The Theology of the Cross

This is what it means for Jesus to be the Christ.  This is the vocation to which His God and Father has called Him.  This is what His Baptism in the waters of the Jordan signifies and indicates: That He must suffer and die, and that His Father will raise Him up on the Third Day.

As surely as He went into the waters of His Baptism, so surely must He be crucified, put to death, and buried in the dust of the earth.  And just as surely as He came up out of those waters of the Jordan to an open heaven and the blessing of His Father, so surely shall He rise from the dead.

He proceeds from the waters of His Baptism to His sacrificial death upon the Cross in faith toward His God and Father and in fervent love for God and man.  And that is precisely what divine Life and the Glory of God look like in the Flesh — within this fallen and perishing world.  If you would know what God is like, then look to Christ the Crucified, to His innocent suffering and death.

The Lord is neither sadistic nor masochistic, but He demonstrates His divine strength and almighty power — in mercy and love — by His voluntary weakness, by His humble obedience, and by His willing Self-sacrifice for the salvation of sinners.  For the life of the whole world.

His Crucifixion is your Redemption.  For His Body and Life are the price God pays to buy back His own Creation.  And His Resurrection is your Righteousness and your Reconciliation with God.  For the very One who was crucified for your transgressions has been raised for your justification.

It is in this way that Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, comes into His Kingdom in the Glory of His God and Father — from His Baptism to His Cross and Passion, through death and the grave, into the Resurrection and the Life Everlasting.  His own Body of flesh and blood, crucified and risen from the dead, is the First Fruits of the New Creation.  Hence, He is the Firstborn from the dead; and by way of His Baptism, Cross, and Resurrection, He becomes the Firstborn of many brethren.

So, then, do not despair in the face of sin and death (not even your own), but rejoice that you are called to be His disciple — to follow after Him and learn from Him — to bear His Cross and share His death — and so also to share His Resurrection, His Life, and His Salvation in His Kingdom.

This is what it means for you to be a Christian, for you to be anointed by the Spirit of Christ Jesus.  And this is your first and foremost vocation — to which your God and Father in Christ Jesus has called you by His Word and Holy Spirit and by your Holy Baptism in His Name — to be and to live as His beloved and well-pleasing child and heir, a member of the Bride of Christ, His Church.  To be conformed to the Image and Likeness of the incarnate Son of God by the bearing of His Cross and rising with Him to newness of life, as your Baptism signifies and indicates.  None of which is abstract or generic, but practical, tangible, and specific throughout your days and weeks.

Within your own particular place in this life on earth, in keeping with the Ten Commandments, you are called to bear the Cross of Christ in faith and love, to suffer and die with Him in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection.  Day by day you are called to examine yourself, to repent of your sins, to die to your sins, and to rise up again in the righteousness of Christ by faith in His Gospel.  But so are you also called to bear the Cross in love for your neighbor — by faithfully doing the work that God has given you to do; by graciously serving your neighbor and bearing his burdens; by patiently suffering his insults, covering his weaknesses, and forgiving his sins against you.

That is what your Christian faith and life look like.  That is the cruciform shape and the pattern of your Christian faith and life on earth — in all the many particularities of your own specific place — in the way that you relate to and interact with those whom God has placed alongside of you.

If you are a husband and father, for example, you are called to live toward your wife and children in such a way that your wife and children see in you the mercies of our God and Father in heaven, His long-suffering patience, kindness, tender forgiveness, loving care, and providence in Christ.

But so it is for each and all of you as Christians, who are named by God, His own dear children, anointed by His Spirit, and united with Christ Jesus as fellow members of His Body and Bride, the Church.  So are you called to bear the Cross of Christ in love for one another.  You are not to hold grudges, harbor bitterness, or seek revenge against those who sin against you, but to forgive them.

You are to forgive those who trespass against you, as the Lord has taught you.  And what does that mean?  That as your neighbor goes about sinning against you, day after day, and time and again, you persist in loving your neighbor anyway.  You do for him or her as Christ Jesus does for you.

In this way, also, the Lord your God lays the Cross upon you, along with His Spirit and His Name, in order to glorify you with His own Glory, with the righteousness of faith and love in Christ.

Do not despise or flee from His Cross, but receive it in faith and bear it patiently in love.

And as the Cross is laid upon you — even as it disciplines your flesh and calls you to repentance, as it exposes your sins and nails them to the wood, and as it calls upon you to love those who are seemingly unlovable — do not suppose for this reason that God is angry with you or hostile toward you, because He is not.  God the Lord is reconciled to you in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son.

Do not suppose that your Father in heaven hates you or despises you.  Let such deceptive thoughts be far from you!  For the Lord your God loves you with an everlasting Love that proceeds from His own Being.  He cannot deny Himself, and He will not deny you whom He has called His own.

He does not punish you (as you deserve), as though to extract some pound of flesh for your sins — but He disciplines you in love (to live as a disciple).  He does not “take it out of your hide,” but with the gentleness of a loving father He trains and teaches you to live a life that is shaped by love.

The Lord does not delight in your hurts, nor is He apathetic to your suffering and pain.  Has He not borne your griefs and carried all your sorrows in His own Body on the Cross?  He has indeed.  And now He lays that Cross upon you, not for your destruction, but for your rescue and salvation from sin, death, and hell, unto the Resurrection of your body to the Life everlasting of your body and soul.  By His Cross the Lord brings you through suffering and death into Life with Himself.

By His Cross He puts sin to death in you.  And make no mistake, that is difficult, and it is painful.  As your old Adam is crucified, as your flesh is crucified to sin and to the world, it is the case that God is taking away from you everything you love, everything you trust, and all that you live for.  For none of those false gods that you love and trust and live for in your native sinfulness — none of those idols that you worship with your body, time, and energy in the pursuit of your passions — none of those things give you real life, but they destroy faith and love and bring you to death.

Accordingly, the Lord lays His Cross upon you — and He puts sin to death in you — not to hurt or harm you, nor to deprive you of any good thing, but that you might have true divine Life and Peace with God, and that you might live and abide with Him in His Kingdom as a beloved child.

None of this is obvious or sensible to your fallen flesh and blood.  It is by the revelation of God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, and by the ways and means of His own Cross in the Ministry of the Gospel, that you are taught and learn to know and understand the grace and glory of God in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus.  The preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name, the significance of His Baptism, and His Body and Blood in the Holy Communion, all bestow upon you the fruits and benefits of His Cross, that you might have life in and with Him.

As in the case of St. Peter, you still have much to learn.  But see how your dear Lord faithfully continues to teach you, to catechize you by His Word of the Cross.  He leads the way, and He calls you to follow after Him.  Not only does He open up the Way before you, but He is the Way.

His Cross and Resurrection are your repentance, your dying to sin and your rising to new life in body and soul.  His Cross and Resurrection are your redemption from sin and your resurrection from the dead, your reconciliation with God, and your righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, by which you now stand before your Father in heaven, not in terror, but in faith and confidence.

As often as you falter, fail, and fall down, He raises you back up again — in and with Himself.  Take comfort in that promise, and be encouraged by the example of His dealings with St. Peter.

It’s easy to look at Simon Peter and shake your head, although many of us see ourselves in him and his foibles.  In this case at hand, having just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and having just received the blessing of God and the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, Simon Peter here becomes a stumbling block, an agent of Satan, who has to be told to get back in line.

It’s not the first or last time that Peter messes up and misses the mark badly.  Yet, the Lord in His mercy calls him to be the prince of the Apostles, and by his preaching brings many to faith and life.

So it goes, because the Lord is faithful in all His dealings.  And He is so faithful to you, as well.

As often as you open up your mouth when you should not — or, as often as you fail to speak when you should — the Lord firmly but gently corrects you in love, and He restores you to discipleship, which is to say, to follow after Him.  By His good and gracious Word to you, He opens up your mouth to confess what is right and what is true, and He opens up your lips to show forth His praise.

He strengthens you and keeps you in all of your callings and stations in life.  And this He does out of love for both you and your neighbors.  When you are on the verge of despair, because you know your faults and failings, and you do not think that you can do what God has given you to do — because it seems too hard, and you seem too weak, and you know your sins, and it feels impossible that you will ever do any better — take heart that God loves you, that He has stationed you in the office to which He has called you, and that He is with you in that place, whether you are a father or mother, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a husband or wife, or simply a neighbor nearby.

