Abiding with Christ in the Most Holy Place

So much for the white Christmas you were dreaming of.  Not only have we had no real snow to speak of, but the Church has already set aside her white paraments more quickly than the world takes down its winter evergreens.  Within a day of the Lord’s holy Nativity His chancel is stained red with the blood of His martyrs, anticipating the blood-stained banner of His own Holy Cross.

So it is that on this day, the 26th of December, the Second Day of the ChristMass, we remember with sober thanksgiving the Lord’s faithful servant, the deacon St. Stephen, who was martyred for his faith and confession, put to death as a witness to the Gospel of your Savior, Jesus Christ.

As you know, he was one of the seven deacons selected to serve the Hellenistic members of the early Church in Jerusalem.  Perhaps it would be clearer in our circles to describe him as an assistant pastor to the Apostles, chosen and appointed to care for the Greek-speaking parishes of the city.  In any case, St. Stephen was a man well-attested by the Lord and by the entire congregation of the Church.  He was a man of faith and great wisdom, full of the Holy Spirit.  And he did what he was called and ordained to do: He preached the Gospel and administered the Holy Sacraments of Christ.

But the Church remembers St. Stephen on this day, and she gives thanks to God for this faithful servant and holy martyr, not so much for the sake of a job well done “once upon a time,” but for the sake of the Word of Christ which he continues to proclaim by his preaching and example in the record of the Holy Scriptures, such as we have heard this evening from the Acts of the Apostles.

As St. Stephen thus preaches the Law, forcibly and forthrightly — not only then and there, but here and now to you — take it seriously as a warning against your own idolatry and hardness of heart, and heed what he says as a call to repentance and to the new life which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Do not attempt to hide behind your church membership or your good attendance, though belonging to the church and coming to church are certainly appropriate, good and right, and fundamental to the Christian faith and life.  You do not justify or save yourself by such good works, though you do confirm your unbelief and condemn yourself when you excuse and separate yourself from the household and family of God, to which you belong by His grace alone, through faith in His Gospel, notwithstanding any of your own works and efforts (be they good, bad, or otherwise).

Do not claim or cling to even the Holy Sacraments as works of man, as though the mere fact of going through the motions were sufficient to rescue and redeem your life from the judgment.  It is rather in repentance and faith that you receive and benefit from the Holy Sacraments as the works of God and the gifts of His grace, whereby He delivers you from sin, death, and the devil.  And that difference in perspective makes all the difference in this world and the next.  For it is not by any of your own works or any self-righteousness of yours that you are saved, but only by Christ Jesus, the Righteous One, who was crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification.

Take it to heart, therefore, and trust and believe St. Stephen’s beautiful proclamation of the Gospel, especially in his example of mercy for those who were stoning him to death.  As the Lord Jesus had prayed that His Father would forgive those who nailed Him to the Cross, so does St. Stephen pray that God would not hold the sin of his persecutors against them.  Such a word of grace is wrought by the Word and Spirit of God, conveying the Holy Absolution of Christ to those who are cut to the quick and convicted by the Law.  It is forgiveness for you, also, chief of sinners though you be.

St. Stephen is, himself, an example of one who has received the Lord’s mercy and help, who lives by the fear of the Lord and by faith in His Gospel.  He surely does not preach with such clarity and boldness by any instinctive reason or strength of his own, nor with a detached, clinical objectivity, but as a man who has been called to repentance and faith by the preaching of the Word of Christ.

So did St. Stephen remain steadfast in his faith, and in his confession and preaching of Christ Jesus, even to the point of death.  He laid down his life without bitterness or guile, but with charity in his heart and on his lips for those who persecuted him, because he had already died and risen with the Lord in his Holy Baptism.  By that Sacrament, and by the daily repentance to which that Sacrament called him, he was conformed to the Image of Christ, his crucified and risen Savior.

St. Stephen died in the sure and certain confidence of Christ, animated by the compassion of Christ for those who sinned against him.  And in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, his merciful and great High Priest, he has received the Crown of everlasting Life, which shall never be taken from him.

As the Christian Church has understood and confessed concerning the many other martyrs who followed him, St. Stephen was strengthened and sustained by his Lord Jesus, not only in his faith and life as a disciple and deacon, but in his faithful death.  Not by human might and power, but by the Word and Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ, he prevailed in the face of persecution, as he was given to see the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God in the face of the incarnate Son.

Whether with the eyes of his flesh or simply with the eyes of faith, St. Stephen was given a vision of the Truth which remains forever, though it is normally hidden (for now) under the shadow of the Cross.  He was given to see his risen and ascended Lord, standing at the right hand of God where He ever lives to make intercession for His whole Church of all times and in all places.

The One who was crucified for your sins and raised from the dead as your Righteousness, He has entered into the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens, for your Salvation.  There He abides for you in the presence of His God and Father, as your Anchor behind the Veil, even as He lives and abides within His Church on earth in the preaching and ministry of His Holy Gospel, that you might live and abide with God in Him, in His Body, the new and better Temple, now and forever.  His Body is your Home, already now by faith, and so shall it be ever after.

The heavens have been opened to you, as surely as they were opened to St. Stephen, never to be closed again, by the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Jordan River, by His innocent suffering and death upon the Cross, by the shedding of His Blood, and by His Resurrection from the dead.

Therefore, do not shut your ears to the Law of the Lord as it is preached to you, though it painfully convicts you of your sins and calls you daily to repentance.  To harden your heart to that Word and preaching is also to reject and forego the grace and mercy and forgiveness of the Holy Gospel, which is preached to you in the patience and compassion of your Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is not for the condemnation you deserve, but for the great Salvation of His Gospel, that you are called by the preaching and Baptism of repentance to the Life everlasting which is by faith in Christ alone.

So, then, with St. Stephen receive and find your life entirely in the Lord Jesus Christ; and so boldly carry out your vocations and serve your stations in this body and life on earth, knowing with the certainty of faith that there is nothing anyone can do to rob you of the life that is yours in Him.

To be sure, there are those who may hurt or even kill your mortal body.  Many others are even more likely to hurt your feelings and to make your present circumstances difficult and hard to bear.  The stones that cut into Stephen’s body and spilled his blood, which shattered his bones and bruised his muscles, they were surely not painless or pleasant.  But they did not rob him of his life with God in Christ, which is immortal, imperishable, and glorious, as Christ Himself now reigns in glory forever.  So also are you preserved in safety, peace, and Sabbath rest within the Body of Christ Jesus, no matter what may happen to your poor body here and now.

Indeed, as your mortal body of flesh and blood is fed with His Body and Blood, so shall your body also be raised in glory, no matter how it may be punished and put to death in this brief span of time.

You have this boldness and confidence to live your life and to face your death, not from within yourself, but from the Lord who comforts you and strengthens you with His Word and Spirit in the Gospel.  He does not condemn you but forgives you, because Christ has given Himself for you.  And as God Himself is with you and for you, in this life and for the life to come, there is nothing and no one in heaven or on earth who shall ever be permitted or able to prevail against you.

So it is that Christ the Lord, the Son of God and Mary’s Son — who has entered the Most Holy Place in His crucified and risen Body, and who ever lives to intercede for you with His prayers and with His precious Blood in the presence of His God and Father — He also continues to call and ordain men, like St. Stephen, to care for His Bride, the Church.  These men He endows with His Spirit and His Wisdom, according to their Office, to serve the Tables of His Church on earth with the Word of His Gospel and with His Body and Blood, given and poured out for the many, for the forgiveness of sins in His Name, for the bestowal and preservation of life and salvation with God.

