The Sacrifice and Sacrament of Thanksgiving in Christ Jesus

In the Creeds of the Church, day after day and week after week throughout the year, we confess that God the Father Almighty, with His Son and Holy Spirit, is the Maker and Preserver of all things; that everything comes from Him and depends upon His ongoing providential care; and that each and every one of us, all that we are and have, all of our vocations and relationships, all are gifts of grace from His wide open hand.  Thus, it is our duty to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him.

Regrettably and tragically, God’s good Creation has been subjected to the curse and consequences of our sin — from Old Man Adam to the present day.  Our sin has separated us from God, turned us and driven us away from Him, and so cut us off from the only real Source of life and health.

Consequently, our sin has brought sickness, suffering, and death upon all of us and our children, and upon the whole of Creation.  The leprosy of those ten men in this familiar Holy Gospel from St. Luke is simply one outward symptom and example of the curse and consequences of sin.

It is only by the fatherly, divine goodness and mercy of God — with which He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them to begin with, and for which He created Adam & Eve as the King and the Queen of His Creation (in anticipation of Christ Jesus and His Bride, the Church) — it is solely for the sake of His goodness and mercy that He continues to provide for you and all His creatures, to guard and keep you and your children in body and soul, to defend and protect you from all harm and danger, and to keep you in life.  Above all else, it is by His grace alone that God the Father gives His own dear Son to save you from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  Indeed, it is for the sake of His beloved Son, Christ Jesus, that the Father loves you and gives you all good things.

Sadly, among the many consequences of your sin, one of the most tragic is your native inability to recognize the grace and providence of God, so that you add sin upon sin with your ingratitude.

But into all this mess comes the incarnate Son of God, our dear Lord Jesus Christ.  He takes every initiative in coming to you — and coming for you — in order to save you.  He enters into His own Creation, becoming the true Man, in order to carry all the sins and sorrows of the world in His own Body to the Cross, to sacrifice Himself on behalf of all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.  He bears the entire curse and consequences of your sins, in order to make Atonement for you, to redeem you, and to give you His own divine, eternal Life in place of your death and damnation.  He does it all by way of His Cross, and now He delivers the goods through His Means of Grace.

Consider the example of His dealings with these ten lepers.  They have been separated from God and from His people by their leprosy — an outward manifestation of sin’s curse and consequence.  But Jesus draws near to them, as He draws near to you.  And when they cry out to Him for mercy, He hears their prayer of faith, and He graciously responds to their need with His powerful Word.

At that point, to begin with, they have nothing but His Word to rely on and to go by, as He sends them to the priest in accordance with the Law of Moses before their bodies have even been healed.  Just as you have, for now, the Word and promise of the Resurrection, but you sure don’t see it yet.

It is in their going at His Word — in their proceeding by faith to do what He has given them to do — that their bodies are cleansed and healed by Christ Jesus, who is Life Itself in His own Flesh.

And so it is that you also are cleansed and healed, in both body and soul, by the powerful Word of the same Lord Jesus Christ — by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of all your sins in His Name, and by the washing of the water with His Word and Holy Spirit in your Baptism.  For He is your merciful and great High Priest, the fulfillment of the whole Law of Moses, and the one great Sacrifice-for-sin to end all sacrifices for sin.  Indeed, His own Body, crucified and risen from the dead, supercedes and replaces the Temple, so that you find peace and rest with God in Him.

Now, in this familiar story, as you well know, even though all ten of those lepers were healed, only the one returned to glorify God by worshiping the Lord Jesus and giving thanks to Him.  No doubt the other nine gave thanks to God in connection with the requisite sacrifices, but there is no indication that they returned to praise and give thanks to God in the Person of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.  Although it was His Word that healed them, they evidently did not perceive that He is God in the Flesh, that He is both Priest and Sacrifice, and that His Body is the Temple of God.

Unfortunately, their actions also offer an example of the ways that all of us poor sinners too often fail and fall short in returning thanks and praise unto our gracious Lord.

When it comes to the temporal Providence of God for this present body and life, it is far too easy to focus on His creatures and His gifts of creation, while losing sight of Him as the Creator of all things and the Author and Giver of life.  You fear not having enough or losing what you do have, whereas you love and trust the things that you possess more than you fear, love, and trust in God.

And when it comes to the spiritual gifts and blessings of God — the forgiveness of your sins, your faith and life in Christ Jesus, your righteousness and holiness in the presence of your God and Father, and the hope and promise of the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — you are prone to rely upon yourself, upon your own intellect, knowledge, and understanding, your gut feelings and personal intuitions, and your own self-styled efforts to be “pious and faithful and good,” thereby treating your life, your “Christianity,” and your salvation as one big “do-it-yourself” project.

Like those “other nine” men who did not come back to worship and give thanks to the Lord Jesus, you presume to worship God, to “pray, praise, and give thanks,” apart from His Word and Flesh, away from the Temple of His Body, without the Ministry of His Gospel and His Means of Grace.

But now, recognize and take to heart, in repentance and faith, the way that God the Lord, the Creator, deals with you and provides for your body and soul by the means of His good Creation:

In the first place, His fallen Creation has been redeemed, restored, sanctified, and perfected by the Incarnation of the very Son of God, by His life in the Flesh as true Man, by His innocent suffering and death upon the Cross, and by His bodily Resurrection and Ascension to the Right Hand of His God and Father in heaven.  For in His Body, crucified and risen, exalted and glorified, all things are made brand new — and are taken up by God to serve the purposes He intended from the start.

As such, His good Creation has been redeemed and sanctified for you, for your present and eternal benefit — just as you yourself are redeemed and sanctified, recreated, healed and cleansed in both body and soul, in the Body of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, by His creaturely Means of Grace.

The Lord your God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, deals with you graciously, and He gives Himself, His Life, and His Salvation to you, by and with the waters of Holy Baptism, by the spoken Word of the Gospel from the mouth of His servants into your ears, and by the very Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, given and poured out for you in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Holy Communion.  He thereby lays hold of you in both body and soul, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Christ Jesus, that you might live with Him in righteousness and purity forever.

It is by the same Means of Grace that the Holy Spirit is actively present and at work to call you and bring you, again and again, to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, to acknowledge His gifts and His merciful goodness, to return thanksgiving to God the Father through Him, and to live in Him.

It is by and with and in these Means of Grace, therefore, that your God and Father not only bestows His best and greatest gifts upon you, but also enables you to receive His gifts with thanksgiving.

So, too, the first and foremost way by which you thank, praise, serve, and obey Him, is simply by receiving His good and gracious gifts of the Gospel in His Word and Sacraments.  As you then live from His Font, His Pulpit, and His Altar, into your callings and stations throughout the week, and as you return, again and again, to His Means of Grace each Sunday, your entire body and life and all of your callings and stations in life are embraced by thanksgiving at all times and in all places.