The Lord your God loves you.  He has not called you in ignorance or foolishness, but in mercy.  And not only does He love you, but He also loves the neighbors whom He has given you to serve.  So it is that He strengthens and sustains you in all that He has given you to do by His grace.

And what is more, He daily and richly forgive you all your sins and failings.  He does not count them against you.  He does not count them at all.  They have already been drowned and buried with Christ Jesus in the waters of Holy Baptism, and removed from you by His death upon the Cross.  He does not hold your sins against you, nor does He punish you for your sins as you deserve.  But instead, He persists in loving you, caring for you, and providing for you in both body and soul.  He opens His hand to feed you, to clothe you, to shelter and protect you.  And above and beyond all of these good gifts, He continues and He persists in granting you His Spirit and His Life, His gracious Word of Peace, which does and gives what He says, and the Body and Blood of Christ.

As often as the Cross crucifies your old Adam and puts you to death, the more often does the Resurrection of Christ Jesus raise you up from sin and death to newness of life in Him.  As surely as you have gone into the waters of your Baptism, so surely must you die every day.  But just as surely as you emerged from those waters to the Voice of the Father who loves you and is pleased with you — and to an open heaven in Christ Jesus — so surely do you rise with Him each day.  And all your sins are washed away.  For your Lord Jesus — the Son of Mary, Yahweh in the Flesh — He has borne your sins and suffered your death upon the Cross.  So it is that, by His rising on the Third Day in accordance with the Scriptures, His God and Father raises you up in Peace, as well, and He sets His Seal upon your body and soul, from your Baptism to the Life everlasting.

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

Upon This Rock Christ Builds His Church

He is the Son of a carpenter, after all.  Our Lord’s father on earth, St. Joseph, is described as a carpenter, a craftsman, a builder of things.  So, perhaps it should not be surprising that our Lord is also a Builder, a Carpenter of sorts, who builds a House to the glory of His Father in heaven — a House wherein He dwells among and with His people on earth — His Church upon the Rock.

We’ve recently heard how King David came up with the grand idea that he would build a temple for the Lord.  After all, he reasoned, he already had his own palace made of cedar, while the Ark of the Lord was still kept in a tent.  So David, the Lord’s anointed, would build for God a worthy house.  Except that God said, “No, that’s not going to happen. You will not build a house for Me, but I will make a House for you. Your Son, however, He will build a House for My Name.”

Now, Solomon did build the Old Testament Temple that his father David had envisioned.  And a glorious Temple, a glorious House it was, which God blessed with His Word and Holy Spirit.  God did cause His Name and His Glory to dwell among His people in that House that Solomon built.

There’s yet another son of David who had a privilege even Solomon did not; and here, again, I’m thinking of St. Joseph, the husband of St. Mary.  Whether or not he actually built a structure for his family out of wood, he did make a house and a home for his wife and her Son, and in his vocation as a husband and father he took care of his household and family in this life on earth.

But as always, our focus is on the Lord’s Anointed, Jesus Christ, who is the Builder of His Church, as surely as His true God and Father in heaven is the Builder of all things.  For Christ Jesus is the living and eternal Word of God by whom and through whom and for whom all things have been created and continue to exist.  What is more, Christ Jesus is the Wisdom of God, by whom all of creation is crafted, structured, ordered, and arranged in a good and right and beautiful manner.

The same Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, has come down from heaven to establish and build an even more beautiful Creation.  To establish for Himself a Household and Family — in His vocation as a Husband to His Bride, the Church.  For He is like His Father in all things, and He does and says all that His Father has given Him to do and say.  So has He come to build His Church on earth as a place of safety and security, peace and rest, for you and all His people.

To this end, He first of all establishes the Rock foundation of His Church — in His own Body of human flesh and blood just like your own, with skin and muscle, and bone and sinew, and blood running through His veins; with hair, as you have hair; with toenails and fingernails, just like you.  He became true Man in every way, conceived and born of St. Mary.  And as true Man, in His own Body, He establishes the foundation of His Church.  But He does it, oddly enough, by the way and the means of His Cross — by His innocent suffering and death, by His holy and precious Blood.

Because the foundation is laid by the Cross — cornerstoned on the crucified Body of Christ Jesus — it is deeply hidden from the world.  You cannot see it by any reason or strength of your simple flesh and blood.  You can do as we have sung.  You can look up here and see the Font before your eyes; you can behold the Altar; you can look upon the Crucifix.  And you know by faith what these things signify, what God has done for you through His means of grace.  But you cannot see the strength.  You cannot see the power and the glory.  You cannot see the firmness of the foundation.

What you do see is foolish in the eyes of the world and to your own mortal flesh.  It is scandalous, offensive, and ridiculous.  It makes no human sense that anyone should build a house of any kind upon the death of a Man condemned and executed as a criminal.  On water, bread and wine, and words that speak such foolish things as the forgiveness of sins.  None of this looks or seems like a firm foundation at all, but already a catastrophe, a failed effort before it has even begun.

But such is the way of the Lord, Yahweh, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who once established a household and a family and a people for Himself, beginning with Abraham and Sarah when they were old and childless, and their bodies were already as good as dead.  As He created all things out of nothing by His Word, so does He bring forth new life from out of death, according to His Word of promise.  He gives to Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac, in their old age and weakness.

It is from this very household and family of Abraham and Sarah that our Lord Jesus Christ received His human flesh and blood in the fulness of time, when He was conceived and born of the Woman, St. Mary.  And then what?  His Father hands Him over — and He willingly hands Himself over — to His sacrificial death upon the Cross; as Father Abraham was once prepared to offer his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord, according to His Word (trusting that God would indeed raise Isaac from the dead, in order to fulfill His promise).

The Lord God stayed Abraham’s hand, and He provided a Lamb for Himself, a sheep, a ram caught in the thicket, as a sacrifice in place of Isaac.  But God the Father has not spared His own beloved Son, who is in fact given as the Lamb, as the Ram caught upon the horns of the Cross for you.

He and His Cross are hidden and foolish to the eyes of the world; and to your own outward senses He is hidden, and He is foolish.  Yet, the confession of Christ the Crucified is the foundation on which He builds His Church, on earth as it is in heaven.  It is to the Ministry of that confession — to the preaching and administration of the Gospel in His Name — that Christ Jesus called and commissioned St. Peter and the other Apostles; so that, by the foolish preaching of His foolish Cross through foolish men of flesh and blood, He would establish and preserve His Holy Church.

It is by the preaching of Christ and His Cross that His Church prevails over death and the grave, because He is the almighty and eternal Son of God in the Flesh, and He is the Christ, anointed by the Holy Spirit in His Body of flesh and blood, from His conception in the womb and His Baptism in the Jordan River, to His Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, for your Atonement, your Justification, your Redemption and Sanctification, unto the Life everlasting in both body and soul.

He has gone the way of the Cross, and He has submitted Himself to death and the grave, because you have been subject to death and the grave; because your flesh is mortal; because you are a sinner in your thoughts, words, and actions.  He journeyed into Hades, and right back out again, that you should not die but live; that you should rise from death and enter into heaven with Him.

He was anointed for death.  And in love for His Father and in love for you, He voluntary subjected Himself to humility, to weakness, to suffering and death, to sacrifice Himself in steadfast faith and holy love.  And then, just as He trusted, just as He believed, just as He prayed, His Father raised Him up from death and the grave, and glorified Him, and exonerated Him before all of Creation.

His Cross and Resurrection are the Key that opens heaven to you and to all who believe and are baptized into Him.  That is what is done for you and given to you in the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins.  For such repentance, which God works in you by His Word and Holy Spirit, is your dying and rising with Christ Jesus from your Baptism to the Life everlasting.

In your Holy Baptism you died with Christ Jesus; and so it is that by your Baptism you daily rise and live with Him, as well.  Even now you live, although you are yet mortal and dying.  For God raises you up to newness of life through His free and full forgiveness of your sins.  It’s a hidden life, to be sure, as Christ and His Glory are hidden for now under the Cross.  What you see and feel and experience is that you keep on sinning every day.  You think and say and do what you should not; whereas you often fail to do what you should.  But you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  So, you do live by faith; and at the last, you shall live, for God will raise you up.