So does He provide all that is needed for body and soul, for Jews and Greeks alike, for widows and orphans in distress, and for all men and women, young and old, married or unmarried, rich and poor without distinction; for deacons and martyrs, pastors and people; and so also for you and for your children, and for your children’s children, from generation to generation, and even forevermore.

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

Sing with Joy in the Light of Christ

Sing for joy, all the earth, and lift up your voice in song, all you people of the world.  For Christ Jesus, your Savior, has come to disperse the darkness of despair and death.  In His Love for you He has come to shine the Light of His Gospel upon you, in order to give you His own Life.

In doing so, He gives nothing less than Himself — in flesh and blood like yours, but without sin and no longer subject to death.  He has become Flesh, true Man, a human being like you, in order to unite Himself to you — and you to Him — so that, by His grace, you may become like Him.

He has come in the flesh, conceived and born of Mary, in order to bear your sins and carry all your sorrows in His Body to the Cross, thereby to conquer death and shatter all the power of the enemy.

He takes upon Himself — and He removes from you — all your guilt and shame, all your doubt and fear, all your frailty, flaws, and weaknesses.  And in place of your sin and death, He gives you Life and Salvation in body and soul, already now in His Church on earth, and in heaven forever.  For He is Immanuel, “God with us,” that you might live and abide with Him in His Kingdom.

That is why the angels sing and glorify God in the highest, even as they proclaim His glory and salvation on earth.  They praise His holy Name and give thanks for His grace toward all mankind, for His Incarnation and holy Nativity, and for His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension.  They rejoice with you and for you, because they delight in the good and gracious will of God, which is the forgiveness and salvation of sinners; for it is the glory of the Lord to save you by His grace.

And if the angels praise and magnify His Name, how much more shall we rejoice, give thanks, and sing; for He is not the Savior of angels but of all the children of men.  So has He become true Man, not only to rescue us from sin and death, but to share His divine nature and eternal Life with us.

It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we sing for joy this night, with all the holy angels, and with the whole Christian Church in heaven and on earth.  And you are able to do so, even in the midst of deep darkness and the shadow of death, because the Lord here sings His Gospel into your ears.

True enough, the shadow of death lies thick and heavy on the world, and it presses hard on you and all your loved ones.  The bright lights and colors of the season cannot stave it off or keep it at bay.  Wars may or may not cease for these holy days, but the hospitals and morgues cannot shut down, not even for twenty-four hours.  Remember those who serve in those places, and all those who must keep working (while the rest of the world parties) because death continues day and night.

Not only the world out there, but Christians also suffer and die and are buried, even at Christmas, and at any given time in this poor life of labor.  Whether by sickness, violent crime, an accident, or the inevitable atrophy of your mortal flesh, you and all of your loved ones are going to die.

The problem is not that you are a finite creature, but that you are sinful.  You are mortal and die because you are sinful and you sin from the inside-out.  You exist and you have life at all only by the gracious Word of God, and yet your sinful heart still doubts, denies, disbelieves, and despises His life-giving Word.  That is the darkness in which you grope around.  And that is why you die.

Sin leads to death because it is a turning away from God and His Word.  And as such, it leads away from love to selfishness and greed and desperation.  Having turned your back on your Creator, on the Author and Giver of life, you spend your days in a frantic pursuit of a life that you presume to be making for yourself.  But for all your striving, sweat, and struggle, you lose it all in the end.

Such is the darkness of your sin and death, and you’ll never be able to see your way clear of it.  You were conceived and born in that dark valley, and whatever else you have gotten from your parents, you have inherited from them the legacy of Adam’s fall, which always ends up in the dirt.

The problem is within you, as well as all around you.  It is not only your parents but you, as well, who are sinful and unclean.  You do not fear, love, and trust in the Holy Triune God as you must, and you do not love your neighbor as the Lord your God has commanded.  Consequently, because you love neither God nor man, you are not able to know the true and only God, Who Is Love.

Such ignorance of God is deadly and damnable.  What you believe to be true is false.  What you consider good is evil.  What you perceive to be light is only a deeper and more sinister darkness.  Your heart and mind are as clouded as your body is overshadowed by the certainty of death.

And yet, despite all of that, the Church still sings, and she is neither foolish nor ignorant to do so.

It is not a matter of positive thinking or an optimistic outlook.  It is rather that God our Savior now shines His Light into your darkness.  Into the valley of the shadow of death strides the Lord, the beloved and only-begotten Son of the Father; the Christ, anointed by the Holy Spirit; the incarnate God, who is true Man with us and for us, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, blood of our blood.

He strides into the arena, a greater Gladiator than this world has ever seen, and He joins the battle against all your foes.  He sets Himself against all your enemies, becoming your Champion against sin, death, the devil, and hell.  He scatters the darkness and disperses the gloom, because He is the Light, and the darkness cannot overcome Him.  Death and the grave will swallow Him up in time, for a little while, but only because He lets them; He gives Himself over to the dust of the earth in your place.  And having thus entered into those deep dark depths of Sheol, He shatters that grim dungeon from the inside-out; He breaks all its bars and blows the doors right off their hinges.

This Lord Jesus Christ has conquered in the fight, and now He sets you free, because He has given Himself for your sins.  He has died your death, and He has destroyed its power over you by His dying.  He has atoned for all your sins by the shedding of His blood, so that no charge remains against you.  The devil has no legitimate claim on you, nor any valid accusation to level at you, because the Lord Himself has redeemed you, exonerated you, justified and vindicated you.

When God the Father raised this same Lord Jesus bodily from death and the grave — the same Son of Mary who bore your sins in His body of flesh and blood and suffered and died in your place — when God raised Him from the dead, He raised you up out of darkness into His marvelous Light.

That Light of His Redemption, His Cross and Resurrection, His Righteousness and Reconciliation with God the Father, now and ever shines upon you in the preaching and ministry of His Gospel.

That is where and how you “see” Him and know Him — by faith — by the hearing of His Voice.  He speaks and sings the forgiveness of all your sins, and with that Word He gives you His Life.

His Voice of the Gospel is the way and the means by which He loves you — with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength, with His body and His blood, with His whole self, and with everything He is and has.  His Love for you is where His Life and Light begin for you.  He first loves you.  And by the light and warmth of His Love, you see the Light of the revelation of the Glory of God in His face, and you truly begin to live — in Him and with Him.  He loves you, and so you learn to know His Love, to know Him, to love Him, and to love your neighbor as this Lord loves you.

His Voice of the Gospel sounds forth in the darkness; it permeates and prevails over the darkness, which can neither comprehend nor overcome it.  He speaks, and there is Light, as surely as the same Word of God called forth the Light out of the darkness in the beginning of His Creation.

Now He speaks to you from heaven by His messengers on earth: “Here is your Savior. Your sins are forgiven. You shall not die, but live.”  And with this Word, He raises you from death to life.

Do not be afraid.  Do not retreat into the darkness of despair and death, from which your dear Lord Jesus sets you free.  Do not run away and hide from the bright Light of His Voice, no matter how scary it seems, but hear and believe what He preaches.  By Himself He has sworn to bless you and keep you, to give you Life and grant you perfect Peace and Rest.  As He has spoken, so is it done.

