Through the Water into Life with God in Christ Jesus

In the beginning, from out of nothing, the Holy Triune God created the heavens and the earth by the speaking of the almighty and eternal Word.  The Father spoke forth His only-begotten Son, and with that Word He breathed forth His Life-giving Holy Spirit; and thus did He bring forth all of Creation, beginning with water, a great cosmic deep, and then forming the earth out of water and by water.  That is how He chose to work, to begin and to proceed.  All of this was and is very good, because it was and is the work of God, the Lord, and because He still preserves and provides for His whole Creation in love.  The Father upholds all things by His Word, who is indeed His Son.

All of this the Lord has done, and still does, out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, for the sake of Man, male and female, created in His Image and Likeness for Life with Himself forever.

But of course, our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against the Lord who had created them, who had given them life.  They disobeyed His Holy Word, though it was His Word that brought them into being, gave them body and life, and provided for them. And by their sin they plunged all of mankind, all of their children, into a downward spiral of sin and death and eternal damnation, which is separation from the Holy Triune God, from His Life and His Love and His Light.

Henceforth, all men and women, boys and girls, infants and toddlers receive this inheritance from their parents, from the first moment of conception in the womb.  It is this inheritance that you have likewise received from your father and mother, which you also pass on to your sons and daughters, this heritage of sin and death from which you cannot set yourself free.  The heart, soul, mind, and strength of man, of all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, are sinful from the outset.  That is the stream into which you were born, in which you would drown and die forever without God.

So it was that the Flood, for example, was God’s righteous judgment against the hardened hearts, unbelief, and rampant idolatry of Man.  The Holy Scriptures testify that the Lord was sorry that He had even created Man.  So He brought the waters of the Flood down upon their heads.

Yet, that same Flood, which was indeed the judgment of God against the sins of the world, was also a Type and a Sign of the great Salvation He would accomplish by His own Son, Jesus Christ, by His Holy Cross and Passion in His Body of Flesh and Blood.  For it is upon the head of Christ Jesus that God the Father finally pours out all His righteous wrath and judgment in your stead.

The Flood was thus a Type of that gracious washing of regeneration and rebirth by the Holy Spirit which the Lord has brought about in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  And so it was with faithful Noah and his family, eight souls in all, though they were descendants of Adam and Eve, conceived and born in sin and subject to death, they were saved by the waters of the Flood, which lifted them up in the mercies of God — pointing them and you and all mankind to Christ Jesus, our Savior.

Really, everything in the Old Testament — from before the foundation of the world, and even to the close of the age — it’s all about Jesus, the incarnate Son of God.  Everything depends upon Him, on His Incarnation, His Life, His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension.  Everything depends upon Jesus for its real meaning, for its purpose, and for its fulfillment in divine and holy Love.

So, for example, the Old Testament Exodus from Egypt is finally realized for what it truly is in the Exodus that Jesus accomplishes for us men and our salvation upon the Cross outside of Jerusalem and in His Resurrection from the dead.  He is the Firstborn Son who is put to death to set you free from Pharaoh’s satanic bondage.  And He is the Passover Lamb who is sacrificed in your stead, whose Flesh feeds you for Life, and whose Blood covers and protects you from death.

It is the wood of His Cross that parts the waters of the Red Sea; which is to speak of your Baptism in His Name, whereby you pass through those waters with Him, through death and the grave into Life in the Resurrection.  He feeds you with the heavenly Manna of His holy Body throughout your pilgrimage on earth, and He seals you in the New Covenant of His Blood in the Holy Communion.

In truth, until you finally tread the verge of Jordan — until your body is finally dead and buried from your life in this world — you never do outgrow the necessity and benefits of your Baptism.  As the Catechism has taught you, it possesses a lifelong and daily significance for you.

It is by your Baptism into Christ Jesus that you have been born again to a new and living hope through the Word of His Cross.  Like little fishes you were born in those waters, and as a Christian you live your whole life in those same waters of Holy Baptism, wherein the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have recreated you in the Image and Likeness of God — which is to say, in Christ Jesus.

It is by your Baptism into Christ, the beloved and well-pleasing Son, that you are a dear child of God, and that He is your dear Father in heaven.  And it is by your Baptism in His Name that you have been anointed with the Life-giving Holy Spirit, unto faith and life in Christ Jesus, through the forgiveness of your sins (which you need each day, just as the Lord has taught you to pray).

Your Baptism is and does all of these things, because it is by your Baptism into Christ Jesus that you have been united with Him and bound to Him in His Cross and Resurrection; such that His Good Friday and His Easter are now yours — your dying and rising in and with Him.

Henceforth you live, no longer in Adam and for yourself, but in Him and for Him who for your sake died and was raised.  The river of sin and death flowing from Adam and Eve to all of their children has been cut off, because Christ has taken His stand — together with all of us mortals — in the middle of that stream.  He has planted Himself and His Cross, the true Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat of God, in the midst of the Jordan River.  And by His priestly Sacrifice of His own Body and Life, He has opened the Way for you and for all the baptized — out of the desert wilderness into the Promised Land of heaven, flowing not with sin and death, but with the pure spiritual Milk of His Word, like Water from the Rock, sweeter than honey from the honeycomb.