Your poor body, right now dead and dying, sinful and unclean — He will raise that same body from the dust of the earth.  And you shall not only be a living creature, but you shall be glorious as Christ is glorious, immortal, and imperishable.  That is as sure and certain as your Baptism, and your Baptism is as sure and certain as the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, the Son of God.

And all that was given to you in your Baptism is worked in you and given to you in Confession and Holy Absolution.  By that Word of the Gospel your sins are forgiven before God in heaven.

So, too, in the Holy Communion, the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ feeds you with His own Body and Blood, not only for the forgiveness of your sins (just as He says), but as a down payment on the resurrection of your body to the Life everlasting of your body and soul with Him forever.

Each of these means of grace gives to you and works in you the Life-giving Fruits and Benefits of the Cross of Christ — and therefore also raises you up from death to life in His Resurrection.

This Apostolic Ministry of the Gospel — which began with St. Peter and the other Apostles — continues even to the ends of the earth, even to the close of the age.  It continues here and now among us by the special authority of Christ Jesus our Lord — by His Word.  And that Apostolic Ministry exceeds that of the holy Prophets, and even that of St. John the Baptist, because Christ has come in the Flesh, and He has conquered the gates of Hades by His own Cross and Passion.

For years I never understood that expression of Jesus, that even the gates of Hades shall not prevail against His Church.  That always seemed backwards to me, because I pictured the Church outside of the gates, somehow beating against them.  But I was the one who had it all backwards.  The gates of Hades are the bars and bonds of death — the grave — the box that you put your loved ones in — the box that you may have already picked out for yourself — your hole in the ground.  But none of that will prevail against the Life that Christ Jesus gives to you by His Gospel.

The gates of Hades are brought down.  Those whom death has claimed, Christ has set free.  By His own death He tread death underfoot, and in His Resurrection the whole thing was blown apart.

By His innocent suffering and death, by His holy Bloodshed, sin has been atoned for.  And where sin is atoned for, where sin is forgiven, death is defeated.  And the devil’s head and jaw and face and teeth are smashed.  The devil has got nothing left to work with; he’s got no sins to accuse you of; he’s got no fear of death to hang over your head; he’s got nothing.  Christ Jesus has defeated the devil and plundered the house of death — by that foolish and ridiculous way of the Cross.

Thus and thereby God has reconciled the whole world to Himself in Christ Jesus.  God is at peace with you, and all of Creation is made brand new in the Body of Christ.  In His Body, crucified and risen from the dead, a new Garden of Eden has been planted and raised, the Paradise of God for you and your children.  And His Cross is the Tree of Life in the midst of that Garden, from which He feeds you with His Body given and His Blood poured out — here within His Church on earth.

Indeed, in this Body of Christ the Kingdom of heaven is established and built on earth in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which is the Household and Family of God.  Beginning with one Man, consider how He fills the earth with His beloved and well-pleasing sons and daughters.

With the Ministry of the Gospel — the Ministry of the Confession of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God — the Father gives to you a place within His House, a place within His Family.  He gives to you a place within His Church and His Kingdom.  He gives you freedom.  You are not a slave, but a son, and a free citizen of the Kingdom of God.  You are set free from sin and death.

So are you also free to give your body and life as a living sacrifice of faith and love to the glory of God and for the good of your neighbor.  You are free to give yourself, as Christ has given Himself for you and all by His Sacrifice on the Cross; because even as you are poured out for others, even unto death, your life and your place remain safe and secure with Christ in His House.  Indeed, you are at home with Him, even on that long, hard journey to the far country of death and the grave.  For even death cannot separate you from the Love of God that is yours in Christ Jesus.

Hades cannot have you, no more than death and the grave could hold on to Christ Jesus, your Savior from sin and death.  You shall not die but live.  Already here on earth it is given and done for you in heaven.  So, your life remains with God, and that shall never be taken away from you.

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

Pray, Praise, and Give Thanks in the Confidence of Christ Jesus

No matter what happens, no matter what comes down the pike, and no matter what your heart and mind might tell you, do not let go of this fact: the Lord Jesus has come to you, and by His Gospel He calls you to Himself in love.  He desires to receive you to Himself.  He longs to help you, to give you life both now and forever.  In mercy He brings you to His God and Father in both body and soul.  He promises grace and every blessing to all who call upon His Name, and He does it.

In Holy Baptism, the same Lord Jesus Christ has bound Himself to you — and you to Him — in His Cross and Resurrection from the dead.  So are you also bound to God the Father in His Son.  For He has named you with His own Name.  He has adopted you to be His own dear child, and He will not renounce you.  He has anointed you with His Holy Spirit, and so has He given you divine, eternal Life.  He forgives you all your sins and remembers them no more.  He justifies you by His grace alone.  He sanctifies you with His Blood.  He shall not withhold any good thing from you.

All of this is sure and certain, for His call and His gifts are irrevocable.  It shall be done for you as He has promised through the Gospel.  The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.

Therefore, ask, and it will be given to you.  Seek, and you will find.  Knock, and it will be opened to you.  Call upon the Name of the Lord in faith, and do not doubt that He will hear and answer.

In Christ Jesus, your God and Father in heaven has commanded you to pray in this way.  And He has taught you how to pray, He has put the very words upon your lips.  And He has promised to hear you.  Therefore, pray at all times, and do not lose heart.  Pray without ceasing.  Pray with confidence and courage, and say “Amen,” that is, “It shall be so!”  Pray, praise, and give thanks.

Pray, not only for yourself, but for your neighbors in the world, and even for your enemies.

Pray, not only by yourself, but along with your brothers and sisters in Christ in the company and fellowship of His holy Christian Church.

Praise and worship the Lord your God with heart and hand and voice — in prayer and confession — in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs — not only giving thanks for His good gifts and benefits, but praising Him for who He is.  Praise Him in the splendor of His Holiness.  Praise and glorify His Holy Name in all that you do and say.  Praise Him for the God He has revealed Himself to be — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — for it is truly meet, right, and salutary so to do.

And of course, do also give Him thanks for His gracious gifts and His generous benefits.  Above all, give thanks to God for His free and full forgiveness of all your sins — and for the Life and Salvation that are yours by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ, your Savior.

Give thanks, not only for what you already see — for what you already hold in your hands — but also for what the Lord your God has promised, even as you wait upon Him in the confident hope of His mercy.  Such prayer is the voice of faith, an active confession of God’s Word in Christ.

To pray with such faith in the Word of God is the most decisive and definitive characteristic of Christian discipleship and life.  Christians pray.  It is that simple, basic, and fundamental, because it is an exercise of trust and confidence, by which you not only look to God in Christ Jesus for help, but you rely upon Him alone for all that you need, for both your body and your soul.

To pray with such faith depends entirely upon the Word of Christ.  Therefore, true Christian prayer always begins with — and continues to rest upon — the hearing of His Word.  You cannot pray without the Word of Christ.  So, if you would pray, open up your ears before opening your mouth.

Where you have not prayed as you should, Repent.  Hear and heed the Word of Christ, and pray.

And for all the ways that you have prayed only out of habit or superstition, without the fear, love, and trust of God in your heart, Repent.  Do not cease to pray, but pray with a new and right spirit.

If you have been lazy or distracted, so that you have not given your time and attention to the Word of God and prayer, Repent, and pray in Jesus’ name.  Pray because you need Him above all else.

If you have neglected to pray with and for your family and your congregation, Repent, and fulfill your calling (your vocation) as a Christian.  To pray and intercede for your neighbor — and to offer the morning and evening sacrifice of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving — that is your royal priesthood as a baptized child of God.  Do it faithfully.  Where you have fallen short, do it better.

If you have become discouraged, given up hope, and ceased to pray — because you have felt as though the Lord were not listening or answering — Repent, trust Christ, and live.  Do not despair, but continue to cry out to Him.  He is not deaf to your pleas.  He is not blind to your tears.  He is not slow about keeping His promises, but He is patient with you, and He is merciful.

The Lord’s desire is to save you.  That is His good and gracious will.  If His help tarries for a night, a week, a month, a year — if it tarries for a lifetime — His help will yet come in the morning.  Even if you go down to the grave in death, He shall raise you up again to Life with Himself in both body and soul.  It shall be done for you as you wish.  It shall be done for you as you believe.

