Christ Jesus Is the Life and Light and Salvation of Body and Soul

It is evident that Jairus has been catechized by the Word of the Lord, for he comes to Jesus in the hope of His mercy. He worships Him by faith with his prayers and petitions, and with his body, too, prostrate before his Lord in humility. The posture of his body confesses the faith in his heart.

It is evident that he, a ruler of the synagogue, has not only cared for others with God’s Word and prayer, but has catechized his own little daughter, as well; else she would not only be sleeping. The Christian fears the grave as little as her bed, but those who die apart from Christ are swallowed up, body and soul, by eternal death.

Such death is the legacy and inheritance of all the daughters and sons of Adam & Eve. All of you will die — and must die — because all of you sin and fall short of the Glory of God. Indeed, it is necessary that you die to your sin, to yourself, and to the world, in order that you be set free and raised up to newness of life in the Body of Christ Jesus.

But so it is, in Him, that death does not have the last word, final though it seems. Even death cannot end your gladness when you have become a child, not only of man, but of God. By faith in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, you live, even though you die. That is our bold confession, on this day as throughout the year, as we remember with thanksgiving the faithful departed who have gone before us over this past year. They are not “dead and gone,” but alive forever with the Lord.

For the very Son of God has come in the flesh, with a Body and Blood like your own, conceived and born of the Woman, St. Mary, herself a daughter of Adam. He has entered into the house of sin and death where you are. He has crossed over to the other side of the sea in the new and greater Exodus of His Cross and Resurrection, even as He was baptized for you and for all righteousness in the waters of the Jordan River. He made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over; and, as you are baptized into Him, you pass through death into Life everlasting with Him.

To that end, He now comes with His Ministers of the Gospel, who follow Him and bear His Name, who preach His Word and give His good gifts to the children of men. With His Word and the touch of His hand, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you and His whole Christian Church with the Holy Spirit of His God and Father. So does His Word go out into all the world, His Voice to the ends of the earth. And His Word declares that Life and Light and Salvation are found in Him.

Jairus is prompted to seek Him out by his desperate need for the sake of his dear daughter, and by his faith in the Word and Flesh of Christ Jesus he prays and intercedes for his girl, for the life and health and strength of her body. He prostrates himself and worships Jesus with his heart and mind, with his words and actions, and with his whole body, as well. And his prayer is that Jesus would come in the flesh to lay His hands on the little girl, in order to raise her up from death to life again.

You hear the attention that is given here to the body. And at the same time, you know that your own body is afflicted by the curse of sin and death. Your flesh suffers and decays, it perishes and fades like the grass and its flower. There is no lasting life but only sickness and death in your body.

That poor woman with the twelve-year hemorrhage certainly knew and experienced that frailty of her flesh and the weight of her mortality.

For all of that, the truth remains that Christ Jesus has come in His own Body of flesh and blood. He has suffered and died for all your sins and transgressions, and He is risen from the dead in His glorified Body for your justification, in order to rescue and raise you in both body and soul. For all that He has accomplished for you in His Body, He has also given to you in Holy Baptism, and He continues to bestow upon you in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood. Already in the Gospel He delivers your soul from death — as He will your body in the Resurrection.

Therefore, do not weep and wail and mourn like those who have no hope.  Rather, pray, praise, and give thanks in the hope and confidence of Christ. Call upon the Name of the Lord, trusting that He hears and answers your prayers and supplications, and that He saves you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Do not be afraid, but seek Him where He may be found, and so lay hold of Him by the “hem of His garment,” which is to say, by availing yourself of His Word and Sacrament.

Not what your senses, your intellect, or your emotions tell you, no matter how convincingly, but what Jesus says and does for you and gives to you determines what is true and what is real. The world will mock and scorn, it will laugh and ridicule the hope that is in you. But never mind that.

The Lord your God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live by and from Him. And by His grace, by His Ministry of the Gospel, He has delivered you from the domain of darkness, death, and damnation, and brought you into the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom you have redemption through His Blood, the free and full forgiveness of all your sins in Christ Jesus.

He raises you up and gives you life, already here and now in your body on earth. As surely as He has purified your heart and cleansed your conscience by the washing of your body with the water and His Word in Holy Baptism, so surely does He enliven your body with His Holy Spirit; so that you rise up and live and walk in His Way — from your childhood into your teens and adulthood.

He stretches out His hand to lay hold of you in love, to strengthen and sustain your faith and life in Him through the blessing of His Word and Holy Spirit. And it is your faith in Him that saves you, not as any kind of work or merit on your part, but as receiving and relying on His good Gifts.

The Synagogue and Sabbath Rest of Christ Jesus are where He catechizes you with His Word and calls you daily to repentance. Thus He returns you, again and again, to the significance of your Holy Baptism, to your dying and rising with Him. And He feeds you with Himself for the Life everlasting of your body and soul. He comes to abide with you, that you should abide in Him.

So now, in turn, confess the faith to your neighbors, and catechize your daughters and sons with the Word of Christ Jesus. Be as earnest and eager to do so as Jairus was to seek out Jesus for the sake of his dear little daughter; for it is by the catechesis of the Word of Christ Jesus that you give true and lasting Life to your children and preserve them in body and soul for now and forever.

And little girl, or little boy — young woman, or young man — child of God, whatever your age, do not continue to sin with your body, nor give yourself over to the laziness of apathy and despair, but worship the Lord your God — and love your neighbor as yourself — in and with your body.

As a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, follow Him on the Way that leads to Life even in the midst of death. Enter with Him into the House of your true Father and Mother, in which your weeping is turned into joy and your sorrow gives way to feasting. For your heavenly Bridegroom is here with you, feeding you with the Meat and Drink indeed of His holy Body and precious Blood, that you should not die but live, now and forever. He abides with you, and you abide in Him, both body and soul, waking, sleeping, in life, in death, and in the Resurrection to the Life everlasting

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

In One Lord, Jesus Christ, the True and Only God

Most of you have known at least some of those dear Christians we will name before the Lord’s Altar on this day, who have gone before us in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus.  And all of you have laid to rest loved ones in the past, whether recently or long ago, from the womb or after many years of life together.  Parents and children, spouses and siblings, neighbors and friends.

Take some time to think about those people, those men and women, boys and girls, all of them sinful and mortal like yourself.  What was important to them?  What really mattered?  What did they treasure in this body and life on earth?  How did they spend their time?  Where did they invest themselves?  With what did they depart this vale of tears, and with what did they enter eternity?  What did they take with them?  And what do they have now?

All that remains forever is Christ Jesus and His Word, His Spirit and His Father.  Apart from Him, there is only darkness, death, and damnation.  Where, then, shall your heart and life be found?  And how shall you live here and now, in order that you may rise and live with the Lord Jesus forever?

To set aside for God a part or a portion of your time would be idolatrous.  To dedicate or offer to the Lord a percentage of your possessions would be a sacrilege.  For how shall you call Him the Lord your God, to whom you would give only a portion of yourself?  And how shall you worship Him, if you presume to assign Him a place as one priority among so many others in your life?

It will not do to subdivide yourself, your time and energy, your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  No, you are to love and serve the Lord your God, and nothing else besides Him, with everything you are and have.  For there is one Lord, one God, not many.  There is one Author and Giver of Life.  Wherever else you might look for life, you would find nothing but death.  Not that God is merely a means by which you get life for yourself, but He alone is your Life and Light and Salvation.

Whatever else to which you direct or dedicate your thoughts, words, and actions — if not the Holy Triune God — that is your idol, your false god and false religion.  Or to suppose that you have ever “done your time” and “paid your dues,” is already to have failed and fallen far short of the glory of God.  For He would have all of you, that you should have your whole life entirely in Him.

Your offerings and your alms are inadequate and insufficient, no matter what the amount, and no matter what percentage of your income and your wealth, if you still withhold yourself from God and from your neighbor.  For you are to love the Lord your God with your entire being, and you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Which is not to say that you should love your neighbor in addition to God, nor alongside of God, for that would be to make another god out of your neighbor.  Rather, you are to love your neighbor under and within your fear, love, and trust in God, that is, according to His Word and after the example of His own great heart of love.

It is for God’s sake that you thus love your neighbor in humility, in faith, in mercy, and in peace.  And that is how you are to live your whole life in the good Land to which the Lord your God has called you, which He has promised you in His Word, and which He gives to you in Christ Jesus.

Where you do not love the Lord God and your neighbor, there is alienation, enmity, separation, loneliness, and fear.  Not peace and rest, but anxiety and hard labor.  Not life, but death, now and forever.  That is the land laid waste by your lack of love for God and man.  That is the kingdom and the city of your own idolatrous self-love.  It is sprawling, unruly, divided, and running amok.

But over His good Land the Lord your God has raised up and established a good King, who is the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, with whom He has made an everlasting Covenant for your salvation.  Indeed, He is the royal High Priest who has redeemed you with His Life-Blood by His Sacrifice upon the Cross and reconciled you to God in His Resurrection from the dead, in order that you may live with Him in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Who is this King of Glory, who does such great things for you?  He is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord because He is the Word-made-Flesh, the incarnate Son of God, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Word and Spirit of His Father.

In the great Mystery of His Holy Incarnation, the Lord your God has thereby fulfilled the first and greatest commandment — and likewise the second — for you and for all people.  For the Son loves His God and Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength, also now from and with His own human Body of flesh and blood like yours.  And in such love for His Father, He has made Himself your Neighbor, even your Brother in the flesh, in order to love you with His whole Body and Life.

Thus, the one true God, beside whom there is no other, has come beside you, and He has placed you beside Him, so that you might share His Life and abide with Him in His divine and holy Love.

He has held nothing back.  He has humbled Himself, poured Himself out, and given His whole self to God, even unto death upon the Cross.  That is His Priesthood and His Sacrifice, which He offers to God on your behalf.  His Life is in His Blood, and He gives His Life entirely in love for God and in love for you.  For by the shedding of His Blood, He has atoned for all your sins, and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  He has redeemed you for Himself forevermore.  And He has established the New Covenant between God and Man in His own Flesh and Blood.

