The Perfect Righteousness of Your Father

You are to be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect: whole and complete, holy and righteous.

Indeed, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of heaven.

But Whoever keeps and teaches the commandments of God, the Law and the Prophets, He shall be great in the Kingdom of heaven.  That is to live according to the Word of God, to find life in His Word, and to confess and teach His Word to others, especially to your own children, that they may learn to love the Lord their God and to live by faith in His Word, unto the Life everlasting.

So you are called, on the one hand, to live as an obedient child of God within your own particular place, and on the other hand, to become a true father or mother to those entrusted to your care.  This rhythm of receiving all things from your Father in heaven, and then handing over what you have received to those who come after you on earth, is fundamental to the Christian faith and life.

So it is that Christ Jesus has come, the Son of God in the Flesh, not to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them in Himself, in His own Body and Life.

What does this mean?  The Lord Jesus lives His entire life — and He lays down His Life in death upon the Cross — in perfect faith and love for His God and Father in heaven, and in steadfast love and with forgiveness for His neighbors here on earth, including you and all of yours.

He lives ethically and morally, to be sure.  That is a given for the One who fears, loves, and trusts in God above all things.  He possesses His own vessel, His Body and Life, in purity and holiness and peace.  But more than that, He serves His neighbors — even you — in grace and gentleness.

So fully and completely does He trust His God and Father, even unto death, that He also fully and completely offers up Himself and sacrifices Himself, as the Charity of God, in order to save His neighbors from sin, death, the devil, and hell — in order to save you for the Kingdom of heaven.

This, then, is the Royal Law, that you are to love your neighbor as yourself.  Not only your kinfolk and buddies and those who do you well, but also your enemies and persecutors, who hate you and hurt you, who take advantage of you and take you for granted, without any gratitude or thanks.

For the love of God, do not seek revenge but reconciliation with those who have done you wrong.  By the same token, do what you can to make amends and to be reconciled with those whom you have wronged.  For your part, be at peace with all your neighbors and do right by them in love.

So shall you be and live as a son of your Father in heaven.  Which is really to say that you live in Christ Jesus, as He has lived for you, and as He ever lives to do you good, in spite of your sins.

His mercy triumphs over judgment, as surely as His own Cross and Passion and His Resurrection from the dead have already actually achieved justice and righteousness for you and for all people.  By His holy and precious Blood and by His innocent suffering and death you are set free from the Law of transgressions, set free to live by His grace according to the Law of Liberty.

That is the glorious freedom that is yours through His forgiveness of all your sins.  It is the true freedom of faith in Christ, because there is no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus.

Such is the freedom truly to love and forgive your neighbor; because your life in Christ is secure, and God is your dear Father, and you are a free citizen of His Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.

Therefore, you are given to love your neighbor, not only as you love yourself, but, so much the better, as the Lord your God loves you.  That is not to harbor anger and resentment, and not to hurt your neighbor, whether with your fists or your words, but rather to provide assistance in need.

It is not to covet what your neighbor has, but — being content with what the Lord has given you — to use whatever you have been given to care for your neighbors in their circumstances, as you are able; to give rest to your neighbors, as you are given rest in Christ Jesus; to forgive, as you are forgiven; and to be reconciled with your neighbors, as God has reconciled you to Himself.

This is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, which far and away surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, and by which you are saved.  By faith in Christ, by faith in His Gospel, you have entered the Kingdom of heaven and you live with Him in His righteousness.  In Him you are right with God.  You are not condemned but rescued from every evil.  You are safe and sound forever.

This is your confidence and courage before God, which undergirds your charity for other people.

This is your perfect righteousness, because this is the perfection of your Father in heaven, that is, the fulfillment of His good and gracious Will in the Flesh and Blood of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, your Savior.  He not only fulfills the Law and the Prophets, but He Himself is their perfect fulfillment; for He was crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification, and He has thereby reconciled the whole world, including you, to God the Father in Himself.

He has made Himself the Poor Man, in order to make you wealthy with His grace.  He has given up His outer coat and His inner shirt, in order to cover your nakedness and shame, to clothe you with His righteousness, His holiness and peace.  He has gone the full distance to save you, and by His fair Name He has called you from out of death and the grave into the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.  So, then, as He offers up Himself in perfect faith and holy love, He also brings you in and with Himself to God.  And so are you made perfect in the righteousness of His mercy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living with Christ in the Household and Family of God

Christ Jesus is the Lord your God, who has brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, into the freedom of faith in the household and family of His Father.  You shall have no other gods than Him.  For there is life in no one else, and there is no other name by which you shall be saved.

Call upon the Name of this Lord Jesus.  Look to Him for all that you need, and for all good things.  Trust Him and rely on Him, and so proceed in faith and confidence.  Know that He is with you, that He loves you, and that He will help you in the future as in the past.  For the sake of His great mercy and compassion, He shall never leave you nor forsake you, but He will save you from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  He will rescue you from every evil of body and soul.

As surely as He has borne your sins and griefs and sorrows in His own Body on the Cross, as surely as He has laid down His life and shed His blood for you as the Lamb of God, and as surely as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, so surely does He conquer all your enemies, cleanse you from all unrighteousness, and bring you out of death and the grave into His Resurrection and His Life.  As He has ascended to the right hand of His God and Father in heaven, so does He seat you there with Himself in the heavenly places, even now, and forever and ever.

He is your sure and certain Hope.  He is your faith and life.  He is your Strength and your Song.  For He has become your Salvation, and so does He remain.

Cling to Him, therefore, and worship Him — with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Worship this Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit.  As you have been baptized in His Name, into His Cross and Resurrection — by the washing of water with His Word — so confess His Name in both your words and actions, and pray in His Name to your Father in heaven by the grace of His Holy Spirit, as He Himself has taught you and invited you to pray.

Indeed, let your whole life be a confession of the Lord Jesus Christ and a prayer of faith in Him.  With your body worship Him in reverence and humility before Him, in fear, love, and trust in Him above all else, and so also in loving and self-sacrificing service to your neighbor for Jesus’ sake.