As often as His Law accuses you of sin, say “yes” to that.  His Word is Truth.  You are a sinner.  But do not take that thundering “no” of the Law as the Lord’s last word or final answer to your prayer.  For Christ is the Savior of sinners.  He is your Savior.  And He speaks another Word, which satisfies the Law and rescues you from sin and death.  It has been spoken by His Cross and in His Resurrection, and it has been spoken to you in your Holy Baptism.  So it is that the sure and certain “Yes” and “Amen” of the Gospel stands fast, even through the long dark night of silence.

Do not despair, give up, or lose heart, but continue to pray.  At just the right time, in due season, you shall hear and receive His Word of mercy, which does what it says and gives what it promises.

If you suffer hardship, loss, pain, and grief, even this is for your good, for the strengthening of your faith unto Life.  It is a participation in the Cross of Christ, by which you enter into Life with Him.  What is more, your suffering is an opportunity and a blessed privilege to confess your hope in Christ Jesus and His mercy, for the strengthening of your neighbor’s faith unto Life everlasting.

Trust your dear God and Father in heaven.  He knows what He is doing, and He does it all for the sake of love, out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy.  For the sake of His beloved Son, He governs and guides all things in heaven and on earth for the blessing and benefit of His Church, for the eternal welfare and well-being of all His baptized children.  All of history — including all current events — it is all constrained to serve His purposes for the salvation of His entire family.

Likewise, trust your gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has not only taught you to pray — who not only hears your prayer and answers in love — but who also prays and intercedes for you, Himself, as your merciful and great High Priest.  His Spirit also helps you in your weakness and prays for you, bearing the groans of your heart to God the Father in Christ Jesus.  So, then, by the prayer of God Himself, you are strengthened and sustained in faith and life — and in prayer.

For you are a sheep of the Good Shepherd.  You belong to the flocks of His pasture.  You were lost and in danger, but the Lord has found you, and He has brought you home with great rejoicing.

You are not a dog.  You are a dear child seated at your Father’s Table.  You are no more a stranger, an alien, a foreigner, or an outcast, but a member of His own household and family.  This is where you live.  This is where you belong.  Not by any merit or worthiness in you, but by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, which is constant, sure, and certain.

When you pray, you are not begging for table scraps, but asking your own dear God and Father for the Food that He loves to give you, for the gifts Christ freely gives.  Ask Him, then, not as though He would otherwise withhold His gracious hand, but to confess and give thanks for His mercy.  For here is the living and Life-giving Bread which He bestows from His open hand to satisfy your deepest longing and your heart’s desire.  As He feeds you in body and soul with this supernatural Bread which endures unto eternal Life, you lack no good thing at all in heaven or on earth.

Open your ears to hear, and speak as you have heard.

And even as you then open your mouth to pray, so shall you find that you are fed — that you are healed and satisfied, cleansed and refreshed, rescued and sustained — unto the Life everlasting.

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

The Boat, the Bride, and the Body of Christ Jesus

There is no more appropriate place for holy matrimony to begin and to continue than the Liturgy of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.  For that is where your life is found in both body and soul.  And that is where husband and wife are recreated in the Image and Likeness of Christ Jesus and His Bride, the Church, and united to Him and to each other in His Cross and Resurrection.  Thus are you launched from this Feast of His Body and Blood, upon the waters of Holy Baptism, aboard the Holy Ark of His Christian Church — to weather the storms of this body and life on earth by His grace alone, through faith in His Word alone, unto the Life everlasting.  For how else shall you believe in Him, pray to Him, or live in Him, except by the preaching and hearing of His Word.

That is likewise the case for the disciples in this Holy Gospel.  They’re in the Boat where Jesus has put them, making their way across the sea according to His Word.  They’re doing what He’s given them to do, in the place where He has called them to be.  And yet, for all that, the way is difficult, exhausting, and stressful.  Indeed, they’ve been out there, hard at it, for most of the night already; and even now, in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning, they’ve still got a long ways to go.

So, then, as you also go about your own callings and stations in life — in your marriage, home, and family — do not be dismayed or despair, though you are tried and tested in various ways.  Not that you’re always where you ought to be and doing what you ought to do!  But even on your best day, it is still the case that life can be very hard.  Your hand is on the tiller, your shoulder to the plow, your nose to the grindstone, but still it may seem that you’re doing no good and going nowhere.

Does it not appear to you and all the world that you are on your own, that Jesus is not with you, even when you’re following the path on which the Lord Himself has set you?  Your own little boat on the water and even the Great Boat of the Church, the Holy Ark of Christendom, are tormented by the waves and tossed about by strong, persistent headwinds.  Your progress is slow and hard, your destination remains distant and elusive.  You’re tired and worn out, maybe ready to give up.

In truth, the Lord has not forgotten about you, not once, not ever, not even for a little while.  Nor has He left you to fend for yourself.  His Word attends you, for one thing, and it remains sure and certain, come hell or high water against you.  He has provided the boat, and He preserves it for you, even as the waves that trouble you uphold the boat, and you in it, through the long dark night.

But there is more to it than all that.  It’s not as though the Lord has just left you with supplies for the journey while He’s gone away and left you alone.  I know that it can feel like that, but not so.  He has gone up to the Father whence He came — in being lifted up as a Sacrifice upon the Cross, and in His Resurrection from the dead and His Ascension to the Right Hand of God — yet, in all this He does not leave you or forsake you.  For He fills all things and upholds them with His own Flesh and Blood, even as He contains all things and preserves them by His Word and Holy Spirit.

He has gone to the Father by His Cross and Resurrection, not to leave you, but to open up the way for you, and to bring you to His God and Father in Himself, in His own Body, crucified and risen.

He has gone up the mountain to pray as the beloved Son who relies upon His Father in all things; as the true Man who lives by faith and calls on the Name of the Lord; and as your merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God, in order to make intercession for you, and to prepare a place for you within the household and family of God, as a member of His own Body and Bride, the Church, and so also as a son or daughter of His own God and Father in heaven. Just as Moreah becomes Ariksander's wife on this day, and therefore also my daughter, so have you become, by the Word and Spirit of God, a member of the Bride of Christ and a son or daughter of His God and Father.

As the Lord Jesus thus bring you to the Father in Himself, He is no less with you on your journey.  He comes in the flesh and draws near to you in the midst of the chaos and deep darkness of sin and death in this fallen and perishing world.  As the Father spoke His Word to create all things out of nothing, to bring forth Light out of the darkness, and to bring forth Life in His own Image, so does the same Word of the Father come to you in the Ministry of the Gospel in order to save you.  From heaven He has come — and He still comes — to seek you out and love you as His Bride.

He comes by ways and means that are in some respects surprising and perhaps even suspicious, unexpected on the basis of your prior knowledge and past experience, and so incomprehensible.  He plants His footsteps on the sea and comes to you upon the water; and not by the water only, but by the water with His Word and Spirit, and with His holy and precious Blood poured out for you.

Not only that, but He comes to you, cares for you, and serves you through the neighbors He has set beside you in this body and life, in this poor life of labor: Pastors and teachers; brothers and sisters in Christ; pilots and sailors, engineers and auto mechanics; doctors and dentists, nurses and hygienists; and, not least of all, your father and mother, your siblings, and your husband or wife.  So are you surrounded on this day, Ariksander and Moreah, with your family, friends, and fellow Christians, even as the Lord in His mercy, by His Word and Holy Spirit, gives you to each other.

In all of these tangible ways and means of His grace, these agents and masks of His mercy, He is not a ghost, a disembodied spirit, a lost soul wandering the depths in search of peace.  No, He is the very Word of God in the Flesh, by whom, through whom, and for whom all things have been made and exist.  He is the Lord, your Savior and God, who was crucified for your sins, who is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever as your Righteousness and Holiness and eternal Life.

Take courage, and do not be afraid.  He is with you in the Flesh, a very present help in every kind of trouble.  He is not here to haunt you, but to deliver you from every evil of body and soul.  He can and will do it.  He is the One who has already passed through the gates of death on your behalf, whose bodily Resurrection is the dawning of the beautiful New Morning of the eternal Eighth Day.