His own Body is the new and greater Tabernacle, wherein God abides with you and you abide with God.  For this Son of David, this true King of Peace, this Word and Wisdom of God in the Flesh — He replaces the old Tabernacle and the old Temple in Jerusalem with the new, eternal Temple of His crucified and risen Body.  And by His holy and precious Blood, you enter with Him into the Holy of Holies, which is to say, into the very presence of God.  You are brought to God the Father in Him, in order to receive the eternal inheritance that belongs to the Son of God.  That is what He freely gives to you by grace in the Holy Communion, which is the New Covenant in His Blood.

Here there are no contingencies, nor is there anything lacking or amiss.  There is nothing “iffy” or uncertain about the Life that is here given by the one true God, who gives Himself to you.  For He has offered Himself as the perfect Sacrifice, once-for-all.  And this same Lord Jesus has risen from the dead, and has ascended to the right hand of the Father where He lives and reigns forever.

Therefore, with His Gospel, which is the “sprinkling” of His Blood, He cleanses your conscience of all sin and shame and every stain.  As He was crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification, so now He daily and richly forgives you, reconciles you to His God and Father, and sanctifies and purifies your body and soul with His Holy Spirit.  All of this by His Blood, with which He gives to you His Life.  He thereby raises you from death to divine Life in and with Him.

The Law commands you and requires you to love the Lord your God, but here the Lord your God loves you.  The Law tells you to cleanse your heart and draw near to God, but here by His Gospel the one true God draws near to you in Christ, in order to cleanse you by His grace and forgiveness.  He comes to free you from the devil’s kingdom, from the slavery and prison house of sin and death, and to bring you into the Kingdom of God.  The King Himself, the Christ, the Son of God, shares with you His faithfulness, His faith and holy love.  He fully gives to you His relationship with His God and Father, so that the true and only God is now your God and your Father in Him.

That is what the dear Lord Jesus Christ has done for those who have gone before us in the faith, whom we rightly remember with thanksgiving to God in Christ.  We do not worship them, but with them we worship God.  And loving Him above all things, we love them also for His sake.  For they belong to us in Him, and we belong to them.  They are not dead and gone, but alive forevermore.  Not by their own wisdom, reason, or strength, but by the grace of God in the Gospel of Christ.

So does He likewise give Himself, His Life, and His Love to you and all His children, and to His children’s children from one generation to the next, even to the close of the age.

It is in the Temple of His Body, the Church, on earth as it is in heaven, that He bestows Himself and His Gospel upon you, His Life, and His Salvation.  His Word is spoken to you from His Holy Altar, from which He also gives to you His Body and pours out for you the New Testament in His Blood.  For since the Word has become Flesh and tabernacles with us, the Word is never without His Flesh, but He always brings you to His Father in His Body and with His Blood.  He gives you not a part or a portion, but His whole self, perfect and complete.  He withholds nothing from you.

As there is one Bread and one Cup, one Spiritual Food and Drink — of one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all — so there is one Holy Communion in heaven and on earth, which is the one Body of Christ.  He is not divided, but the many are united and become one in Him, just as the many grains of wheat become one Bread, given for you, and the many grapes are united in one Cup of wine, poured out for you and for the many.  So it is that, in His one Body and Blood, all of the faithful of all times and all places live and abide in perfect Peace forevermore.

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

Glorifying Christ Jesus in the Lives of All His Saints

When the Reverend Wilhelm Löhe sent his first colony of Lutherans from Germany to settle in this country, having prepared them to establish the church and community of Frankenmuth (Michigan), he was hopeful that those faithful Lutherans would be able to evangelize the Native Americans: “You are my ‘epistle’ to the heathen,” he told them.  “For by your Christian way of life, and by your piety, the heathen will come to recognize how pleasant it is to have fellowship with Jesus.”

Pastor Löhe correctly understood that the Gospel is proclaimed — not only from the pulpit to the people of God already assembled around it — but also in the lives of His people out in the world.  For hearing and receiving the Gospel of Christ Jesus in the Liturgy, His dear people then also live that same Holy Gospel to the glory of His Holy Name in the midst of their neighbors on earth.

Throughout the history of the Church on earth, that is the most fundamental and important way in which Missions and Evangelism happen.  And so it was that a good number of American Indians were baptized as a direct result of the Frankenmuth colony.  But even apart from any such outward and observable “success,” the fact is that the Gospel of Christ Jesus is lived and confessed in the lives of His people.  And so do their bodies and lives continue to be His “epistle” to the world.

Thus are those 19th-century Lutherans of Frankenmuth part of the great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, along with Dr. Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and all the Lutheran Reformers of the 16th-century, and the faithful Christians of all times and places, including those we remember with thanksgiving at the Lord’s Altar here at Emmaus this morning, who with us are members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the Right Hand of the Throne of God.

So reads the Letter to the Hebrews, concluding its commemoration of the Old Testament Saints who lived and died by faith in the promise of Christ Jesus.  They are set before us as examples, that we might find in them — and in all the faithful departed — a living demonstration of the Christian faith; that you should be encouraged in the race you still run, looking with them unto Christ Jesus.

The Feast of All Saints and the commemoration of those who have gone before us in the faith are not only appropriate and salutary observances, but they are very much in keeping with the Word of God.  As the people of God, belonging to the Body and Bride of Christ our Lord — as members of His Holy Church — we do not forget our fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, who have fought the good fight and finished their race on earth; we remember and give thanks for them.

We do not worship the saints who have gone before, nor do we have any command or promise of God concerning any sort of prayer to or for the faithful departed.  We put no faith or trust in them, but fear, love, and trust in the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and find our hope in the one Lord, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer — just as all the saints have ever done.

But we do remember the faithful departed to the Glory of God in Christ Jesus, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, and in the ways that our Lutheran Confessions attest and affirm.  Though we do not pray to the Saints for their assistance, we look to their faithful example for encouragement in our Christian faith and life.  We give thanks and praise to God for His grace and mercy toward them, and for all that He has granted to His Church on earth by way of their words and actions in this body and life.  And we rejoice in the living fellowship we have with them in Christ Jesus.

In all these ways, it is a given that our focus is fixed on Christ Jesus, who alone is All in All.  The saints are rightly honored when we look on them as living “stained-glass windows,” through whom the Light of Christ now shines upon us.  For their steadfast faith and good works are not a product of their own reason or strength, but the presence of Christ and the work of His Holy Spirit in them.

That is precisely to the point of the Beatitudes (or Blessings) of this morning’s Holy Gospel, those beautiful Words of our Lord from His Sermon on the Mount.  For they are first of all a description of Christ Jesus.  He is the One who, though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that He might obtain for you the Kingdom of Heaven.  He is the One who is truly gentle, meek, and mild, who by His death redeemed the entire earth.  He is the Merciful One, who is Mercy itself; He is the Peacemaker, who has accomplished a true and lasting Peace between God and man.  He is the only-begotten Son of God, who was reviled and persecuted for the sake of righteousness, that He might earn for you a very great reward and freely bestow all the blessings of heaven upon you.

By the same token, the Beatitudes are also a description, not only of Christ Jesus, but of those who find their life and hope in Him.  He speaks in the plural throughout, thereby revealing that all of His blessings are given to His people, as well.  And so, for example, in the faithful departed we see that blessed reflection of Christ Jesus Himself, because He lives His divine and holy life in them and through them.  We follow and draw strength from their example, because it is His.

What is more, and most wondrous of all, as you are thus encouraged and strengthened in your faith and life in Christ, you also now find in the Beatitudes a description of the life that Christ Jesus lives in and through you.  For by grace through faith in Him, you also are a living reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ for others, that He might bless your neighbors through your example.  As Jesus clearly says, “Blessed are you when you suffer for My sake.”  For His Life has become yours.

For the time being, of course, the blessed life that you have in Christ Jesus includes His Cross and Suffering, just as it has for those who have gone before us in the faith and confession of His Name.  But you may greatly rejoice even in this, because it is a participation in the Cross of Christ Jesus.  And if you suffer and die with Him, you know that you shall also rise and live with Him, as well.

As you struggle though this life under the Cross on your pilgrimage to heaven, you do well to find comfort and strength in the witness and example of the faithful departed of all times and places.  Not only are their lives and good works a confession of the Christian faith, but their victory in Christ Jesus over death and the grave is a powerful witness, even as you struggle feebly on.

Not only that, but you already share in the heavenly fellowship of that great cloud of witnesses, especially as you are gathered together here at the Lord’s Altar for the Holy Communion.  For here in this place, week after week, year after year, the Lord Himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, tabernacles with you in the Flesh.  He is here to feed you with Himself, to join Himself to you and bind you to Himself — not only in some sort of abstract “spiritual” sense, but in the truly Spiritual fact of His own Body given for you and His Blood poured out for you.

Christ Jesus is here present with you and for you; and wherever Christ is, there is the greatest glory and blessing of heaven itself.  Indeed, in the words of one beautiful hymn, heaven itself would be void and bare if not for the presence of Christ Jesus.  But He is present here in the Sacrament of His Altar, granting you the forgiveness of all your sins, and so also His Life and Salvation in body and soul.  And because all those who have departed in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus are with Him forever, you can rejoice in their presence here with you, as well, closer than ever in Him.

As Pastor Löhe expressed it so beautifully: “To me it is such a joyous thought that I am not alone, that I do not travel by myself, but that I am accompanied on my pilgrimage through the valley of the shadow by a communion of believers.  Right in the midst of this life’s barren wilderness, this thought can dissolve all sorrow in forgetfulness.  Yet, this communion of saints is no mere thought but an unshakable certainty.  I know from the mouth of God that I am not alone.  I rejoice over this from the bottom of my heart.  Unfortunately, though, my joy is not unmixed with sorrow, for death takes away many whom I love.  Like candles, one after another in the bright circle of my friends goes out, the empty places turn dark, and seldom does another star fill the dark void.  This brings pain and longing.  But I do not forget that these brethren of whom I speak are just hidden from my sight and have been placed in higher positions in the Kingdom of God.  Those who live in the Lord and those who, while out of the body, abide in Him; those who are still pilgrims and those who are already home; those who walk by faith and those who walk by sight — these are not two separated flocks, but one: one before God, and one according to their own consciousness” in Christ Jesus.