Thus has the new and greater Joshua, Jesus the Christ, established the New Israel of His Church, wherein He has fixed this Pillar and this Sign of Holy Baptism, which works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal Salvation — to you and to all who believe this, as the Words and Promises of God declare: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.”

It is to this permanent Monument of Holy Baptism that Jesus calls you daily by His Word and Holy Spirit through contrition, repentance, and faith.  For it is with His Baptism that you also have been baptized; only, what was death for Him is now Life for you.  By your Baptism with Christ, your old Adam is crucified, put to death, and buried; he is drowned and destroyed, with all your sinful lusts and desires.  But, so also, by and from those waters of Holy Baptism, you arise and emerge to live before God as a new creation, to live in and with the New Man, the true and better Adam, Jesus Christ, in His righteousness and purity, which are yours by His grace through faith in Him.

So it is that you live with Him in His Kingdom, now and forever; and you do drink His Cup, the overflowing Chalice of His holy and precious Blood, unto the Resurrection and eternal Life.

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

The Place and the Means Wherein the Lord Abides with You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baptized into the Entire History and Life of Christ Jesus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Pray at All Times and Not Lose Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Resting and Living in Christ Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath

The first three Commandments really go together in defining how you are to live in relation to the Lord your God, that is, in faith and love.  As Luther puts it, you are to fear, love, and trust in God.

The First Commandment requires such faith in your heart as the fountain of true worship, and the Second Commandment calls for the faithful confession of God’s Name with your lips and mouth.  But the Third Commandment directs you to the Word and works of God, who speaks to you by His Son and gives you rest in both body and soul with His forgiveness of your sins and His gift of Life.

As the First Commandment is the foundation for all Ten, since all good works are done by faith — it is because you fear and love God that you obey His Word and love your neighbors as He says — so is the Third Commandment the heart and center of the Law, because faith itself and all the good works of faith depend upon the preaching and hearing of God’s Word.  There is no true faith in your heart, nor is there a right confession on your lips, except by the Word that He preaches.

The Third Commandment calls for the same fear, love, and trust in the Lord your God as the First — as this faith is to be exercised in the world with your body and life, your time and energy — not by your working and doing, but first of all by your resting in what God does, by your listening to what God says, and by your receiving of what God gives to you in His Ministry of the Gospel.  You worship the Lord by trusting Him with a kind of active passivity that looks to Him and relies on Him for all good things.  You quiet your mind and mouth to listen attentively to His preaching.  You set aside your own activities and pursuits in order to avail yourself of His activity for you.

The Sabbath Command thus rests upon an implicit promise that God is the One who gives you life and provides all that you need for body and soul, for this world and the next.  For He is the One who upholds the world and gives it life by the power of His Word.  It does not depend on you, nor do your own body and life depend on you, but everything depends upon the Lord who loves you.

You do have your work to do, as the Lord has called and stationed you to perform according to His Word, within your family and community, and within the fellowship of His Church on earth.  But even this is the work of the Lord your God, who chooses in love to care for His Creation by the ways and means of His own Creation — from the majestic holy angels to the men and women He calls and positions in various walks of life — from the plants and animals that feed and clothe us, to the sun that shines, the rain that falls, the dirt beneath your feet, and the air that you breathe.

You honor the governing authorities, for example, beginning with your father and mother, as per the Fourth Commandment, because you trust that God is the One who stands behind these people; that He has provided them for you, for your good; that He catechizes and disciplines you by their words and works; and that He accomplishes His own purposes through them.  Instead of living as a law unto yourself, you rest yourself in God, and you submit to those He has placed over you.

The Sabbath Command also rests upon the promise of the Lord that He will not keep silent, that He will not be absent, but that He will continue to speak, to preach and teach, to catechize His people with His Word and Spirit, and to bestow His gifts by the ways and means of His Gospel.  It is in this promise that you wait upon Him, that you rest yourself in Him and rely on Him.

In particular, it is the incarnate Son of God, Christ Jesus, who actually is your Sabbath Rest.  For He is your Savior who delivers you from sin, death, and every evil, who brings you into the safety, peace, and rest of everlasting Life with God the Father.   Already now in this desert wilderness, and hereafter for eternity in Paradise, He is the Bread of Life, the living and Life-giving Bread from heaven, who feeds you with Himself in both soul and body.  He is not a Law for you to keep, but a Gift of God for you to receive.  Your faith and life thus rest upon Him, upon His faithfulness.

To love the Lord your God above all else, and to love your neighbor as yourself, in accordance with all of God’s Commandments — such a life arises from your Sabbath Rest in Christ Jesus.

Your love for God begins with the faith in your heart that is worked in you by the preaching of the Word of Christ, then also with the right use of His Name as the Second Commandment requires:

You pray, praise, and give thanks to God in Christ Jesus on the basis of His great Salvation.  You confess and call upon His Name as He has revealed and given His Name to you in your Baptism; which is to say that you speak to and about the Lord Jesus as He has spoken to you by His Word and the preaching of it.  You say the same thing that He has said.  And with your speaking of His Word, you also act as He has acted.  You live before God and for your neighbor as Jesus lives.