Do not make or worship any other gods, nor attempt to be a god unto yourself.  That is to say, do not put your hope and confidence in yourself or anyone else, but solely in this Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of the Father.  Do not invest yourself, your heart and mind, your time and energy, in anything apart from His Word.  Do not give your body over to that which His Word forbids, nor to that which He has not given to you, but exercise and train your body to live unto righteousness according to His Word.  Likewise, do not speak except as He has spoken, that all your words might be good and right and true.  Live in such a way, by faith in Christ Jesus, that everything you do and say resounds to the glory, honor, thanks, and praise of your God and Father in heaven.

It is really a matter of living in His house, as a member of His family, as a child and heir of God the Father in Christ Jesus, the beloved Son.  It is a matter of resting in His gracious providence, abiding in His peace, receiving His good gifts, being cared for and protected by the One who loves you and bestows His own life upon you.  It is a matter of finding your own place, your refuge, and your home, with Him who has called you to Himself and named you with His own Name, adopting you for the sake of His great love, and granting you a glorious inheritance forever.

The rules of His household and family are not some new kind of slavery or bondage, though your old Adam is constrained and constricted by such rules.  Sons and daughters in this life of sin do not always honor their fathers and mothers; they do not always obey their parents.  Brothers and sisters do not always love and care for each other as they should.  Therefore, the rules of the Father’s house so order things for the benefit of one and all, that wickedness, hurt, and harm may be curbed, that help may be given and good promoted.  So, too, the rules of His household aim to keep you close to your Father and your family, to keep you safe from all harm and danger, and to give you the rhythm and stability of real life in the peace and harmony of Christ, your Savior.

To that end, His rules set before you the good life that Christ Jesus has lived for you in His own flesh and blood like yours, the life which He has given and still gives to you by His Ministry of the Gospel.  He thus invites you into that life, which is established and steadfast in Him.  And He continues to bear the good fruits of that life, so that you might eat and drink and live with Him.

He jealously guards you against the false gods that seek to entice and force you away from Him — the false gods and idols that promise you life, though they actually have nothing but death, destruction, and despair to inflict upon you.  That you should rather live instead of die, your dear Lord Jesus invites you to pray, He teaches and encourages you to pray, and He even commands you to pray, that you should thereby learn to speak and live by faith in His God and Father, who has in fact become your own God and Father.  So does He also call you daily back to your Sabbath Rest in Him, to His Word, and to His good works.  For He would feed you at His Table and give you peaceful sleep in the bed that He has made for you, in your own room in your Father’s house.

The pillow upon which your heart and soul, your mind and body rest is the sweet forgiveness of His Gospel.  For He Himself loves you in the way that He commands you to love your neighbors, to love your brothers and sisters.  And in such love He also forgives you all your sins.  He does not hold your trespasses against you.  As His mercies are new every morning, so is your Father’s house always wide open to you; your place at His Table is set and secure; and your Sabbath Rest in Christ Jesus remains in the Ministry of His Gospel, unto the Life everlasting of your body and soul.

Such love and forgiveness are the good fruits of His good Tree, which He bears for you in His mercy and in His perfect faithfulness.

By these fruits of the Cross, He does you no hurt, He causes you no harm, neither in your body nor in your soul.  On the contrary, He gives to you His own divine Life, both now and forever.

He does not rob you, He does not mug you, and He does not take any good thing away from you.  He rather gives you Himself and all the treasures of His Kingdom, so that you lack for nothing.

He is an ever-faithful husband, who cherishes you and cares for you as a member of His beloved Bride, His Holy Church.  And wherever you have strayed, as often as you have turned away from Him and gone a-whoring after other gods, still He woos you back to Himself, He reconciles you to Himself, and He always welcomes you back into His strong arms and His loving embrace.

With His Word He forgives you, He enlightens you, He teaches you all things, and He gives to you His Holy Spirit.  He defends you against all the assaults and accusations of the devil.  He quiets even the accusations of God’s own Law against you, as surely as He has kept and fulfilled the Law for you.  He thus covers your shame with His own honor.  He speaks well of you, even though the whole world does not.  He speaks well of you, and He credits you with His own righteousness.

This is the firm foundation of His Father’s house, which stands fast on earth even as it is in heaven, and which shall not be blown away or wrecked by winds or waves, by earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, or raging floods.  For all the Law and the Prophets have been fulfilled in Him, in His Incarnation, in His Body of flesh and blood, in His Cross and Resurrection, in His holy faith and perfect love.  He has kept and still keeps all the rules of the house for you, so that His Sabbath Rest remains and His good life continues for you.  That shall never be shaken or removed.

That is why the Word of Christ has such authority.  He does not simply interpret or teach the Law, but He has kept and fulfilled the Law (just as it was always intended).  And His fulfillment of the whole Law, of the Ten Commandments and all that His Father has spoken, has become His Gospel to you.  Thus does He forgive your sins — your faults and failings, your breaking of the Law, and your neglect of faith and love.  As He has given Himself for you in atonement for all that has been wrong, so does He give Himself to you in peace, in mercy and compassion, in order to repair what has been broken, to set right what is amiss, to fill up whatever is lacking, and to bring you home.

Do not be afraid.  The Lord has set you free — but He does not simply let you go.  You are His own beloved, and He truly is the Lord your God.  As He has brought you out of slavery, out of Egypt, so does He bring you in freedom into the good land that He has promised, the good land of His Paradise.  Even now in the wilderness, He remains with you; and He shall not leave you, He shall not abandon you.  Know that He has not forgotten you, but He remembers you in love.

Even here and now, you are at home with Him.  And He shall bring to pass all that He has spoken to you.  The One who promises is faithful, and He will surely do it in grace, mercy, and peace.

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

The Love of God in Christ Is the Fulfillment of the Law

If you want to know God — not only about Him, but God Himself — then hear, O Israel, what the Lord your God speaks to you.  Listen to what He says.  Hear His Word.  That is your real life, that is what is good and true.  For God reveals and gives Himself to you by the Word that He speaks.

If you would live with God, therefore, hear and heed what He says, and remember all that He has done.  For He is the Author and Giver of life, and in love He has created you for life with Himself.  So it is that He also reveals Himself to you in love, that you may know Him, and believe and trust in Him, and love Him.  Not for His benefit, but for your sake, that you should not die but live.