It truly is meet, right, and salutary, therefore, that the Liturgy of Christ here on earth unites us with all the company of heaven, as we are also gathered around the Lamb upon His Throne.  Indeed, He feeds you here at His Altar with a gracious Foretaste of that same Wedding Feast which they eat and drink in His Kingdom without end.  Thus do we rightly sing with All Saints and Angels the majestic hymn that is chanted forever in heaven: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, who was and is and is to come.  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.  Blessed is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest!”

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

Sons of Abraham by Faith in Christ Jesus

In His Parable last Sunday, the Lord Jesus depicted a tax collector who confessed his sins, prayed for mercy, and went home from the Temple justified.  And now, in this morning’s Holy Gospel, we hear of the tax collector, Zaccheus, who is forgiven and justified by the same Lord Jesus Christ.  Thus are you catechized by the example of his repentance and faith, and you are strengthened in your own faith and life by the demonstration of the Lord’s mercy toward him.  He is more than just a character in a story or a parable.  As Jesus declares, this wee little man is also a son of Abraham.

That is not simply an affirmation of his genealogy; no one could dispute that, although Zaccheus (as a tax collector) would surely have been regarded as a traitor to his native people.  But, no, as St. Paul indicates in several of his Epistles, the true children of Abraham are those who share the faith of Abraham — faith in the promise of the Christ who was coming — now faith in the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ who has come.  Zaccheus was granted such faith, and by such faith he is a son of Abraham.  Indeed, by such faith he is a son of God, and so is he your brother in Christ.

This story of Zaccheus, like so many of the stories of Holy Scripture, is the story of real life in Christ — the story that you also share with those who have gone before you in the confession of His Name.  In this respect, the Holy Gospels are not only the revelation of God in Christ, but also a revelation of Christ in His saints, a commemoration of those who lived and died by faith in Him, who now live forever in His crucified and risen Body.  So shall He be glorified in all His saints on the Day of His appearing; and then you shall see Him as He is, and you also shall be like Him.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the Right Hand of the Throne of God.

So does the Epistle to the Hebrews conclude its lengthy commemoration of the Old Testament saints who lived and died by faith in the promised Seed of the Woman who would come in the fullness of time and crush the serpent’s head.  And so do we also remember with thanksgiving the faithful departed on this Sunday of All Saints.  As one Body in Christ, we rejoice in our fellowship with those who have fought the good fight and finished the race, who now rest from their labors.

To avoid misunderstanding and superstition, let us be clear about our relationship with those dear saints who have gone before us.  We do not worship the saints or pray to them for help in this body and life on earth, but together with them we worship and pray to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We do not remember them or pray for them with doubt and fear, but we give thanks in the confidence of faith for the life that is theirs in Christ, our Savior.  Though we love them as fellow sons and daughters of Abraham, we trust not in the saints but solely in the Son of God.

How is it, then, that we commemorate the faithful departed in accordance with Holy Scripture?

If not for abuses that have at times developed in the history of the Church, this would be a fairly simple question.  For though we do not pray to the saints for their help, we do look to their faithful example for encouragement in our faith and life on earth.  And though we do not worship them, we do remember the saints with thanksgiving toward God, who has done such marvelous things for them and us.  And again, we rejoice in the fellowship that we share with them in Christ Jesus.

Our Lutheran Confessions likewise describe a threefold honor that is rightly given to the saints:

First, we should give thanks to God for showing examples of His mercy in the lives of the faithful departed, thereby revealing His will to save both them and us, and at the same time giving these saints to be our teachers and fellow Christians in His Church.  We praise God for giving these gifts to His people; and we praise the saints themselves for their faithful stewardship of His gifts.

Second, we honor the saints by the strengthening of our faith and confession with the witness of their repentance and forgiveness — as in the case of St. Peter following his denials of Christ.

Third, we rightly honor the saints by imitating their Christian faith and life within their callings: first of all their faith in Christ, and then also the good works that flowed out of their faith in Him.

In all of these things, our focus is fixed on Christ Jesus, who alone is All in All.  Just as St. John sees in the Book of the Revelation, the entire host of heaven is circled and crowded around the Lamb upon His Throne, all eyes riveted on Him.  The saints are rightly honored, then, when we consider them as living “stained-glass windows” through whom the Light of Christ is reflected and shines on us.  They all have their own unique colors and patterns within their particular callings and stations in life; but all the while, Christ is the Sun who shines upon them all, thereby casting their colors and patterns upon us.  For their steadfast faith and their good works are not a product of their own reason or strength but exhibit the presence of Christ and the work of His Holy Spirit.

Certainly Zaccheus is a good example of these things, first of all in his desire to see and hear Jesus, no doubt because he has already heard the word concerning this Man from Nazareth; then, also, in his receiving of Jesus into his home; in his repentance and faith; in the forgiveness of his sins; in his reparations for the wrongs that he has done against others; and especially in the declaration of Jesus that he, too, is a son of Abraham by faith.

It is that very same life as a “son of Abraham” that you also have received by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.  And the same thing is true of those whom we remember today, who departed this life in the faith of Christ over the course of this past year.  You will not recognize the names of all these people; probably there are many of them you never knew in this body and life.  But these, too, are the sons of Abraham, as are you.  And together as one body in Christ, as the family of God, we have one-and-all received the inheritance of faith, in which we live and die and live forever.

For the time being, of course, the blessed life that you live by faith in Christ includes the Cross and suffering, just as it did for those who have gone before us in the confession of our crucified and risen Lord.  But you may greatly rejoice even in this, precisely because it is a share in the Cross and Suffering of Christ Jesus.  If you have died with Him, you know that you also live with Him.

As you struggle though this life under the Cross on your pilgrimage to heaven, you are able to find comfort and take strength from the witness and example of the faithful departed, the saints of old as well as those who have been near and dear to you in this body and life on earth.  Not only are their lives a reflection of the Christian faith, but even more, their victory in Christ over death and the grave is a powerful witness and encouragement as you struggle feebly on.

Thus, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we remember and give thanks for the saints who have gone before us, that we might see in them a demonstration of the Christian faith and life.  And by the testimony of so great cloud of witnesses, you are indeed encouraged to fix your eyes on Jesus.

The confession and faithfulness of the faithful departed, in life and death, are set before you as the evidence of our dear Lord’s faithfulness toward them — and so also toward you and all of God’s people.  That is what the Greek word for “witness” really implies.  It is a legal term, not only for a person who gives testimony, but for the evidence that is brought forward and placed on exhibit.

The saints who have gone before us have thus become the living “exhibits” of the Lord’s great Salvation — accomplished and fulfilled in Christ, and so also manifested in the bodies and lives of His Christians.  Their repentance and faith, their confession and absolution, their words and works of love within their callings, and their persistent prayer and worship in the Name of the Lord Jesus, are the evidence that the Kingdom of God has come and is at hand in the Body of Christ.

What is more, you already share a blessed “communion” with that great cloud of witnesses — a common unity in the one Lord, Jesus Christ — especially as you are gathered here at His Altar for the Lord’s Supper.  In the words of one familiar hymn, “The saints on earth and those above but one communion make; joined to their Lord in bonds of love, all of His grace partake.”  For the “communion of saints” is not some “pie in the sky,” but a Banquet set before you here and now.

It is, indeed, the ongoing, neverending Feast of Christ, which you are given to share with Christ — already here on earth — in the company of angels and archangels and all the host of heaven.

Certainly, it is no coincidence that we are given to sing of this heavenly reality in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Nor is it merely poetry when we join with all the saints and angels in singing the “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  For here in this place the Lord Himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, is present in the utter reality of His human flesh and blood.  He is here to feed you with Himself, to join you to Himself — not only in some sort of abstract “spiritual” sense, but in the truly spiritual fact of His sacrificial Body and Blood.  Nothing else would be enough, since you also are of flesh and blood, and His salvation is for you, for both your body and your soul.

So Christ is present here with you and for you; and wherever Christ is, there is the greatest glory and blessing of heaven itself.  Indeed, in the words of another beautiful hymn, heaven itself would be void and bare if the Lord Jesus were not present.  But He is here with you in His Body given and His Blood poured out for you to eat and drink, granting you forgiveness for all your sins, and bestowing on you His Life and Salvation.  And because those who have departed in Christ are with Him forever, you can rejoice in their presence here with you, as well — closer now than ever.

It is, therefore, truly meet, right, and salutary, that our worship here on earth should blend with theirs in heaven, as we are gathered around the Lamb upon His Throne.  He feeds us here at His Altar with a gracious preview and a foretaste of that very same Feast which they enjoy throughout eternity in His Kingdom.  And in our grateful response, we sing with All Saints the majestic hymn that is chanted forever in heaven: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.  Blessed forever is the Lamb of God.  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.”

All glory, honor, thanks, and praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

The Life and Love of God in the True Man, Jesus, the Christ

Your entire life in body and soul — all that you are and have — is from the Lord your God.  It all depends upon Him, and it is finally found in Him and lived in Him — or else you die forever.

By the same token, His Law is not an arbitrary set of rules and regulations aiming at controlling you and your behavior.  He has created you in love, for the sake of loving you and giving you life in and with Himself.  His righteous and holy Law, therefore, begins with Who and What He is, and with what He is and does for you by His grace, in accordance with His good and acceptable will.  It is a revelation of the life to which He calls you, that you might live with Him in faith and love.

All of His Commandments can be summarized with one word, Love, because He Himself is Love.  He calls you and commands you to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, because the Lord your God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, first of all loves you.  Your love will not save you, nor could that ever be its purpose without ceasing to be love.  But His Love for you is your life and your salvation in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.

Blessed are those who keep His Commandments and teach others to do the same, for so have they become like the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  They have learned how to love from Him, and in their love for others they give life to their neighbors.  And as your Father in heaven teaches you to live and to love in this way, so are you fathers, in particular, instructed to teach the Word of the Lord to your children, that they might become the children of God by faith in Him.