In serving your neighbors, for example — in faith and with thanksgiving toward God the Father in Christ Jesus — you offer the meet, right, and salutary eucharistic sacrifice for Jesus’ sake, just as He has sacrificed Himself for you.  Not as though to redeem yourself, but as redeemed by Him!

And by the ongoing grace of God in Christ, as often as you fail and fall short — as indeed you do — rejoice, give thanks, and sing, that your dear Lord Jesus Christ has not failed you or fallen short, nor does He ever do so.  No, as He has given Himself for you, so does He continue to give Himself to you by and with His Word and Spirit, forgiving your sins, restoring your faith, cleansing you inside and out, and preparing you for the Resurrection and the Life everlasting in and with Him.

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

Returning Thanks through Jesus Christ Our Lord

Thanksgiving is fundamental to and distinctive of the Christian faith and life.  It is of the first priority, in so far as your words and actions are concerned as a child of God in Christ.  For it is with thanksgiving to God that you confess the faith, and pray, and live in love for your neighbor.

Such thanksgiving on your part corresponds to the gracious providence and good gifts of God.  You return thanks and praise to Him for what He has already done and given to you; for all that He has promised to do and give, which is already sure and certain in His Word; for His loving discipline, as a father for his son; for His call to repentance and His forgiveness of all your sins.

In mercy and in love for you, He catechizes you to live by faith in His Word, to live by everything that proceeds from His mouth, as the Father speaks to you by His Son, and as the Son breathes His Life-giving Holy Spirit upon you by His Gospel.  He teaches you and trains you to recognize and receive His gifts with thanksgiving, and so also to call upon His Name and to wait upon Him in hope, looking to Him in expectation of good things.  He calls you and guides you to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, and to give yourself in love to and for your neighbor.  This is how you live and multiply and possess the good Land which the Lord has pledged and provided.

At the same time, there is a leprosy (of body and soul) which cuts you off and shuts you out, which reduces you and renders you impotent, and which finally puts you to death.  It separates you from God and man, from Church and state, from house and home, from family, friends, and neighbors.

It is the leprosy of sin, which not only lacks but actively opposes faith and love and thanksgiving.  It brings about doubt and despair, on the one hand, and yet promotes prideful arrogance on the other hand.  It both drives and is driven by selfishness, self-reliance, and self-righteousness; all of which is worse than futile, because it accomplishes nothing but anger, anxiety, and further alienation, not only from those whom you are called to love and serve, but likewise from everyone who would love and care for you.  That is what the leprosy of sin achieves.  It does not rise up in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving; it rather erupts in outbursts of rage, either verbally or bodily violent, and it vents itself in terrible temper tantrums, in cursing, swearing, lying, and deceiving.

There is no happiness, peace, or rest in your leprosy of sin.  There is only a nagging, gnawing, desperate want, dreadful sadness, bitter loneliness, and relentless death.  You exist and function outwardly, but you’re as good as dead on the inside, and you are always dying (inside and out).

That is the situation in which you find yourself, and from which you cannot and will not escape, until the Lord Jesus enters in to save you, to rescue and redeem you, to cleanse and sanctify you.

Christ Jesus comes to you, makes His way to you, and addresses your deep and desperate need.  He confronts you with His Word and Flesh, and you are met with His holiness in response to your uncleanness.  And, to be sure, He disciplines you, humbles you, and calls you to repentance.  But He does so, not to shame you, discourage you, or punish you, but to catechize you and to bring you from death to life, from the desert wasteland into Paradise, and from the outskirts into His House.

He approaches and draws near, this Lord Jesus, not only to expose and reveal your need, but also to provide what you need.  He draws near to you, that you might draw near to Him.  He has gone outside the wall and gate in order to find you, the outcast, and to gather you back into His Holy City, the place where His Name and His Glory dwell, and really to enfold you to Himself.  He does not recoil in fear and loathing from your unclean flesh.  He does not retreat and run away from your blemished body of sin and death.  He embraces you in love with His own Flesh and Blood.

He does break your heart of stone, that is true — that you might recognize and receive Him as your God in the Flesh.  So does He speak to you in love, and by His Word He opens your lips to call on His Name and show forth His praise; to confess what He has spoken to you; to worship and glorify Him by faith in His Word; and to give Him thanks for all His tender mercies and great salvation.

For all that, He is and does far more.  He is your merciful and great High Priest.  And as such, it is not that He ignores your leprosy, nor does He merely remove its outward symptoms, but He actually takes your leprosy of heart, mind, body, and soul upon Himself, into His own skin, into His own flesh and blood; and with His own Body and Life He cleanses you of all unrighteousness.

He sacrifices Himself to atone for all your sins, and He reconciles you to His God and Father in Himself.  He establishes the way of real life and true righteousness in His Body and Life as the true and perfect Man.  He lives and dies for you in the way of faith and love, which He in turn gives to you and makes your own by His Word of the Gospel, by His Word of forgiveness and peace.

He continues to give Himself to you, as He has given Himself for you in His death upon the Cross.  So does He also bring you out of death into life, and to the Father, in and with His Body of flesh and blood.  Which is to say that He is not only the Priest and the Sacrifice, but His Body is the true and eternal Temple of God, wherein God abides with you — and you abide with God in Him.

So, then, here is what that looks like and what it means for you.  Your worship and prayer, your praise and thanksgiving are focused and centered in Christ Jesus.  Not abstractly or randomly, but in the hearing of His Word to you, in the receiving of His Body given and His Blood poured out.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the primary Liturgist, the true Preacher and Celebrant of the Divine Service.  He is the One who worships the Father in Spirit and Truth, that you might worship in Him.  He is your prayer, your thanksgiving, your living sacrifice, and your sweet-smelling incense, who offers and gives Himself to God for you, and who is received by the Father on your behalf.

He is your faith and love, your righteousness and holiness, your peace and hope, your joy and happiness, your confidence and courage, your compassion and charity.  Which is both why and how you now live in love for your neighbor; especially for your fellow Christians, your brothers and sisters in Christ, but also for those who are estranged, who are still wandering on the outside.

You are set free from the shackles of your leprosy.  You are no longer shut out and barred from the House, from the City, from the good Land of the Lord your God, but you are at home with Him in His Church, within the Body of Christ, your Savior.  You belong to the household and family of God.  You are a citizen of His Kingdom, and you are safe and secure in the Mighty Fortress of His beloved Son.  Here you are well-fed and well-provided.  You lack no good thing, nor shall you ever.  No matter what you suffer in the wilderness, you shall not die, but you shall live with God.

Therefore, as your dear God and Father in Christ Jesus has given you this body and life on earth, you are free and able to give this body and life to and for others, in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection and the Life everlasting of both body and soul.  You already know the good Land which the Lord has sworn by His own Name to give you, and He will surely bring you into it.