Before you were ever conceived in your mother’s womb, the Lord your God loved you and desired to give you life.  Consider, too, the Exodus that He has accomplished for you, how with His mighty arm and His outstretched hand He has brought you out of Egypt.  Likewise consider the Covenant that He has made with you, the Blood by which He has bound Himself to you, and you to Him, atoning for your sins, cleansing you of all unrighteousness, and calling you to be His very own.

The Exodus that He has made for you — not only for those who came before you, but the Exodus that He has made for you — is by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, who took your sins upon Himself, bore them in His Body, laid down His life for you in love, and took it up again by faith in His Father.  So has He opened up the Life everlasting to you in body and soul.  And so are you baptized into Him, you are washed and cleansed in His Name, you are given His Holy Spirit.

He has sealed His Covenant with you, as well, by feeding you with His own Body and giving you to drink of His own Blood.  “This is My Blood of the New Covenant,” He says, echoing the words of Moses at Mt. Sinai, but fulfilling them in Himself, and so bestowing the Life of God upon you.

So does God the Father speak to you by His Son.  This is the sort of God He is, One who gives Himself to you in love.  Who is Love.  You do well by living according to His Word, by heeding His commands, by living as He has directed — by faith in His promises.  If you would do right, if you would do well, listen to what He says, and obey the Lord your God.  He has made you His own dear child, a son of God in Christ.  You, therefore, shall be perfect, as your Father is perfect.

In what does this divine perfection consist?  It is love, which is the fulfillment of the Law.  In love for God you are to love your neighbor as yourself.  That is the Royal Law, the Law of your King.

This is your perfection.  This is what your life with God is to be like.  That you love your neighbor, as you are loved by God.  You are to love the Lord your God because He first loves you, and He is your greatest Good, your Life, and your Salvation.  And you are to love your neighbor because you have become like God, recreated in His Image and Likeness — in Christ, the incarnate Son.

You are to love your neighbors, each and all of your neighbors, for the sake of Christ Jesus, as the Lord your God loves you in Christ Jesus.  It is in mercy that He has forgiven you all your sins, reconciled you to Himself, and graciously adopted you to be His own dear child in Christ Jesus.  So, then, you are to be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful.  The one who is not merciful shall be judged as a transgressor of the Law.  But you are to forgive your neighbor his trespasses against you, in the same way that your Father in heaven freely and fully forgives you all your sins.

In the Kingdom of God, it is not fairness nor the justice of punishment but forgiveness that reigns.  Forgiveness of sins gets to the very heart of the Law, because it is an exercise of love and mercy.  Of course, if the Law were kept perfectly in love, there would be no need for forgiveness.  But as you relate to your neighbor, you find that your neighbor sins against you in many ways, and you find that you likewise sin against your neighbor in many ways.  And in all of these sins between yourself and your neighbor, you sin against heaven and before God.  The Law brings that to light.  It tells you what love is to look like, and so it shows that your life does not always look like that.

In many and various ways, day after day, you fall short in your love, and you sin against even your own family and friends.  And as you move beyond those most basic vocations and stations in life, you make comparisons, distinctions, and judgments regarding your other neighbors in the world, showing partiality to those more to your liking, to those who are more like you, and to those more likely to return your favors and advance your agendas.  But such favoritism is contrary to the Law.

You have a special attachment and responsibility to your own husband or wife, and to your own children, of course.  But aside from such vocations, one neighbor is to be to you as another.  And you are to love your neighbor.  You are to be kind and do good even to those who are at enmity with you.  You know that Jesus says so.  You are not to turn away from your enemy in his need but in love you are to help him as you can, as opportunity permits.  And if he slaps you, turn the other cheek.  If he takes your coat, then give him the shirt off your back.  How hard it is to love like that!

The Lord teaches you that, even in your anger, you are not to sin against your neighbor.  So what shall you do with your anger?  What shall you do when you’ve been hurt?  How do you offer right sacrifices, as the Psalmist calls you to do?  Do not offer anything to God apart from reconciliation with your neighbor.  If you come into the presence of the Lord your God and presume to offer Him anything while at odds with your neighbor, then you take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.  Then you are trying to purchase His favor, while you continue to live contrary to His will.

If you would offer to God right sacrifices, then sacrifice your pride, and sacrifice your ego, and sacrifice your hurt feelings.  Sacrifice your bitterness, and forgive your neighbor his trespasses against you.  Sacrifice yourself and your selfishness, in order to love and serve your neighbor.  Sacrifice your lust for revenge, and seek instead to be reconciled to your neighbor in peace.

Do not presume to come into the presence of God and claim that you love Him while you persist in hating, hurting, and harboring resentment and ill will against your neighbor.
Demonstrate and exercise your love for God by loving each and all of your neighbors, as the Lord your God loves you, and show no partiality among them.  For the Lord makes no distinction.  The Lord is merciful to all who call upon His Name.  But how and why, then, is He a “jealous” God?

The Lord is not jealous in the way that you envy your neighbors and covet whatever God has given to them.  The Lord is not jealous of who you are, what you have, or what you do, for He is the One who has created you, given you life, and entrusted to your stewardship all that you possess.

The Lord is jealous, not in selfishness, but in love for you and all His people.  He is jealous as a Husband for His own Wife, as a Father for His own Children.  He would not have you enticed or forced away from Him, seduced or stolen away from Him, by any other god.  For He alone is your Life and your Salvation, and He wants you to live and not to die.  He jealously guards and keeps you close to Himself, not as though to derive His life from you, but so that you might live in Him.

What, then?  The Law of the Lord is not unjust but righteous.  The love that it requires is good and right, holy and wise.  And as it thus confronts your sins, your lack of love, and all your covetous desires and selfishness, the Law shuts you up and silences all of your excuses and rationalizations.  Along with that, it actually makes your sins that much worse!  Not because the Law is evil, but because its holiness and righteousness stir up and exacerbate the wickedness of your sinful heart.

The Law will not enable or allow you to make yourself better, to turn your life around, or to set things right with God.  The Law rather reveals how helpless and hopeless you are.  It aggravates your sinful heart, mind, and spirit, because it requires that you be altogether different than you are.  As it commands you to love, you are all the more embittered against both God and your neighbor.

In truth, the entire world is guilty before Him, for all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve have fallen under the condemnation of the Law.  And you are no exception, no matter how hard you try.  Even when your outward behavior is at its very best, your sinful heart and fallen flesh remain at odds with the Lord and His Law.  You do not love as He has created you and called you to love.