And as He speaks and sings so sweetly into your ears, so are you able to confess His Word and praise His Name, to rejoice, give thanks, and sing with your lips, all in the Light of His Gospel.

Come, then, let us sing unto the Lord and raise a joyful song to the Rock of our salvation.  For He who is our Life and Light, who loves us with a neverending Love, He has done great things for us.  Holy, holy, holy is the Name of this Lord Jesus, the Son of God and Mary’s Son, who delivers you from death and the grave and raises you to Life with God in body and soul, forever and ever.

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

The Lord Comes to Sanctify You for Eternal Life with God

She rises and runs in a hurry to the house of Zacharias in the hill country of Judah, in accordance with the Word that God has spoken to her.  She proceeds in faith on this way that He has set before her, because He has coupled His promise to her with Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy.  Therefore, St. Mary goes in faith to see this sign which the Lord has given her.  And she goes in love for her elderly relative, in order to serve and care for St. Elizabeth in those final months leading up to her labor and delivery.  For the older woman has secluded herself from her relatives, neighbors, and friends, and her husband, St. Zacharias, is not able to speak with her throughout those long nine months.  What a blessing, then, to welcome young St. Mary, even if there were nothing else to it!

But St. Elizabeth not only receives the Blessed Virgin into her home, she also rejoices in the Lord who comes to visit her within His Mother’s womb.  She also now responds in faith and love to the Word of the Lord, which is revealed to her through the confession of her unborn son, St. John.  In this way he begins to fulfill his office as the Forerunner, heralding the presence of the Christ.  The Lord had said that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and now, in utero, he leaps for joy at the sound of St. Mary’s voice, at the Advent (the coming) of her Son.  So it is that St. Elizabeth welcomes, not only St. Mary, but her Lord and her God.  And in this holy faith, these two women praise and magnify His holy Name, and they love each other well.

You are called to live and do likewise, according to the Word of the Lord that He speaks to you.  To trust His promises, to follow the path He sets before you, to receive and love your neighbor, and to rejoice in God your Savior.  Because, in truth, what the Lord has done for dear St. Mary, He has done not only for her, but for you and for all, for the life and salvation of the world.

In her womb is the One who is both God and Man, the divine, eternal Word by whom all things are made, now made flesh and living a truly human life.  Blessed is St. Mary among women, and blessed is the Fruit of her womb, Jesus!  For by His Incarnation — His becoming flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood — He has become like us, and has come to be with us, in order to save us.

All the more blessed is she and everyone else who believes the Word of God and keeps it in the confidence that He will do exactly as He says.  For He is faithful, and He does it.  To believe what He says, therefore, is already to have what He promises and to live by His grace in peace and joy.

His Word to you is challenging and difficult, as it was for Mary and Elizabeth.  He is faithful, no doubt, and He provides whatever is needed for this body and life, but in this fallen world of sin and death it is not easy.  His presence is hidden from your sight in His Church, as it was hidden in the womb of His Mother when He visited the house of Zacharias.  And His Word is spoken in, with, and under the Cross, which appears to be the very opposite of divine life and glory and salvation.

It is only by the Holy Spirit that you believe His Word and live according to it, not by your own logic or reasoning.  And the Holy Spirit is bestowed precisely by that Word of Christ, and through His flesh and blood, as these are administered to you by His servants within His Church on earth.

If this seems like a circular process — no understanding of the Word apart from the Spirit, and no Spirit apart from the Word — that is because it comes to you by grace from the Lord, from outside of yourself.  It’s not something you can enter by any intelligence or effort of your own.  You can’t force your way into it.  But it comes to you and enters you solely by the grace of God in Christ.

What is this but pure grace, that the Lord your God, your Savior and Redeemer, in mercy comes to visit you here in His House, “in the belly of His Mother,” as it were, the womb of His Church?

Thus, by His grace, by His Ministry of the Gospel, the Lord Jesus pours out His Holy Spirit upon you, and you are filled with the Spirit of God.  Thus are you sanctified by Christ Jesus in your body and soul, and so it is that you live in faith and love, and you care for one another in peace and joy.  For the Lord your God is with you, and the Holy Spirit strengthens you, in your vocation as a Christian, as a child of God, and in all of your going out and coming in, even forevermore.

The significance of all your days and your whole life is found in St. Mary’s Son, who still comes to be with you.  He truly is Immanuel, God with us.  He comes to redeem you from sin and death, and to sanctify you for eternal life with Himself and with His God and Father in the Holy Spirit.

It is for this very purpose that He receives His own Body of flesh and blood from the body of His Mother Mary — to save you in body and soul, first of all by sacrificing Himself upon the Cross, and now by sanctifying you with the fruits of His Cross, with His Gospel–Word and Sacraments.

Thus, your ears hear the Word of the Lord which He preaches to you, and your mouth then speaks in prayer and praise, confessing and singing His Word.  So, too, in a similar way, your whole body and life are raised up in faith and love.  Not as merely external tokens, nor as simply going through the motions, but as a living sacrifice of yourself with a heart of faith and with the mind of Christ.

It really is a life-changing visitation that He makes to you here.  Your heart and mind, your body, soul, and spirit are sanctified by His presence, because He comes to abide with you as the One who has atoned for your sins with His Blood.  He has reconciled you to God and grants you His peace.  Indeed, He is your Peace.  And He comes to be with you, in order to bring you to God the Father in and with Himself.  Thus to be and abide with God in Christ Jesus is your life and your salvation.

And as He comes to dwell with you here — no less so than He once tabernacled in the womb of St. Mary — so does He also go with you from this place to wherever you may go, throughout all your days on earth — just as He visited the house of Zacharias and Elizabeth within the body of His Mother.  That is how and why your body and life, even now, have meaning and purpose and value and significance — in Christ — each one of you within your own particular place.

The fact that your mortal flesh is still dying here on earth does not contradict or undo the truth of this Gospel.  It was no different for Mary and Elizabeth, and yet you see that God accomplished His purposes in them.  Likewise, again, the fact that your efforts are frequently disregarded, and that you may not seem to be doing any good, does not change who you are in Christ Jesus.

For God is your Savior, and He is with you.  What is more, He Himself has shared your mortality and suffering, and He has risen from the dead for you in His own human Body of flesh and blood.

It is the Lord your God who now humbles you, therefore.  Not that He should destroy you and cast you away, but in order to exalt you in Christ Jesus.  Which is to say that He kills you in your sinful self, in order to make you alive in Himself, in His holiness.  He thereby takes away all of your self-righteousness, in order to justify you with His own righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

He lets you go hungry, in order to feed you from His hand, so that you might thereby learn to live by faith in His Word.  He leaves you powerless, so that you might rely upon His Mighty Power.

His Law condemns you and puts you to death with its commands and prohibitions, with all of its threats and punishments.  But the Law is not His last Word.  For Christ Jesus has fulfilled the Law and completed it for you.  He has suffered all its punishments in your place.  But having met all of its demands in perfect faith and love, in holiness and righteousness, He has been vindicated of all its accusations and its condemnations, and has thereby established the Gospel for you and for all people.  This Gospel of His does not condemn you at all, but comforts you with forgiveness.  It does not kill you, it rather raises you up from death to life in His own crucified and risen Body.