In truth, in the Body of Christ you have already entered into that good Land, and you live and abide in it by His grace through faith in His Gospel.  For Christ is yours, and He is here with you, with the same crucified and risen Body that makes heaven the Paradise it is.  His Church on earth flows with milk and honey from the Cross, the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden; and she is wealthy with the jewels and precious gems of His Passion, the treasures of His Gospel, the water from His side, His Body and His Blood, the outpouring of His Spirit, and His Holy Absolution.

The beauty and the glory of it all, for now, is hidden and mysterious in, with, and under the Cross.  And it so often seems elusive, as though you never will be able to find it or reach it or have it.

But, now, wait upon the Lord.  He shall open His hand to satisfy all of your needs and desires, and He shall give you the true Meat and Drink indeed in due season.  Even now He gives to you this sacred Manna and spiritual Drink, which are His own true Body and His holy, precious Blood.

By this Food, by this Meal, this Feast, you lack nothing at all, but Christ feeds you with Himself — yes, even here and now — that you might also abide with Him, both here in time and hereafter in eternity.  For as surely as you eat this Body and Blood of the One who sacrificed Himself for you, who died and rose again, who ascended to the Right Hand of the Father and ever lives to pray and intercede for you, so do you dwell in the Lord’s House, in His good Land, forever and ever.

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

Give Thanks unto the Lord, for He Is Good

“O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.”

Indeed, the Lord is good.  And as the Catechism has taught you, He gives daily bread, even without your prayer, also to all the wicked — just as He causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on both the evil and the good.  But He would have you to pray to Him, that by His Word and Holy Spirit you would recognize His grace and mercy and receive His many good gifts with thanksgiving.

It is for this very purpose that we are here this evening, that we should be catechized by the Word of the Lord to know and believe and confess that every good and perfect gift is from above — all that you need for this body and life, and all that you need for the life and salvation to come; and that we, in return, should give to Him the only thing we have to offer: Thanksgiving for His gifts.

As we sing and confess with the entire Church in heaven and on earth in the celebration of the Holy Communion, “It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to God, our heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

It is for that reason that one common name for the Holy Communion, from very early on, has been the Eucharist, the Greek word for “thanksgiving,” as when the Lord Jesus Himself gave thanks at the Last Supper.  The fundamental pattern of the entire Christian faith and life is there rooted and expressed in the giving and receiving of the Lord’s Body and His Blood with thanksgiving.

As you have heard from St. Paul in his Epistle to St. Timothy, he urges “first of all” that prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all people, including rulers and authorities, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who by His Cross has reconciled the world to God the Father.  And so does the Apostle go on to write in the same Epistle, that everything created by God is good; it is all to be received with thanksgiving and sanctified to our use by the Word of God and prayer.

Thus are you catechized, not only in the celebration of the Sacrament but throughout your life, to recognize and give thanks for the gracious hand of God in the food that you eat, the clothes that you wear, the home that shelters you, and the family, friends, and neighbors who surround you.

The blessed truth is that, in the Lord’s Creation and Preservation of all things, including your body and soul, your eyes, ears, and all your members, your reason and all your senses, you experience and receive the same fatherly, divine goodness and mercy that you receive in His forgiveness of your sins.  Not that it is the same gift, but it is the same grace of the same God.  For just as the Lord feeds and clothes the earth and all its creatures, the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air, and just as He feeds and clothes you for this body and life on earth, so does He also feed and clothe you with His forgiveness, life, and eternal salvation here in His House, the holy Temple of His Church.

Unfortunately, as thanksgiving resides in the heart of faith and rises from it in gratitude and love, so it is that, from your heart of sin, you fail to acknowledge the constant grace and providence of the Holy Triune God.  You are rather prone to pride yourself in all the good that you enjoy, while blaming God and others for whatever bad that you suffer.  Perhaps it even takes a national holiday to remind you of your duty to thank, praise, serve, and obey the Lord your God for all His gifts and benefits.  God grant that you do so according to His Word, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As a sinner, you are constantly in need of such reminders of God’s grace, for your fallen flesh is always inclined to turn away from the Lord while you vainly attempt to make and preserve a life for yourself.  Like Adam and Eve, instead of rejoicing in all that God has freely bestowed, you choose to live as a god unto yourself, despite the fact that every breath you take is from the Lord.

It is by His Word and Spirit that the Lord in His mercy turns you back around — by His Word and Spirit that He pulls you out of your own heart and head, and turns you away from sin and death — that you might receive the life that He bestows upon you in humble faith and with thanksgiving.

By His Word of the Law, on the one hand, the Spirit exposes the depths of your sin and the utter futility of trying to make it through life on your own.  He brings you to that sobering knowledge, not only by the preaching of the Scriptures, but also by confronting you with the challenges of mortal life in a perishing world, with poverty, hunger, sickness, and so many griefs and sorrows.

By the preaching of the Gospel, on the other hand, the Spirit presents you with the one and only solution to your otherwise hopeless condition.  For the Gospel conveys that Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of the living God, has taken all the challenges of life and death upon Himself, bearing them all in His Body to the Cross.  And in His Resurrection, by the Word and Sacrament of His Gospel, He bestows upon your body and soul the free and full forgiveness of His Cross.

He gives it all to you by grace.  The Lord your God, the blessed Holy Trinity, cleanses you of sin and washes you like a newborn infant in the waters of your Holy Baptism.  He proclaims Himself, His love and mercy, through your ears and into your heart and life by the Word of Christ.  And He lays the life-giving treasures of His Cross upon your lips and tongue in the Holy Communion.

Thus, by way of the Law, the Lord is always driving you and forcing you back to the Cross of Christ; and by the Gospel of His Cross He raises you up to newness of life in His Resurrection.

Even so, the sad reality is that the vast majority of people do not receive their “daily bread” with thanksgiving.  As we have heard in the example of those ten lepers whom Jesus healed.  They all received that gracious gift of God in Christ Jesus, but only the one worshiped Him with thanks.

In much the same way, there is no one in this world who has not received everything he or she has from the gracious Maker and Preserver of all things.  And yet, how many refuse to acknowledge His grace and His gifts with thanksgiving?  And how often do you also fail to give Him thanks?

It remains the case, at all times and in all places, that only by the work of the Spirit through the Law and the Gospel are you delivered from your ingratitude and the hardness of your heart.  And that is true, not only for you, but likewise for your neighbors in the world.  The Law, to be sure, is already working on everyone in the challenges of this mortal life, but the saving promises of the Gospel remain hidden until they are confessed in the words and actions of Christians like yourself.

Indeed, you exercise your gratitude to the Lord your God in no better way than by demonstrating the forgiveness, love, and mercy of Christ Jesus in dealing with your neighbors.  And then, by the grace of God, perhaps your words and actions of love will lead your neighbors to the House of the Lord, that they also might receive His Gospel–Word and Sacraments with faith and thanksgiving.

Thus do we confess with the Psalmist: “Blessed are those whom the Lord so chooses and causes to approach; for they shall be satisfied with the goodness of His House and of His holy Temple.”

