creation finds its meaning, its purpose and fulfillment, and in whom you also live in both body and soul, here in time, and hereafter in the resurrection forever and ever.  This is most certainly true.

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

To Speak the Truth of God, as You Are Spoken To

Words are inherently powerful, for God Himself is Verbal.  Indeed, the Son of God is the personal Word of God the Father from eternity, and it is by and through the speaking of that divine Word that all things in heaven and on earth are created and sustained.  That same Word of God in the Flesh is the very Image and Likeness of God in whom you are created, and for whom you exist.

The Lord your God does all things by and through His Word.  The Father speaks the Son as the full gift and revelation of Himself, and with that speaking of His Son the Father breathes and bestows the living and life-giving Holy Spirit into His good creation.  That is who God is, and that is how He works, from all eternity within Himself, and from the beginning of all time and space.

So has the Lord created you by His Word.  He gives you life by His Word, and He sustains your body and life by His Word.  More than that, He reveals and gives Himself to you by the speaking of His Word.  For all that, the words that you speak and use are likewise powerful.  They have the potential to serve and sustain life.  But so do they also have the potential to damage and destroy.

You know the significance of words, although you often speak without considering the impact or consequences of what you say to others.  You know the energizing comfort and healing balm of kind and supportive words, and you know the sting and shame of insults and accusations.  You know that words, be they true or false, can make all the difference; they can make or break a life.

All of this is true within the context of this world, in this body and life on earth, and in all of your personal relationships.  From infancy, even from the womb, to your death bed and final breaths, words constitute and define your connections and interactions with family, friends, and neighbors of all kinds.  And words are no less vitally important and necessary to your spiritual life and well-being.  Your relationship with God, your righteousness before Him, and your life within His Holy Church, the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus, all depend upon the hearing and speaking of words.

Not just any words will do, nor simply words that happen to be true, but the right words rightly spoken, the right words at the right time.  You are capable of speaking such words, because you are created in the Image and Likeness of God, the Word-made-Flesh.  But such words and such speaking do not originate from within yourself, far less from within your fallen flesh.  They come to you from the Creator, the Author and Giver of Life, who speaks to you by Christ, the Son.

Do not presume to know or understand the Word of the Lord by your own reason, wisdom, or instinct.  And do not suppose that your zeal and passionate enthusiasm will carry the day and see you through.  Apart from the knowledge of Christ and His righteousness everything will crash and burn and come to ruin.  But such knowledge is bestowed solely by His Word and Holy Spirit, by the preaching and hearing of His Word, by the faith and confession of the Word of Christ Jesus.

The Word that you are given by your Father to confess — the Word by which you call upon His Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving — is the Word of Christ, the Word-made-Flesh who has drawn near to you.  It is the Word that is preached to you by the grace of God in this place, from this pulpit, week by week throughout the year.  It is the Word that you fathers and mothers are given to speak in turn to your children, to pray with and for your children, in order to teach your children what is good and right and true, and to catechize them in the way of life and salvation.

It is not only the little children or the confirmands who need to be catechized (and are catechized), but you also are catechized by the preaching and teaching of the Word of the Lord throughout your Christian life.  It is by that ongoing catechesis of His Word that you are and live as His disciple, as you are given His Word and taught by His Spirit to keep His Word at all times and in all places, that is, to believe and trust His promises, and to live according to all that He has commanded you.

You are catechized to and from the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism, and daily by His Word He returns you to the content and significance of that one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins in His Name.  The Creed is basic and fundamental to this ongoing catechesis.  Not only as an ancient and beautiful summary of the Church’s faith and confession of the Holy Triune God and His great salvation in Christ Jesus, but also because it is so deeply rooted and embedded in Holy Baptism.  The Creed originated in the most basic baptismal rites, confessing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in whose Name you are baptized, and the Life that is from that one true God alone.

The heart and center of both the Creed and Holy Baptism is the Word-made-Flesh, crucified and risen from the dead.  He is the One who preaches to you and catechizes you by His preaching, even as He Himself is the Word who is preached to you by His called and ordained servants.  It is not simply the once-upon-a-time of His life and ministry, His teaching and miracles, His dying and rising, though the history is solid and true, factual and real.  But the preaching and teaching here and now, to and from the Font, to and from the Altar, convey to you the Lord Christ Himself in the present tense, along with all the fruits and benefits of His Cross and Resurrection from the dead.