Proceed, then, at His Word.  Continue in the way He sets before you.  Trust and do what He says, even when your reason and all your senses defy and contradict the Truth of His Word.  Honor your parents, love your siblings, cling to your spouse, and care for your children in the faith of Christ.

All of that, of course, is easier said than done.  I get that it’s hard.  If you’re like the disciples, your life in this world is a mixed bag of mixed emotions.  You’re pushed and pulled this way and that, you’re torn between doubt and faith, between the fear of death and the fear of the Lord.  You want to believe, and by God’s grace you do fear, love, and trust in Him.  But God help your unbelief!

Do you not find an example of your own perils and predicaments in Peter?  He tries and tests the Lord, and he begins with such boldness and confidence when he climbs out of the boat onto the wild water, only to sink into doubt and descend into fear.  It’s not the last time, either, that Peter will rush forward only to fail miserably.  Peter the Rock often seems more like a tossing wave!

And are you really any better?  Different, no doubt, in personality and temperament, but no better.  You’re proud when you ought to fear the Lord, and afraid when you ought to be courageous.  You step out in bold confidence, but then you’re easily overcome by the trials and tribulations of life. The first step is the one you believe in, but the second one might be profound.

The plain and simple fact is that you will not make it to Jesus on your own, no matter how sincere and well-intentioned you may be, and no matter how hard you may try.  Take your eyes off Him — in order to look to yourself or to look anywhere else for help — and you’re going to sink.  You cannot save yourself.  To whatever extent your faith in Christ falls short and fails, so will you.

But do not doubt His Word and promises, even when hell and high water assault you on all sides.  No matter how hard things may get, no matter how daunting your obligations and responsibilities may be, and no matter how many the overwhelming obstacles that threaten to capsize your boat, the Word of the Lord remains sure and certain for you within His Church and in your vocations.

It is the Way of the Cross that He has set you upon — by His preaching and Baptism of repentance, and in all your callings and stations in life, whether as husband or wife, married or unmarried, with or without children.  And though it feels like the problem, that Cross is the Lord’s own solution.  By it He brings you through death and the grave into His Resurrection and His Life everlasting.

It’s not a game that God is playing with you.  It’s not a sadistic maze that you must navigate.  It is the Cross of Christ, which puts you to death in order to save you.  That is why the relentless wind assaults you, and why the wild waves surround you and overwhelm you; for not only must they obey the Lord’s voice, but they are constrained to serve His divine purposes.  Thus do you drown and you die in the depths of the sea, in order to arise and emerge, a new creature in Christ.

That is true with all the joys and sorrows of marriage and family in this fallen and perishing world.  The good and happy times are surely God’s gift of grace; but so are the difficult and sorrowful times, as well.  You pledge yourself to each other, Ariksander and Moreah, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, in the confidence that God the Lord has pledged Himself to you in Christ Jesus.  By the way of His Cross, in all the ups and downs of this body and life, your heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, cleanses you inside and out with the waters of your Holy Baptism, and He adorns you in the white wedding gown of His own perfect Righteousness.

Now, to be sure, it is not comfortable or pleasant to bear the Cross, to be crucified, put to death, and buried — as you are confronted by your sins, your shortcomings and failures, out there on the waves with the wind whipping your face and tossing you around.  Caught in the heart of the storm, you know that you must die entirely to yourself and to all your own self-reliance.  If you are going to be saved, then you must have a Savior; and there is only One of those, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do not suppose that you will ascend into the heavens to bring Him down; nor that you will descend into the depths to raise Him up.  You cannot do it, but neither do you need to.  For this Word of God is near you.  He has drawn near in the Flesh, and He stands upon the waves before you.

So it is that, by the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus, you are taught to cry out for mercy, and to call upon the Name of the Lord.  “Kyrie, eleison!”  “Lord, save me!”

In this respect, St. Peter is a beautiful example for you.  He is brought to the point of doing what Jesus has already and always been doing for you and all His people; that is, he is brought to prayer.  And as Peter prays to the One who ever lives to pray and intercede for him — to his merciful and great High Priest — so does the same Lord Jesus Christ immediately act.  St. Peter’s prayer is heard and answered.  And so is yours.  For whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.

The Lord Jesus stretches out His hands to save you.  He takes hold of you and gathers you to Himself in both body and soul.  He preaches repentance and faith, that you not doubt but trust in Him, and He restores you to the Boat of His Church, in which the wind stops: To the Boat which is also His own dearly-beloved Bride, made beautiful by His love for her, by the bestowal of His royal Righteousness upon her through His Word of the Gospel, by which you also have such peace and rest and quietness as this world neither knows nor can give.  Oh, yes, the world still rages all around you, fierce and furious.  But here in the Boat with Jesus and His disciples, you are at peace; and here you are safe, because here your sins are all forgiven by the Word and work of His Gospel.

It is to this Church, and to her life in and with Christ Jesus, that every human marriage points.  Not that any of us gets it just right or achieves it on our own in this body and life, but that the Lord remains forever faithful, ever true.  And so it is that every Christian husband and wife are given to find and receive the life to which they are called within the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus.

Here then, in the Boat, you worship Him, the Son of God — in His Word — and in His Body of flesh and blood like your own, given into death upon the Cross for the forgiveness of all your sins, and given to you here to eat and drink for the bestowal of that forgiveness, for Life and Salvation with Him in both your body and your soul forevermore.  He is no ghost but the true Man who has become your true Husband, and you a member of His beloved Bride.  You hear and you receive His Word; you believe and you confess what He has spoken; you eat and drink His Body and His Blood; you worship and bow down before the Lord, your Maker.  And by His grace you are saved.

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

A Fish Story: Caught in the Net of Christ's Gospel

The Lord Jesus Christ, that expert Fisherman, has caught you in His Net, and He has brought you aboard His Boat, His Holy Church.  He has made you a member of His Household.  And here within His House, as a good and faithful Scribe, He teaches you all about the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is by the catechesis of His Word, and by the washing of water with His Word in Holy Baptism, that He has made you a disciple of His Kingdom, a fish in His Net.  So, what kind of fish are you?

When it comes to the sorting of the fish at the close of the age, will you be among the righteous who are gathered in, or among the wicked who are thrown out?

If you would know and understand these Mysteries of the Kingdom, hear and heed the catechesis of Christ Jesus.  You are to be holy, as He is holy.  You are to be perfect, as He is perfect.  You are to be righteous, as He is righteous.  And you are to have no other gods besides Him.

Search for Him diligently.  Seek for Him always.  And when you have found Him, let go and leave behind everything else.  Let go of all the treasures that you would otherwise cling to and depend upon, in order that Christ may be and remain your true and only Treasure on earth and in heaven.

Love Him most.  Love Him best.  Let Him be the priceless Treasure for which you willingly give up everything else.  Let Him be the one great Pearl on which you fix your single-minded devotion.

Put away all the other gods (the idols) that occupy your heart, mind, body, and life.  Put away all the other gods from your thinking, from your speaking, and from the way that you act.  In short, do not allow anything to deter you or distract you from Christ Jesus.  And do not allow anything or anyone to compete with Him for your time and attention, for your energy and your affection.

Favor the Lord Jesus Christ above even your own home and family, indeed, more than even your own life.  Rather serve your home and family with Christ Jesus.  Take care of them with His Word.  Do not neglect the catechesis of those whom the Lord has placed under your care and supervision.

In particular, if you are a father, you are the head of your household and family, and the burden of responsibility for your wife and children falls especially on you.  God has commanded you to teach them His Word, to pray with them, to bring them to church, and to see to it that they are kept safe and secure within the Net of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.  Do that, in order that they may live.

If there is any treasure in your life other than Christ, be done with it, and get rid of it.  If there is anything that you value more than Him — anything that consumes you at the expense of His Word — Repent, and put all of that away from you, lest you be put out and cast away from Him forever.

What are those things in your life?  Or who is it that you love and honor more than Jesus Christ?

What’s your price?  If it’s not thirty pieces of silver, what does it take to buy you off?  What does it take — how much, or how little — to turn you away from Christ and the hearing of His Word?

The truth of the matter is that, even if you were able to gain the entire world, if you let go of Jesus, then you have let go of everything.  You have lost everything.  And you, yourself, will be lost.