But Christ Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God the Father, and He alone has lived as the true Son of God in the flesh.  So, if you would know God — not only about Him, but Him — hear the Word of Christ, and know that He has come not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.

He speaks of a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and pharisees.  But that is not a new and better set of rules and regulations, which you might keep and fulfill with a bit of effort and a little luck.  It is the righteousness which He obtains for you and bestows upon you in holy faith and love.

This one Lord Jesus Christ approaches the Altar of His Cross and offers Himself as the good and right Sacrifice by which He reconciles the whole world to God.  For He unites both God and Man in His Body.  The wall of hostility, the accusations and judgments of God’s holy Ten Commands, and all the punishments of the Law, all of these are finally satisfied, resolved, and removed in Him.

It is in Christ that you know the Love of God.  Not abstractly, but very personally.  Not intangibly, but in the very substance of His own Flesh and Blood.  He is not far away from you, but He draws near to you.  In Him you know mercy, not merely as an example, but as God’s grace toward you.  He knows your sins better than you do, and yet He does not hold them against you.  He rather forgives you all of your sins at His own expense, and He credits you with His own righteousness.

It is in Christ Jesus — by His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead — that you have Peace with God and the perfect Sabbath Rest for your body, soul, and spirit that God always intended.

It is one of the saddest ironies in all of salvation history that the Sabbath Commandment has been received and regarded as one of the greatest and most difficult burdens of all.  Where God intends to give His people rest, you resent His grace and the gifts of His mercy as a demand upon your time (or what you regard as your time), as an inconvenience to your plans and aspirations in life.  The Lord calls you and invites you to rest yourself in Him and to rejoice in the Liturgy of His Gospel, and you wearily respond, “Do I have to?”  So much for loving the Lord above all other gods.

And yet, as a determined Father, as a patient and persistent Parent, as a loving and long-suffering Husband, the Lord your God continues to call you Home, back to Himself in Peace, to enter into the Sabbath Rest that remains for you and all His people in Christ Jesus.  For all the ways that you have refused to hear and heed His Word, resisted and disobeyed His Law, and taken His Name in vain, the Lord Jesus has laid down His life and taken it up again, that you should live in Him.

In yourself, in your fallen flesh and sinful heart, there is enmity and conflict, animosity and hurt, so much bitterness, and so many regrets.  Things have not been right between you and God, nor between you and your neighbors.  And as a consequence, you have been cut off, isolated, lonely, and alone with all your sins and griefs and sorrows.  Or so it has seemed to you, and so it has felt.

But you are not alone.  For Christ has come to you in mercy, and He is here with you in the midst of the wilderness under the Cross.  He comes not to punish you for your sins, as you deserve, but to set you free from your sins and from the power of death.  He comes, not as your enemy, but in order to befriend you, though you have been at enmity with Him.  He comes in peace to love you.

He brings you into fellowship with God.  For He has baptized you in His Name and poured out His Spirit upon you.  His God and Father is now your God and Father in Him.  His Church is now your House and Home, on earth as it is in heaven.  His people are your family.  As He feeds you with His Body and gives you to drink of His Blood, you are bound together with all who are His own.

As Christ has offered Himself for you on the Cross, so does He offer Himself to you in His Church.  So does He love you, and so do you learn from Him to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Such love is the fulfillment of the Law, which is yours in Christ by the gift of His Gospel, as He daily and richly forgives you all your sins in His grace, mercy, and peace.

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

The Fasting of Faith and Love in the Sabbath Rest of Christ

There has never been a better summary of the Law of God than the Ten Commandments, which God Himself inscribed in tablets of stone and gave to His people Israel by the hands of Moses.  Those Commandments also instruct you in the way that you are to go in love for God and man.

The natural Law, which God has written on your heart, also makes known that you should treat your neighbor in the way that you yourself want to be treated, and that you are responsible for your actions and accountable to a higher authority than yourself.  Even so, though God has written His Law on your heart, and He reveals His Law also in His creation, sin has blurred your knowledge and understanding of the Law.  It perverts your heart and mind, so that you do not recognize what is good and right, nor do you realize your own faults and failings, leastwise not to their full extent.  In order to know the good and acceptable Will of God, to know what is good and right and true, therefore, you must rely upon the revealed Word of the Lord and the work of the Holy Spirit.

So you have the Ten Commandments, which instruct you in what you are to do, and in what you are not to do.  They show you what it means to live by faith and love toward God, and they show you how to live in love toward your neighbor.  They also protect your neighbor from the harm that you would otherwise do him, and they protect you from your neighbor, by curbing the impulses of sin, and by informing and strengthening your conscience in the Truth.

The Law in general, and the Ten Commandments in particular, can be summarized broadly and simply in two words: Faith and Love.  For God would have you fear, love, and trust in Him, and in such faith look to Him for every good thing.  Everything else follows upon that faith and love for God, in words and works of love for your neighbor.

There are these two things, then, faith and love.  The entire Christian life is summarized that easily, that simply.  But the Law also reveals and makes plain that living by faith and living in love is no easy task for you, a sinner.  In fact, it is impossible for you to do so consistently and perfectly, as the Law requires.  So it is that, as the Lord commands you to live in faith and love, He drives you to repentance.  He turns you away from yourself to Him who is your Life and your Salvation.

God is always at work to do that very thing.  For His sole desire is to love you, and, in loving you, to give you life.  He is not seeking to get some work out of you for His own benefit.  Rather, He delights to work for your benefit.  In His love for you, He desire and delights to give you life.  And to that same end, what He commands is for your good.

If you would live according to His Commandments, your life would be better than it is.  You would be happier.  Your marriage would be more successful.  Your parenting would be more on the mark.  Your friendships would be richer and more fulfilling.  Your job would be more satisfying.  And you would experience that His Way is the Way of true Wisdom.  His Way is the Way of real Life.

To be sure, God’s Commandments are not intended as a way or means for you to gain life for yourself.  They simply set before you the way in which you are to live the life which God gives to you for His own sake, that is, by His grace, for the sake of His own divine and holy Love.