To live by faith in the Lord your God is to fear, love, and trust in Him above and beyond all things, with your whole heart and soul, with your body and life, your reason and all your senses.  It is to live in Him.  Not that you should thereby earn His favor, and certainly not as though to gain from Him what is already yours by His grace, but for the profoundly simple reason that He alone is God, the Lord.  There is no other God but Him, and as such, there is no life or love in any other.

To know and love the Lord as your true and only God will certainly govern your priorities in life and determine the way you go about your days and your work and spend your time and money.

As our Lord implies in pointing to the second great Commandment, which He likens to the first, and as Dr. Luther stresses in his preaching on this Holy Gospel, your love for God also translates into a genuine and generous love for your neighbor.  In the same way that you love and take care of yourself, so do you guard and protect the people around you and work hard to meet their needs.

On the one hand, you have the confidence and courage to love your family, friends, and neighbors, and even your enemies, because your life is safely and securely found in the Lord who loves you, the Author and Giver of Life who will never leave you nor forsake you.  You live forever in Him.

On the other hand — and this is the point that Dr. Luther emphasizes — the Lord in His mercy has also determined to regard your love for others as your love for Him, so that, whatever you do to even the least of the children of God, the brothers and sisters of Christ, you have done it unto Him.  That is a high and holy calling, and a high and holy privilege, that your relatively meager works of love in this body and life should be credited as a royal service rendered to the Lord your God.

As it actually stands, however, this twofold Law of faith and love toward God, and of love for your neighbor, accuses and condemns you.  It does not exonerate you.  It rather exposes your sins.  For the truth is that you fear, love, and trust in so many things that are not God, whereas you do not fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, and you do not love your neighbor as yourself.

Your unbelief and your idolatry are evident in your words and actions, in the way that you pursue your own selfish desires and depend upon the works of your own hands, driven by your own ideas and emotions, instead of submitting to the Word of the Lord and sacrificing yourself to the glory of His Name and for the benefit of others.  You invest yourself, your heart and mind, your time and attention, your resources, strength, and skills, in the making and spending of money for yourself, in the chasing of entertainment and pleasure, and in the building of monuments to your own ego.

In short, you make a god of yourself, and you worship yourself, to the dishonor of the Lord and the neglect of your neighbor.  To be sure, the Lord is not harmed by your idolatry, and He will not fail to provide for your neighbor without your help.  But His Law does not leave you unscathed.  Its wisdom, love, and goodness put you to shame and condemn you to death, because your lack of faith and love is indicative of your distance and separation from the Life and Love of the Lord.

The scribe in this Holy Gospel is not far from the Kingdom of God, because he has understood the Law of God and confessed it correctly.  And yet, for all of that, neither the Law nor even this man’s astute analysis and articulation of the Law are able to save him from sin, death, and hell.  The Law cannot give to him or you or anyone the Life that it describes or the Love that it requires.  Not because the Law is lacking or deficient, but because you are not able to keep it or fulfill it.

The thing of it is, though, the holy and righteous Law of God, His good and gracious will, was not given and revealed with the intention that you should accomplish it in yourself and for yourself.

Make no mistake, the Law is quite serious and not optional.  The Lord your God commands you to love Him and your neighbor, and there is no life or salvation apart from that love.  But neither can such love be coerced or forced.  It can only be given freely, which is impossible for your sinful heart to do.  What is impossible for you, however, the Lord your God accomplishes in His Love.  And everything His Law requires is revealed, embodied, and lived for you in the one true Man.

The Law was ever and always to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who is also the true and perfect Man.  For this Son of David is the Image of God Himself, in whom God and Man are united in harmony and peace, in righteousness and holiness, innocence and blessedness.

It is Jesus the Christ, and He alone, who has loved the Lord, His God and Father, with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength — yes, with all that He is, His whole Body and Life — unto His innocent suffering and death and the voluntary shedding of His holy and precious Blood upon the Cross.

It is in Christ Jesus, the Crucified One, that sacrifice and whole burnt offering, and the perfect Law of Love for both God and Man, are all fulfilled and completed without any conflict or competition.  It is in Him that righteousness and peace kiss each other, that you might be justified, forgiven, and saved by His grace and mercy toward you.  For it is precisely in His wholehearted love for God, the Son for His Father, that Christ has so loved you, His neighbor, with the sacrifice of Himself.

And so it is that, in the Person of Christ Jesus, in His own Body of flesh and blood, God and Man are reconciled and united.  Not as though God were lacking anything or incomplete without us, but He accomplishes this divine mercy so that man, His creature, might live forever in Him, embraced by His love, and so living in His love — all of this according to His own free grace and holiness.

He alone, the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God — He is the fulfillment of the entire Old Covenant (or Testament), of all the Law and the Prophets, the Commandments and the promises of God, the Priesthood, the Tabernacle, the Temple, and all the priestly sacrifices.  Everything finds it fulfillment, its purpose, and its meaning in His Body, crucified and risen from the dead.

He fulfills and accomplishes all of these things as the true Man.  But He does so, nonetheless, as the One who is also true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, by whom and for whom and through whom all things are made.

This Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God is not only the key to Jesus’ question about the Christ, who is indeed both David’s Son and David’s Lord (begotten of the Father from eternity, but conceived and born of His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the time had fully come).  It is likewise the crucial and necessary key to your eternal life and salvation.  For God has become Man and lives His divine Life in the flesh, that you might also receive and live that Life in Him.

His Life, His Love, and His whole fulfillment of the Law, it is all for you, whose flesh and blood He shares, that He might be your merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God.  Which is to say that you now live with God in Christ, and that you love, as you are loved, in Him.

A life devoid of such love is really no life at all.  But the life of love that God the Lord commands is not some means to an end; it is the life that is yours by His grace through faith in Christ Jesus, who loves you and has given Himself for you, who has risen for your justification, and who lives and reigns forever as your King.

His sacrificial death upon the Cross is the Atonement and Propitiation for all your sins.  His bodily Resurrection from the dead is your righteousness in the presence of God.  And His Ascension to the Right Hand of the Father is your sanctification and the surety of your eternal salvation.

It is His holy and precious Blood, shed for you upon the Cross, which cleanses you of all your sins and even now binds you to God in faith and love, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting of your body and soul.  For it is the divine and life-giving Blood of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, which has washed you and sanctified you in the waters of your Holy Baptism.  And it is the same Blood of Christ Jesus, poured out for you to drink it in the Holy Communion, which daily and richly forgives you all your sins, guards and protects you from death and the devil, strengthens and sustains your faith and life in the Lord Jesus, and seals you as a child of His God and Father.

It is in Him, and with Him, and through Him, as a member of His Body, that you have entered into the good Land that God has promised.  That is the Land wherein you live even now, even while yet here on earth, by grace through faith in His Gospel, within the Communion of His Church.

Together with those who have gone before us in the faith, we eagerly await the Resurrection of all flesh on that great and glorious Day of the Lord.  And in our waiting we give thanks for those who now rest from their labors.  For we are strengthened and encouraged in our own labors of love by the witness of their example, and we are comforted by the mercies they received under the Cross.

We cannot help but love them, for whom Christ Jesus our Lord gave Himself in love and shed His Blood upon the Cross, whom He chose by grace and called by His Gospel, whom He washed and sanctified and named in Holy Baptism, and whom He fed with His Body and sealed with His Blood at His Altar, here on earth as it is in heaven.

It is by and for the sake of His Blood that we remember and rejoice in those who have gone before us in the faith of Christ, who have lived and died and now live forever in Him, removed from our sight here on earth, but caught up into the life and love of God Himself forever and forevermore.

In this commemoration the Church confesses and give thanks for the life that is no less yours in the Blood of Jesus Christ, your Lord, which He pours out for you here at His Altar on earth, even as He ever lives to pray and intercede for you before the throne of His God and Father in heaven.

It is a divine life that you live by His grace, in faith, and in love for God and Man.  For as Christ has fulfilled the Law on your behalf in His own flesh and blood, by His life and by His sacrifice, by His Cross and in His Resurrection, so do you now live according to the Law of Love in Him.

In Christ Jesus, God has become your Neighbor and loved you; and in Christ Jesus you now also love God in your Neighbor.  We do not presume to rejoice and give thanks for the saints who have gone before us without also loving and serving and giving thanks for the brothers and sisters in Christ who live alongside of us here within His Church on earth.  For we are one Body in Christ, even as we eat of His one Body and drink from the one Cup which is the New Testament in His Blood.  So are we children of one God and Father in Him who loves you, who forgives you all your sins and gives you life with Himself in both body and soul, here in time and hereafter in eternity.

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

Faith and Life in the Body of Christ

Not only for Benjamin and Julianne, who are being confirmed on this day, but for everyone who has been confirmed, for each and all of our catechumens, for all the baptized, and for all who will be baptized, here is the faith and life to which you are called in the Body of Christ Jesus:

It is first of all to hear and receive the Word of God, to believe and confess His Word, to pray and to live by His Word in love for God and man.  For you have one Teacher, Christ, who catechizes you in the Word and the Wisdom of God.  Listen to Him, and learn from Him.  And as you hear and learn, so also speak and pray; for it is by such faith in His Word that you live by His grace.

Hear and heed His Word while you have this opportunity, while it is near and spoken to you, lest He remove it from you and leave you with nothing but darkness and silence, death and despair.

Not only listen to His Word, but trust and rely on His Word, and so also do what He commands.  Work and labor, faithfully and righteously, within your own office and station in life.  Submit to the authorities that God has placed over you in this world, as unto Him, according to His Word.  And be a faithful “father,” as it were, in exercising whatever authority you have been given within your own calling, under the one Father in heaven by whom all fatherhood on earth is named.

Do not serve for the love of money, nor to make a name for yourself, to be seen and acknowledged by other people.  Rather, work and labor in the fear of the Lord, in faith and love for Him, and in love for your neighbor, in harmony with God’s Word.  His Word is always your reference point.