As He gives you rest in body and soul with His Word of the Gospel and in His Holy Sacraments, so do you give rest to your neighbor by your gracious words and with your charitable works of mercy.  Most especially that includes the forgiveness of your neighbor’s trespasses against you.  In all respects, you love your neighbor, not only as yourself, but in the way that Jesus loves you.

Live rightly in keeping with God’s Word, and not wrongly in disobedience to His commands, because you are in Christ Jesus.  In Him alone is your life and your salvation, your peace and rest forevermore.  You are in Him, and He in you, because He speaks to you and gives Himself to you.

The holy life to which He calls you — a life comprising faith toward Him and love for Him and for your neighbor — is not a means of gaining a righteousness of your own by the works of the Law.  It is rather to live righteously by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, by faith in His Word of the Gospel, His forgiveness of sins.  It is to live by the Lord’s own keeping and fulfillment of His Law for your salvation.  For He is the completion and perfection of the Ten Commandments, who in holy faith and holy love, as true God and true Man, has reconciled you to His God and Father, atoning for your sins by His sacrifice upon the Cross and justifying you in His Resurrection.

The Lord teaches you to live in this way, according to His holy and righteous Will, because it is good and right, and because it is good for you; whereas, departing from His Way, from His Word and work of the Gospel in Christ, relinquishes the life that He desires for you and gives to you.

In much the same way that the Second Table of the Law protects your neighbor from the harm that you would do to him, so do the first three Commandments protect you from the harm that you would do to yourself.  For the constant temptation is to live unto yourself, as a god unto yourself, in splendid isolation from your neighbor and his needs, and without the Word of God in the world.  As though you could actually make a name and a life for yourself!  As though you did not need the Ministry of His Gospel as much or more than your body needs food and drink and oxygen to live.

The truth is that trying to make a life for yourself only robs you of life.  It wears you out and ruins you in body and soul.  But God calls you to rest yourself in Christ Jesus, so that, by His grace, through faith in His Gospel–Word and Sacraments, you have peace and rest even in your labors.

The point and purpose of genuine fasting, therefore, is that you would cease and desist from the desire and effort to feed yourself, in order to be fed by God, to eat and drink from His open hand. Fasting from your own insatiable desires, you feast upon Christ in faith and with thanksgiving.

Where you have not lived in this way — where you have not trusted and relied upon the Lord your God by seeking out His Word and receiving His good gifts — where you have gone your own way, instead of keeping His Commandments — repent of your sins and return to the Lord your God.

Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy; that is to say, not Saturday per se, nor even Sunday as one day out of seven, but remember the true and permanent Sabbath that is yours in Christ Jesus.  Rest yourself in Him, and remain in Him, by listening to His Word and the preaching of it, daily returning to the significance of His Baptism, and availing yourself of His Holy Supper.  Delight yourself in these means of grace, as the Lord Himself delights in you by these very same means.

Rest yourself in the Lord of the Sabbath, and be at Peace in Him as He remembers you in mercy.  He remembers you, not simply with faraway thoughts and feelings, but with His active presence, with His Word and works of love for you, and with the good gifts of His own Body and Blood.

As He has fulfilled the entire Law for you in love — on your behalf and for your eternal benefit — so He does not do you any harm, but He helps you in every way.  He daily and richly provides you with all that you need, unto the resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting in His Body.

With the preaching of His Gospel, with His Holy Absolution, and with His Body given and His Blood poured out for you, He forgives you all your sins, and He gives you life in place of death and damnation.  That precious good news and free gift of God in Christ Jesus stands sure and certain against all the weariness and wickedness of this old world, so that you are not undone or destroyed — you are not worn out or left to waste away in melancholy grief or hopeless despair — but you are raised up and refreshed in your body and your soul, in heart, mind, and spirit, in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.  For He is your Peace and Sabbath Rest, both now and forevermore.

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

The Voice of the Lord

The Lord your God has given you a Savior, Christ Jesus, who has redeemed you from sin and death, delivered you from all your enemies, and set you free to live without fear.

That is what the nativity, the circumcision, and the name of St. John the Baptist mean; for everything about this boy points to the Christ, to the Redeemer of Israel, the Holy One who comes after St. John.  The greatness of the Forerunner derives entirely from the Greater One who follows, to whom he points and whose way he prepares, the Horn of Salvation whom God has raised up for us from the house of His servant David.

It may seem unnecessarily complicated, that the Lord should bother with St. John the Baptist, instead of simply sending Jesus in the flesh, the Son of Mary, and starting the story there.  What is the point in sending St. John, when his role and service are so relatively brief, and then he must decrease and make way for the Christ, the Coming One?  The Lord could certainly have given Zacharias and Elizabeth a son, in any case — and several decades sooner, as far as that goes, instead of leaving them childless for so many years — and then let well enough alone in the giving of His own beloved Son.