Bearing that blessing in mind, consider what you have heard from Deuteronomy tonight, in which the Lord instructs you in the Christian faith and life by the example of His dealings with Israel.  For it is a description of His Law and His Gospel actively at work in the history of His People.

During their forty years of wandering in the desert, following the Exodus from Egypt, He humbled them with His Law; He allowed them to go hungry, that they might feel their need for Him and for His providence.  Then He fed them with manna from heaven, a miraculous bread of life, given by His Word of promise, that they might learn to trust His grace and lean upon His Word at all times.

In this way, says the Lord, the people were disciplined to live as the children of God.  And having become His children by the grace of His Word and Spirit, they were given the Land of Promise, a Land flowing with milk and honey, in which they enjoyed the blessings of their heavenly Father.

In all of this, you are hearing not only the story of ancient Israel, but also a description of your own Christian life.  For you also are disciplined as a child of God by His Law, and fed by His Gospel.  You also are nourished with the Living Bread from Heaven, set before you by His gracious Word of Promise: “Take, eat, drink; this is My Body, this is My Blood, given and poured out for you.”

Having become His child by the washing of the water with His Word, you are on a pilgrimage with Christ Jesus, through the wilderness, into the Good Land of everlasting Milk and Honey.  And on the way, even now in the midst of sin and death, by faith you are able to see and acknowledge the hand of your dear God and Father in all the temporal blessings of this body and life, as well.

And as the Lord Himself has promised, “When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good Land He has given you,” here in time, and hereafter in eternity.

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

Giving Thanks with Body and Soul in Christ Jesus

There is a deep link and unity between your body and your soul.  Together they constitute the one person you are, in much the way that God and Man are one Person in Christ Jesus.  So there is likewise a profound connection between the health and well-being of your body and your soul, though it is not always obvious on the surface or right away.

It is the sin which permeates your soul that brings your body of flesh and blood to death and the grave, because it separates you from the Lord your God, who is your life and your salvation.  But so do the sins which you commit with your body, your words and actions contrary to the Word of the Lord, confirm and deepen the sinful unbelief and idolatry that reside within your soul.

You cannot live and persist in your sins without driving faith and the Holy Spirit out of your heart, mind, body, and soul, and thus bringing your body and soul into eternal death and damnation.

But so is it also the case that, as your heart and soul, your mind and your conscience are cleansed and sanctified by the Word and Spirit of God through the Gospel of Christ Jesus, so is your body also made brand new.  And that shall be made evident in the Resurrection of your body at the last, when the Lord Jesus returns in the glory of His own crucified and risen Body.

Though you continue to sin in your thoughts, words, and deeds, in doing what you should not, and in failing to do what you should, nevertheless, the Lord who has forgiven your sins and brought you to faith and life in His Spirit, has begun His good work in your body, as well, which He shall bring to completion at the Day of His appearing.

Thus do you bear the good fruits of faith in love for God and for your neighbor.  You speak as Christ speaks to you by confessing His Word and by calling upon His Name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  And by the works of your body, you love and care for your neighbor in his body.

It is this deep link between the spiritual and the physical (to speak in common terms) that stands behind the infirmity of leprosy and the indictment of the Law against those who suffered from it.  Though it seems unfair that those who were sick and suffering were also then separated from the fellowship of God and His people, it belongs to the fact that God Himself is the Holy One, and His people are likewise to be holy in body and soul, both inwardly and outwardly.  So did the Lord require the sacrificial lambs and goats and bulls to be healthy and whole, without any defects.

The infirmities of your fallen flesh, including the outward and obvious defects and imperfections that mark you, simply demonstrate that all of us children of Adam and Eve are sinful and unclean from the inside out, and that you have been subject to death and the grave from the moment you were conceived in your mother’s womb.  You were cut off and separated from God by your sin.

But now Christ Jesus has come with His own Body of flesh and blood.  He is the very Son of God who enters in, not only with His life-giving Word and Holy Spirit, but as true Man with a body and soul like your own.  He is the Word of God made Flesh, by whom all things in heaven and on earth are created and sustained, whom God the Father speaks in mercy in order to make all things new.

He comes by the way of His Cross, as your merciful and great High Priest who suffers and is tempted in every way that you are.  And He bears the full burden of your sin and death within His own Body, in order to release you from bondage and bring you into His Kingdom alive and well.

While He takes upon Himself all the consequences of your sin, your mortality and death, He also bears and brings within Himself, within His flesh and blood, all the life and health and strength of God for you and for the many, for both your body and your soul, for now and for ever.

He enters in and comes to you, in order to have mercy upon you.  He comes to heal you and cleanse you, within and without, by His Sacrifice upon the Cross, and by His Word of the Gospel which He speaks to you from the Cross in His Resurrection from the dead.  He reconciles you to God and justifies you in His sight, and He calls you to faith in His mercy by forgiving your sins.

Therefore, as He speaks to you in love and gives you life by His grace, so believe and trust in Him, and so live by faith in accordance with His Word and promises.

It is for you in Christ as it was for Israel, to whom He promised the Land and gave it to them by His grace.  As they entered in to lay hold of it in faith, you lay hold of Christ within His Church in the Ministry of His Gospel, and you are called to live within His Kingdom in faith and love.

So did He send those ten lepers to go and show themselves to the priest; and in their going at the Word of Christ, they found themselves to be healed and cleansed, that is to say, both in their bodies and in relation to the Lord and His Church.  The miraculous healing of their leprosy was to be confirmed through cleansing by the priest with the rites and ceremonies appointed by God, which involved both atonement for their sins and thanksgiving for the healing they had received.

Thus, those men who had been lepers, who had been separated from the fellowship of Israel by their leprosy, were restored to that fellowship through the Old Testament means of grace.

Except in the case of that one man, a foreigner, who was cut off from the community of Israel by more than his disease.  Even healed and cleansed of his leprosy, he was still on the outskirts, out in the cold, on the outside looking in.  Yet, by the grace of God, he was able to recognize the Atonement to be found in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus; and so it was that he also returned to give thanks, and to praise and to worship the Lord his God, in the Person of Christ Jesus.

Indeed, he came back and worshiped Jesus with both his voice and his body, with both his words and his actions, which is to say, with the rites and ceremonies of thanksgiving, faith, and love.

What, then, does this mean for you?

It means that you also receive and lay hold of the promises of God in Christ Jesus by proceeding in accordance with His Word.  You go to the priests He has provided and appointed for you, that is, to your own pastors, in reliance on the Ministry of His Gospel.  And you live in the way that He has given you to go.  Within your own vocation and stations in life, you do as He commands.