Again, what kind of fish are you?  When that great Net is finally dragged to shore and all the fish are sorted, will you be gathered with the righteous or thrown out with the wicked into eternal fire?

You have no righteousness of your own.  By your inheritance from Adam, there is nothing but sin and death in your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit.  You are, as you have confessed, sinful and unclean.  You have fallen far short of the glory of God, and you have gone astray from His Law in all your thoughts, words, and actions — by what you have done wrong, and by the good that you have left undone.  Your faith and your love are not what they should be.

What hope, then, do you have?  How shall you ever see or ever enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

Well, understand that the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing like you.  The Kingdom of Heaven is not like your life on earth.  The Kingdom of Heaven does not look like all your striving after stuff.

But the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand in that Man who has found you — who has sought you out and found you hidden in the world, a sinner among sinners — that Man who has given everything, even Himself, in order to redeem you, to purchase and win you for Himself forevermore.

You are His treasure.  You are His pearl of great price.  Not because of any merit or worthiness, strength or impressiveness in you, but solely for the sake of His divine and holy Love.  It is for the sake of His Love that He has done this.  And it is on account of the price that He has paid for you — when you were worth nothing — that you are of such exceedingly great and precious value.

It was in His Love for you, for the sake of His divine and holy Love, that He came down from His Father in heaven, and sought you out, and found you, in order to save you and to bring you with Himself into the Kingdom of Heaven, to the bosom of His God and Father.

It is with great joy that He has purchased you for Himself, ransomed and redeemed you, and paid for you — lost and condemned person though you were — not with gold or silver, but with His holy and precious Blood and by His innocent suffering and death, that you may be His own.

He delights in you.  He truly does.  He takes great joy in you.  You are His greatest pleasure, you are His dearest treasure.  For He has sought you out and paid the dowry of His own Body and Life, that you should be a member of His beloved and beautiful Bride, His Holy Christian Church.

And it is in His great joy and delight over you — for the sake of His Love, for the sake of His Beloved Bride — even for you who are His treasure and His pearl of great price — it is for all this that He has bought the entire Field.  He has purchased and redeemed the whole wide world.

So, if you’re in the field, if you’re part of the world, Jesus has paid for you, and you belong to Him.

All this He has done because He loves you.  There is nothing in heaven or on earth more sure and certain than that.  When everything else has passed away, this Truth remains: That for your sake, Jesus has given Himself and paid for you with His own life; and not only you, but the entire world.

So it is that He causes His Gospel to be preached, even to the ends of the earth.  He sends out His Apostles to preach, to catechize, to baptize, to absolve, and to commune disciples from all nations.  In St. Mark, as I have often pointed out, He sends them out to preach the Gospel to all creation.

And it is by that great Dragnet of the Gospel that He has called you by name, and He has caught you into His warm and wide embrace, as surely as He has gone fishing for you by His preaching and Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins.  That is how He’s taken you in hand.

He surely has not tricked you.  He does not lie to you.  Take it to heart that you are not in His Net by any mistake.  You are not in His Net by accident.  He knows right where you are.  He has called you to Himself because, in love, He desired to make you His own — and His Gospel makes it so.

The One who has called you is faithful and sincere.  By His Blood, your sins are forgiven.  All of them.  Every last one.  He is not ignorant or naive, but in mercy He has forgiven you everything.

As Christ and His Holy Spirit have called you by the Gospel, so has He justified you with His own Righteousness — just as He is righteous.  You will not be thrown out with the wicked, though that is what you deserve.  Instead, you are gathered into the Kingdom of Heaven with Christ Jesus because, by His grace, through faith in His forgiveness of sins, you are righteous and holy in Him.

It is by and with that Gospel of His that He adorns you beautifully, and He glorifies you with His own Glory.  As often as He preaches to you, as often as He feeds you with Himself, His Body and His Blood, so are you among His many brethren, abiding with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven.

He is the Head of His Household and Family, and as a good and faithful Head of His Bride and all the children of God, He takes care of you by and with His Word.  So, then, you are the sort of fish that Jesus is, because by His Gospel He has declared you to be righteous and holy and perfect, as He Himself is righteous and holy and perfect.  He is in the Field with you, in the Net, and in the Boat — He is here on the Altar in His House — in the Ciborium and Chalice, given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins — that you should be with Him in His Kingdom forever.

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

From the Dust of the Earth to the Glory of God

What would your Rabboni teach you by the example of His servant, St. Mary Magdalene, one of His dear little lambs?  And what would He teach you by the example of His mercy toward her?

She is among those many people whom Jesus cleansed and healed by His Word and Holy Spirit.  And along with a number of other faithful women, she followed the Lord Jesus as a disciple, as a member of His Church, and she supported Him and His Apostles from her own means.

She followed Him to the last, even to the foot of His Cross on Good Friday.  And then on that first Easter Sunday morning, very early, while it was still dark, she went with several of the other women to show reverence and loving care for the Body of Christ Jesus by anointing it with spices.

She came to the tomb, and there it looked and felt as though all hope were dead and gone.  Already her Lord had been crucified, put to death, and buried.  But then, just when it seemed as though it surely could not get any worse, she found the grave emptied, apparently robbed, His Body gone.  She could do nothing else at that point other than weep with deep sorrow and great mourning.

You also end up at the tomb, bereft of hope and everything you love.  Sooner or later, your own body shall be laid to rest in the dust of the earth.  Whence you were taken, thence you return.  In the meantime, everything around you is likewise returning to the dust.  Your parents, your spouse, even your children; cousins, brothers, grandparents, friends.  One by one, they are taken from you.

Everything ends in dust.  So, with Mary Magdalene you make your way to the tomb, and it is still dark, and you cannot see.  Then you do not know where Jesus is.  You do not know where or how to find His Body.  There is only death, the grave is empty of hope, and there’s nothing you can do.

In fact, He is standing there with you and for you, and He would do for you what you cannot do for Him or yourself or anyone else.  But you do not recognize Him, not through your tears, and not by your own reason and strength.  Like those first Emmaus disciples, you do not yet know Him.

You take Him for a gardener, a man of dust and dirt, like the first man, Adam, and his first son, Cain, who were gardeners.  That’s who Mary thought He was at first, and now you make the same mistake.  Instead of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, you see only mortal flesh and all the practical logistics of death and burial — funeral arrangements, cemeteries, and grave sites.

Whether or not you break down and weep on the outside for anyone to see, you are broken and defeated by death and the grave.  You are powerless to fix it, unable to find what you need, and helpless to feel any better.  So you are sorely tempted to despair altogether and to give up hope.

But right there in the tomb, in the teeth of death, you behold the messengers of the Lord, clothed in white — like your baptismal gown; like the paraments of Christmas and Easter and the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene; like the robes of those who come out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb — because the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom has begun, and all things are made ready, on earth as it is in heaven.  So it is that His messengers are sent to you here, to say, “Come, and do not weep, but rejoice!”

The messengers of the Lord turn your eyes toward Jesus — from the dust of the earth and the gates of Hades to the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — to the gates of heaven, opened by the Lord Jesus Christ.  They point you to Him who was dead, and yet, behold, He lives!  And by their preaching and teaching of His Word, He calls you by name and opens your eyes to behold Him.

He sends His messengers and speaks His Gospel to you.  “I forgive you all your sins.”  All of your doubts and fears, and death itself, He takes it all away.  And in their place He gives you Himself.

That is what Jesus says and does; because, as much as you may love Him for all that He has done for you, He loves you so much more.  And His love does not fail.  His love is stronger than death.

The Church’s Husband sits in the gates of Hades — which He has broken open by His own Cross and Resurrection from the dead — and by and with His Word of the Gospel He adorns His Bride with His own Righteousness, even as He has glorified her with His own Name.  So shall Hades not prevail against her, but as her Husband and her Head has risen from the dead, so she also shall rise.

Thus are you able to stop weeping, to dry your eyes and see clearly.  You need not stare into an empty tomb and wonder what on earth you’re going to do.  Neither your own dust and bones, nor the dust and bones within the tombs of your loved ones, tell the true story of your life and future.

For the Lord Jesus calls you by name from out of death and the grave into the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — from out of the darkness of your sin into the marvelous Light of His Gospel.