After all, it’s not as though Jesus needed any help in accomplishing redemption for His people.  And what is there for St. John to do, anyway, who is not worthy to untie the sandals of the Lord’s feet?  St. John is not the Redeemer.  He is not the Christ.

So, what, then?  He is but a Voice, who cries out today in being borne from his mother’s womb and in his circumcision, and who will cry out the Word of the Lord in the wilderness.  He is a prophet, and more than a prophet, who preaches what the Lord has given him to preach, and with his preaching points to Christ Jesus and prepares His way.

It is by such a voice of preaching, by His Word spoken and proclaimed, that the Lord visits His people and gives them life and grants them peace.  He does so in this way and by this means, not arbitrarily, nor simply as an accommodation of human weakness, but by His good and gracious will, by His own choice and design, according to His own divine nature.  As the Son is begotten of the Father from all eternity, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so does the Father create and give life and accomplish all things by His speaking of His Son, by which He breathes and bestows His Spirit.

It is, therefore, not so much that God works through preaching because we “happen to be” verbal creatures, but He has created us to be verbal creatures after His own Image, because He is a Verbal God — and there is no other God than the Word, by whom and for whom all things are made.

Thus, for the purpose of giving His Son, the divine eternal Word who would become Flesh when the time had fully come, God spoke to His people of old by the Prophets — and precisely as He spoke, so has He fulfilled.  There is consistency and perfect continuity in the Lord’s speaking, even as that Word of God becomes true Man in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And now, in anticipation of and preparation for that gift of her Son, there is the conception and birth of the last and greatest prophet, St. John, who goes before His face as a messenger.

The message and the messenger are all-but-inseparable, especially in this case of St. John the Baptist.  Again, everything about him points to the coming of Christ Jesus, though He, the Lord in the flesh, will be that much greater in every way.  St. John’s miraculous conception of old and barren Elizabeth anticipates the greater miracle of the Lord’s own conception and birth from the young Virgin Mary.  St. John’s divinely-given name, which means grace, anticipates but yields before the gracious name of Jesus, which testifies that He is Yahweh, our Savior.  The rejoicing of St. Elizabeth’s family, friends, and neighbors anticipates the rejoicing of heaven and earth at the Nativity of our Lord Jesus.  And the canticle of Zacharias at the circumcision and naming of his son, John, already begins to find its fulfillment in the presentation of our Lord Jesus at the Temple, in the canticle of Simeon, who departs in peace in accordance with the Word of the Lord to him.

In all of this, fear is giving way to Peace as the Glory of God is “seen” in His Word of the Gospel, and as divine comfort is granted in the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.

This, dear friends, is how God works, and He does so in love.  So much so that the almighty and eternal Son of God is revealed to be the Voice, the Speaking, the Word of God the Father.  So, too, it is by the preaching of that Word that God the Holy Spirit is given, and by which the Spirit lays Christ Jesus upon your heart and mind, upon your body and soul, for divine Life and Salvation.

Which is also why those who are filled with the Holy Spirit do one thing in particular: They speak as the oracles of God.  They pray and sing His Word.  They confess.  They prophecy, proclaim, and preach, each according to his own vocation.  As they believe with the heart, so do they speak.

Whereas, apart from the Holy Spirit, man is unable to speak.  Not that fallen man will actually keep silent — for he fills the world with his endless chatter, noise, and confusion — but he cannot speak truth, or beauty, or wisdom, or anything of any lasting value and importance.  He cannot speak life and love, because he cannot speak Christ Jesus, until the Holy Spirit enters in by the divine Word.

So does the Holy Spirit enter in and make ready the way of the Christ by the preaching of St. John the Baptist.  And the same preaching continues to this day, in order to open the way of the Lord Jesus Christ unto you.  That is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

That is the preaching that levels mountains and fills up valleys.  It shatters both pride and despair.  It straightens what is crooked and bent, and it makes flat and smooth what is rough and uneven.  It is the preaching that wounds in order to heal, the preaching that kills in order to make alive.

Whatever it is in you that would oppose or prevent the coming of the Christ, the preaching of the Forerunner removes.  Where you are arrogant and exalt yourself, he humbles you.  Where you are doubtful and afraid, he silences your unbelief and quiets your fears, that he might speak the tender mercies of God to your troubled heart.  For the Lord is at hand to visit and redeem His people, and this Word of salvation comes to all who fear God — not in terror, but in the reverence of faith.

In the preaching of St. John the Baptist there is the culmination and crescendo of all the Law and the Prophets before him.  He comes in the spirit and power of Elijah, to be sure, but his preaching is also that of Moses and Samuel, of Isaiah and Jeremiah.  Here the rolling thunder of the Law, with all of its demands, all its promises and threats, all of its holy perfection and fiery judgment, becomes a deafening roar that warns of a terrible storm.  All hell is about to break loose in the righteous wrath of God against idolatry, unbelief, and the lawlessness of sin; and even now the axe is poised at the root of every fruitless tree, to cut it down and throw it into the fire.