What is more, as you are baptized into Christ Jesus, our merciful and great High Priest, so do you also pray and intercede for all people in His Name: for the Church and for the world; for your brothers and sisters in Christ; for your family, friends, and neighbors; for the president and the governor, for your senators and congressmen, and for all those in authority.  And in the confidence of His mercy, you also give thanks and praise to God the Father through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Like that Samaritan who was healed of his leprosy, you also worship the same Lord Jesus Christ as your great God and Savior in the flesh.  You worship Him with your voice by confessing His Word and calling upon His Name.  And you worship Him in His Body — with your own body — from the waters of your Baptism and the reception of His Body and His Blood in the Sacrament to the way you live and serve with your body in the world to the praise and glory of His Name.

Being raised up from your sin and death by the free and full forgiveness of His Gospel, cleansed and healthy in body and soul by the working of His Spirit through His Word, live now by His grace through faith in Him, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting of your body and soul in Christ Jesus.  Trust what He says to you, especially His Word of Absolution, in spite of what your senses and experience may be telling you at any given time.  Rely upon His Sacraments, remembering your Baptism and receiving the Lord’s Supper in faith and with thanksgiving.  And from His Altar, let your whole life be a great doxology of praise.

As the Lord feeds you in body and soul, even giving you His own Body to eat and His own Blood to drink, so then, you likewise feed your neighbor in sacrificial love; not with your castoffs and leftovers, but at your own expense, giving up and going without what you want but do not need.

And as the Lord gives you clothing and shelter — adorning you with His Righteousness in Holy Baptism, and welcoming you into the household and family of His Church, on earth as it is in heaven — so then, you likewise clothe and shelter your neighbor in grace, mercy, and peace.

As the Lord has given you parents, and to some of you a spouse and children — and, above all, as He has made you His own dear child and heir — so then, you likewise welcome the stranger and foreigner, care for the widows and orphans in need, and love your brothers and sisters in Christ.

And realize, at all times and in all places, that you shall never be able to live in any of these ways except through Jesus Christ, your Lord.  It is only by His mercy, by the Sacrifice of His Cross, by His Resurrection from the dead, and by His forgiveness of your sins, that you are able to live at all.

Therefore, do not keep your distance from Him, and do not be thankless or ungrateful.  Rather, meet Him here at His Pulpit, Font, and Altar, here within His Church, where He enters in and comes to meet you in peace and with salvation.  Do not be afraid to lift up your voice in prayer and petition, to call upon His Name, as did those ten lepers: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us!

And as surely as He does hear and answer your prayers, so also lift up your voice in worship, thanks, and praise.  Confess the Word that He has spoken to you in the confidence that it is true.

And even as you lift up your voice in thanksgiving to Christ, so also bow your head and bend your knees, as you are able, in order to worship and honor and glorify Him with your body.  Not that your outward actions could ever make up for the sinful unbelief in your heart, but that your faith in Christ is confessed, not only with your words, but also with your hands and feet, and with your entire body and life.  And as you honor Him with your body and humble yourself before Him here at His Altar, so also honor Him with your body by humbling yourself to serve your neighbor.

To be sure, the outward charity of your body and life necessarily follows upon your own reliance on the Charity of God in Christ Jesus.  This also belongs to your sacrifice of thanksgiving to your God and Father in heaven — by faith in His incarnate Son and in the love of His Holy Spirit.

Would you not live in this way, to the praise and glory of His Name?  Come, then.  Here there is healing for your body and cleansing for your soul in the Word and Sacrament of the Lord Jesus.  For He is your merciful and great High Priest.  His crucified and risen Body is the Temple of God.

Indeed, His Body and His Blood are the Sacrifice of Atonement, offered on the Cross once for all; but so are they given and poured out for you here, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Whatever may afflict your body in this life under the Cross, and whatever alienation you may face among your neighbors on earth, here you are fed with the true Manna, with the true and living Bread from heaven, which not only sustains you on your journey but is your fellowship with God Himself.

The same Lord Jesus Christ — in and with His Body of flesh and blood — He is the Eucharist, that is to say, your acceptable Sacrifice of Thanksgiving unto His God and Father in heaven.  For just as He was lifted up in death upon the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins, so has He been raised for your justification, and so has He ascended to the Right Hand of the Father as your own dear Brother in the flesh, and as your Champion and Savior, so that you might live with Him there.

Eat and drink His forgiveness, then, with your mouth and with your body, with your heart, soul, mind, and spirit.  Eat and drink Thanksgiving — not only for His flesh and blood, but in His flesh and blood.  And as you have eaten and are satisfied, bless the Lord who saves you by His grace.

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

The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving in Christ

It truly is meet, right, and salutary that you should at all times, and in all places, and for all things, give thanks to your God and Father in heaven through your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Give thanks to Him, first of all, for His most precious gift, that is, for the Gospel, the forgiveness of your sins, and then also for every other good thing that you have.  For all of the blessings in your life are bestowed upon you for the sake of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.

In love for you, He has gone out of His way to seek you out and save you.  In making His way to Jerusalem to die for the sins of the world, He deliberately goes out of His way to tread upon the ground of Gentiles, pagans, Samaritans, strangers and aliens.  He goes out of His way to seek and to save the lost.  He goes looking for you, who once were nobody at all, but now, because He has found you and called you to Himself, you are a child of God and one of His dear people.

He has come for this purpose, in order to have mercy upon you.  When you pray, “Lord, have mercy,” you discover that He is already answering that petition.  For He is Mercy in the Flesh, in Person.  He has come to have mercy upon you, and in His mercy to save you from sin and from death, and from all that troubles and attacks you, from your great enemy, the devil, from your own old Adam, and from the sinful world around you.  He has come to set you free.

He’s come to do it by His Cross, by His innocent suffering and death in the flesh, bearing your sins in His Body.  And all good things He has granted to you in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  His salvation is not a disembodied “spiritual” existence, but a resurrection of your body and life in Him, that you should live forever in both body and soul with your God and Father in heaven.

Everything that you need for both body and soul, for this life and for the life everlasting, all of it is from Jesus, and through Jesus, and in Jesus, in His crucified and risen Body.  And it all depends on His forgiveness of sins.  You are worthy of none of those things that you need and for which you pray.  He gives them to you solely by His grace, or you do not receive them at all.  His grace must necessarily forgive your sins, if you are to have life at all instead of the death you deserve.

Upon that forgiveness of God, which is in Christ Jesus your Lord, everything else depends.

It is for this reason that Christ has come, and by His death He has achieved the forgiveness of all your sins; and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  He’s reconciled the world to God.  And so it is that, even though the world does not know Him or recognize Him or want anything to do with Him, it carries on for now by His grace, eating and drinking, living and breathing, all on account of His Cross, because of the atoning sacrifice of His death in the place of sinners everywhere.  It is likewise for the sake of His Cross that all things are yours in Him.