It is by the preaching and Ministry of His Gospel that you find Him here, not within the tomb, but in His House and at His Altar.  The Body of Jesus is here for you, that you might find Him and receive Him to yourself, and bear Him within your own body throughout your life on earth, until He shall call you home, both body and soul, to the true Garden — the Paradise of God — forever.

You find Him here, where He finds you with His Word.  It is not yet by sight, but by the sound of His Voice, that you recognize your Good Shepherd, as He calls you to Himself by name.

If you want to know if it is Jesus Christ who is speaking, listen: Does the voice that you hear have the timbre of His Gospel?  Does it sing the melody of forgiveness and salvation?  Does it follow the rhythm of His Cross and Resurrection, the pulse of His Blood poured out for you?  If so, then you know it is the Lord who is speaking and calling you by name; and you know to follow Him.

You follow and lay hold of Him here, where He lays hold of you.  And He will not let you go.  He will not cast you away from His presence.  Nor will He allow you to be snatched out of His hand.

But He would not have you cling to Him as “the Gardener.”  He would not have you cling to Him as the Man of Dirt.  He would not have you cling to Him in the familiar things of this old earth.

His Word to Mary Magdalene, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father,” is challenging and hard to understand.  Elsewhere in the Holy Gospels He does not speak this way.  In St. Matthew the women lay hold of His feet and worship Him, and He does not tell them to stop.  And in both St. Luke and this same chapter of St. John, He invites the disciples to investigate the wounds in His hands and feet and side; He tells St. Thomas to put his finger into the nail wounds, his hand into the spear wound.  Yet, here He tells St. Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to Him.

Understand that He does give Himself into your ears, into your heart and mind by His Word, and into your hands, your mouth, and your body in the Holy Communion, that you might cling to Him — to His Body of flesh and blood — with both your body and your soul — by faith in His Word.

But whereas you also receive with thanksgiving all of His other good gifts in this body and life — your daily bread, your home and family, your body and soul, your reason and all your senses — all of which are sanctified by His Word and Holy Spirit — you do not cling to Him in those things.  Nor do you cling to any of those things as though your life and salvation were found in them.  You rather cling to Jesus by faith — and you worship Him by faith — in the Liturgy of His Gospel.

He would not have you cling to Him on the front side of the Cross and Resurrection.  That is to say, He would not have you cling to Him as the Man from Nazareth on His way to be crucified, put to death, and buried — the Man St. Mary Magdalene had known and loved prior to Good Friday.  But He would have you cling to Him on the far side of His Passion.  He would have you cling to Him as the Lamb who has been slain, and yet, behold, He lives!  He would have you cling to Him as the Crucified One, whose hands and feet and side still bear the wounds of His Cross and Passion.  He would have you cling to Him as the One who has risen from the dead.

God raised this Jesus from the dead.  That is the very heart and soul of the Gospel.  Not in contrast to or contradiction of the Cross, but as the victory and outcome of the Cross.  The Resurrection of the One who was crucified for your transgressions is your Justification; that is your Righteousness, that is your Absolution, that is your Hope, and that is your Life and your Salvation.

God raised Jesus from the dead.  The One who bore your sins in His Body on the Cross, who died your death and suffered your damnation — God raised Him from the dead – for you – from the dust of the ground into the New Creation, of which His own resurrected Body is the First Fruits.

Do not cling to Him as a gardener of this dead and dying world, but as the Good Shepherd who has laid down His life for you and all His sheep, and who has taken it up again that you may live.

He ascends from death and the grave to His God and Father.  And what a beautiful Word it is that He sends to His disciples by way of Mary Magdalene.  She is not an Apostle, but in this case she is an “apostle to the Apostles,” as the Greek Church has always called her, because she is sent to speak this Word of Jesus to those men whom He calls His brothers.  And the same Word has been written for you, as well; and it is spoken to you again on this night, as it is every Easter morning.

“Tell them,” He says, “that I go to My God and your God, to My Father and your Father.”  And such a precious gift it is that He bestows upon you and all His Christian disciples with these words.  The God of Jesus, who raised Him from the dead, is your God, who shall not fail you, but who shall vindicate you at the last.  He shall not leave you dead and buried in the dirt, but He shall raise you up in glory at the Last Day, and He shall make you perfect, as Christ Himself is perfect.

So also, the Father of Christ Jesus is your Father, and you are beloved and well-pleasing to Him.  He hears and answers when you pray, because He has first of all spoken to you by His Son, and He has called you by name.  He has not only called you by your name, but He has named you with His Name as a beloved son or daughter in Christ, as a member of His household and family.

Thus do you live with Christ Jesus at the right hand of His God and Father in heaven, seated with Him in the heavenly places.  That is where you live.  Not in the dust of the earth, but in the courts of heaven.  Even as Christ lives and abides with His Bride, the Church, in heaven and on earth.

Have you heard what He does for her?  And what she does for her children, the children of God?  He cleanses her, daily and richly He does.  And He clothes her.  He covers her shame with His honor.  He covers her nakedness with His royal garments.  And as she is cloaked in the purple of His Majesty, so does she clothe her children in the scarlet of His Sacrifice.  So are you dressed in such scarlet and covered in such purple, as a royal son or daughter of the King, a member of His Holy Bride.  He feeds you from His own hand, and He quenches your thirst from His own side.

As He thus stretches out His hands to feed you, to cleanse you, to clothe you, and to give you drink — you who belong to His Bride, the Church, likewise stretch out your hands to your neighbors.  As you cling to Christ Jesus by faith in His Word, you cling to your neighbors in love for His sake.

And as Mary Magdalene went to preach that first Easter sermon to the holy Apostles, so do you also confess the same Gospel of the same Christ to your family, friends, and neighbors on earth — to your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus — and even to your pastors!  For what the Lord did for St. Mary Magdalene and His disciples then, He does for you now, as for His whole Church.

He raises you from the dead.  He casts out all your demons, heals your diseases, forgives you all your sins, and raises you from the death of unbelief, sadness, and fear, to the life that is yours in both body and soul by faith in His Gospel.  That is what your Rabboni teaches you, and that is what He gives to you here and now, as He lays hold of you with His Word and Flesh and Blood.

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

The Sons of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus

There is no problem with the Sower, His Seed, or His Field.  These are all very good.  But now there is a problem in His Field because, while His men were sleeping, His enemy was at work, prowling around, sowing seeds of lawlessness in the Sower’s Field.  So, now there are weeds among the wheat.  What shall the Lord and Master of the Field do about it?  What should He do?

What would you do?  If you were the Lord, how would you respond?  Would you exterminate the weeds by whatever means or force necessary?  Would you rip them out and throw them away?

Well, how often do you think and act as though you actually were God?  When someone gets in your way, you remove them.  When someone does something you don’t like, you push back as hard as you’re able.  When someone encroaches on your space, steals your thunder, takes your stuff, messes with your plans, or otherwise cramps your style, you retaliate in order to have your way.

If you’ve worked hard on a project and someone messes it up, how do you respond?  With anger and revenge, or with patience and forgiveness?  And as for those things outside of your control — things you don’t understand, which cause you pain and suffering, grief and disappointment — how do you deal with those things?  Do you aim to force the situation and fix it for yourself, as though you could?  Or do you rail against the Lord and question His wisdom, as though you knew better?

But the true and only God does not think the way you think.  And, Christ be praised, He does not act the way you act.  His ways are not your ways, and His thoughts are not your thoughts.  As you have heard, He does not pull the weeds at once, nor does He permit His servants to do so, because He has mercy.  He is patient and long-suffering.  He would preserve and protect His wheat from all harm and danger.  And so, for the sake of His wheat, He will not destroy the weeds before the harvest.  He knows the wheat would not survive the weeding, and He would save it from the fire.

As with the Parable of the Sower last Sunday, so also with this Parable today, the Lord Jesus is not  offering a lesson in earthly farming or agriculture.  He is teaching the Mysteries of His Kingdom, not the science and savvy of this world and its kingdoms.  And with that in mind, understand that His enemy, the devil, is not capable of creating any plants of his own.  The seeds the devil sows, those of the weeds, are not some new plant alongside the wheat, but a perversion of God’s good creation.  The devil is no creator.  He can only attack and abuse what God has done and given.  So the weeds cannot be separated from the wheat, because they are actually a perversion of the wheat.