As this preaching is the Word of God, it certainly does what it proclaims.  It is a fire and a hammer, which crushes and destroys the sinner.  But where is the comfort of the Gospel in this?  Where is the peace of forgiveness and salvation?  And how does such dire preaching point to Christ Jesus and prepare the way for His coming?  It is actually the key to understanding the point and purpose for which St. John the Baptist was born, and for which he was sent — in ways that even St. John did not fully comprehend or understand at first.

He was sent to preach, not only repentance, but a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And in that baptism was all that he preached, all the Law and the Prophets, all the promises and threats, the blessing and the curse — the wound and the healing, the falling and the rising, the death of sin and the Life everlasting in the way of the Christ.

Thus, the Lord Jesus comes on the heals of the Forerunner, and He submits Himself to St. John’s baptism of repentance.  Though St. John tries at first to prevent Him — knowing that Jesus is the Greater One, and that He should be the Baptizer — it is necessary for St. John to baptize Jesus in order to fulfill all righteousness.  For in this way the Lord Jesus submits Himself to the Law, and He takes His stand with sinners, in order to become their Savior and Redeemer — and yours.

St. John was not the M.C., called upon to introduce the Guest of Honor.  Nor was this some kind of “bad cop, good cop” routine, in which St. John comes preaching fire and brimstone, and then Jesus comes in all soft and sweet.  But something else altogether is at work and going on here.

The Lord Jesus comes, not to wave away the fire and brimstone, but to take it upon Himself.  He is the Lamb of God that St. John will proclaim, because He takes upon Himself the sins of the world in His Baptism by John, in order to remove iniquity by His own sacrifice and bloodshed.  He cleanses the world of unrighteousness through the waters of Holy Baptism, by soaking up all the dirty bath water into His own flesh and then handing Himself over to His death upon the Cross.

Indeed, it is already the death of His Cross to which He submits Himself in St. John’s baptism of repentance.  Thus He dies, in order to raise you up.  He comes down from the lofty mountain, in order to bring you up out of the deep dark valley of death and despair.  He enters upon the way of the Cross, for you and for all people, that your way might be cleared and opened up; that you might enter through His death into His Resurrection and Ascension and His Life everlasting.

This is the mercy of the Lord that He reveals in the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, not only to Elizabeth and Zacharias, but also to you.  The birth of this child, his naming and circumcision, proclaim that Christ Jesus is now at hand, that the Lord your God has come in the flesh to save you from your sins, and that He will indeed deliver you from every evil of body and soul.

The birth of St. John the Forerunner is the promise and the evidence that God the Father shall continue preaching to you, and that He shall do all that He has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets, and that He shall henceforth speak to you by His own beloved Son in the flesh.

He remembers His holy Covenant in that flesh of Christ Jesus, and in His holy precious blood, given and poured out for you.  He remembers you in love; and remembering, He acts to save you, to give you life.  He makes Himself known to you, and gives Himself to you, and shines His Light upon you through the preaching of His Word — the preaching of His Christ — which is the Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins.  Truly, this Word does and gives exactly what He says.

This Word gives you peace, because it fills you with the Holy Spirit, so that you now also speak as the oracles of God.  You live before God in the righteousness and purity, the innocence and blessedness of Christ Jesus, and thus are you free to worship the Lord without fear.  For here there is no condemnation or punishment, but only the tender mercy and compassion of your dear God and Father in Christ Jesus.  The One who promises is faithful, and He loves you.  As He speaks, so He does, and so shall you live, both now and forever.

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

By the Divine Righteousness of Grace and Mercy

People have developed and adopted all sorts of coping strategies: machinations, orchestrations, negotiations, and countless different stories to spin to their own advantage and benefit.  Perhaps you’ve also tried to lay your own foundation, to build your own house, and to establish your own kingdom, in the hopes of securing your place and purpose in the world, your safety and security.

The problem is, though, that none of those strategies work.  Not really, and not for long in any case.  None of the numerous ways that you attempt to protect yourself and preserve your life is able to secure what you’ve got or achieve what you actually need.  Your self-made building will not last.  Sin and death will bring it down, and it will crash and crumble into dust, as easily as your brother smashes your sand castle, and as swiftly as your sister destroys your Lego masterpiece.

Your “covenant with death” is a deceit of the devil, which has become your own self-deception.  The joke’s on you, but it’s not the least bit funny.  Your “pact with Sheol” will not secure your survival; it actually seals your doom.  And your “deal with God,” as many people imagine their own conceit to be, is nothing else than arrogant self-idolatry.  So, too, the “understanding” that you think you’ve got with “the Man upstairs” is surely not the fear of the Lord or faith in His Word.

So there comes the preaching of destruction and judgment.  The wrath of God is visited upon all disobedience and unbelief, including yours.  It is why there are consequences for sin.  And do not kid yourself in this regard, as though you could live recklessly and not get burned.  For the Lord God sets Himself and the cleansing fire of His Word against all unrighteousness, which is sin, and against all the pompous self-righteousness of man, which leads only to death.