Proceed in the certainty of that Word of the Gospel, in the peace and confidence of Christ, your Savior — and in fearless love for your neighbor within your own proper station — no matter how difficult or scary your path may be.  For the Lord is faithful, and His Word and promises are true.

It is by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus — the Seed of Abraham, the Word made Flesh, the Son of St. Mary — it is in His Body that all the words and promises of God are now fulfilled.

For He humbles Himself and takes on the form of a servant — not by His becoming true Man, in which there is no shame, since the incarnate Son is the perfect Image and Likeness of God — but by His voluntary bearing of sin and death in His Body of flesh and blood.  And in that humility, He is obedient to His God and Father, even unto death, for the salvation of sinners.  In perfect faith and holy love, He lays down His life on the Cross as the Sacrifice to end all sacrifice for sin.

And God His Father vindicates Him, raises Him up, and exalts Him at His Right Hand forever.

It is by His Cross and Resurrection, therefore, that you are now brought to genuine repentance — that you are humbled in contrition for your sins, yes, but then also raised up and exalted through faith in His free and full forgiveness of all your sins — unto the Life everlasting in body and soul.

Already in your Holy Baptism you share the Cross of Christ and His Resurrection from the dead.  And that Holy Sacrament signs and seals the entirety of your life — your body and soul, your heart, mind, and spirit — and all of your days and your deeds — in His Peace and Sabbath Rest.

So, too, the Lord continues to come, to visit you, to sanctify and save you, to give you life with Himself in both body and soul, in the Remembrance of His Mercy.

St. Mary sings of this “Remembrance” in her Magnificat — as St. Zacharias does in his song, the Benedictus, such as we considered this past Wednesday.  This “Remembrance” of God is the very thing that Zacharias means (in Hebrew).  It is a most appropriate name for a priest, because the liturgical work of the priests — the various sacrifices, the arrangement of the show bread in the Holy Place, the offering of incense, the priestly vestments, and the whole administration of the Covenant — it was all for the Lord’s remembrance of His people, in accordance with His Word.

So now, in the Sacrament of the Altar — which is the New Covenant of God in Christ — His servants speak and act according to the Lord’s Word and Institution “in remembrance” of Him.

In this way, and by this means of grace, in the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, your dear Lord Jesus Christ remembers you in mercy.  And with that good work and gracious gift of Christ, God the Father actively remembers Him as your Savior.  Not as an exercise of intellect, as though He might otherwise forget, but rather as the active affirmation of His Atonement, by which you are saved.

As He thus remembers you in love, He gives His Mercy into your hand, into your mouth, and into your body.  He gives to you His Body and His Blood, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, risen and ascended — now given and poured out for you.

Thereby He and all His benefits, and all that belongs to Him, are given to you and become yours.

Here and now within His House, with His own flesh and blood, He visits you and does great things for you.  He fills you up with these good things of His Gospel, which shall never be taken away from you, and they in turn shall bear good fruits in you, even now in faith and love, and at the last in the resurrection of your body unto the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Christ — just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

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

The Peace of Christ in the Ministry of His Gospel

The Peace of the Lord is with you in body and soul, in heart, mind, and spirit, because the Lord Jesus Christ is with you in this place, in this preaching, and at this Altar in His flesh and blood.

He is with you in peace, with mercy and compassion, because He has reconciled you to Himself and to God the Father by His voluntary suffering and death, by His self-sacrifice upon the Cross.

He is Himself the true and only God from all eternity, the almighty and eternal Son of the Father.  But for you and your salvation He has become true Man, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And in His own human body of flesh and blood like yours He has borne your sins away, and all your griefs and sorrows, to the Cross.  All of those burdens He has put to death and buried with Himself, to do away with them once and for all, and to leave them forever in the tomb.

Having thus atoned for the sins of the world with His own holy and precious blood, He has also risen from the dead in the very body with which He shares your humanity and in which He has carried all the crushing weight of your sin and death and condemnation.  Thus, in His Resurrection you also are set free, justified and righteous in the presence of God.  For by His death Christ has redeemed you for Himself, for everlasting Life with Him and with His Father in His Holy Spirit.

All of this He has done, whether you believe it or not.  And He is here for you with all of this grace and every blessing, whether you believe it or not — and whether you are here to receive it or not.

You have the testimony of His servants, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, St. Paul, and all the holy Apostles.  And you have heard again this evening the confession of St. Thomas, that this Jesus who was crucified is the Lord your God.  The confession of the entire Christian Church is that He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.  So shall He also raise you from the dead and give eternal life to you and to all who believe in Him, for His own Name’s sake.

Be at peace, therefore.  God and man are reconciled in the Body of Christ Jesus.  Death has been defeated, because sin is forgiven.  Your sin is forgiven.  The devil has no real power over you.  The grave shall not be able to contain you.  Christ has arisen, and you too shall rise and live in Him.

Do not be afraid.  Do not fret or fuss or fight.  Do not be faithless but believing and faithful.  Love and trust the Lord Jesus.  Abide in peace with your neighbor, as God the Father is at peace with you in His beloved Son.  And be gathered together with the disciples of the Lord, in order to be with Him where He is, also.  Do not rely upon yourself.  Do not attempt to go it alone; it is not good for you to be alone.  Do not lean upon your own understanding, nor trust your own wisdom, reason, experience, or strength.  Do not suppose that what you see and feel is truer than the Word of the Gospel that is preached to you.  And do not succumb to skeptical doubt or cynical despair.

Be where Christ is with you, here within His Church on earth.  And so living by faith in Him, live for your neighbor in love.  Live and abide with your fellow disciples in the Liturgy of the Gospel; and as you also belong to the Body of Christ, live for your neighbors in the world round about.  With the hands of Christ, reach out to those whom the Lord your God has set alongside of you.

Speak the Word that is spoken to you.  Confess the Word of the Gospel, which is Spirit, Truth, and Life.  You have nothing else worth saying.  You have nothing else to give but what you are given.

In considering yourself, you are right to conclude that you are not up to the task that you are given.  You are wounded in body and soul by your sins and pierced through the heart with guilt over what you have and have not done.  You are riddled with doubts and fears, surrounded by dangers and death on all sides, within and without.  Your strength wavers, and your body is wearing out; your mind falters, and your spirit faints.  Battered about by winds and waves of strife and temptation, you cannot help but fall and sink.  You are threatened with oblivion on every hand, at every turn.

What you can see and feel and experience is no help at all, and there does not seem to be any hope.  The good that you would do, you do not.  The evil that you should not do, you persist in pursuing.  Death stalks you like a nightmare; it pursues you day and night, and it will eventually catch you.  And so far as you have ever been able to tell, those who die remain dead and buried in the dirt.

Among your family and friends, in your own health and strength, and in all your thoughts, words, and actions, there is nothing at all that would ever be able to save you or anyone else from death.

So, how are you supposed to reach out in love to your neighbors, even to your enemies, when you have no strength with which to lift a finger or even to grasp at straws?  How shall you strengthen anyone else when you are so decrepit and fragile yourself?  How can you encourage your brothers and sisters in the faith when you are so discouraged and doubtful and down?  And how are you to think about your neighbor and his needs when you are so consumed by worries and suspicions?

See here, now, the Lord Jesus Christ reaches out His hand to lay hold of you and help you.  Yet, even this seems a dismal sort of rescue!  If you consider the men He calls and sends to serve His people — with nothing but the Gospel to do it! — you are sorely tempted to despise His gifts.  Cowardly Gideon?  Playboy Samson?  Peter the denier?  Paul the persecutor?  Doubting Thomas?