Consequently, because your crucified and risen Lord Jesus is actively present in the catechesis of His Word, it calls you and brings you daily to repentance and faith.  It puts you to death by the Law and raises you to newness of life by the Gospel.  It thereby also teaches you and trains you in the way of confession and absolution, not only with your pastor according to his office as a minister of Christ Jesus, but so also within your home and family and with all of your neighbors.  It is by His Word that you examine yourself and acknowledge your sins, and by His Word that you fear, love, and trust in Him, hope in His mercy, and actively rely upon the promise of His Resurrection.

It is easy to be afraid as the Word of the Lord has its way with you, as it exposes your sins and calls you to be honest with yourself, with God, and with your neighbors.  It is a scary thing to say out loud what you would prefer to keep hidden in the dark, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of which you are ashamed.  The Law of God not only threatens but actually does put you to death for your sins, it crucifies and buries you in the dust.  He has the authority to condemn you forever.

Even so, do not be afraid.  Fear the Lord your God, to be sure.  But do not be afraid of Him; that is to say, do not cower in terror of Him.  Rather, repent of your sins in the confidence of His grace.  Confess your sins in the certainty of His forgiveness.  For His Word has revealed His mercy and opened His great heart of love to you in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, who has been given into death for your sins, and who is risen from the dead and lives forever as your Righteousness and Holiness, your Innocence and Blessedness.  He is true God in the flesh, the Author and Giver of Life, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, not only to condemn you for your sins, but to forgive you all your sins, to raise you from the dead, and to save you for eternal life with Himself.

As God the Father has spoken to you by His Son, so by His Spirit and with His Church you confess “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”  That is the sure and certain hope and the promise by which you find the courage to face up to the fact of your own sin and to brave the assaults and accusations of the devil, the world, and your own flesh against you.

It is not your own word that you speak, it is not your own work that you perform, but it is the Word and work of God that you cling to and confess by faith in Christ Jesus.  To “confess,” as you do in the Creed and in your Christian life, is to “speak together” and to “say the same thing.”  With the Creed, in particular, you speak together with and say the same thing as the Holy Christian Church of all times and in all places.  But so do you also speak together with and say the same thing as the Lord your God.  You echo back to Him and say to the world what He has said to you.

You speak as the Lord has spoken to you, because His Word alone is sure and certain and true.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but the Word of God in Christ will never pass away.  The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.  It is that very Word which is preached to you, which opens your lips to show forth His praise in the confession of His Name.

Thus, you confess what is true concerning yourself according to the Word of the Lord, the Law and the Gospel; that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness and salvation, and that you are redeemed by Christ the Crucified, baptized and absolved in His Name, and fed from His hand at His Table.

And you confess what is true concerning God according to the Self-revelation of His Word; that He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, that He has become Flesh and tabernacles with you in His Church, that He daily and richly forgives your sins and cleanses you of all unrighteousness, and that He shall raise you from the dead in glory at the last, as surely as Christ Himself is risen.

It is by such confession of His Word that you offer right sacrifices, the fruit of lips that praise His Name in the Spirit and the Truth.  So, too, by the confession of His Word you exercise fear, love, and trust in the Lord; you strengthen and sustain your faith in Christ; you serve and support your neighbor with that which matters most; and you catechize your family and friends in the true faith.

That is why you keep His Word in your ears and before your eyes; you bind His Word to your body and soul, within your head, and upon your heart; and you speak His Word daily to your children.

Do not be afraid of what anyone else might think or say or do in response to your confession.  But fear the Lord your God, with whom there is forgiveness, and so confess His Word no matter how unpopular it may be.  For His Word is Spirit and Truth, and it is by His Word alone that you have life in body and soul, here and now and forever hereafter.  But to deny and contradict His Word is to cut yourself off from His Life and His Salvation, and thus to condemn yourself in unbelief.