Whatever it is you need, look to God in Christ to receive it.  Pray to your Father in Jesus’ Name, that is to say, trusting Him who is your Savior, who has given Himself for you.  Do not suppose that any aspect of your life is removed from His gracious care.  Do not suppose that any petition is too small or too great.  For you are precious to the Lord your God through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Are you afraid for your job or for your income?  For your savings or your pension?  Pray that God would be merciful to you and provide for all of your needs.  Are you worried about your health, or about the health of your family?  Pray to your Father in heaven in Jesus’ Name, and trust that He will give healing according to His good and gracious will for your salvation.

Are you worried about your children, as to what they will do and what will become of them?  Are you worried about your friends, whether they love you, or whether they will turn their backs on you and leave?  Are you worried about the government or the country and where it’s all headed?

Whatever your worries and concerns, Pray.  That is what Christians do.  That is what faith does.  It cries out, “Lord, have mercy! Kyrie, eleison!”  That is the prayer of the lepers.  And hear how Jesus responds.  He looks upon them.  He sees them in mercy.  And He answers their prayer.  He sends them on their way, and as they go, according to His Word, they are cleansed.

So also for you.  By the Word of Christ you are cleansed, inside and out, for now and forever.  For He is the Good Physician of both soul and body.  Therefore, trust in Him.  Pray to Him in the hope of His mercy, and wait upon Him in peace.  Rely upon Him for all that you need.

It is unto that fear, love, and trust in Christ Jesus that your Father in heaven disciplines you in love.  Not to discourage or destroy you, nor to cause you pain, but rather to increase your faith and trust in Christ.  He would thus teach you how to live, because He would not have you die.

He teaches you to call upon His Name, to petition Him for mercy.  And so also to intercede for others.  For your own family and your friends.  For your neighbors, even for your enemies and those who hurt you.  And especially for your fellow Christians, your brothers and sisters in Christ.

You pray and intercede for the world and for all people in the confidence that God desires every one of them to be saved.  And you do so in the certainty of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ.

And with that prayer and petition, because His grace and mercy are so certain, and because God gave His Son to save the world and raised Him from the dead, it is indeed meet, right, and salutary that you should also give Him thanks and praise.  Not only when times are good, but at all times, both good and bad.  At the end of every day, no matter what calamity has struck, Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.  He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  And He will not desert you.  He is faithful, and His Word and promises are true.  Your prayers are surely heard and answered in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, the answer to all that you ask of Him has already been granted by the Cross of Christ and in His Resurrection from the dead.

You hear and receive God’s resounding “Yes!” and “Amen!” to your every need and your every petition in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God.  By His Cross all is finished.  In His Resurrection from the dead, all is fulfilled.

His Body of flesh and blood like yours, crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification, is the First Fruits of the New Creation.  It is in His Body that we look forward to a New Heavens and New Earth, the Home where righteousness dwells.  For in His Resurrection from the dead, all of creation has been redeemed and sanctified and is set free from the bondage of sin and death.  Everything is made brand new, beautiful, gracious, and lovely in the Body of Christ.

It is in His Body and with His holy and precious Blood that He lives and reigns forever as your merciful and great High Priest according to the power of His indestructible Life.  There’s nothing that can destroy Him.  And as you are in Him by His grace, there is nothing that can destroy you.

You receive everything that you need in your dear Lord, Jesus Christ.  In His Word to you.  And in His Body and His Blood, which are your sure and certain Anchor behind the Veil, within the true Holy of Holies, eternal in the heavens, yet also given and poured out for you here at His Altar in His Church on earth, that you might eat and drink and abide in Him, as He thus abides in you.

And though you may wonder how this may help, or if it even matters, it helps in every way.  For God has taken a body like your own.  He has allowed Himself to be subjected to suffering and death and every evil, and to the righteous judgment of His own Law.  He has been tempted in every way that you are.  He has endured the infirmities of mortal flesh and blood.  He has gotten tired.  He knows what a hard day’s work is like, and then some!  He knows what it feels like to hunger and to thirst, and to have nowhere to lay His head.  He knows what it is like to be abandoned by His friends, to be rejected by His own, to be spit upon and mocked and ridiculed and scorned.  He has taken all of this sorrow and has borne it in His flesh, and He has dealt with it all by His death.

And from death He has been vindicated.  He has overcome.  He has risen from the dead, just as He said.  And with that very flesh and blood by which He has overcome sin, death, the devil, and hell, He feeds you in your own flesh.  How could He love you more clearly and dearly than that?  And how could He grant you His Salvation more profoundly and intimately than that?  For your body He has died and risen, and to your body He gives His own Life.

Get you then to that good Priest in His Sacrament of the Altar!  For His Holy Supper is the heart and center of God’s Kingdom among you.  Do you want to know where to find God?  He is here.  Do you want to know where and how to worship Him and give Him thanks?  It is especially here.

That is, in many ways, the main point to this beautiful story that St. Luke has recorded.  And the Samaritan gets it.  But note that all ten men went at the Word of Jesus, and they were all healed.  Do not suppose the other nine were faithless and unbelieving.  They did what Jesus said and went to the priest.  They were cleansed by the rites and ceremonies that God had given through Moses.

The Samaritan, however, by the grace of God, recognized and understood something deeper, something even more profound.  By the Word and Spirit of the Lord, He perceived that the Temple of God was now to be found in the Body of Christ Jesus; that he would praise and glorify God by prostrating himself at the feet of Jesus; and that, in giving thanks to Jesus, he was thanking God.  For God is in the Flesh of Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, dwelling among you bodily.

He is not far away and far removed from you.  He has drawn near.  In His Holy Supper is where God is in your midst as your merciful High Priest, as the true Temple, and as the Sacrifice once offered for the sins of the world, now distributed to His people as their real Food and real Drink.

Here is where He gives you salvation.  Here is where He gives you His indestructible Life.  So that, even if cancer eats away at your flesh, and even if Alzheimer’s takes your mind, and whatever other ailments may destroy your body, they still cannot win.  For you shall rise, since God has put His own Flesh into yours.  The One who has risen from the dead shall raise you up with Himself.

The Altar from which Christ gives you His Body and Blood is thus also the place of thanksgiving.  That is why the Church from the earliest days has described the Holy Communion as the Eucharist, which is simply the Greek word for thanksgiving, the very thing that Samaritan offered to Jesus.

In receiving His good gifts, you give Him thanks especially in this place.  But not only here.  You live your whole life to and from this Altar, to and from the Body and Blood of Jesus.  As He feeds you, give Him thanks, and then also go your way — stand up and go — in thanksgiving to Him.

Nothing really characterizes the entire Christian life better than to give thanks to God in Christ for all His gifts and benefits.  To give thanks under all circumstances, at all times, and in all places.  To give thanks even when everything is falling apart.  To give thanks, even in the face of sin and death, is to confess and rejoice that Christ is risen indeed, and that you shall not die but live.