What are these men but mortal flesh and blood, wounded and weak, sinners no less than yourself?  They stumble and fall badly.  They are put to death and buried.  They have no power in the eyes of the world, no fame or fortune, and no glory but the Cross of Christ and His Word of the Gospel.

Look at these hands of mine.  They have no great strength.  They could not pull you from the fire, nor snatch you back from the precipice.  What good are they?  They have nothing more nor less than what the Lord has put into them.  And what is that?  The pouring of water in His Name?  The blessing of His Absolution?  A bit of bread and a little wine, here served in remembrance of Him?

The entire life of the Church is like this.  It is a minority in the world, make no mistake about it.  Huddled together as a tiny band against the masses, pastors and people alike are frail and always under the weight of more burdens than resources.  If they are not being put to death, they are dying nonetheless.  There’s always far more to be done than time, money, or people to accomplish it.

So it is hardly surprising that you are often tempted to become cynical and sarcastic, skeptical and incredulous.  You want something to believe in, something tangible and solid, something sure and certain, something you can see and feel and touch and handle and rely on with confidence.

Dear child of God, be at peace.  The Lord is with you.  He is here for you.  These poor hands of mine are His own hands for your benefit.  Though they are wounded and scarred in more ways than one — as you and yours are wounded and scarred — know that He has been wounded for your transgressions and pierced for your iniquities, in order that you should be healed by His scars.

Your doubts and fears are faithless unbelief, for which you are called to repentance.  But for all of that, He is and remains always faithful, and by His grace you are forgiven.  Your demands are selfish and impertinent, but He does not hold them against you; He is merciful and comes to serve you with care.  He puts Himself at your disposal.  He places Himself into your hands.  He entrusts Himself to you — as He who rules the cosmic deep entrusted Himself to the arms of His Mother.

Witness His love for you.  His humility is not weakness but the exercise of His strength for your salvation.  His Cross and Passion, suffering and death, are not His defeat but His victory on your behalf.  His Body and Blood are not impotent but salutary gifts and life-giving benefits for you.

His hands and side and feet are pierced and wounded; they bear the marks of His scourging, His crucifixion, His execution, the marks of the nails and the spear.  But Christ the Crucified, the One who was dead and buried, He has risen from the dead, and with compassion He gives life to you.

There is no human logic here, but divine Wisdom.  His Cross is foolishness and weakness in the eyes of the world and in the perception of your flesh, but it is the power of God unto salvation.  His Cross has not defeated Him, but it has conquered death and crushed the devil’s head.  And it is this Cross that saves you and gives you everlasting Life through the forgiveness of your sins.

From the Sacrifice of His Cross, from His crucified and risen Body, the Lord Jesus breathes His life-giving Holy Spirit into your body and soul with His Word of Absolution.  You are forgiven.  Thus do you live, even though you die.  For those who live and believe in Christ will never die.

From His pierced and wounded side is delivered His Eve, His glorious Bride, the Holy Church.  You belong to her, and so to Him, not by your own wisdom, reason, or strength, not by any choice or decision of your own, but solely by His grace.  He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you with His Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins.  He removes your guilt and shame and replaces your doubts and fears with His peace.  He heals you of unbelief and raises you up in holy faith.

His wounded hands pour out His Blood of the New Testament, which permeates the waters of your Holy Baptism and cleanses you, even as it now also continues to fill and overflow the Chalice of His Holy Communion, poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins.

So do His wounded hands extend to serve you and reach out to feed you with His Body, given for you, that you should remain a member of His Body.  So hide yourself in Him, here at His Altar.

Reach here your hand.  Take and eat.  Drink from His Cup, the New Testament in His Blood.  Open your mouth and be fed from His wounds.  Do not be unbelieving but believing.  And be at peace.  The Lord is with you, and His Peace is with you always.  The One who died for you has risen, so you also shall live, because He forgives your trespasses and remembers your sins no more.

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

The Lord Remembers His Oath and His Covenant Forever

With the fulfillment of God’s Word to Zacharias, just as the Angel Gabriel had spoken, that Word of the Lord reopens the old man’s mouth and lips, and releases his tongue, so that he now praises God and prophecies.  No longer doubting and questioning the promise, Zacharias confesses what God has spoken.  His beautiful hymn, the Benedictus, confesses the entirety of the Old Testament in proclamation of the New Testament now dawning with the nativity of his little son, St. John.

The arrival of this boy, miraculously conceived and born to his old and formerly barren mother, St. Elizabeth, and now circumcised on this eighth day — in the presence of the little Lord Jesus, still hidden within the womb of His own Mother, St. Mary, in her third month of pregnancy — these events declare that salvation is at hand.  Here there is a restoration and fulfillment of creation, and a restoration and renewal of the true priesthood of faith and life in the presence of God.

It so happens that today, the 19th of December, is also the commemoration of Adam & Eve, which recalls the goodness of God’s original creation — for God saw all that He had made by His Word, and behold, it was very good.  Thinking of Adam & Eve recalls the life of man there in the Garden before the fall into sin.  That was a priestly life, not as it would necessarily become in sacrifices for sin, but as the man and woman knew the Word and will of God written on their hearts and had true communion with the Holy Trinity, with the Father in His Son and by His Holy Spirit.

Adam & Eve in the Garden lived in the presence of God, they walked with Him as friends.  Their work was not a burden or a curse, but a joy and a delight.  Their whole life was a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God, even as they ruled His good creation in His Name and on His behalf.

Everything was beautiful.  Everything was very good.  For God created everything beautifully, out of nothing, solely by the power of His Word.  His Word and Spirit ordered all things and sustained all things.  And His Word continues to give and sustain life, even now in the face of sin and death.

But sin and death there are now.  For as the Word of God gives life, so does disobedience to His Word bring death.  Not simply as a punishment, but as the inevitable consequence of turning your heart and mind, your body and life away from God, away from His living and life-giving Word.

The disobedience of Adam & Eve brought death, not only to the two of them and all their children, but to all of creation.  The whole world is subject to the consequences and punishment of man’s sin.  The grass withers and the flower fades, and the heavens and earth all perish and pass away, not only in similarity to the frailty and mortality of all people, but on account of man’s disregard and rejection of God’s Word.  When the king and the queen of the first creation fell from grace, instead of exercising their dominion in faith and love, everything was subject to death and decay.

But mortal frailty and the death of this body and life on earth are not the worst consequences of disobedience.  It is far, far worse that sin divides and separates man from God.  Sin replaces the friendship of faith with enmity, with doubt and fear and guilt and shame.

So it was that Adam & Eve tried to hide from the Lord, who had been their Friend; and then they were driven out of the Garden, barred from the Tree of Life, lest they eat from it in their sin and so remain in permanent enmity with God.

In responding to their sin, the Lord sought to bring about, not eternal separation of God and man, but repentance and a restoration of faith and life in communion with Himself.  Hence, He did not simply drive Adam & Eve from the Garden, but He also spoke His beautiful promise of the Gospel, the Seed of the Woman who would crush the serpent’s head and redeem all the children of man.

The preaching of that promise from fathers to sons, from the holy Prophets to the people of God down through the ages, calls the children of Adam & Eve back into fellowship with God in Christ Jesus.  For so does the Spirit call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify the Bride of Christ, His Church.