Not only with fire, in anticipation of the final judgment, but also with water, in continuation of the Flood that once destroyed almost everything in the days of Noah, God disciplines the children of man for the sake of His mercy, in order to bring them to repentance and save them by His grace.

I know it doesn’t feel like mercy or grace, but it is, lest you be caught unawares and die forever.

His waters sweep over all things and into all the secret places of your heart, mind, and life, into all the nooks and crannies of your innermost thoughts and private time — behind your closed doors, into the back of your dark closet, and underneath your messy bed.  They seek out and wash away all of your deceptions, your every pretense, and your subterfuge.  They scourge and they cleanse from the inside-out, like a dentist cleaning out your teeth with jets of water that cut like knives, or a doctor cleaning out your ears with a roaring rush of water that blows away all the wax.

It is like the farmer who plows up his field in order to remove the stones and break up the hard soil, in preparation for the planting of the seed.  And again, it is similar to the way he later threshes the grain and grinds it into wheat, in order to bake it into bread.

But the Lord does not keep plowing when the Seed has been planted.  He does not continue threshing forever, lest the grain be destroyed along with the chaff.  Nor does He grind the wheat into oblivion.  But, in due season, the Seed that was sown in humility, which died and was buried in the dust of the earth, He brings forth again as the Bread of Life for the eater.

The deadly and devastating work of His Law, which crushes and purges and threatens to destroy you forever, that is God’s strange and alien work, His unusual and extraordinary task.  To be sure, it is a divine and necessary work.  Indeed, for those who are perishing in their sinful unbelief it is the first exercise of His mercy toward them.  But it is not the best or last Word of the Lord.

It rather goes like this: The Forerunner, as a wise and well-catechized farmer, goes before the face of the Lord to prepare His Way, first with the Word of the Law, but then also with the preaching of the Gospel.  The one who threatens fruitless trees with poised and ready axes, and vipers with wrath, and chaff with unquenchable fire, will baptize the Lamb of God, and point to Him, and say, “There is the Mighty One whose power is made perfect in mercy, who takes away all your sins.”

This is another strange and alien work, but of an altogether different sort and in a totally different way.  Whereas wrath and condemnation are strange and alien to God’s innermost nature, the Cross of Christ, by which He saves you, is utterly strange and alien to your own self-righteousness.

Learn, then, by His Word and Spirit of the Gospel, to perceive and trust the Cross for what it is, although it cuts against the grain of every other wisdom and every instinct you have known.  It is so different from and contrary to your own strategies of safety and security, so different from and contrary to all your striving for self-preservation and survival, that it really makes no sense at all.  And yet, it is by the Cross, by the Lord’s own sacrificial death, that He lays the Cornerstone, preserves a strong Foundation, establishes His Throne, and rules His Kingdom in righteousness.  Not only for a little while, nor even for a long, long time, but forever and ever.

That is why, already, at the sounding of His Word and promise, the barren old woman and the blessed young Virgin both conceive and bear sons, as surely as the Lord creates all things out of nothing, and as He brings forth Life out of death.  These two little boys, these two babies in the womb, anticipate the Resurrection of the Crucified One, of Mary’s Son, from death and the grave.  Their very lives confess that all things are possible with God, and that His speaking makes it so.

The infant St. John, in utero, rejoices in the great Salvation of his God.  He has heard and believes the promise of the Gospel, even in the greeting of his Savior’s Mother.  He already knows by grace through faith, and he confesses with his leaping little feet, what he will preach and profess in due season on the bank of the Jordan River: Here is Mary’s little Lamb who takes all our sins away.

He takes them all upon Himself, this little Lamb of God, the incarnate Lord Jesus, and He bears them in the same Body that He has received from His Mother’s flesh and blood.  That is why, when He is finally crucified under Pontius Pilate, when He suffers and dies and is buried, then all the sins of the world — all the sins of all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve — are done away with and forgiven.  And because they are not any sins of His own, but He has borne them all in faith and love and innocence, death has no just claim on Him; nor can death lord it over Him or keep Him, but it must relinquish this Lord Jesus Christ to His own God and Father.

So, then, the One who has become like you — your Brother in the flesh, who has borne your sins and griefs and sorrows, who has died your death and suffered the judgment of God in your stead — He has also risen from the dead in the same human flesh and blood that He shares with you.

Which means that, not only have your sins been forgiven, once and forever, but death itself has also been defeated in Him.  It no longer has any legitimate claim on you, as you are in Christ.  The Lord Himself has cancelled your contract with death; He has renegotiated your pact with Sheol.  Hence, even though you die from this mortal coil, yet shall you live forever in both body and soul.

The sign and seal of this precious Holy Gospel is given to you in the son of the “barren” old woman Elizabeth, and in the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  It is the Sign of the Cross, with which you also have been signed and sealed in your Holy Baptism.  And it is given as the surety of your salvation in the Resurrection of your dear Lord Jesus from the dead.  For as the Father raised Him up — which is your Justification and your Righteousness — so, by faith in Him, in the Word that He has spoken (which He preaches even now), you are safe and secure forevermore.