As He has named you with His Name and given you Himself and all good things by His grace, rely on Him for all that you need, and receive His good and perfect gifts in the Gospel of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son.  And for the same reason, love and serve your brothers and sisters in the same Lord Jesus Christ, since they and you are children of one and the same God and Father in heaven.

Discipline yourself and your flesh, and “possess your own vessel,” that is, your body, in holiness and honor.  For as your body also is redeemed and sanctified by Christ — who bore all your sins in His Body on the Cross, and who was raised bodily from the dead for your justification — and as your body has been cleansed, along with your soul, by the washing of water with His Word in Holy Baptism; and as your body is fed, along with your soul, with the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Communion; and as your body shall be resurrected at the last and glorified forever — so, too, the life that you live here and now in the body really matters.  It does make a difference.

Your life in the body matters and makes a difference, whether you live in faith and love unto the righteousness and holiness of Christ, or in laziness, lust, and licentiousness, unto death.  For as faith lays hold of life in Christ, so does sin lay hold of death by denying and departing from Christ.

Your righteousness and life in Christ Jesus are free and clear; for they are by His grace alone, prior to any works of yours.  That is certainly true.  But that is not an excuse or permission for laziness or licentiousness.  It is rather grounds for holiness in word and deed.  Whereas good works do not lead the way into heaven, nor can they ever get you there, they do follow after faith in Christ.

Good works do not make the saint; but good works do follow after the saints, who live by faith in Christ Jesus.  And their good works of love glorify the Name of their God and Father in heaven.

So, then, beloved of the Lord, do not be lazy.  Do not make others have to make up for your slack and serve you.  But work hard at your job, provide for your family, and care for your neighbor.

Give yourself over to the good works that God has prepared for you to do within your office and stations in life.  Not only is this good and right, according to His Word, but it focuses your time, attention, and energy on loving your neighbor, and on giving life to your neighbor, as the Lord loves you and gives you life by the Word and work of His Gospel.

Discipline yourself to live and work in love, rather than leaving your heart and mind and eyes to wander in lust.  Do not by any means pursue your lust, which, left unchecked and undisciplined, leads to bodily impurity and to sins against your neighbor (and against your neighbor’s spouse).

If you do not struggle with sexual temptations, praise God for that.  But still be on your guard against the covetous lusts that do rage within your heart, mind, and body, whether it be for money or fame, for music or sports, for popularity or power, or for whatever else it might be.

Do not be deceived, and do not kid yourself.  What you do with your body matters.  When you set your heart and mind upon that which is contrary to the Word of God — to desire what He has not given to you — when you turn your eyes to gaze upon it, and move your feet toward it, and set your hand upon it, then your covetous lust has conceived and given birth to sin.  And when your sin is fully grown, it will bring forth death.  It may or may not be the death of your mortal body, but the pursuit of your sinful passions and impurity will put to death your faith and life in Christ.

But the Lord is the Avenger in all these things.  He avenges your neighbor against your sins, to be sure, but He also avenges you against the assaults and accusations of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh.  As your body participates in your sin, so does the Lord discipline your body, not only to curb and temper your wickedness, but also to alert you to the danger and call you to repentance.  He likewise sends His true Prophets to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name.

He does not chase you down and chastise you in order to embarrass and shame you, but to save you from sin and death, and to bring you to Himself in love.  He humbles you in order to exalt you.

Be humbled, then, before both God and man.  Fear, love, and trust in God.  Rely upon His Word, instead of striving to make a life for yourself.  And as you are loved by Him and cared for by His grace, so humble yourself to love and serve and care for your neighbor in the Lord.

Do not worry about yourself, but follow Christ Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith.  Follow Him by listening to Him, by hearing and heeding His Word and the preaching of it.  Trust His Word, and live according to it.  And follow His example.  For He is your Leader — already in your life in the body here on earth, and so also through death and the grave into the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting in heaven.  He leads not only by His Word, but also by His example.

And yet, for all of that, He is far more than just a good example.  In His true divine greatness and almighty strength, He has become your Servant.  He has come down from heaven to serve you, and to save you, at the cost of His own body and life.  He has taken all your sin, all your suffering and sorrow, all your mortality and death upon Himself.  And He has humbled Himself under the mighty hand of God; He has become obedient, even unto death upon the Cross.  He has thereby suffered all your punishment, for He has given His life and shed His blood to atone for all your sins.

In this you see His perfect faith and holy love.  He did not talk the talk without walking the walk.  He did not bind the heavy burden of the Law upon your shoulders, but He took its full back-breaking load upon Himself and bore it for you.  He trusted His Father and He submitted Himself entirely to the Word and will of His Father.  In such faith, He gave Himself up for you and for all.

And God the Father raised this same Christ Jesus from the dead.  Indeed, He has highly exalted Him, and given Him the Name above every name.  The Father has glorified His incarnate Son — in His Body of flesh and blood like yours! — and has seated Him at His right hand for all eternity.

He is thus your merciful and great High Priest.  He is your Righteousness and Holiness forever.  His Cross and Resurrection are your repentance, by which you are now called and carried out of sin and death, and out of the grave, into faith and life, to be seated with Him in the heavenly places.  That is what your Holy Baptism has given and done for you, and that is what it signifies and works in you, day after day, throughout your life on earth.  It puts you to death to your sin, and it raises you up, again and again, to newness of life in Christ Jesus through His free and full forgiveness.

Such repentance and forgiveness are not thwarted, undone, or defeated by your death.  They are rather completed in your bodily death from this vale of tears, and then they shall be fully realized in the resurrection of your body unto the life everlasting of your body and soul in heaven.  Today, in the rite of Confirmation, we all together affirm and confess that gracious gift of Holy Baptism.

It is in the confidence of your Baptism, in the certainty of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, that you live and work and labor.  And it is in the same confidence and certainty that we remember and give thanks for the faithful departed, that great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded.  For as they live and abide in the Body of Christ, as they are cleansed by His Blood and clothed in His Righteousness forevermore, so are we also one Holy Communion with them in the Body and Blood of the same Lord Jesus Christ.  So are you cleansed and clothed by Him, as a Bride made beautiful for her Groom.  And so do you also live and abide in Him, both now and forever.

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

Christ Jesus Comes Down to Raise You Up by the Tree of His Cross

The new and greater Joshua has come.  He has crossed the Jordan at the head of God’s people; He has entered the Land to make a place for them there, to establish peace and Sabbath Rest forever.

He comes to ascend the tree of His Cross, and by His death to atone for the sins of the world.  He comes to reconcile the world to God, to establish peace between God and man within His own Body of flesh and blood, crucified and risen from the dead.  So does He make a place for you with Himself in His Kingdom, as He has done for those who have gone before us in His Name.

As He once came to Jericho on His way to the Cross in Jerusalem, so does the Lord Jesus come to you here and now, to seek you out and find you and to give you His good gifts.  He comes in His Ministry and Means of the Gospel to bring salvation to this House, to you and to all whom He calls to Himself through His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

But how shall you be able to see Him, and how shall you receive Him to yourself?

That was Zaccheus’ dilemma, as it is yours.  He wanted to see Jesus, and rightly so.  Somehow he had heard the Word of Jesus.  Perhaps he heard tell about what happened with Blind Bartimaeus as Jesus first entered Jericho, or maybe the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, such as we heard last week.  Whatever the reason, he wanted to see Jesus.  But he was not able to do so.

He was the boss, and he was rich, and who knows what else he had going for him.  But he was too small a man to see Jesus.  He was, as you know, a wee little man, short of stature.  And yet, that was not the only way, nor even the main way, in which he was too small to see Jesus.  His position and his wealth were simply not sufficient; neither were they the right way or means, in any case.  What is more, beyond all of his own limitations, the crowd was also getting in his way, milling and thronging about, and with its confusion and distractions preventing him from seeing the Lord.

How is it for you?  By what ways and means do you attempt to see Jesus, to get close to Him?  By what wealth, by what power or prestige, by what position, would you presume to see Him and receive Him, all to no avail?  None of your own works and efforts will get you there.  Of yourself, you are too short, and you come up short, no matter how big and tall, powerful, or wealthy you may be.  And there is the crowd for you, as well.  The world is all around you, getting in your way and in your face, pressing against you, pushing and pulling you this way and that.  Too often you are tempted and persuaded by its passions and pursuits of the flesh, its desires and distractions.

You cannot climb up high enough to behold your Lord Jesus Christ.  You will not raise yourself up to Him.  It is by no tree that you may climb that you find Him.  But you must come down from your tree, from your ladder, from your high horse, in order to see Him and receive Him, who has come down from heaven in order to gather you up and raise you up in Himself to the Father.

He comes to ascend a Tree on your behalf.  And it is by and with that Tree of His Cross that Jesus comes to you, and sees you, hiding though you are behind fig leaves.  He sees you, not with wrath and judgment, but with divine compassion and tender mercy.  For He knows all your sins and your poor, poor, pitiful stature, but He has come to set you free.  He comes to give you salvation.

Hurry and come down from wherever it is that you have tried to climb yourself up.  See and receive the One who is coming to you by the Way of His Cross.  Repent and believe His Gospel.  For left to your own devices you will not make it.  You will not be able to find Jesus, but you will lose yourself in your own sin and death, in the abundance of your greed and lust and appetites and consumption, and in your stockpile of perishing possessions and your futile, irrelevant pursuits.

Understand that it was not tax collecting per se that was a problem for Zaccheus.  For that position, too, is a station in life that can be carried out to the glory of God and for the benfit of others.

The problem was that it so easily entangled Zaccheus in the ways of the world and its chasing after wealth.  It is likely that Zaccheus had cheated the people by overcharging them.  That was typical of how the tax collectors made their income and lined their pockets.  Zaccheus was a wealthy man, and much of his wealth had probably come at the expense of God’s people.  And in his cooperation with Rome, he participated in Rome’s oppression of the Lord’s Church.  So, in various ways like these, Zaccheus’ sin was manifested and played itself out within his occupation and station in life.