Zacharias sings about that preaching of the promise in his Benedictus, recalling especially two of the high points in the history of salvation, namely, Father Abraham and King David.  He confesses God’s covenant with Abraham and the fulfillment of all God’s promises to the House of David.

With Abraham & Sarah, whose story is echoed in that of Zacharias & Elizabeth, God established His covenant, which He sealed by the sacramental sign of circumcision.  It is no surprise that Zacharias should be thinking of God’s covenant with Abraham on that eighth day when his own son, John, was circumcised with the sign of that covenant in accordance with the Word of God.

And just as John received his name on that same day, the name that God had given from heaven, so had Abraham received a new name from the Lord along with the covenant of circumcision.  For he would become the father of many nations, a father of faith in the promised Seed, Christ Jesus — in striking contrast to the legacy of death that all of us have received from our father Adam.

God called Abraham away from a foreign land of pagan idolatry, and He promised him that Seed by whom he and his whole family and all the nations would be blessed.  With that Word and by that promise, the Lord was with Abraham in divine grace and steadfast loving-kindness.  Indeed, He committed Himself to Abraham, and bound Himself to Abraham, by the swearing of an oath.  By His own Self He swore that He would be and abide with Abraham and with his Seed forever.

In the son that He gave to Abraham & Sarah in their old age, and so now also in the son who is born to Zacharias & Elizabeth, you see what that covenant and oath of God accomplish.  It is the renewing of creation.  From these old men and barren women, as good as dead, the Scripture says, God brings forth new life.  The conception of any child is always a miraculous work of God.  But here, especially, the Lord God shows that He remains the Creator, the Author and Giver of Life.

It is by His grace that He thus speaks and gives life by His Word.  And so it is also by His grace that He later raised up David, the shepherd boy, the youngest of Jesse’s sons, to become the king of His people Israel, that he should reign in peace over the good land that God the Lord had given to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where He caused His Name and His Glory to dwell.

Of special note today, King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  And he ordered the priesthood, he arranged its divisions and made provisions for it, that the priesthood should be carried out in accordance with the Word and promises of God.  He also made plans for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, the House of God, which David would not be permitted to build, but his son, Solomon, would establish and dedicate to the glory of God in anticipation of the Christ.

Solomon showed such promise and potential at first, such wisdom in the fear of the Lord, and such faith like his father David.  But Solomon, for all his greatness, was led astray by foreign gods.  Of course, that was not only the story of Solomon, but is the way it so often goes with all of God’s people in this body and life, yourself included.  As often as the Lord calls you to Himself and showers you with His good gifts of body and soul, there remains the temptation and the turning of your heart away from Him to the false gods of this world, to the idols of your own desires.

So, too, the children of Israel forgot God’s Word and failed to call upon His Name in faith.  They forgot His holy covenant.  They did not trust His promises but sought to make life for themselves.

So it was that God sent them into captivity.  As they had once been slaves in Egypt under Pharaoh, so were they held captive in Babylon for seventy years.  The City of Jerusalem and Solomon’s magnificent Temple were left in ruins.  The people were separated from the glory of God.  It was the casting out of the Garden all over again, as the Lord disciplined His children unto repentance.

That is the situation concerning which Isaiah wrote, even before it unfolded.  He preached the warning of God.  He preached the threats and punishments of the Law and the terrible wrath of God.  But so did the Prophet Isaiah also write of God’s mercy and compassion, and of the comfort that God the Lord would bestow upon His people through the forgiveness of their sins.  And all of that beautiful Gospel would be voiced by the Forerunner, the son of Zacharias & Elizabeth.

The Lord remembers His covenant and His oath to Abraham and to his Seed forever.  Indeed, that is not only what Zacharias sings in the Benedictus, but it is what his name and his wife’s name confess.  For “Zacharias” means that God remembers, and “Elizabeth” means that God is my oath.  And notwithstanding their own doubts and fears, their own forgetfulness, and all the frailties of their mortal flesh, their names are true and right.  God is faithful.  He remembers and He acts.  As He has promised, as He has sworn, so does He fulfill and accomplish in His own flesh and blood.  In the Seed of the Woman.  In the Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In the true Son of David.

With the nativity of St. John, the Lord announces and proclaims the coming of salvation.  For this child is the Forerunner of the Lord who comes in the flesh to save His people from sin and death.

To that end, St. John will preach a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, forgiveness in which salvation is known and received and experienced in peace and life with God.  That is what your Baptism is all about, that is what it’s for.  That is what the whole Gospel preaches, as the preaching and baptism of St. John, and of the whole Church, point to the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who takes upon Himself and takes away forever the sins of the entire world.

So it is that Zacharias sings more about the unborn Lord Jesus than he does about his own newly born son, St. John.  He confesses what God is doing in the Son of St. Mary.  He sings of the Christ, still hidden in the womb, as though the redemption of His Cross had already been accomplished, and as though everything were already completed.  No longer are there any doubts or questions on his lips.  Now he sings with the confidence and certainty of faith in the Word and promises of God.

Those promises of God — to Adam & Eve, to Abraham, to David, and to you — truly are fulfilled in Christ Jesus, who atones for the sins of the world, treads death beneath His feet, crushes the head of the devil, and opens up the Kingdom of God to all who believe and are baptized into Him.  For He is the Lamb of God, who not only sacrifices Himself for you and all upon the Cross, but also serves and feeds you with His flesh and blood.  And He is your merciful and great High Priest, who reconciles you and all people to God the Father in heaven.  He redeems and restores all of creation and makes all things new in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.

This Lord Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd-King who excels even His father David.  He gathers His lambs and sheep from all the nations of the world, and He cares for them as His beloved flock.  By His Cross and Resurrection, and by His Ministry of the Gospel, He brings them back to God.

His Baptism is the new and better circumcision, made without hands, which bestows and seals the covenant of God with all the children of man, and by which He names you with His own Name.  He cleanses you with His own precious Blood; He covers you with Himself, so that you are kept safe from sin and death; and He clothes you with His own beautiful righteousness and holiness.

His Body, crucified and risen from the dead, is the Temple of God, wherein the Lord your God abides with you in peace, and you abide with God in holy faith and holy love.  You are not cast out of the Garden or driven away from the presence of God, because this Lord Jesus is Immanuel, in whom God has drawn near to you.  In Him you are restored to Paradise, and you are given to eat from His Tree of Life, His Holy Cross, in the New Covenant of His Body and His Blood.  So does He remember you in tender mercy and compassion, and so does He give to you His great salvation.

Thus do you live and love in the presence of God, without fear, in the holiness and righteousness of faith in Christ Jesus.  You serve the Lord your God, and you sing praises to Him with Zacharias and all the saints, because the glory of God shines upon you in the Gospel of His beloved Son.  And all that He has promised to you by His Word, He remembers, and He does, forever and ever.

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

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

“Are you coming or not?”  How often have you posed that question to your children, or to your parents, your family or friends, as you wait for them by the door, wondering what’s going on and why it’s taking so long?  Some people are more patient than others, and some people are slower than others, but waiting is not especially easy for anyone.  And the greater the urgency, the harder it is to wait.  Is it going to be too late?  Or barely in the nick of time?

You know what it’s like.  Waiting for the phone to ring.  Waiting for some news.  Waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Waiting for the help you need.  Waiting for everything your life depends upon.  Whether anticipating the good or dreading the bad, the waiting often is the hardest part.