In all of this, in faith and love toward God, and in love for your neighbor, God’s Law — and His Ten Commandments, in particular — are really all about the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, as He describes Himself in the Gospel from St. Mark this evening.  If that is not intuitively obvious or easy to understand, then so much the more do you need God’s revealed Will to enlighten you.

His Law, from the beginning when it was written on man’s heart, and when it was given to Israel at Sinai, has always been concerning Christ Jesus, the Bridegroom who has come from heaven to call you to Himself as His holy Bride.  When God etched the Commandments in stone with His own finger, already He was anticipating the flesh and blood of the Man, Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, who writes the Law in His own flesh — who fulfills and satisfies the Law in His own flesh.  For it is the Bridegroom who lives perfectly, according to the Will of God.

It is the Bridegroom, the Son of God in His own flesh, who lives in perfect faith before His Father and in perfect love toward you, His neighbor.  In fact, not only has He made you His neighbor in becoming flesh and blood like you; He is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister, though you have fallen far from God’s glory and broken His Law.  His love for you has never depended on your performance, but rather upon His own heart, upon that Love which constitutes His Being.  It is with the Love of the Father for His Son, and of the Son for His Father, in the Holy Spirit, that the one true God, the Holy Trinity, loves you in the Person of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.

So the Bridegroom has come.  It is and always has been to Him that the Law points.  To the Man, Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the Son of Mary, conceived and born in time to bear your sins and be your Savior.  The Law directs you to Him.  And in directing you to Him, it directs you in the way that you are to go.  It reveals true Wisdom, which begins with the fear of God.  It shows you the path of life, the path of perfect life, which is life with God.  For there finally is no other life, and there is no other living, than that which is by faith and love in God.

The Law points you to Christ, and, in pointing you to Christ, it shows you what divine life and what faith and love look like in human flesh and blood.  For He is the One who has fed the hungry with good things.  He is the One who shelters the homeless.  He is the One who does not turn away from His own flesh but covers the naked and shelters the homeless in righteousness.  He covers you, not with fig leaves, nor with brick and mortar, but with Himself, and with His holy and precious blood, by His innocent suffering and death.  He does all of these things for you.  Your life depends entirely upon Him.  And so does the Law of God find its meaning and purpose in Him.

When you thus understand the Law in Christ Jesus, then you know what true fasting is, and you know the point and purpose of fasting.  It is not to appease God’s wrath or earn His favor.  That is not fasting but pagan unbelief.  Nor is fasting intended to impress your neighbor or win the admiration of men.  That is simply to gorge yourself on the idolatry of your own ego.

True fasting is rather a matter of faith and love.  You let go of those delicacies of life that your flesh craves, in order to affirm and exercise your trust in God.  You do not eat everything that lies at hand, because you trust that your Father will feed you at the proper time.  You do not horde to yourself everything that you want, but you maintain an ability to serve your neighbor in love, giving sacrificially and not simply from your abundance; contributing to charity and to the Church at your own expense, and not only from your castoffs and leftovers.  That is true fasting.  It is to love your neighbor as God loves you in Christ, who gives Himself for you and to you in peace.

So, then, from Sunday to Sunday you fast, and you live on the strength that comes from the Food that God gives to you.  Not only the food for your body, which He daily and richly provides more abundantly than you could ever deserve, but especially that Food which is God Himself, His Body for your body, and His Blood to cleanse you, to forgive you, to strengthen and keep you in Him.

From Sunday to Sunday you fast, that you might live by faith, and that your neighbor might live by your love.  You are to carry no debt except the duty you have to love your neighbor.  So, if there is some obligation that you owe to your neighbor, fulfill it.  Do not wait until tomorrow.  Do not put it off.  Nothing that you have, not even time, belongs to you.  Everything is God’s gift.  And He puts it into your hands, that you might use it to love, to serve, and to care for your neighbor.

It is when you know and practice this true fasting of faith and love that you also understand and rejoice in the true feasting with which God delights to serve you.

You feast upon Christ.  And as you feast upon Christ, the God who has become flesh, then you also learn how to feast on the good things of God’s creation.  You neither despise what God has given nor turn His creation into an idol, but you receive His gifts with thanksgiving, you enjoy them in faith and use them in love, and they are sanctified in your life by the Word of God and prayer.

Everything hinges on the Bridegroom.  You are able to fast in faith and love because you are fed by Christ and feast on Him.  You are filled by Him.  He does call you to discipline and repentance, to fasting, and to faith, not to deprive you of anything, but rather to fill you with Himself and with every good thing in Him.  What does He ask of you that He does not give to you many times over?

Even by way of His Commandments, He calls you to find your Sabbath Rest in Him.  But it is one of the greatest and saddest ironies and paradoxes in the history of fallen man, that men should take God’s Sabbath Commandment and turn it into a burdensome and onerous work.  That is the way it is with sinful man, and with your own sinful heart.  Where God would give you rest, you take work and burdens on yourself.  Where God would forgive you freely and give you life, you decline His gifts and strive to make a life for yourself, though that is nothing but a living death.

Repent, therefore, and live by faith in the Word and promises of God.  For when He commands you to rest, He calls you to rest in Christ Jesus.  And there you find that your sins are forgiven.  There you find that you have real and abundant life.  There you find that God is with you and for you.  For Christ Himself is the true Sabbath, who is given for the salvation of all the children of man.

The purpose of the Sabbath never was to make men work harder, but that man should cease from his own working in order to delight in the Word and works of God and rest in Him by faith.

And the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.  Not only because, for this Commandment also, He has satisfied the Law.  And not only because He has sacrificed Himself in order to atone for your sins against the Sabbath.  And not only because He has lived by faith and found His perfect Rest in the Word and works of His Father.  But Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath because He has become your Sabbath Rest in love for you.  He has taken all of your burdens upon Himself.  All of your faults and failings, He has borne.  For all that you should not have done, He has paid the penalty.  And all that you have failed to do, He has done for you and on your behalf.

And the Sabbath Rest of Christ remains forever.  He ever lives to love and serve His neighbor — to love and serve you, and to give you peace and rest in Himself.  This He does without ceasing, eight days a week, by and with His Gospel, in and with and from His crucified and risen Body.