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

Your Priestly Vocation in Christ Jesus

Since the Lord your God has called you to a royal priesthood in Christ Jesus, by virtue of your Holy Baptism into Him, you should know what your priestly service is and how to perform it, that you might pray and confess His Holy Word and offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to His holy Name.

From St. Luke this evening you have heard the culmination and fulfillment of the Aaronic Old Testament priesthood, as it comes to the realization of its purpose in the duties of Zachariah and in the promise and conception of his son.  All of this, along with all that has come beforehand, points to the coming of the Christ and prepares His people to receive Him and be united to Him.

It is in Christ Jesus, our merciful and great High Priest in the order of Melchizedek — not a son of Aaron but the Son of David — it is in Him that the Lord’s people enter into His divine and holy presence, into the true Holy of Holies, in holiness, righteousness, and peace.  And that is what the Priesthood, the Tabernacle, and then the Temple were always all about, from the very beginning.

Likewise, the morning and evening sacrifices, as well as the incense offering that coincided with those daily sacrifices, were always about the Christ who was to come in the fullness of time.  Those gracious gifts of God the Lord were both a prayer and a promise of the great Salvation He would bring about and accomplish by His Incarnation, by His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension.

Every morning and every evening, when the sacrifice was made on the altar of burnt offering in the outer courtyard, the appointed priest within the Holy Place would offer the incense on the golden altar that stood before the veil, before the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant.  The sweet-smelling incense that filled the Temple and ascended to the Lord not only accompanied but actually embodied the petitions of Israel for redemption: That God would restore the oracle to the service of His House, and that He would gather the scattered into His courts, to keep His statutes, to live according to His Will, and to serve Him with their whole heart.

These are the petitions that Zachariah is offering with the incense in the Temple when the Angel Gabriel appears to him in the presence of the Lord and declares that his prayer has been heard and is being answered.  And the evidence that it will be done entirely by the grace and power of God is provided in the way and means by which He goes about it: He gives a son to this old man and his barren old wife, and He provides a name for the boy, John, which means, Yahweh is gracious.

It is with St. John the Baptist, the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth, that the Gospel itself begins, because he is brought into existence, called by God from the womb, and sent as the Forerunner who goes before the Face of the Lord to prepare His way.  For the good and gracious gifts of God cannot even be received or accepted in faith except by the preparation that He provides through the preaching of His messenger!  The Lord Himself works all in all, from start to finish.

So, then, it is by the preaching and ministry of this priestly son, St. John, that the Old Testament priesthood ushers in the Christ to whom it has always pointed.  St. John is the oracle of the Lord, who preaches the Law and the Gospel unto repentance and faith, and who thereby turns many of the sons of Israel away from their sins and death and back to the Lord their God.

He is called by God the Lord, already from his mother’s womb, to preach and to practice a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And, as you know, not only does he baptize the people with such a baptism, but he will also baptize Christ Jesus Himself, the Lamb of God, unto His own Cross and Passion.  It is in this way that St. John anoints and offers the Lamb unto the Lord for the propitiation of the sins of the world.  Not that John is worthy or even able of himself to do so, but according to his office and vocation, by and with the Word and Spirit of the Lord who sent him.

As the Christ enters and emerges from the waters of His Baptism, so is He crucified, dead, and buried, and so does He rise from the dead and ascend to the right hand of His Father in heaven.  He thus descends into the depths of Sheol, and He ascends to the heights of the heavenly places, in order to become the Sacrifice and the Incense by which He brings you and your prayers to God.

St. John, the priestly son of Zachariah, is the instrument of the Lord’s mercy in bringing this about.  But it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who alone is offered and received on your behalf, who thus fulfills and accomplishes all things for you and your salvation.

In His own human flesh and blood, the One who is baptized by St. John the Forerunner is a great High Priest forever, who sacrifices His own body and life and sheds His holy and precious blood, once for all, as the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the whole world.

By that Sacrifice of Christ Jesus, beginning in the waters of His Baptism and perfected on His Cross, His Body and His Blood have become the priestly Food and Drink, the Holy Communion Meal of the perfect Peace Offering, by which His priestly people are bound to Him in fellowship.  Not only for His Israel of old, but also for you and for all who are baptized in His Name.

The same Body and Blood of the one Lord Jesus Christ, which are given and poured out for you from His Altar in the Temple of His Church on earth, are also, at the same time and forevermore, the sacred and sweet-smelling Incense and the great High Priestly Prayer that ascend to the highest heavens, into the true Holy of Holies made without hands, into the ears and the nostrils of His own God and Father.  As He feeds you here with Himself, and as He preaches peace to you here by the Ministry of His Gospel, so does He never stop interceding for you and petitioning for your Peace and reconciliation with the Father in heaven, who sits enthroned upon the cherubim.

By these ways and means of Christ, as you receive Him into your body through the ways and means of the Gospel — in your ears, and in your hands and mouth — so do you also enter with Him, in His Body of flesh and blood, into the presence of God in perfect Peace: By repentant faith in His free and full forgiveness of all your sins; by your Baptism into His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension; and by your participation in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood.