Bear in mind, again, that words are inherently powerful.  They not only express what is already in your heart and mind, but they shape and strengthen your thoughts and feelings, either in the Truth or in falsehood.  Even those private conversations that you have in the dark or in your own head have a way of taking over your whole outlook and perspective, your thinking, and your actions.  Therefore, do not allow your sin to control and direct your speaking, but remain silent, and do not speak at all, until you have first of all listened to the Lord, that you might then speak His Word.

Do not rattle on with your own vain words, nor spew forth the lies that proceed from out of your own sinful heart and head.  Do not echo what is evil, nor persist in hypocrisy, but rehearse what the Lord has spoken, and let your life demonstrate the love of God that you profess with your lips.

Do not be anxious or afraid, and do not wonder and worry about how or what you are to speak.  The Lord Himself teaches you to confess and pray, and the Holy Spirit gives you the very words to say.  Not by some sort of strange osmosis, nor by any mysterious download from the clouds, but by the preaching and teaching of Christ Jesus, by the daily catechesis of His Word and prayer — at home within your family and here within the House of God — from infancy, even to the grave.

That Word of the Lord is living and active, it does what it says, and it gives what it promises.  As it opens up your ears to hear, so does it open your heart to believe and your mouth to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  Thus are you justified by faith in His Word, and so do you call upon His Name according to the promise of His mercy, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

That Word of Christ is very near to you.  It is in your ears right now, and by His grace it is in your heart and on your lips, as well.  He’s by your side upon the plain with His good gifts and Spirit!  And with His Word He guards and keeps your body and soul in His grace and loving-kindness.  He causes you to live and abide in safety, and to lie down and sleep in peace.  For you are more valuable to Him than many sparrows, and you are not forgotten but remembered before God.

Has He not redeemed you by His mighty arm and outstretched hand?  Not with gold or silver, but with His own holy and precious blood, with His innocent suffering and death; that you might be His very own, and live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him without fear in righteousness and holiness forever.  So has He brought you in by the way of His Cross and Resurrection in the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism.  And so does He bestow upon you by His Word and with His Word-made-Flesh in all the testimonies, statutes, and judgments which He speaks to you, which you by His grace and Spirit confess in the presence of His God and Father.

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

Living with God in Christ by His Word and Holy Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lord Who Loves You Gives You Life in Himself

Out of His great heart of love, God the Lord, the one true God, has acted to give you life.

Know this, therefore, that everything He does, He does it for you.  He does it in love.

And everything He does, all that He creates, all that He gives, all that He provides, He does all of it with His Word.  He speaks, and it is so.

And this Word that He speaks to you is no mere empty sound.  It is rather the Person of the only-begotten Son, the only-begotten God, who has now also become flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood for your Salvation.  He is true Man, your elder Brother, your dear Lord Jesus Christ.

And with this Word, His own Son, the Father breathes His Holy Spirit upon you; He breathes His Spirit into you, the very Breath of Life, so that you become a living creature in the Lord.

This Word of Christ, the Voice of the Spirit, forgives all of your sins and saves you from death.  It gives you life.  Divine Life with God.

It is by His Word and Holy Spirit that God the Father has created you, that you should have life with Him forever.  And all of creation, the heavens and the earth and everything in them, He uses it all to serve you for the sake of His own Love, that of the Father for His Son in the Spirit.  For the sake of this divine, eternal Love, He gives you Himself, He gives you His own Life.  So does He feed you, and clothe you, and shelter you, and protect you, every day of your life, waking and sleeping.  He lavishes good things upon you, and He delights to do so, because He loves you.

Now, on account of your sin and its curse, its consequences of death and suffering, it may seem to you as though God the Creator and His entire creation were actually set against you, at odds with you, and out to destroy you.  After all, even your own body rebels against you.  And the fact of the matter is, it is true that the Lord, your God and Father, disciplines you as a father disciplines the son that he loves.  He disciplines you, His rebellious creature, and with His Law He has actually become your enemy for a little while, because of your sin.

But the same true God who created you for life, who created you in love, has also dealt with your sin, so as to deal with you in mercy, with forgiveness, in order to give you rest from all of your enemies.  In order to give you peace: Peace in your heart, and, best of all, true peace with Him.