Now St. John is waiting — waiting for the Expected One to come and makes things right, to clean house, to restore Israel and Judah in holiness and righteousness, to establish the Kingdom of God.

He has preached, prepared for, and pointed to the Christ who was promised, and he has seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears the testimony given by the Father and the Holy Spirit at the Baptism of Jesus.  This is the One, the Lord’s Anointed, the Mightier-Man-than-John, who will redeem and save His people from their sins, from death, and from their enemies round about; who ransoms captive Israel from the bondage and burdens of foreign powers and wicked rulers.

But where is St. John while he waits and wonders?  And what is to become of him?  You know.  He’s shackled and chained in Herod’s dungeon, imprisoned because of his faithful preaching of repentance; and before too long he will be martyred for his righteousness, beheaded for his mouth.

Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t have mixed emotions and conflicting thoughts in that situation, and do not imagine that St. John the Baptist was immune to the trials and tribulations that he faced.  He was a man of mortal flesh and blood like yourself, a sinful son of Adam.  And yet, being also a man of God, a son of Abraham by faith, there was a battle within him between the old man and the new, that strange and dreadful strife between life and death, contending for his heart and mind, his body, soul, and spirit.  That is the war that is waged in the flesh of each and every Christian in this life on earth, between faith and patience in the Lord and fear and doubt in the face of death.

St. John lives by faith in the Word of God.  Being himself the Voice of the Lord in the wilderness, he knows the importance of that sound for his own ears.  As he must preach, so must he listen.  The promises of God echo in his ears, in his mind and heart.  So many promises, promises.  The Lord will redeem His people, release them from captivity, and rescue them from every evil!  And now, from his cell, St. John is hearing reports of the Lord’s mercy to a growing number of people, far and near.  Most recently, the centurion’s servant has been healed of a life-threatening illness, solely by the power of Jesus’ Word; and the widow’s son at Nain has been raised up from the dead by the touch of Jesus’ hand and by the speaking of His Word.  But where, then, is any help for St. John?

You know how hard it is — even though you know better, and you want to do better — you know how hard it is to rejoice in the blessings and benefits of others, while you are left waiting for help, languishing in hurt that does not go away, and aching with an emptiness that still goes unfilled.

St. John does not despair, but he wrestles with the Word and promises of God, and thus defends himself against the assaults and accusations of the devil.  He lives by faith, and what that means, specifically, is that he perseveres in hope, and he resists the temptations of the devil and his flesh, by doing the two things that he can do, which the Lord has called him to do.  He keeps preaching, even if only to Herod and his court (as we may discern from St. Mark); and he prays to the Lord.

That second thing is what St. John does today.  He prays for a Word from his dear Lord Jesus.  And such a Word is what he receives in response to his prayer, via those whom the Lord sends to him.

That Word is the key that opens St. John’s prison, even though he remains there for the rest of his life on earth.  His circumstances do not improve; they go from bad to worse.  Out of the frying pan, into the fire, or, rather, from his shackles and chains to the chopping block.  Even so, the Word of Jesus sets him free by way of faith in the promise of His coming, the promise of His Advent.

As to how the Lord Jesus comes, it is by the way of His Cross, which is of course the very thing that His Baptism by St. John in the Jordan River has signified and set into motion.  He comes to suffer and die, and thereby to enter into the Glory of His Kingdom for us men and our salvation.

Consequently for St. John, as the Forerunner of the Lord, his predicament in prison is neither a coincidence nor a contradiction of his mission and his ministry.  It is precisely to the point.  He goes before the face of the Lord to prepare His way, not only with his preaching of repentance, but also in his suffering and death.  Not only with his baptizing, but now also in what that baptizing indicates and points to, namely, the death of the old man, and the rising of the New Man by faith.

St. John experiences the Cross of repentance in himself, in his own body and life, in anticipation of the Cross of Christ Jesus, the Savior.  It is for the Cross that the Lord comes in the flesh, and it is by His Cross that He fulfills His promises, each and every one of them, without fail.  It is by the Cross that He redeems His people and saves them from their sins; by His Cross that He delivers them from evil, heals them of all sicknesses, raises them from death, and gives to them eternal life.

His Cross is the key that releases His people from bondage.  And His Resurrection from the dead is the evidence, the guarantee, and the down payment on His Word and promises to you and to all.

For St. John the Baptist, both the Cross and the Resurrection were yet to come, and he did not live to see their fulfillment, although he testified of those events and pointed to them by his preaching and baptism of repentance.  For you they have already happened, but you cannot see the outcome with your eyes.  You feel and experience the Cross, but you wait for the Resurrection of your body.

In mortal frailty you wait, as St. John also waited, for the coming of the Lord.

You also are imprisoned and stuck, in your own way.  To be sure, if you’ve never been a prisoner behind bars, then let us not suppose that you know what that is like, as though it were all the same.  Even so, you are trapped in a prison of sorts, caged in by sin and death all around you, and within your fallen flesh.  Boxed in by walls of accusation, of guilt and shame, of fear and doubt, of anger and despair, so it seems that, no matter which way you turn, there is no way out, and no escape.  Or maybe the bars on your doors and windows are those of illness and chronic pain, of economic hardship, or of seemingly endless demands upon your time, energy, and limited resources.

In response to all of this, the Lord Jesus sends His Word of the Gospel to you in mercy and love.  He sends His messengers to preach, and by their mouth He speaks to you. He declares Himself, the things that He has said and done, and the fact of His Cross and Resurrection from the dead.

All of which may seem like a tease, and not very practical or helpful.  That is the temptation that haunts you, isn’t it?  To question all the promises, because they do not appear to be coming true.  To grow weary of the Cross and suffering, because the Resurrection is nowhere to be found.

But what did you expect?  And what did you come out to see and hear?  What are you looking for?

Do not be anxious or despair, and do not take offense at Christ, the Crucified One; do not stumble and fall at His Word of the Cross.  Rather, hope in His mercy, and wait patiently upon His coming.  Pray, praise, and give thanks.  And for as long as the Lord enables you, keep on doing whatever He has given you to do, even if it feels like you’re spinning your wheels and not doing any good.  Not as though to save yourself by your hard work, but in the confidence of His Resurrection.

This way of living is true Wisdom.  It does seem foolish to the world, but it is vindicated in Christ.

Your King, the Lord Himself, is here with you in the flesh.  He is in your midst with His grace, mercy, and peace, even in the midst of sin and death and every evil round about you in this fallen and perishing world.  He comes to you in, with, and under the Cross, by which He has borne your griefs and carried all your sorrows, and by which He has broken the bondage of your oppressor with the shedding of His holy and precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death.

You know that He suffered and died once for all, in order to end the tyranny of sin, death, the devil, and hell.  And as He has gone to the Cross for you and passed through death into life, so has He also opened up the way for you to follow after Him.  As He was baptized with the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins — as He was baptized into death and the grave, unto the resurrection and the life everlasting — so are you raised up and rescued by your Baptism into Him.

Among those born of women, there is no one greater than St. John the Baptist.  But that generation, from Adam & Eve to all their children, succumbs to death and returns to the dust, no matter how great it may be for but a little while.  Which is why the real greatness of this generation is found, not in kings and princes with their fancy clothing and royal palaces, but in a rough and wild man like John, who preaches repentance, points beyond himself to Christ, and finally dies in prison.