Go about your life in that thanksgiving, in that confidence of faith, in that hope of Christ which shall not disappoint you.  Do what you are given to do.  Do it not to receive thanks from God or man, but do it in thanksgiving to Him who is your Savior and your God by His grace alone.  Do it in thanksgiving to Him who forgives you all your sins and heals all of your diseases and gives you life everlasting.  For He is with you, and He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Your whole life can be one of thanksgiving because of Him.  And take heart that He remains sure and steadfast for you, even when your gratitude falters and your lips and tongue grow silent.  He remains faithful.  He remains forever the One who has been sacrificed to God on your behalf, so that, by His grace, you might be raised up with Him in His Resurrection and live forever in Him.

Here, then, receive His good gifts.  Be cleansed and healed by His Word and Holy Spirit, by His Body and His Blood.  For He is your all-merciful Savior, and to Him belongs all glory, honor, thanks, and praise, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

The Thanksgiving of Christ Our Savior

The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land through Jesus Christ, the beloved Son.

In order to do so, He has first of all come to find you and has met you in a foreign land, on the outskirts, where you have been cut off and separated from Him and from your neighbors.

Because you are sinful and unclean, you have been subject to death and to every sickness and sorrow of heart and mind, body and soul.  You cannot cleanse or heal yourself, nor can you feed and clothe and shelter yourself.  You cannot raise yourself from death to life.  But you must wait upon the Lord, and listen for His voice, and meet Him where and when He comes to you.

Watch and wait, therefore, in the faith and confidence that He has come near to you, here and now, with tender compassion for you, with grace, mercy, and peace, and with all that you need.

The dear Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, has come to provide you with all good things and, above all, to raise you up and bring you, in and with Himself, into the good land He has promised, a place of perfect peace and rest, the home where righteousness dwells.  He brings you in His own Body to the heavenly and holy city, New Jerusalem, and into the Temple made without hands, eternal in the heavens — into the very Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Holy Triune God.

He brings you into that good land through the wilderness of sin and death.  And you survive that difficult and dangerous journey, in spite of your frailty and weakness, and even though it is very hard, because He daily and richly provides you with clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, or with tent and shelter of some kind, with family and friends and whatever else is necessary — not only for this poor life of labor, but for your body and soul unto the life everlasting.

This present wilderness is not pointless in the meantime.  It is a pilgrimage of repentance, of faith and forgiveness, whereby you learn to recognize both your own mortality and the Lord’s mercy.  You learn to confess your sin, your sickness and sorrow, but also His salvation.  You learn to call upon His Name in every trouble — by prayer and supplication with praise and thanksgiving — to ask Him and thank Him because He is good and His mercy endures forever.

He brings you through this wilderness, through this vale of tears and death, and He catechizes you in this way of repentance, faith and life, prayer and thanksgiving, all by the way of His Cross — in His own Body of blood and flesh like yours — as your merciful and great High Priest.

Consider that.  The almighty and eternal Son of God has come down from heaven to find you in the wilderness, and to lead you through all harm and danger, even through death and the grave, through the baptismal waters of the Jordan, into the good land flowing with milk and honey.

For He is the very Word that proceeds from the mouth of God the Father, who has become flesh so that you may live.  He has given Himself for you and for all, and even now He gives Himself to you as the true Manna from heaven — the living and Life-giving Bread which neither you nor your fathers could have known or baked up, but God the Father has opened His hand to give you.

But He is more than even all that.

He is more than you could ever have asked or imagined.  He is more than a new and better Moses, and more than a new and better Joshua.  He is more than your Prophet, Priest, and King, and more than the Food and Drink which now sustain you on the way.

He is the Sacrifice of Atonement for all your sins.  His Blood has made peace and reconciled you to God the Father.  Not only that, but His Blood and the water from His side are for your cleansing and refreshment, for the healing of all your diseases and the quenching of your deepest thirst.

And in His Body of flesh and blood, He is also the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving with which you enter the presence of God, a fragrant offering, acceptable and pleasing.

Take this to heart, and rejoice!  Not only does God give Himself to you in Christ Jesus, but He also brings you to Himself in thanksgiving through the same Lord Jesus Christ.  For His own Body is the Temple of God, wherein you approach and draw near, and wherein you live and abide in the glorious divine presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both now and forever.

Everything is summed up and centered in the incarnate Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord.  For He is your God, who is with you and for you in the flesh, and He is the sweet-smelling sacrifice and the incense of your faith and prayer, by which you rise and live unto God.  You pray to the Father in His Name, and through Him you offer thanks and praise — whereas apart from Him even your thanksgiving would fall short and be unacceptable on account of your sin.

You have no access to God apart from Christ Jesus; you would remain cut off and far removed.  But now all the fullness of God dwells with you bodily in the flesh and blood of this incarnate Son.

All of creation is redeemed and sanctified, cleansed and healed and perfected in Him, in His Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection.  Indeed, all things are made brand new in His Body and by His Blood, the very Feast which is given and poured out for you, here and now, to eat and drink for the forgiveness of all your sins, for life and salvation with God in Christ.

Now, then, with your body, and so too with your heart and mind, soul and spirit, give glory to God, worship Him, and give Him thanks and praise, by receiving this heavenly Manna and spiritual Drink at His Word.  Open your hand to receive what God here opens His hand to give.  Open your mouth and be fed.  And when you have eaten and are satisfied, open your mouth to bless the Lord and praise His Name by confessing the good Word that He has spoken to you.

As everything is a gift of God’s grace to you in Christ Jesus, there is nothing for you to do for Him or give to Him but to return thanks.  And your thanksgiving is joined to the flesh and blood of Christ, also by His grace, through faith in His Gospel–Word and Sacrament.

Your whole life, in fact, is offered as a living sacrifice of thanksgiving to God — that you might praise Him with your body and your whole being — by loving your neighbor, as the Lord your God loves you in Christ.  Therefore, that which you hear and receive from Him, put into practice by speaking and giving to your neighbor in His Name.  Feed and clothe, shelter and protect your neighbor, for the Lord your God daily and richly does these things for you.

Live by faith in His Word, and walk according to His commandments, because He is bringing you into the good land that He has promised to you.  To live in such a way, according to His Word — in faith toward Him and in fervent love toward one another — in Christ Jesus — is already to begin living the heavenly life on earth.

It is to live the life of God Himself, as He has lived for you, in the flesh, on earth as it is in heaven.

And in that same Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, in His Body of flesh and blood — in His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension — you have already passed out of the wilderness through death and the grave into the life everlasting, by way of your Holy Baptism in His Name.

That is how safe you are, and how safe and secure your body and your life are — hidden with Christ in God.  And that is how sure and certain your salvation is, now and forevermore.

See here, how He so graciously and so generously opens up His hand to feed you with Himself and to satisfy you in body and soul with all that you need.  For He forgives you with His holy and precious Blood, He feeds you with His own Body, and He renews your life by His good Spirit.

All glory, honor, worship, praise, and thanksgiving to Him who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice

Thanksgiving is fundamental to and distinctive of the Christian faith and life.  It is of the first priority, in so far as your words and actions are concerned, as a child of God in Christ.  For it is with thanksgiving to God that you confess the faith, and pray, and live in love for your neighbor.