United with Christ Jesus in both body and soul by these gifts of His Gospel, you do belong to the royal priesthood of His Body, the Church.  Which is to say that, much like St. John the Baptist, but within your own particular place in this world, your body and your life are a priestly sacrifice of thanksgiving and a priestly service of prayer and confession.  You thus offer to the glory of God and for the good of your neighbors what you have yourself received from the Lord by His grace.

What that means and looks like, at ground level, is that you are daily put to death and daily raised to a brand new life by repentance and faith in the Gospel.  And that is not simply a mental activity, nor it is a self-help exercise of your emotions.  It is rather to hear and heed the preaching of the Word of the Lord, the Word of Christ Jesus, from those messengers who are sent to speak it to you.

Your Christian priesthood is then also to serve the duties of your office and stations in life, as in the very presence of the Lord your God.  To know what that means for you, specifically, consider your place in the light of the Ten Commandments, as the Catechism has taught you to do.  And so live and do as God has commanded: Love and cherish, honor and serve your spouse, your parents, and your children, your brothers and sisters (within your own home and family, and in the Lord); and love your other neighbors, as well, as you are given to do in each case by the Word of God.

Because this life of faith and love is lived and offered as a priestly sacrifice, it bears the Cross and suffers patiently for the sake of Christ Jesus.  Which is to say, not simply that you put up with it, but that you boldly confess His Cross in gentleness and reverence, in courtesy and peace.

Whatever disgrace and shame you may experience from other people, do not measure the grace and favor of God by your outward circumstances, but by the Word and promise of Christ, by His Cross and Resurrection.  So, for example, Zachariah and Elizabeth bore the Cross of having no children for all those long and many years, though they were indeed righteous in the sight of God by faith in His Word; and by such faith, they lived according to His Word within their vocations.

That is the character and content of the priestly life and priestly service, the “liturgy of life,” so to speak, to which you also are called by the Spirit of God through the preaching of His Word.  It does involve the doing of your duties, but it is always the case, at all times and in all places, that it depends upon the hearing of the Word of Christ, by which you believe, and by which you pray and confess the Lord your God.  As the Father speaks to you by His Son, so by His Holy Spirit do you speak that same Word in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  You speak as an oracle of God.

That you might learn to speak and sing that Word of Christ, the Word-made-Flesh, the Lord does for you, as He did for Zachariah, the very thing that we have prayed in the evening Psalm: He sets a watch over your mouth, and He guards the door of your lips, lest your heart be inclined to sin by speaking the false confessions of doubt, despair, idolatry, and unbelief.  For words are powerful — as you hear them, and as you speak and rehearse them out loud — whether for good or evil.  What you mutter to yourself under your breath, what you gossip to and about your neighbors, and what you spew in the unguarded passions of anger or lust, it all wreaks havoc against your faith.

In the case at hand, Zachariah was disciplined to wait upon the Lord, to listen to His Word, and to watch for the fulfillment of His promises.  And in due season, after many months of silence, he was able by the Spirit to speak the Word of the Lord both to and for his little son, St. John.  In the same way, you are called to silence, first of all, that you might hear and learn the Word of Christ, and then, by His Word, to confess His Cross in the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection.

Indeed, it is by the grace and Spirit of Christ Jesus that everything you do and say as a Christian becomes a confession of His Cross and Resurrection.  By His Word, all of your words and actions, your body and soul, your heart, mind, and spirit, are consecrated for priestly service to the glory of His Holy Name.  From the font — from the womb of your Mother, the Church — you are holy and righteous in all things, without any blame or fault in the presence of your God and Father.

For the Word that God speaks to you by His Son is more than simply “true.”  It is the Truth, upon which the heavens and the earth and all of creation are brought into being and perfected.  It is the sure and certain promise of what is to be, of your tomorrow and forever, because it has already been fulfilled and accomplished for you in the Body and Blood of your Savior, Christ Jesus.

He has humbled Himself, even unto death, and He has been exalted by His God and Father on your behalf, as your merciful and great High Priest, so that you should be exalted in Him.

His Blood, shed upon the Cross, has atoned for all your sins forever.  And with that Blood, in His own Body of flesh (just like yours), crucified and risen from the dead, He has entered the Most Holy Place, behind the Veil, where He ever lives to intercede for you before the Throne of God.

In order that you should be and abide with Him there in the presence of the Lord your God, both now and forevermore, He also feeds you with His Body and His Blood here at His priestly Table, and thereby nourishes you in your body and soul, unto the Resurrection and the Life Everlasting.

Therefore, take heart, and do not be afraid, dear child of God.  Not only is your petition heard and answered for the sake of your dear Lord Jesus Christ, but, as you belong to Him, a member of His Body and Bride, His royal priesthood, so do you stand with Him before your God and Father in Peace.  Even now by faith in the Gospel, and forevermore in Christ, you live and abide with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in that true Temple of God which is the very Body of the Lamb.

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