In what ways does your sin affect your work and manifest itself in your profession?  How does it emerge and bear fruit in your cares and occupations of life, whether you are still a child at home, a student in school, or working out in the world?  Whether you are a boss or an employee, in what ways does your sin rear its ugly head in what you do as you go about your days?

How have you become entangled and ensnared by the pursuits of this world?  By the driving lust for wealth, or power and prestige, or personal pleasure and satisfaction at the expense of others?

And in what ways have you burdened, neglected, cheated, short changed, or overcharged your employer or your customers, or whomever God has set in relationship to you on earth?

Where have you done less than what is required of you?  Where have you taken more than God has given to you?  And in what ways have you gone chasing after the false gods and idols of this world to the neglect and detriment of Christ’s Holy Church?

The point is not that you should quit your job and find something “holier” to do.  Your job, if it is legal and honest labor, is sanctified and holy by the Word and Spirit of Christ, even as your sins are forgiven by His Gospel.  And the point is not that you should try to raise yourself up by your own bootstraps or by any other righteousness of yours.  There is nothing in you that can save you.

The point, rather, is this: Repent of your sins.  That is to say, not simply that you feel badly about them, but that you acknowledge and confess them, turn away from them, and seek the grace and mercies of the Lord for the forgiveness of your sins and for a newness of your life in Christ Jesus.

There is no way for you to atone for your sins or to justify yourself.  But neither does repentance persist in pursuing your sins or continue complacent in your sins against God and your neighbor.  To go home with Jesus, justified by faith in His forgiveness, and at peace in His righteousness, will not mean a return to the same ol’ same ol’ transgressions, but the pursuit of a brand new life in which you bear the fruits of repentance in thanksgiving to God and in love for your neighbor.

Where you have done wrong, cease and desist.  And where you are able to make amends, do what you can.  Pay back what you have taken.  Fix what you have broken.  Apologize and be reconciled to those whom you have hurt or failed in any way.  Do not harm but give help to your neighbor.

Use your vocation, your stations in life, your talents and gifts to serve and support your neighbor.  Look about to see whom you may help; there is no lack of need, even within our congregation.

Consider Zaccheus.  He sets a wonderful example.  When the people decried his sins and grumbled against Jesus for going to the home of such a sinner, Zaccheus did not argue or get defensive.  He didn’t say, Wait a minute, they don’t know what it’s like to be me!  He did not make excuses or rationalize his behavior.  He simply repented of his past, and he pledged to do better.

No doubt there were ups and downs in Zaccheus’ life, and where he cleaned up his act in one area, his sin was still there in others.  His salvation was not to be found in his better behavior.  But, for all of that, his better behavior was a fruit of his repentance.

He gives thanks to God and pays his vows to the Lord by sacrificing his wealth to make amends for his past and to care for his neighbors in love.  He begins to live by faith, as did father Abraham when he was willing to sacrifice even his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved.  So Zaccheus does not cling to his wealth, nor does he presume to propitiate God with his wealth, but he uses it to confess his faith, to give thanks for his salvation, and to serve those around him in their need.

In this newness of life, Zaccheus has become an example and encouragement to you and others, like all those who have lived and departed from this body and life in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus.  Thus do we remember and give thanks for the faithful departed and all the saints.

Zaccheus the tax collector is numbered among the faithful departed, and he belongs to the holy communion of all saints, because Jesus came and made His home with that wee little man.  He came and saw Zaccheus in love, and He called him to Himself.

The same Lord Jesus Christ comes to you, as well.  He comes with salvation.  He comes to save you from yourself and your sin, from death and the devil, and from every evil of body and soul.

He calls you to Himself in lowliness, in meekness, and in gentle mercy.  He calls you to Himself, not to reprimand or punish you, but to heal you, to give you life, to set you free from the bondage of your sin and death, and to bring you into the house and home that He has prepared for you.  He has called you by name, and He has named you with His own Holy Name in your Holy Baptism.

And now He comes to be the Guest in your home, as He did with Zaccheus, and as He did with those first two disciples at the original Emmaus.  He comes in to be the Guest, but look at that:  It is Christ Jesus the Savior who becomes the Host of the Meal.  He bids you to recline here at His Table, where He feeds you with His own Body and Blood, with His Life and His Salvation.

He does it here and now today.  Salvation has come to this house.  For it is in His loving service, it is by His forgiveness of your sins, it is by all that He showers upon you in love, that He raises you up by the Tree of His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead.  So it is that you go home and go about your work justified, and by faith in Christ Jesus you live righteously in holy love.

You offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Lord.  You love and serve your neighbor in peace; you do what is good and right; you make amends for past wrongs; and you care for those people whom the Lord in His wisdom has placed alongside you in this world.

In Him, by His grace, you also are a son or daughter of Abraham.  That is first of all to believe and confess the same faith in the same God as father Abraham.  It is also to live, to bear the Cross in patience and trust, and to sacrifice the gods of this world, as father Abraham did when he was called by God, the Lord.  Not by your own reason and strength, nor by your own wisdom or wealth, nor by climbing any tree of your own choosing, but ever and always by God’s grace alone.  For the Son of Abraham, by whom all the nations of the world are blessed, has come to you with salvation in Himself, in His Body given and His Blood poured out for you.

He withholds no good thing from you.  Not half of His riches, but all of them, He gives to you, who were so poor and needy in your sin and your mortality.  All that belongs to Him, He gives to you.  His House is your house, because His God and Father is your God and Father.

And here today, in His House, at His Table, is your Peace and Sabbath Rest — as those who have gone before us in Christ Jesus already enjoy forever before the face of His Father in heaven.  So does He call you and carry you in His own crucified and risen Body, even through death and the grave, unto the Resurrection of your body and the life everlasting of your body and soul in Him.

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

Exalted in the Humility of Christ

Christ is your Teacher, your Rabbi; and He is your Leader through life and death, into the Resurrection of the Body and the life everlasting.  His God and Father is your true God and Father, who has given you His Holy Spirit for the sanctification of your body and soul in Christ Jesus, for Life with God here in time and hereafter in eternity.

To this end, or, rather, to this divine eternal Life, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches you His Word, which is the good and acceptable will of God, both the Law and the Gospel.  He teaches you to live in love for God and man, as you heard from Him last Sunday.  And He teaches you that such life and love are yours by faith in Him, who is both true God and true Man, your Savior from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  In love for you, He daily and richly forgives you all your sins, and by such forgiveness you receive the Holy Spirit and learn to know your Father in heaven rightly.

To live by such faith in the forgiveness of sins is genuine humility, in which you know your faults and failures, your poverty and need, and, for that reason, you rely upon the mercies of the Lord instead of your own righteousness, reason, or strength.  The Lord humbles you with His Word to know and believe this, in order to exalt you by His grace, by His Word and Holy Spirit.

It’s not about intellectual achievement or hard work.  It is the fear of the Lord and a loving trust in Him alone.  There is, perhaps, a temptation to sinful pride in this business of “confirmation,” as though the diligent young Lutheran (but not too young!) could pull himself up by his bootstraps and exalt himself.  But, of course, that is not the point at all.  Confirmation embraces the promises of God and the confession of faith in His Gospel.  It clings to Christ for dear Life in His Ministry of Word and Sacrament.  It abides in the ongoing significance and meaning of one Holy Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and so promises to continue dying and rising through daily contrition and repentance.  It finds no life in yourself or in your flesh, but only in Christ Jesus.

It is to this humility of repentant faith that the celebration of All Saints and the commemoration of the faithful departed call you.  For here at the Table of the Lord in His House, in the face of death and the grave, we confess that those who have died in the faith of Christ are not dead and gone, but are alive and well in Him.  They are at peace with God, and at rest from all their labors.  Their bodies, although even now returning to the dust of the earth from which they were taken, await the Resurrection of all flesh in the sure and certain hope of the risen Lord Jesus.

They surely do not exalt themselves!  There is no pride in death.  For those of you who have watched your loved ones waste away and die, you know there is no boast in mortal flesh and blood.  There is only the Cross of Christ to cling to, and the Resurrection of Christ to rely upon.  Nothing else can save you.  Yet, there is that which He has done and accomplished for you and for all.

He is your One Leader, who not only shows you the way to go, but is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He goes before you and blazes the trail.  He enters into your sin and death, and He takes your place in the dust of the earth, in order to open up the way of life for you in His Resurrection from the dead.  He is the One who humbles Himself, even unto death on the Cross, who is exalted by His God and Father and given the Name above every name, with which He has also named you.

As He has died and risen for you in His own Body of flesh and blood, so have you died with Him and are raised with Him through Holy Baptism.  Which is all that your Confirmation confesses and relies upon: That you are baptized into Christ, God’s own child in Him, clothed in His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, anointed by His Spirit, and fed by His Body and Blood.

Because that is true, the life that you live in your body, even now, actually matters and means something.  The fact that all your sins are freely forgiven for Jesus’ sake is not a reason to go on sinning — God forbid!  Rather, excel more and more in faith and love toward God, and in love for your neighbor.  Flee from sin and every evil, and possess your own vessel, your body and life on earth, in the holiness and honor of the Lord.  Where you have fallen into temptation and sin, repent.  Lay hold of Christ and His forgiveness in the Gospel, and live again according to His Word.

Do not despair, but fear, love, and trust in God.  As He humbles you unto repentance, so does He exalt you in Christ Jesus by His Gospel of forgiveness.  Day by day throughout your life, He raises you up through faith in His Word and promises.  And on that great and final Day, He shall raise your body from the grave in the Glory of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.  This is most certainly true.

This is what it means to be and to live as a Christian, as a child of the one true God.  And all who believe and are baptized in His Holy Name are brothers and sisters in Christ, sons and daughters of one Father, and members of His one household and family in heaven and on earth.  We mourn together with those who are bereaved, not without hope, but in the hope of the Resurrection.  And so do we also rejoice with one another as one Body in Christ Jesus.

The men and women we name before His Altar this morning, and the saints we remember with thanksgiving throughout the year — Apostles and Evangelists, St. Mary, and St. John the Baptist — they are all knit together with us, and we with them, in the Holy Communion.  Death has not severed that connection, nor is it even able to do so, since Christ our Lord is risen from the dead.