In Christ Jesus, the beloved Son — in His Incarnation, in His flesh and blood, and especially in His Cross and Crucifixion — you see that God’s great heart of love is still opened to you.  That God still loves you with His entire Being, with Himself.

So has He willingly, even gladly, taken your sins upon Himself, and your death upon Himself, and your damnation upon Himself, and borne them all in His own body on the Cross.  For you see, He has a body like yours.  He has become part of His own creation.  And He has given Himself entirely and completely for you.  For your rescue and salvation.

Thus, death itself is made to serve you.  Death has to give you up to life.  And in the Resurrection of this God-Man, Jesus Christ — who is the very Son of God, your Savior, your Brother, and your Friend — in Him, and in His Resurrection from the dead, all of creation is made brand new, and it is made to serve you again and forever.

Thus, by the water, with the Word and Spirit of God, you also have been born again, raised from the dead as a new creation, for new life.  For divine, eternal life with God in Christ.

And He takes simple bread and wine, made from things of His Creation — from grain, and from grapes — He takes these up with His Word and makes them to be His own Body, Food for you, and His own Blood, Drink for you, so that both your body and your soul are fed by Christ for life.

God the Lord has done all this for you in love, and He still does.  By His own arm He has done it.  With His own hand He has done it.  He alone has done it.  Not because of any merit in you, but because of His mercy, because of His Love.

And this same God, this one true God who has done all of this for you, remember that He is the Creator and Preserver of all thing.  He is your Creator and Preserver.  You and all that you need for this body and life, and for the life everlasting, it is all His own to do with as He so chooses.  And He chooses in love to use this Creation for your good.

Do not doubt that He is for you, and that He will indeed move heaven and earth to bring you, once and for all, out of sin and death into life with Himself and eternal salvation.

Even now, He serves you and protects you by His grace and mercy.

Receive His gifts with thanksgiving: Clothing and shoes. Food and drink. House and home. Fields and cattle. Spouse and children. All that you need.  Receive what He gives with thanksgiving, whether it be much or little.  And use whatever He gives according to His Word.  Yes, even enjoy what He gives, for that is what He intends.  And so also serve your neighbor with whatever God gives into your hands, as the Lord so desires and allows you the means and opportunity to do.

Receive His gifts with faith in Him, and with love for Him above everything else, and with love for your neighbor in Christ Jesus, for His sake, for He is the Savior of all people.

Receive His gifts, and use them, and give thanks for them.  But do not worship them.  Do not put your trust in those things that God gives, but in God who gives them.  Do not live for those things, nor suppose that life is found in them, but live unto the Lord your God, who is alone the Author and Giver of Life.  Worship Him with all that you are and have, in all that you do and say.

Worship the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Holy Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Fear, love, and trust in Him.  He gives, and He takes away; but He does so according to His good and gracious will, and it is always in love for you.  He disciplines, and He forgives.

He alone gives life and health and every blessing.  And all of this He gives by the ways and means of His Cross.  That’s why it’s often so confusing to you.  For you receive the things of His Cross by faith, and not by sight.  That’s what faith is: the assurance of those things that you cannot see, but which God has spoken to you in love — in Christ.  Trust that.

Put away your false gods, whatever they may be, and fear the Lord your God.  Serve Him alone.

You have life, in both body and soul, both now and forever, only as you are in Christ Jesus, the Lord, the Crucified One.  And you have Christ the Crucified only by His Word and Holy Spirit, as you live within (and to and from) His Church.  His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Here He speaks His Word of forgiveness to you.  Here He preaches His Gospel, with which He gives you His own Life and Health and Strength in place of your mortality, death, and damnation.

Here He calls you back to the waters of your Holy Baptism, through which He brought you out of Egypt into His Church, and through which He will, at the last, bring you into the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting of your body and soul with Himself in the Promised Land.

Here in His Church He gives you refuge from all of your enemies round about, and peace and rest within the House that He has built — and He has built it well upon the Rock of His Gospel.  Here is the City of God, the City made without hands, eternal in the heavens, but established here on earth for you in the Church and Ministry of His Word and Sacrament.