So, if you would understand the Ten Commandments, if you would understand faith and love, if you would understand true fasting and true Sabbath rest, then look to Christ Jesus, your Savior.  He does for you now, as He did for His disciples then, what He has always done for His people.  That is, He feeds you with good things.  For He is your Good Shepherd, and He is your true King, and He is your merciful and faithful High Priest in all things pertaining to God.

So He takes the Bread of the real Presence, and He feeds both your body and your soul, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.  He places into your mouth and into your body the very best Gifts, His Body and His Blood.  And with these Gifts, by His Word, He forgives all of your sins.

The Law of God apart from Christ could only ever accuse and condemn you, and kill you forever.  In Christ Jesus, His fulfillment of the Law on your behalf gives you life with God instead of death, and peace and rest in Him, because with Him there is forgiveness and the righteousness of God.

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

The Law of God Is Good and Wise

The Law of God is good and wise; first and foremost, because it is the Word and will of God, which He speaks to you in love.  He reveals His Law to you for your benefit, for your good.  And it is for this reason that He has given us the Ten Commandments, which are a perfect summary of His Law, of His good and gracious will for you and for your neighbor.

Not only that, but He has also written His Law on man’s heart, on his conscience; so that, even those who do not know His Ten Commandments still have a strong sense of right and wrong by nature.  Unless a man has completely hardened his heart and seared his conscience, he knows that he should not kill his neighbor or take his possessions or family.  And governments around the world and throughout history have put into place laws that convey these same things.

In all of these ways, God protects you from your neighbor, who would otherwise hurt you and harm you in your body, your possessions, your family, and your home.  And, let’s be honest, He also protects your neighbor from you and the sinful desires of your fallen flesh.

God’s Law, as it confronts you, exposes your sins.  For God commands you to do things that you really don’t want to do, and that you are not doing.  And as He commands you, He threatens to punish you if you do not do what He commands.  He also forbids you from doing those things which you enjoy doing.  Things that you are doing and want to keep on doing, He tells you to stop doing and not to do.  And here again, He threatens to punish you if you disregard His Law.

So it is that, when the good and wise and holy Law of God confronts you as a sinner, it accuses you.  It condemns you.  It judges you and would damn you.  God knows that it does all of these things, and yet, He speaks His Law to you, not with petty anger, as though He had lost His temper, and not for the sake of vengeance, but in love for you.  In exposing your sins, He begins His good work of repentance in you.  He reveals your faults in order to demonstrate your need for Him, for His forgiveness and salvation.  And in this way He begins to drive you to the Cross of Christ.

In calling you to repentance, He does not seek to drive you further away from Himself, but rather to bring you back to Himself.  His Law points you finally to the Gospel, that is, to Christ, who is the fulfillment of the Law.  For everything the Law has required of you, Christ Jesus has done in your stead, on your behalf.  Everything the Law has demanded from you, Christ has done and given for your benefit.  He has fully satisfied the Law in your stead.

It’s not that Christ has simply kept the rules and checked them off God’s big “to do” list, so that now the Lord is off your back about it.  No, the Lord’s desire, from the start and forever, is that you would live in a relationship of love with Him, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And when you did not love Him, He sought you out in love and reconciled you to Himself in Christ Jesus.

All that the Law requires, Jesus has done, not only in your stead, on your behalf, but also for you.  In perfect faith and love for His Father, He has lived in perfect love for you, His neighbor.  He has not harmed you but has helped you in your body and your soul.  He has not sent you away, but has rather called you to Himself.  He has not taken from you, but He gives you all good things.

This is at the heart of His keeping of the Law.  This is His righteousness, which He has established for you.  And all of this He bestows upon you through His Gospel, beginning with the waters of your Holy Baptism.  He washes you clean with forgiveness of all your sins, and He clothes you with Himself and His righteousness.  Thus are you adorned by Christ, the Fulfiller of the Law.

So it is that you now stand before the judgment seat of God, and you are declared not guilty.  You are innocent.  You are righteous.  You are set free.  There is no condemnation for you before God, but only His judgment of righteousness, which is yours by His grace through faith in Christ.

All of this the Lord has done and given to you freely in love.  And not only that, but He keeps on giving it to you.  Though you daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment, Christ all the more forgives your sins.  Within His Body, the Church, in the company of the baptized, He daily and richly forgives your sins and the sins of all believers.

He preaches His Word to you.  He continues to catechize you in both the Law and the Gospel, so that you would know what is the good and acceptable will of God, and by His Holy Spirit you would walk in it.  And for that journey of faith and life in Christ, He feeds you with His own Body, and He gives you to drink of His own holy and precious Blood.  That is the ongoing Ministry of the Gospel, the free gift of Forgiveness and Life and Salvation, which Jesus keeps on giving.

The Gospel, though, has not set you free from the Law.  It has rather set you free from the Law’s accusation.  It has released you from the Law’s condemnation and judgment.  It has freed you from the punishment that you deserved under the Law.  But the Gospel has not set you free from God, nor from His holy will.  It has rather freed you from sin and death to live with God in Christ: To live in faith and love, which are the very things the Law has always commanded and described.

In this way the Ten Commandments continue to serve you, even as a Christian, because they set before your eyes and ears the Life of Christ, to which He calls you by His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  That is the life which is yours in Him by faith in His Gospel.

In the first three Commandments God calls you into relationship with Himself.  He calls upon your heart to belong to Him.  Not because He needs it, but He knows that you need Him.  So He calls you to love and trust in Him.  Yes, you are to fear His wrath, because He is God and you are not.  But for that same reason, He invites you and welcomes you to look to Him for every good thing.  Everything you need, He can and does provide in love for you.

He calls upon you to hear His Word, through which He serves you and bestows His Holy Spirit upon you.  And He teaches you to call upon His Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, that you should know Him as your God, the One who has brought you out of Egypt by His powerful hand.

For His Name’s sake, He also calls you to love your neighbor, and He puts you into relationship with your neighbor after the Image of Christ.  Therefore, do not hurt or harm your neighbor, but help your neighbor, and love your neighbor as Christ loves you.  Do not take from your neighbor, nor desire your neighbor’s things, but look for ways to serve your neighbor, as the Lord Jesus serves you.  Above all, forgive your neighbor, as you are forgiven by the Lord.

Fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  Listen to His Word.  Receive His gifts.  Knowing Him as your God and Father, call upon Him in prayer.  And in this fear and faith of God, do not despise your neighbor, but as you are able do good to all men.  Show love, serve, and forgive.  This is the way of life with God, which His Law reveals and requires.

In doing so — even for you who are a Christian, forgiven by Christ and living in Him by grace, by His Word and Holy Spirit — the Law continues to expose your sins and to accuse you in your conscience.  For you do not love your neighbor as yourself.  You do not do unto your neighbor as you would have him do for you.  You do not treat him as you want to be treated.  You do not love and care for your neighbor as your dear Lord Jesus Christ loves you and cares for you by grace.

You do not love your neighbor as you should because you do not love the Lord, your God and Father, as you should.  You do not call upon Him in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.  You do not expect good things from Him at all times.  You worry and you fret.  And when things are going poorly, you’re more inclined to blame God than to look to Him for help.  You do not always trust Him when the Cross is heavy upon you.  You sometimes despair because of your sins, or you despair because of your enemies.  And for all of these sins the Law continues to accuse you.

Nor is the accusation of the Law to be taken lightly.  It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God, and He threatens to punish all who break these Commandments.  Therefore the Catechism teaches you to fear His wrath and warns you not to disobey Him.  As the Law thus exposes your sins, you quail before Him.  And then you are tempted to do as our first parents did, to run away and try to hide from God, because you do not want to fall into His hands.

The great irony is that, in trying to flee from God, you fall precisely into His hands of wrath.  And yet, in speaking His Law to you, He still desires, not to drive you away, but to call you back to Himself in repentance.  The very fact that He speaks to you at all, and that He confronts you with His Law to expose your sin, is indicative of His loving care and concern for you, and of His desire that you live with Him in faith and love.  You thus flee His wrath by fleeing to His hands of mercy.  You flee His wrath by fleeing, not away from Him, but to Him in Christ.

His Law instructs you in the way that you should go — in relation to Him and to your neighbor — not that by your behavior you will fix anything, or appease God’s wrath, or make things better, but because it is in Him and in His Church that you find grace to help in time of need.

He places you in relationships with your neighbors, especially your brothers and sisters in Christ, not only that you may serve them, but that your brothers and sisters may speak the Gospel to you.  He admonishes you not to forsake the assembling together because it is in His Church that He serves you with every good and perfect gift through the Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins.

He commands you to remember the Sabbath Day and to keep it holy — to cherish His Word, to regard it as sacred, and gladly to hear the preaching of it, to receive the gifts He gives by His Word — because He desires to give you rest, and blessed peace, and life with Himself in Christ Jesus.  And all of this He does for you and gives to you within the Body of Christ, His Church, by the ministry of preaching and the Sacraments in His Name and stead.

Christ Jesus is here, and He does not hold your sins against you, but by His Word He graciously and generously forgives you all your sins.  As often as you have disobeyed His Law, failed to do what you should, and done again what you should not, He keeps on calling you back to Himself.  And His arms are open to you in mercy.  For He stands fast as the One who has already fulfilled and satisfied the Law for your salvation, which is to say, for life with God in Him.

The Law does not serve you by telling you how save yourself.  It serves you by pointing you and driving you to Christ, who lives in love for His Father, for you, and for all people.

So, when the Law exposes your sins, do not try to hide them, nor try to hide yourself away, but confess your sins and seek the forgiveness of Christ.  Dr. Luther has taught you to use the Ten Commandments in this way:  To consider your place in life in light of the Ten Commandments, that you might know what sins you should confess before your pastor.  Why?  In order to hear and receive the Word of Absolution from your pastor as from God Himself, in the Name of Christ, and that the good and gracious will of God should thus be done for you with His forgiveness.

Truly, this forgiveness of Christ is the fulfillment of the Law for you and your salvation.  For by this Gospel He loves you and gives you Life in body and soul, both now and forever.  He has become your Savior and your God, and He has not only called you into His own household and family as a beloved child of His God and Father, but He preserves your life within His Christian Church.  He has sanctified you with His Name, as in your Baptism, so also with His Absolution.  And He gives you Sabbath Rest within His own Body and Blood here at His Altar, where He daily and richly forgives you all your sins, 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 Word and Will of God in Christ

The Ten Commandments summarize the good and gracious will of God for His children, and so also for you in particular.  They reveal and describe, in short, how He would have you live.

In relation to the Lord your God, the Holy Trinity, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, you are to live by His grace alone, by faith in His Word.  That is, you are to look to Him for all that you need, to expect good things from Him, and to receive whatever He gives you with thanksgiving.  By the same token, it also means that you fear Him alone, as the only true God, and that you love Him as your highest good, in comparison to which everything else in all of creation is nothing.

And in relation to your neighbors, including everyone the Lord has set before you and beside you in this world, you are to live in love — to do no harm, but to serve and support them in every need.

This good and gracious will of God, this way of life in faith and love, is here conveyed to you in the form of His commands and prohibitions.  He tells you what to do, and what you must not do.

This summary of His Law has also been written on man’s heart, and for this reason it is also found to a large extent in the civil laws and regulations of the nations of the world, albeit imperfectly, at least with respect to your neighbor.  Murder, theft, and false witness are all crimes.  Disobeying your parents and other authorities and cheating on your spouse are recognized as wrongdoing.

By these ways and means, both by the special revelation of the Law and by the natural revelation of the created conscience, the Lord curbs outward evil and protects both you and your neighbor from anarchy and blatant outright wickedness.  To say it bluntly, He protects your neighbor from you, and He protects you from your neighbor, especially by threats of punishment, consequences for sins, and the promise of rewards to those who do what is right in this temporal life on earth.

But the actual demands of God’s holy and righteous Law go far deeper than outward behavior and civil righteousness.  Indeed, His discipline and right ordering of this body and life are aimed at a higher purpose, namely, that there should be sufficient freedom and opportunity for the preaching of His Word, so that you and your neighbor might be called and brought to repentance and faith.

The Lord wills that you are to fear, love, and trust in Him, not only from the heart, but with all of your heart, and with all of your mind, soul, and strength, indeed, with all that you are and have.

So must you also love and serve your neighbor from the heart, for God’s sake, in faith toward Him.  Thus, again, you are not simply to refrain from hurting your neighbor, whether by word or deed, whether in his body, his family, his possessions or reputation; but you are to help him in every way that you can, gladly doing good, however you are able, even to those who sin against you.