So, today, our confirmands affirm the pledge and promise of Baptism: They yet again renounce the devil, all his works, and all his ways, and confess their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whom alone true Life is found.  They would die before giving up that faith and confession, for there is no other God.  One is your Father.  One is your Teacher.  One is your Leader and Lord.

Even for these four young men, their day to die will come, whether sooner or later.  But, as also for those who have gone before us in the faith, even death wll not be able to end their gladness.

For now, they labor in love.  Then they shall enter their rest.  Either way, they are the Lord’s.

Their deeds do not lead the way, but Christ their Savior leads them; and their good deeds of faith and love quietly follow after Him.  Men are not impressed by such a life, but the Father in heaven is pleased with them and all His children for the sake of His Beloved Son.  Therefore, He gives to them the place of honor, to be seated with Christ Jesus in the heavenly places, even as they recline here at His Table in peace, and feast upon His Banquet, adorned with His garments of salvation.

So does He also wash your robes and make them white in the Blood of the Lamb, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting.

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

The Rich Man Is Like a Little Child

Being rich is a risky business.  From the beginning of his Gospel, St. Luke has made that clear.  Already in chapter one, St. Mary’s Magnificat declares that, whereas the hungry are filled with good things, the rich are sent away empty-handed.  We’ve been given examples of that very thing, as well.  The rich fool stored up treasures for himself on earth, but then he died, and all his stuff went to someone else.  The rich man who ignored poor Lazarus at his gate, he died, too, and found himself in Hades, in great agony and torment.  He had his good things for a little while, but they couldn’t save him.  Most recently, in the chapter just before this morning’s Holy Gospel, the rich young ruler came looking for eternal life, but he went away sorrowful and disappointed, because he was extremely rich, and he couldn’t bear to give up his many possessions in order to follow Jesus.

“How hard it will be,” Jesus says, “for those who are wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God!  It is easier to thread a camel through a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s Kingdom.”

But Zaccheus is not only a rich man.  He is also a tax collector, and not the first of those that we have heard about in the Gospel According to St. Luke.

Here is one of those many places where cultural and societal expectations, and religious expectations, too, have been turned on their head.  For tax collectors have received the preaching of St. John the Baptist, and have repented and believed the Gospel of the Christ.  And yet, St. John did not tell them to quit their jobs; only to carry out their occupation fairly, honestly, and with integrity.  “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to,” he said.

Among the Holy Apostles, who even now follow Jesus on His Way through Jericho toward Jerusalem, St. Levi (Matthew) was a tax collector when Jesus called him to discipleship.  And far from forsaking his former associates, the first thing that happened after he was called, is that Jesus reclined at table in his home to break bread with a great crowd of tax  collectors.  It is the Pharisees, not Jesus or St. Luke, who describe those men as “sinners.”

In fact, Jesus has gotten quite a reputation for befriending tax collectors, receiving them to Himself, and eating and drinking with them.

Likewise, this past Sunday, in the case of the Pharisee and the tax collector, it was the tax collector who went home justified, in repentant faith, by the mercies of God.

So, maybe this tax collector, Zaccheus, is seeking the mercies of God in Christ Jesus.  Or, maybe, to begin with, he’s simply curious about this Guy from Nazareth, to find out for himself who Jesus is and what He’s like.  Maybe he’s just looking for a friend, having heard that Jesus is a friend of tax collectors.

In any event, whatever his ambition may have been, you find out with Zaccheus that “rich” and “poor” are not such clearly defined categories.  Not so easy, after all, to divide the black hats from the white, the “good guys” from the “bad.”  Turns out that wealth, in itself, is ambiguous and morally neutral; it’s rather how one holds and uses wealth that is decisive.

Now, you might also remember that Father Abraham was a rich man in his day: “Very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold,” with several hundred trained men in his household.

Come to think of it, the Father of the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ Parable is also a rich man.  For so the Lord Himself is rich in mercy toward us, toward all who call upon His Name.  And, as such, by faith in His mercy, both rich and poor alike are given to be rich toward God and rich toward their neighbors in love, in charity and generosity.  It is the attitude of your heart, and the actions that you take, which determine the real wealth or poverty of your life.  That is what the Lord perceives, regardless of the world’s evaluation of you and your holdings.

Here, then, as in the case of St. Matthew and his house guests, it is neither the Lord Jesus nor St. Luke who describe Zaccheus as “a sinner.”  That is the accusation of the crowd, by which they aim to impugn Christ Jesus, who is living up to His reputation, yet again, as a “Friend of tax collectors.”

Granted that all men are sinful and unclean; there is no one who is righteous of himself — no, not one.  Zaccheus is no exception to that rule.  And granted that he acknowledges the possibility that he may have defrauded someone in some way or another.

But, so far as this Holy Gospel is concerned, what it means for Zaccheus to be “lost” and now “saved” by Christ, is not described in terms of sin and forgiveness, but in relation to the household and family of God.

It is true that sin is the problem, and forgiveness is the solution, apart from which there is no life or salvation.  Yet, in the particulars of this case at hand, there is no “confession and absolution,” per se, but a different scenario unfolds and plays itself out.

Zaccheus has a position of power and authority, albeit an unpopular one.  And he has lots of possessions.  He is a rich man.  But, for all of that, look at where he’s at: On the outside, not even able to look in.  He is excluded.  Shut out.  More to the point, he is crowded out.  He wants to see Jesus; he’s trying his level best, but he can’t.  He is unable.  Powerless.

What it means, exactly, that “he was small in stature,” is a matter of conjecture.  No doubt it refers to his height, although the word for “stature” here is more commonly used for age.  Maybe he was simply shorter than average, or perhaps he was actually a “little person.”

But, whatever the case may be, his shortness is part of his inability.  It is why he cannot see.  And it presents an interesting contrast to his wealth and power.  Significantly, it aligns him with the “little children.”  So does his tree-climbing, for that matter, which a businessman in that culture would never do.

Zaccheus really is childlike in many ways; not only in his smallness of stature, but in what he cannot do or achieve for himself — and, then, in what he is given and receives.

His efforts to see Jesus are comical: easily pictured and remembered, and part of what makes this story so endearing.  It’s a bit slapstick, like that Little Tramp, Charlie Chaplin.

Well, this wee little man runs ahead and climbs a tree, in the hopes of seeing Jesus.  But, then, suddenly, the initiative has shifted entirely to Jesus, who seeks out Zaccheus.

As silly as it seems, climbing up a tree looks ahead to what is coming.  For the Lord Jesus is about to pass through “that Way,” as He now journeys to Jerusalem in order to be lifted up in death upon the Tree of the Cross, to enter into His Glory through suffering.

It is by the Way of the Cross that He comes, and by that Way of the Cross that you behold Him and receive Him as He is.

But so it is, first of all, that Jesus comes to that place, to that Tree.  And He sees Zaccheus, and calls him down from the tree, and comes to him, to stay at his house on this “Today.”

It is Christ who will climb the Tree and be crucified: for Zaccheus, for you, and for all.  And it is Christ who sees you in mercy, who comes to you in peace and love, and bestows His salvation upon you; so that you, by His poverty, are made wealthy indeed in His Kingdom.

Then it is, by faith in Him, that you are crucified to yourself, to your power and your riches, for the benefit of others: to make amends for whatever hurt you have caused, and to help the poor and needy with whatever means the Lord has provided you.

But, first of all, the Lord comes to abide with you — as He comes to stay with Zaccheus.

Zaccheus is delighted.  He hurries down and receives the Lord Jesus gladly: receives Him like a little child on his birthday, giddy with excitement to be given such a good gift.

And you disciples of Emmaus know how it is when Jesus comes to be your guest and to abide with you, how He becomes the Host, and He reveals Himself and bestows salvation.

So, too, here, in much the same way: Zaccheus does provide hospitality for Jesus, as he also provides for the poor and pays back whatever wrong he may have done.  But consider what Jesus does for this little man:

He takes the public shame and contempt upon Himself, in order to give life, and to honor the one who has been lost: to gather this sheep back into the flock of Israel.  The crowd has called Zaccheus “a sinner,” but Jesus calls him “a son of Abraham,” which is to say, that he, too, is an heir of the promise, a child of God by grace, a member of the household of faith.

This rich man is not condemned to the torment of Hades, but is gathered with poor Lazarus to the comfort of Abraham’s bosom.  And, like that other tax collector, of whom we heard last week, this chief tax collector is brought home justified by the Lord Jesus.  Salvation comes to him, and to his house, in the coming of the Christ.

It is entirely by grace; for this is what the Son of Man has come to do, to seek out the lost and to save them.  He is the Rich Man who empties Himself in order to fill you up with good things.  He is the Big Man who makes Himself small in order to gather the little ones to Himself, to bear them on His shoulders, rejoicing, and to raise them up by His own Tree.

This is how and why it is that Zaccheus is not left on the outside, desperately trying to look inside, but unable to see past the crowds.  Now he is at home, at the Table with Jesus.  Like a little child he has received the Lord gladly.  And as Christ has entered his house, he has entered the Kingdom of God.  He passes through death into life, and he is able to stand tall and serve, to confess with generosity his faith and his gratitude.

Today, that same salvation of Christ Jesus has come to this house, so that you, too, may live as a child of God, at home within His household and family.

Whether you are tall or short, young or old, rich or poor, or whatever your circumstances, by faith in the Gospel you are a member of the Body of Christ.  By your Baptism into Him, you belong to the Holy Communion of all His saints, of all times and places, in His holy Body and precious Blood.  And, as you are lifted up by His Tree of the Cross, so shall you ever live to see the salvation of our God in both body and soul.

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

Hear, O Israel! The Lord Is One

To set aside for God a part or portion of your time is idolatrous.  To dedicate or offer to the Lord a portion or percentage of your possessions is sacrilegious.  For how shall you call Him the Lord your God, to whom you would give only a part or portion of yourself?  How shall you presume to worship Him, whom you would place beneath your feet as but one priority among many others?