Such thanksgiving on your part corresponds to the gracious providence and good gifts of God: For what He has already done and given to you; and for what He has promised; and also for His loving discipline, as a father for his son, His call to repentance, and His forgiveness of all your sins.

In mercy and in love for you, He catechizes you to live by faith in His Word: to live by everything that proceeds from His mouth, as the Father speaks to you by His Son, and as the Son breathes His life-giving Holy Spirit upon you by His Gospel.  He teaches you and trains you to recognize and receive His gifts with thanksgiving, and so also to call upon His Name, and to wait upon Him in hope, looking to Him in expectation of good things.  He calls you and guides you to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, and to give yourself in love to and for your neighbor.  This is how you live and multiply and possess the good land which the Lord has pledged and provided.

At the same time, there is a leprosy (of body and soul) that cuts you off and keeps you out, which reduces you and renders you impotent, and which puts you to death.  It separates you from God and man, from Church and state, from house and home, from family, friends, and neighbors.

It is the leprosy of sin, which not only lacks but actively opposes faith and love and thanksgiving.  It brings about doubt and despair, on the one hand, and yet promotes prideful arrogance on the other hand.  It drives (and is driven by) selfishness, self-reliance, and self-righteousness, which is utterly futile, because all this self-serving ambition achieves nothing but anxiety, anger, and further alienation: not only from those whom you are called to love and serve, but likewise from everyone who would love and care for you.  That is what the leprosy of sin accomplishes.  It does not rise up in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, but it erupts in outbursts of rage, either verbally or bodily violent, and it vents itself in terrible temper tantrums, in cursing, swearing, lying and deceiving.

There is no happiness, peace or rest in this leprous condition, but only desperate want, and deep sorrow, bitter loneliness, and relentless death.  Existing, but as good as dead, and always dying.

Until the Lord Jesus enters in to save you, to rescue and redeem you, to cleanse and sanctify you.

He comes to you, and makes His way to you, and He addresses Himself to your deep and desperate need.  He confronts you with His presence, with His Word, and you are met with His holiness vs. your uncleanness.  And, to be sure, He disciplines you, humbles you, and calls you to repentance; only not to shame you, discourage you, or punish you, but to catechize you, and to bring you from death to life, from the desert wasteland into Paradise, and from the outside into His house.

He draws near, this Lord Jesus, not only to expose and reveal your need, but also to provide all that you need.  He draws near to you, that you might draw near to Him.  He has gone outside the wall and gate, in order to find you, the outcast, and to gather you back into the holy city, to the place where His Name and Glory dwell, and really to enfold you to Himself.  He does not recoil in fear and loathing from your unclean flesh.  He does not retreat and run away from your blemished body of sin and death.  But He lays hold of you and embraces you with His own.

He breaks your heart of stone, yes, but so that you might recognize and receive Him as your God in the flesh.  So does He speak to you in love, and by His Word He opens your lips to call upon His Name and to show forth His praise: to confess what He has spoken, to worship and glorify Him by faith in His Word, and to give Him thanks for all His tender mercies and great salvation.

With all of this, He is even yet far more, and He does far more.  He is your merciful and great High Priest.  Therefore, it is not that He ignores your leprosy; nor does He merely remedy its outward symptoms; but He actually takes your leprosy of heart and mind, of body and soul, upon Himself, into His own skin, into His flesh and blood; and so does He cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

He sacrifices Himself to atone for all your sins, and He reconciles you to His God and Father in Himself.  He establishes the way of real life and true righteousness in Himself, in His own body and life as true Man.  He lives and dies for you in the way of faith and love, which He in turn gives to you, and makes your own, with His Word of the Gospel: His Word of forgiveness and peace.

He gives Himself to you, as He has given Himself for you, and He also brings you out of death into life, and to the Father, in and with His own Body of flesh and blood.  Which is to say that, He is not only the Priest and the Sacrifice, but His Body is the true and eternal Temple of God, whereby God dwells with you, and you abide with God in Him.

So, then, here is what that looks like, and what it means for you: Your worship and prayer, your praise and thanksgiving, are focused and centered in Christ Jesus.  Not abstractly or randomly, but in the hearing of His Word to you, in the receiving of His Body given and His Blood poured out.

He Himself, who is the primary Liturgist, the true Preacher and Celebrant of the Divine Service, He is your prayer, your thanksgiving, your living sacrifice, and your sweet-smelling incense, who offers and gives Himself to God for you, and who is received by the Father on your behalf.

He is your faith and love, your righteousness and holiness, your peace and hope, your joy and happiness, your confidence and courage, your compassion and charity.  Which is both why and how you now live in love for your neighbor; especially for your fellow Christians, your brothers and sisters in Christ, but also for those who are estranged, who are still wandering on the outside.

You are set free from the shackles of your leprosy.  You are no longer shut out and barred from the house, from the city, from the good land of the Lord your God, but you are at home with Him in His Church, within the Body of Christ, your Savior.  You belong to the household and family of God; you are a citizen of His Kingdom; and you are safe and secure in the Mighty Fortress of His beloved Son.  Here you are well-fed and well-provided.  You lack no good thing, nor shall you.  No matter what you suffer in the wilderness, you shall not die, but you will live (forever and ever).

Therefore, as God, your dear Father in Christ Jesus, has given you this body and life on earth, you are free and able to give this body and life to and for others, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection and the life everlasting in body and soul.  For you already know the good land which the Lord has sworn to you, by His own Name, and you know that He will surely bring you into it.

In truth, in the Body of Christ, you have already entered into that good land, and you live and abide in it, by grace through faith in His Gospel.  For, already, Christ is yours, and He is here with you, with the same crucified and risen Body that makes heaven the Paradise it is.  His Church on earth flows with milk and honey from that Cross (the tree of life in the midst of the garden), and she is wealthy with the jewels and precious gems of His Passion: with the treasures of His Gospel, the water from His side, His Body and His Blood, the outpouring of His Spirit, His Holy Absolution.

The beauty and the glory of it all, for now, is hidden and mysterious, in, with, and under the Cross; and it so often seems so elusive, as though you will never be able to find it or reach it.

    How long must you live in the wilderness?

But now, wait upon the Lord.  He shall open His hand to satisfy all of your needs and desires, and He shall give you true Meat and Drink indeed, in due season.  Even now, He gives to you this sacred Manna and spiritual Drink, which are His own true Body, and His holy and precious Blood.

By this Food, by this Meal, this Feast, you lack nothing at all, but Christ feeds you with Himself — yes, even here and now — that you might also abide with Him, both here in time, and hereafter in eternity.  For as surely as you eat this Body and Blood of the One who sacrificed Himself for you, who died and rose again, who ascended to the Right Hand of the Father and ever lives to pray and intercede for you, so do you dwell in the Lord’s House, in His good land, forever and ever.

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