That is what the Lord your God commands.  That is how you are to live.  But you do not do it.

You do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  You do not hear and heed His Word, and you do not call upon His Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances.  You do not live by faith.  You do not trust that God loves you and that He is and will be doing you good.  And so you do not love your neighbors, either.  You envy and resent them.  You curse and criticize in your heart and mind if not with your lips or on the internet.  You do not gladly help and support your neighbors, but you do hurt them at times, in big and little ways, when you think you are getting away with it, as though there were no harm in such evil.

Consequently, as you consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments — which summarize the good and gracious will of God and His way of life for you — you are accused and condemned and sentenced to nothing but punishment, to temporal death and eternal damnation.

From this condemnation of the Law you cannot save yourself.  You cannot make up for the wrong you have already done, nor are you capable of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps to fear, love, and trust in God as you must.  You cannot do it.

If you imagine or suppose that you have been doing pretty well, and if you think for one minute that you have even come close to living in accordance with God’s holy Law, then you are lying to yourself, and you add sin upon sin with your prideful and presumptuous self-righteousness.

But He will not leave you in your pretense for too long.  His Law will have its way with you and do its work in you, whether by convicting your conscience and calling you to repentance in this life, or by condemning your body and soul to death for your unbelief, idolatry, and lack of love.

The problem is not with God’s Law, which is in fact holy, wise, and good, whether you agree with it and understand it or not.  Actually, you cannot comprehend His wisdom, His holiness, or His goodness, nor can you consent to His will, until you have been broken of your own conceit and self-righteousness and brought to fear, love, and trust in Him.  The problem is with you, because you are a sinner through and through, from the inside out, in your heart and mind, body and soul.

What you need, therefore, if you are to live, is a Savior from your sin, from your false belief and hardness of heart, and from your death and damnation.  You need the Lord your God to save you.

Thanks be to God that, while His Law condemns you, it has also been fulfilled for you by Christ Jesus, who has indeed become your Savior from sin and death.  God’s good and gracious will for your salvation and your life has not been thwarted by your unbelief and your unrighteousness.  For this dear Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished and fulfilled the entire Law on your behalf, in love for you, His neighbor (which is, of course, precisely to the point).  When that same Law now puts you to death because of your sin, it is so that you should then be raised up to a new life in Christ.


Your true and lasting life is in Him alone, because the faith and love that the Ten Commandments require of you, Christ Jesus has lived for you and established for you and for all in His own Body of flesh and blood.  He has thereby obtained the righteousness that is yours by grace through faith in Him; and He has opened the way of life to you, which is likewise by grace through faith in Him.

Really, this is what the Ten Commandments and the entire Word of God have always been about, that Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the fulfillment of the Law unto the righteousness of faith and life with God.  It has always been the point that God Himself would thus give life to His own.

Therefore, Christ in His own flesh has lived in the fear, love, and trust of His God and Father, and by the faith and confession of His Word and promises, as we heard for example this past Sunday in our Lord’s rejection of the devil’s temptations.  He has sanctified the Name of the Lord in all of His words and actions, and has perfectly fulfilled the Word and Will of God for your salvation.

So, too, all that the Law requires in love for the neighbor, Christ Jesus has done in love for you.  That is to say, not only has He kept the Law on your behalf, completing what you have not and could not do, but He has also loved you, and He does love you, in all the ways the Law requires.

He does not murder you, nor harm you in any way, but He gives you life in body and soul, both here in time and in the Resurrection.  As your heavenly Bridegroom, He is faithful to you in all things; yet He also calls you back and reconciles you to Himself when you have gone astray and cheated on Him.  He does not steal from you, but He daily and richly provides you with all that you need for now and forever.  Instead of testifying against you, He pleads for you with His own blood and defends you with His very life as your great Advocate, as your merciful and great High Priest.

He does not covet what you have, but though He was rich beyond measure, for your sake He made Himself poor, so that you should thus receive the riches of God and participate in His divine life.

Everything that God says about all of these Commandments finds its meaning and fulfillment in Christ Jesus.  He has lived the good and gracious Will of God in His own Body and Life, even unto death upon the Cross, and He has done so for you and your salvation.  In His rising from the dead, therefore, you also rise and live with Him by faith in His Gospel.  Your sins are all forgiven by His atoning blood, and you are reconciled to the Lord your God in His faithfulness and righteousness.

All the love and mercy and forgiveness that His Law requires of you for your neighbor are granted to you by the Lord Jesus Christ.  Not because you are so good (you’re not), but because He is good.  He is love.  He is mercy.  And, for His own sake, He forgives you all of your sins.

His perfect righteousness is credited to you; His perfect holiness is bestowed upon you as your beautiful and glorious dress; and His own life is given to you, so that you now live in Him, and He in you, in faith toward your true God and Father in Christ, and in His own love toward others.

It is in Christ Jesus, therefore, that the first three Commandments direct you to live by faith, to find your life, your peace and health and rest, in the Word and promise of His Holy Gospel.

The God whom you are commanded to fear, love, and trust above all things is the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who has loved you from the very depths of His Being to the Cross and Passion of the incarnate Son.  The Name you are commanded to hallow is the very Name that you have received from the mouth of the Lord in the waters of your Holy Baptism.  And as the God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ is now your God and Father in Him, so does He hear and answer your prayers, and He gladly accepts your sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving with great pleasure.

When you thus sanctify the Holy Day by the Word and Spirit of God, as He has commanded you to do, you find that He has called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified you as a beloved member of His Body and Bride, the Holy Church; and that He gathers you here to Himself within that holy fellowship, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, in order to serve you, to love you, to feed you at His Table with the Body of Christ and His Cup of Salvation, and to give you His own Life in body and soul, now and forever.

So does He strengthen your faith with His forgiveness of your sins; and He keeps you steadfast in His Word by His preaching, day by day, week after week, from one year to the next, until He shall call you at last from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven.

And so it is, beloved of the Lord, that by His Ministry of the Gospel, by His gracious Word and divine work of forgiveness, of mercy, and of steadfast loving-kindness, He gives to you the true Sabbath Rest from all your labors and the perfect Peace that surpasses all human understanding.

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