Here He feeds you with real and true Food, which you did not plant, which you did not tend, which you did not harvest or prepare.  He gives it to you all by grace.  It is His utter Charity.  His Body given for you to eat, His Blood poured out for you to drink, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  All for the sake of His love.  All for the sake of your life with Him.

All of this He gives to you and does for you with His life-giving Word.  And with His Word, He gives to you His Holy Spirit, who lays Christ upon your heart, and binds you to Him in body and soul, and preserves your faith and life in Him, within His Holy Church, unto the life everlasting.

As He speaks, so do you hear; so do you believe; and so do you confess.

You speak what God has spoken to you by His Son, which is to say, forgiveness and love.

You speak, not only with your lips and with your mouth, but also with your hands, and with good works of mercy, in order to share the life that God has given to you by His grace in Christ Jesus.

You put to work your body with all its members, your eyes and ears, your mind and mouth, your reason and all your senses, to serve your neighbor, as God serves you, with His good creation.

And as you receive and breathe in His life-giving Holy Spirit in His Word of Absolution, His free and full forgiveness of all your many sins, so do you also exhale that same Holy Spirit in speaking and showing forgiveness to your neighbor who trespasses against you.

The Lord who created all things out of nothing; who created you and still takes cares of you, despite your sins; who loves you and takes care of you by and with His Word — He shall also sustain you in this faith and life, especially by His Word of the Gospel.

Let everything else be taken from you, if it comes to that, so long as you still hear and have that Word.  For God the Father preaches His Gospel to you in love, and by that Word everything in heaven and on earth is yours in Jesus Christ, His Son, crucified and risen from the dead.

He stands fast, and He shall not fail you.  Where you fail and fall, as often as you fail and fall, He forgives you, and He raises you back up again.

For you are His own, His dear one, His beloved.  Even when Satan, sin, and death have done their worst, the Lord your God will raise up you from the dust of the earth to live with Him forever in the good Land that He has promised, flowing with milk and honey and every good thing.

As sure as Christ is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever, this is most certainly true.

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

To Speak Christ as the Father Has Spoken

“Deeds, not Creeds!”  You’ve all heard that slogan.  Perhaps you’ve even used it yourself.  And there’s some truth to the concern.  If you’re gonna talk the talk, you better walk the walk.  Put your money where your mouth is.  Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only or talkers only.

But, for all of that, let your doing begin with your speaking, and let what you say be true.

Confess what is good and right, by confessing what God has done for you and said to you.  In this there is no conflict or competition between your Creed and your deeds, but the greatest continuity and harmony in the Lord your God, in holy faith and holy love.

Indeed, this word and work of confessing the faith is fundamental to the worship of God.  And you should not suppose that it is easy or a cop out.  You know better than that, if you consider how often you are scared and hesitate to speak the Word of the Lord, to confess and call upon His Name.  But it’s not because it’s often hard and sometimes dangerous that such confession is so important and significant.  It is rather because it is in keeping with who God is and what He does.

You speak what the Lord has spoken in the fear, love, and trust that He does everything by and with His Word.  As He created all things out of nothing by His Word, so does He also uphold and sustain all things in heaven and on earth by His Word, not only for this body and life, but for the life everlasting of body and soul.  So does the Father speak to you by His Son.  He speaks Christ Jesus to you, who is Himself the Word-made-Flesh, anointed by the Spirit in His Body for you.

And you, in turn, worship the Lord your God by speaking what is true, that is, by speaking what He has spoken to you in Christ Jesus.  You proceed from Sabbath listening to the right use of God’s Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, in proclamation and confession of His Word.

From the earliest days of the Christian Church, the Apostles’ Creed and the Our Father have been at the heart of this right worship of God.  They are foundational to orthodox faith and practice, because they are true.  They pray and confess the Word of the Lord your God.

Not only does this worship of the Word glorify and honor the Holy Trinity in Christ Jesus, but to speak of God in this way, as He speaks, and to speak to and for your neighbor as God speaks to you, is also the first and foremost service of love for your neighbor in the world.  Which is to say that your deeds of faith and love are centered in the Creed, in the confession of Christ.