Don’t look around the congregation or cast about in your mind concerning your other neighbors, trying to figure out who the weeds are.  Consider your own heart.  Look at your own life.  Listen to your own words.  Examine your thoughts and attitudes in the light of the Ten Commandments.

Don’t look at your neighbor to find where the weeds are.  Rather, look within yourself and groan; not with despair, but in repentance — and with hope for the mercy of God, because He is merciful.

The fact of the matter is, the weeds are not simply planted alongside you in the rows.  They are planted in your own heart and in your flesh.  They are entangled about your roots.  And they have you in their grips, bearing their lawless fruits in your thoughts, in your words, and in your actions.

And all of that is already bad enough.  But there is an even bigger problem, namely, the fact that you can’t tell the difference.  In the Parable at hand, the particular weeds that Jesus describes are indistinguishable from wheat, especially early on.  The Lord thereby underscores the perversity of sin, which prevents you from distinguishing between the weeds and the wheat.

You can’t read your neighbor’s heart, no matter how hard you try and assume that you can.  But neither do you really know your own sinful heart.  You don’t know the depths of your perversity, your sinfulness and guile.  You actually think of yourself, most of the time, as being pretty good.

The most deadly and dangerous thing of all is that you do not know the Sower.  You do not know His Seed, and you do not know the Fruits that He would harvest.  You know none of these things, except by the Word and Spirit of God, who must teach you and must help you in your weakness.

It’s not simply that you and your neighbors are sinful, duplicitous and hypocritical, deceptive and deceived.  It’s not only that you and your neighbors are hiding yourselves from each other, playing at charades, and practicing subterfuge in your dealings with each other, as though life were a big game.  It’s worse than that.  Not only do you not know the weeds from the wheat, but you don’t even realize that you don’t know the weeds from the wheat!  Consequently, you call evil, “good,” and you call good, “evil.”  And you have no idea how greatly mistaken you are.

All of which means that, when you set out to weed your fields, what you rip up and throw away are the fruits of grace, mercy, and peace.  And the very things you cultivate, as though they were your crop, are the weeds of pride and envy, selfishness and greed.  And still you do not recognize or understand what you are doing.  In your judgment of others, and in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you are pious and faithful, and that by your wicked works you are reaping life.

But, no, if there are to be any sons of the Kingdom in the final harvest, then it must be the Son of Man who shall sow them, raise them up, and harvest them unto Himself in His Righteousness — by His judgment of forgiveness.  The Lord knows that none of His wheat will survive otherwise.

The wheat cannot live choked out by the weeds.  But the wheat cannot survive a weeding, either.  It will die either way, if the Lord does not act.  He alone is God, the King and Redeemer of Israel.  And He sends no creature to save His Field, but He Himself comes and does it all by His grace.

And here is how He goes about it:

He hides Himself in the Field.  He hides Himself in the Field.  He comes unpretentiously, small and feeble, seemingly helpless.  And He plants Himself in the ground, like the smallest of seeds, easily lost among all of those weeds.  In fact, He allows Himself to become entangled in your weeds, to be completely overgrown by your weeds, until it seems as though He were utterly lost.  He is choked, and He is strangled.  He is crucified, put to death, and buried in the ground.

And then what?  His Tree bears good Fruit.  He rises from the dead.  He has died, but, lo, He lives!  He has overcome all of the devastating consequences of sin and the devil’s perversion of God’s good creation, all the weeds in your heart and life, and all the weeds in the world around you.  And as such, His Word of the Cross is the good Seed of His Gospel.  He proclaims the forgiveness of sins.  He proclaims the free gift of Life and Salvation.  And this He does throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth.  He sows the entire Field with the Seed He has borne by His Cross.

He does not uproot the weeds and burn them.  On the contrary, what He does do is remarkable.  He cares for the weeds along with the wheat for now.  He waters both with His Word and Holy Spirit.  He shines the sunshine of His love on both the evil and the good.  He cultivates the whole Field by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name.  He proclaims the Gospel to all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, without partiality or prejudice — with grace, mercy, and peace for those who have no grace, mercy, or peace.  He preserves both weeds and wheat together in His Field.  And He thereby plunders His enemy of any produce whatsoever.

The Lord takes it all in hand, and rather than exterminating the weeds, He cares for the Field.  His Seed-bearing Fruit of the Cross gives new birth to the sons of God — the sons of the Kingdom, His brothers by grace — because His Cross has made Atonement for the curse.  God’s cursing of the soil, the thorns and thistles that it bears around the world, and all the consequences of the Fall into sin, the Cross of Christ has made Atonement for all of it.  And the Blood which Christ has shed does not cry out for vengeance, because it has cleansed, redeemed, and sanctified His Field.

His own crucified and risen Body is the First Fruits of a New Creation, wherein and whereby the weed-infested wheat is not lost — neither strangled by the weeds nor pulled up with the weeds — but it is rescued, justified, and made holy.  The wheat is saved for the Lord’s great harvest at the last, as surely as the great Weed of His Cross has actually become the new and greater Tree of Life.

Now, to be sure, there will come the consummation of all things and the final harvest, when the Lord shall come in glory with power and great might to judge the living and the dead.  Then all those weeds which still remain shall be purged and removed from the presence of God into the fire.

So, do not ever become comfortable or complacent with any other planting than that of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Pay no heed to any other word than His Word.  And do not fall asleep, but be sober and watchful.  Do not abuse the Lord’s mercy and long-suffering patience as an excuse to cultivate weeds in your life instead of wheat.  Do not mock and despise the Son of Man by disparaging the Fruits of His Cross and serving His enemy.  For all the ways in which you have done so, repent.

But in repenting, take heart, and have patience, that even those weeds which still remain for now — those that you produce in sin and shame within your body and life, and those that threaten to choke you and destroy you with suffering and sorrow, despair and death — the Lord, by His Cross, is using even these weeds to be working His work in you unto daily repentance, faith, and life.

By that which you suffer, by those weeds that beleaguer you day and night, He is calling you daily to repentance — to turn you from the sowing of the devil to the Lord’s own sowing of the Gospel.  He disciplines you now, in both body and soul, not to hurt or harm you, but because He loves you; and by His discipline and His preaching, He is working to harvest you into His Kingdom forever.

He does not uproot you and remove you from His Field with all of your own weeds; nor does He remove all of the weeds that harass and hurt you in this old world of sin and death.  But, by His Word of the Cross, He strengthens and sustains you, protects and preserves you, nurtures you with His forgiveness of your sins, and nourishes you with His Body given and His Blood poured out.

His Cross remains an accomplished fact, the Lord’s perfection of His good Creation, and it renders the weeds impotent against you.  He forces even the weeds to serve His wheat, thereby forming you in His own crucified image and likeness.  Therefore, even though you die, yet shall you live and abide forever with God in both body and soul.  And even now, in your weakness, overgrown and hidden by weeds within and without, the Spirit of Christ intercedes for you and helps you.

Just think of that.  God Himself is praying for you!  Though that may seem strange, He does so that you might stand fast.  He prays for you according to His good and gracious Will for your salvation; and even in His praying He is already acting to save you.  As He speaks, so He does.  It is true.

What now appears to be futile and fatal, He has made into a sure and certain hope — not yet seen, but already accomplished in the Body of Christ Jesus.  It has not yet appeared what you shall be.  What you see and feel in yourself for now, in this dying world, is nothing but weeds, and no wheat.  But when the Lord appears in all His glory, you shall see Him as He is, and you shall be like Him.

In your death and in your resurrection at the last, unto the Life everlasting, all the weeds shall be purged and removed forevermore from your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit; and having thus been purified, as gold and silver are purified by fire, you shall nevermore be plagued by the threat of sin, the assaults and accusations of the devil, or the fear of death, but shall live in perfect peace and joy in the presence of God, in the Light of His countenance, and in the warmth of His Love.

Then the Righteousness of Christ — by which, in His mercy, He has declared you to be righteous by the Gospel — shall shine forth in you like the very Son Himself.  And all the sufferings and sorrows, all the sin and shame of this present evil age, shall be gone and forgotten forever like a dream that is past.  And so shall you abide in the Kingdom of your own dear God and Father.

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