No, it will not do to subdivide yourself, your time and energy, your stuff, your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  But with all that you are and have, you shall fully love and serve the Lord your God, and nothing else besides Him.  For there is one Lord, one God, not many.  There is but one Author and Giver of Life.  Wherever else you would look for life, you will have nothing but death.  Not that God is merely a means to some other end, but He alone is your Life and Light and Salvation.

To whatever or whomever else you would direct or dedicate your thoughts, words, and actions, if not the Holy Triune God, that is your idol and your false religion.  Or to suppose at any point that you have “done your time” and “paid your dues,” is already to have failed and fallen short of the glory of God.  For He would have all of you; that you would have your whole life entirely in Him.  Do not look at your neighbor, either, to measure and compare how much he has done, or how much he has given.  For your own life is lived before God, and you will not ever do or give “too much.”

Your offerings and your alms are inadequate and insufficient, no matter what the amount, and no matter what percentage of your income and your wealth, so long as you withhold yourself from God and from your neighbor.  For you are to love the Lord your God with everything that you are, with your entire being; and you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Which is not to say that you should love your neighbor in addition to God, nor alongside of God; for that would be to make another god out of your neighbor.  Rather, you are to love your neighbor under and within your love for God, that is, according to His Word, and after His own great heart of love.

It is for God’s sake that you love your neighbor: in humility, in faith, in mercy, and in peace.  And that is how you are to live your whole life in the good land to which the Lord your God has called you, which He has promised to you in His Word, and which He gives to you in Christ Jesus.

Many of you know, and can still remember, what it is like to be “in love,” to be “head over heels” for someone.  Your every waking thought is turned toward that person, as well as your dreams at night.  Every decision, every action, every utterance is considered and weighed and carried out with reference to your heart’s desire.  The way you dress and groom yourself, the smile on your face and the spring in your step, all derive from and return to the object of your affection.  So much the greater and all the more consuming is your love for the Lord your God to be, at all times and in all places: A single-minded devotion, an undivided heart, and a living sacrifice of body, soul, and spirit, all belong to Him by right.  Because He is the true and only God.  There is none other.

I want you to consider those who have gone before us in this life on earth: What do they have now?  Is it life or death?  Is it God or the devil?  There is no middle ground, no in between, no other options or alternatives.  There is only the life everlasting, or eternal damnation.  There is only the Kingdom of God, or the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his wicked fallen angels.

Some of you have known some of those whom we name before the Lord’s Altar this morning, who have departed in the faith and confession of Christ.  And all of you have lost loved ones in the past, whether recently or long ago; whether from the womb or after many years of life together.  Parents and children, spouses and siblings, neighbors and friends.  Think about those people, those men and women, boys and girls, all of whom were mortal and sinful like yourself.  What was important to them here?  What did they treasure?  How did they spend their time?  Where did they invest themselves?  With what did they depart this vale of tears, and with what did they enter eternity?

What did they take with them?  And what do they have now?

All that remains forever is Christ Jesus and His Word, His Spirit and His Father.  Apart from Him, there is only darkness, and death, and damnation.  Where, then, shall your heart and life be given and belong?  How shall you live, here and now, that you may rise and live with the Lord forever?

According to His Covenant with Israel at Sinai — according to His Ten Commandments, which are His statutes and His judgments, His good and acceptable will, and irrefutably His holy Word — He says, the Way of Life is the way of faith and love: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and, in love for Him, to love your neighbor as yourself.  That is how you shall live in the good land that He promises and gives to you.  That is how you shall thrive.

But where you do not love the Lord God and your neighbor, there is alienation, enmity, separation, loneliness, and fear.  Not peace and rest, but anxiety and hard labor.  Not life, but death, now and forever.  That is the land laid waste by your lack of love for God and man.  That is the kingdom and the city of your own idolatrous self-love.  It is sprawling, unruly, divided, and running amok.

Yet, over His good land, the Lord your God has raised up and established a good King, who is the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed; His Servant David, with whom He has made an everlasting Covenant: Not like His Covenant with Israel at Sinai, which His people broke, although He was faithful to them.  But a New Covenant in the very flesh and blood of great King David’s greater Son.

As the ruler goes, so goes the nation, right?  You know it’s true.  You see it, time and again, in the kings of Israel and Judah.  There is a bond between the prince and the people.  And when you go to vote for your presidential candidate this coming Tuesday, you won’t be voting only for one man, but for what he stands for (or against): for his ideals and his values, and for what you hope that he will do.  You’ll be hoping, and I hope you’ll be praying, for a leader who will truly be a father of the country, who will be instrumental in helping the entire nation to be healthy, strong, and great.

As the ruler goes, so goes the nation.  But the King whom God has raised up for His people and His land, that is, the Lord’s Anointed, with whom He has made His Covenant forever, He is more than any ordinary Monarch.  He is not only a ruler or leader, but a merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God.  He is, indeed, the Royal High Priest, who has redeemed you with His Life-Blood, by His Cross, and has reconciled you to God in His Resurrection from the dead, in order that you may live with Him in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness; that you may have Peace and Sabbath Rest in a good land, freely flowing with milk and honey; that the Lord may be your God, and you His own dear child and beloved heir; and that you may abide forever and ever in His presence, blameless and holy before Him in body and soul.

Who is this King of Glory, and how is He able to do and accomplish such great things for you and for His people?  He is the Son of David, who is also David’s Lord, because He is the Word made Flesh, the incarnate Son of God.  For the Lord your God is one Lord, one God, but He is the Holy Trinity: Three Persons in one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And the Son has become true Man, the Seed of David, by the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Thus, from one Psalm, this same Lord Jesus Christ lays before you the great Mystery of the Holy Triune God and of the Incarnation.

He is not showing off, but He is teaching you the Gospel.  For in His Incarnation, the Lord your God has fulfilled the first and greatest commandment, and likewise the second, for you and for all people.  The Son loves the Father, also now in His own human flesh and blood, with all His heart, with all His soul, with all His mind, and with all His strength.  And in such love for His Father, He has made Himself your neighbor, in order to love you with His own body and life.

Thus, the one true God, beside whom there is none other, has come beside you, and He has placed you beside Him, so that you might share His Life and abide with Him in His divine and holy Love.

He has held nothing back.  He has emptied Himself, poured Himself out, and given Himself to God, even unto death upon the Cross.  That is His Priesthood and His Sacrifice, which He offers to God on your behalf.  His Life is in His Blood, and He gives His Life entirely, in love for God, and in love for you.  For by the shedding of His Blood, He atones for all your sins; and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  He redeems you for Himself, forever and ever.  And He establishes the New Covenant between God and Man in His own flesh, with His own Blood.

His own Body is the new and greater Tabernacle, in which God abides with you, and you abide with God.  For this Son of David, the King of Peace, replaces the old Tabernacle with the Temple of His crucified and risen Body.  And by His holy and precious Blood, you enter with Him into the Holy of Holies, which is to say, into the very presence of God.  You are brought to the Father in Him, in order to receive the eternal inheritance that belongs to the Son of God.  That is what He freely gives to you, by grace, in the Holy Communion, which is the New Covenant in His Blood.

Here there are no contingencies; nor is there anything lacking or amiss.  There is nothing “iffy” or uncertain about the Life that is here given by the one true God, who gives Himself to you.  For He has offered Himself, as the perfect Sacrifice, once for all.  And this same Lord Jesus has risen from the dead, and has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He lives and reigns forever.

Therefore, with His Gospel, which is the sprinkling of His Blood, He cleanses your conscience of all sin and shame and every stain.  As He was crucified for your transgressions, and raised for your justification, so now He daily and richly forgives you, reconciles you to His God and Father, and sanctifies and purifies your body and soul with His Holy Spirit.  All of this by His Blood, with which He gives to you His Life.  He thereby raises you from death to life in Himself.

The Law commands you and requires you to love the Lord your God, but here the Lord your God loves you.  The Law tells you to cleanse your heart and draw near to God, but here, by His Gospel, the one true God draws near to you in Christ, in order to cleanse you by His grace and forgiveness.  He comes to free you from the devil’s kingdom, from the slavery and prison house of sin and death, and to bring you into the Kingdom of God.  The King Himself, the Christ, the Son of God, shares with you His faithfulness, His faith and holy love.  He fully gives to you His relationship with His God and Father, so that the true and only God is now your God and your Father in Him.

That is what the dear Lord Jesus Christ has done for those who have gone before us in the faith, whom we rightly remember with thanksgiving to God in Christ.  We do not worship them, but with them we worship God; and, loving Him above all things, we love them also, for His sake.  For they belong to us, in Him, and we belong to them.  They are not dead and gone, but alive forevermore.  Not by their own wisdom, reason, or strength — not by their own faithfulness and love — but by His grace, by His faith and faithfulness, and by His love for them; by His perfect obedience and the absolute sacrifice of His entire Body and Life; and by His Gospel in the Word and Sacraments.

So does He give Himself, His Life and His Love, to you.  This only-begotten Son of the Father, your merciful and great High Priest, the Prince of Peace, preaches and teaches the Word of God, which is the Word of Life, the Word of faith and love, to you and all His children, and to His children’s children, from one generation to the next, even to the close of the age.

It is in the Temple that He preaches and teaches the Word to you; that is to say, within His Body, the holy Christian Church (on earth as it is in heaven).  His Word is spoken to you from His Holy Altar, from which He also gives to you His Body and pours out for you the New Testament in His Blood.  For as the Word has become Flesh and tabernacles among us, the Word is never without His Flesh, but He always brings you to His Father in His Body and with His Blood.  He gives you, not a part or a portion, but Himself, whole and complete.  He withholds no good thing from you.

As there is one Bread and one Cup, one Spiritual Food and Drink — of one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all — so there is one Holy Communion in heaven and on earth, which is the one Body of Christ.  He is not divided, but the many are united and become one in Him, as the many grains of wheat become one Bread, and the many grapes are united in one Cup of wine.  In this one Body, all of the faithful, of all times and all places, live and abide in perfect peace, forever and ever.

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