By the Word and Spirit of God, you are given to speak His Word, and thus to breathe His Spirit.  Like God the Father, you speak the Word of Christ, His Son, and the Spirit of Christ speaks in you and breathes in you.  So it is that you breathe out the same Holy Spirit whom you breathe in, by speaking the Gospel that you hear, by forgiving the sins of others as you are forgiven by Christ.

This is a high and holy calling to which you are called as a Christian, that you should be given to speak the Word of God to your neighbor.  No matter how little you are, no matter how young or old you may be — whether you are well-educated or simple-minded and forgetful — in confessing the Word of God, in echoing what He has spoken, you are given to say what God the Father says.

No president or king can say or do anything better, more important, or more powerful than that.

Of course, as you speak, so should you also act.  Don’t be a hypocrite, presuming to speak the right words while living the wrong way.  Don’t deny your confession of Christ by continuing in your sin, as though His Gospel meant nothing and did nothing.  As you speak forgiveness, show mercy.

But in affirming the need for consistency in your words and actions, also bear in mind that your speaking is already an activity of your body and life, a doing of something real, whether for good or for ill.  When you speak from the heart of faith with your mind and your mouth, that is to live and act in love, to perform a divine deed by which you give life.  And likewise, when you speak, not from faith but from your sinful unbelief, you perform a devilish, satanic work that destroys life.

What you speak with your mouth — the sound of your voice, and the very words that you say — it all matters a great deal, and it makes a difference, good or bad, depending on whether what you say is good and right or wicked and wrong.  Certainly the Holy Scriptures regard what you say with your mouth, your lips and tongue very highly and very seriously.

Consider the case of Job, for example.  In all that he suffered, he did not sin with his lips.  He did not curse God, but he confessed his faith and blessed the Name of the Lord; he gave thanks in the face of all that he lost.  He relied upon the Lord for his righteousness.  He invested himself and his hope in the promise of the Resurrection, which he confessed against death and the devil.

What Job and others said and did not say is crucial to his story.  When, in response to his friends, he begins to assert his own integrity, then God speaks, and silences Job, and calls him back to repentance and faith.  Job listens in quietness.  He is both humbled and strengthened by the Word of God.  And then he confesses the Majesty, the Mystery, and the mercies of the one true God.  At which point God declares that Job has spoken rightly concerning Him, and that Job’s friends have spoken wrongly about God.  Significantly, Job also prays for his friends, and they are forgiven.

Now we have at hand a similar example in the case of Nebuchadnezzar.  Again, it is a matter of what is said, but, as you have heard, the great Babylonian king did sin with his lips.  And while the words were yet in his mouth, as he was thinking out loud with himself on the roof of the palace, the voice of God from heaven silenced him and disciplined him.  Whereas the prideful words of Nebuchadnezzar were false and empty and powerless, the Word of God was immediately fulfilled.

Because the proud king had spoken in praise of himself, he was driven to madness.  For this is real madness, to exalt yourself over and above the Lord; to credit yourself with all that you have; to praise your own name, as though your life, your possessions and achievements were your own.

So Nebuchadnezzar was driven away from other people to live with the animals, and to become like an animal himself, without words or reason.

Of course, the animals cannot speak like man, yet they acknowledge and praise the Lord their God and look to Him for their food in due season.  In this, they are both wiser and more innocent than sinful man.  They cannot confess the Lord in the way that man is privileged to speak the Word of God and call upon Him, but neither are they able to blaspheme the Holy Name of the Lord.

The ability and capacity to speak is both a powerful and a dangerous potential.  With your mouth, your lips and tongue, you are able to bless or to curse the Lord your God, to speak either truly or falsely, to help or to hurt your neighbor.  And you are held accountable for what you say, just as the king of Babylon was.  For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.

Thus Nebuchadnezzar was chastened and humbled by the Lord, who brings down the lofty and raises up the lowly.  And, humbled like the animals, he learned with the animals to look unto God.  His eyes and ears were lifted up to the Most High, and so too were his mouth and lips and tongue.  For his reason returned to him, the genuine logic of right words.  No longer did he exalt himself, but in humility he glorified the Lord with his speaking, with his words, and with his confession.  Then his counselors and nobles began to seek him out again, and he was restored to his throne.

In contrast to the madness of self-righteousness and blasphemy, this indeed is true divine reason, wisdom, and strength, namely, to speak the Truth concerning God Most High, and to praise the Name of the Lord:  That is to speak the Truth of who God is, what He is like, and what He does, by confessing what He has spoken concerning Himself.  It is to confess His Law and His Gospel.

With this Creed, you praise, exalt, and honor the Holy Triune God.  You worship Him rightly by such faith in His Word, by such confession of His Name.

With the same Word, you serve, support, and strengthen your neighbor; you call him to repentance and faith, to righteousness and holiness; and you comfort him with the mercies of Christ Jesus.

Do not underestimate how important your words can be to your brothers and sisters in Christ, and do not be afraid or ashamed to speak the Gospel to them, the forgiveness of sins, and the promise of the resurrection.  Speak the truth in love, yes.  If your neighbor is caught up in some trespass, you who are spiritual restore him in a spirit of gentleness.  Such restoration will include, not only pointing out the fault and calling to repentance, but also the confession of Christ and His salvation.

You don’t have to come up with your own clever and creative words.  Usually, it’s better that you don’t.  Instead, speak the words that you have been taught from the Bible and the Catechism, the words that you have heard and received in the Church’s confession of Christ.

You have opportunity to do this all the time: one-on-one with your neighbor; with your family in your home, around your table; with your colleagues at work; with your classmates at school.

So also, when you are gathered together as the people of God, as the Body of Christ, you serve, support, and strengthen one another by your praying, confessing, and singing of the Word of God.  The Spirit of God thus dwells among you richly, in and with that Word that you speak to and for and with each other.  You fill each other up with the Spirit of Christ Jesus by the confession of His Name.  More often than not, the Lord who opens your mouth to speak and to sing in this way, will be caring for your neighbor and addressing his hurts in ways that you won’t even realize.

As a parent, you do this for your children — and for your children’s children from before they are ever born — by the catechesis and confession of Christ Jesus.  That is both your privilege and your responsibility as a Christian father or mother — that the Word of the Lord should be spoken and taught and handed over from one generation to the next — just as you also received that Word in the Creed and in the Scriptures from those who came before you in the faith and life of Christ.

For thousands of years, Christians have been confessing these same priceless words, in countless languages around the world, to and from the waters of Holy Baptism, and throughout the Church.  And by taking this confession of Christ upon your lips, as you also ponder it in your mind and treasure it in your heart and soul (for you speak as you believe), so are you strengthened in the one true faith and armored against the devil, all his works and all his ways.

Putting on the full Armor of God and wielding the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is not merely poetic rhetoric, but the most practical and important admonition: By faith you hear and receive and make use of the Word that is preached to you and taught to you.  You rehearse it, and you exercise your faith in the Word, by actually speaking it, by praying and confessing it.

The Creed and the Our Father are a great place to start.  By such prayer and confession, you drown out the false words of wickedness with the true voice of divine Wisdom.  The devil cannot stand against that Word of Christ.  Whether you are two years old, twelve or twenty, 40, 60, 80, or 90, you speak that Word of the Lord, as He has taught you, and the devil has no choice but to flee.

This is something that you can and should do, as a baptized Christian, as a disciple of Christ Jesus: to be like your Teacher, your Master, and to speak as He has spoken to you and catechized you.

Of course, it is not your own work, reason, wisdom, or strength.  It is the gift of God, His Logic, His Righteousness and Peace, which surpass all human understanding, but which are given to you by His speaking of His Word to you, in which you rest, and by which you live in Christ Jesus.

It is by and with His Word that He is near you and abides with you.  By His Word that He foils the tempter’s power.  By His Word that He guides you, guards and keeps you, as your Staff and Stay.  It is by and with His Word that He is kind to you, and gentle and good, and heals you of all iniquities and all infirmities of body and soul.  It is by His Word that He holds the Cross before your closing eyes, in order to bless you by the forgiveness of the Cross: in life, in death, even unto the Resurrection and the Life Everlasting.  And by this Word He opens your ears to hear, your heart and mind to comprehend and believe the Gospel, and your lips and mouth to show forth His praise and glorify the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.