And then this greatness gives way altogether to the Mightier One, who follows after John, and who brings about the new birth.  So that you and all who are born again of God, of water, Word, and Spirit, are born into the Kingdom of heaven — never to die again, but to live forever with Christ.

So sure and certain is His salvation for you, that His Word of the Gospel actually opens your deaf ears to hear, and opens your blind eyes to see, and gives you life in the place of death, even now.

As it is by way of His Cross, however, it truly is beyond all human comprehension.  That is to say, you cannot understand it or believe it, except by this Word that He preaches.  What is more, you cannot accomplish or achieve it, but only receive it.  The Lord does it for you, in a way that seems scandalous and makes no sense.  For it is by the Cross that He opens up the Resurrection.  It is by death that He enters into life.  That very dying and rising of Christ is the new birth of repentance.

Which is why there is a time to weep and mourn, and there is a time to rejoice and celebrate.  Not according to the expectations of the world, with its fast-fleeting hopes and dreams, investments and strategies, but according to the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus.  Hence, there is a time to fast, and a time to feast; not according to the whims of the world, but according to the Word of the Lord, the Law and the Gospel.  The fasting fosters a hunger for the feasting of faith upon His gifts.  It is not simply a matter of balance or a careful diet, but of faith in what the Lord has spoken.

The Lord thus brings you to repentance, both by the preaching and by the suffering of the Cross, in order to strengthen your faith in Him instead of in this fallen world.  That you might trust, not in mortal princes, but in the Crucified and Risen Christ who comes in peace to ransom you from sin, from death, and from every evil; who comes to set you free from your prisons of all kinds.

Your suffering, therefore, within and without, is no indication of the Lord’s disfavor, no more so than St. John’s imprisonment or the Lord’s own Crucifixion.  To be sure, He disciplines you and corrects you, wherever your thoughts, words, and actions go astray from His Word.  But He does so in love for you, a Father for His children, in order to give you life instead of death.  For in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, the Lord rejoices over you in love and with great joy.

Indeed, it is only in view of His Resurrection that true wisdom is discerned, in contrast to the futile striving of the world, which can only ever end in death.  The Truth is that, in raising Christ Jesus from death and the grave in His glorified Body of flesh and blood, God the Father has raised you up, as well, and set you free from sin and death, and provided for all your needs of body and soul.

In vindicating Jesus, the Father has verified and established the Wisdom of the Cross, by which He now bears children out of death into life and replaces their shame with praise.  As you are thus born into the Kingdom of God by your Baptism into Christ, so does He come to eat and drink with you here, and to feed you with Himself, with the fruits of His Sacrifice, His Body given and His Blood poured out, in this great Feast of Rejoicing before Him.  Here is the Surety of His promise, which is indeed for you.  And so shall the Peace of the Lord guard and keep your heart and mind, your body and soul, always in Christ Jesus, unto the Resurrection and the life everlasting.

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

Let It Be According to the Word-Made-Flesh

The Lord now comes to St. Mary by and with and through the Word of His messenger, Gabriel, the same Archangel who previously brought the announcement to St. Zacharias that his barren old wife, Elizabeth, would conceive and bear a son, who would go before the face of the Lord.  With this Word to St. Mary, it is more than a message conveyed, and more then a messenger promised. It is the Lord Himself who is spoken into the Blessed Virgin’s ears, and so also into her womb.

The Archangel Gabriel greets her with a standard liturgical greeting, “The Lord be with you,” as you are accustomed to hearing in the Liturgy week after week.  It is far more than politeness or wishful thinking.  It is indeed a Word of grace that declares to her the divine Truth of the matter.  The Lord is with her, and not for her benefit only, but for the sake of the salvation of the world.

It is the One who is the Word of God from all eternity who is here conceived as true Man in her womb, flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.  Who He is, and what He has come to do, is made known in the Name that is given and revealed for the Son that St. Mary shall bear in due time.  His Name shall be called “Jesus,” because He is Yahweh who comes to save His people from their sins.

He does not come to take away all your problems in this world.  He does not come to win elections or establish an earthly kingdom.  He does not fill up your coffers with gold or silver.  He does not prevent you from ever getting sick and tired, nor make your life more interesting.  He does not free you from the needs of the body, nor from the difficulties and blessings of your relationships.

He comes to save you from your sins, to make Atonement for you and forgive you, to raise you up from death to eternal life, and to seat you with Himself in the presence of His God and Father.

He comes to do the very thing that you have asked of Him in the evening hymn tonight.  He comes to abide with you, not only with His Word — though He does so by His Word — but also with His own Body of human flesh and blood.  He comes to abide with you as He did with St. Mary.

He does it by His Word and Holy Spirit, as He has done all things from the beginning of creation by His Word and Holy Spirit.  He speaks, and it is so.  Such is the power of God.  And such is the grace of God, who does all things in holy love, solely out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy.

So it is by grace alone that He comes to St. Mary, in order to do great and marvelous things for her, and to exercise His mighty deeds for the redemption of all people and the perfection of creation.  He does it from the inside-out, by His own Incarnation, His own becoming flesh, becoming a part of His own creation.  By His conception and birth of the Blessed Virgin, God and Man are united in His Person, so that He might be the Savior of mankind, all of Adam’s sons and daughters.  To that end, He receives a body for Himself, that He might sacrifice His Body and shed His Blood.

Now, He comes to St. Mary and abides with her in a way that is surely unique and singular in the entire history of the world.  No one else will ever conceive and bear the Son of God.  No other woman is given the profound privilege and responsibility of becoming the Mother of God.

Even so, that which He does with her alone, He does for the benefit and salvation of everyone else.  He takes her flesh and blood to be His own, in order to become a human being like yourself, like you in every way, save only without any sins of His own.  But He becomes like you in order to bear all your sins in His Body to the Cross, and so that you might be united to Him in body and soul, and become like Him by grace through faith in His Gospel, and enter with Him into heaven.

Already in these events at hand, in the Annunciation to St. Mary, and in her visit to St. Elizabeth, there is a significant shift in the way that God is with His people and deals with them.  Recall that Gabriel appeared to Zacharias in the Temple, in the Holy Place, as that man of God was going about his priestly duties.  It was an affirmation of all that God had spoken and established through Moses in the Old Testament, the Temple, the Priesthood, the Sacrifices, and the Incense Offering.

But in this case, the Angel Gabriel appears to Mary, this young virgin girl, likely a young teen, in Nazareth of all places.  There are no crowds of people awaiting her outside, wondering what news she may have.  Everything that God has ever promised is beginning to find its fulfillment in the Word that is spoken to her, but no one even knows or realizes it, nor could anyone have known it by looking at her.  She goes quickly and quietly to visit Elizabeth, to whom the angel has directed her in confirmation of God’s Word and promise.  And by the Word and Spirit of God, Elizabeth does know and believe what is going on.  But it is otherwise a great Mystery, hidden in obscurity.

What is happening in all of these events is a transition from the Old Testament to the New, from the Liturgy of the Old Testament to the new Liturgy that belongs to the Word and Works and Flesh of Christ Jesus, the Fruit of St. Mary’s womb.  In bearing Him within her body, she has become a new Tabernacle, a new Ark of the Covenant.  She is the vessel and the vehicle by which God the Lord, Yahweh Sabaoth, comes to dwell in the midst of His people with grace, mercy, and peace.

When Gabriel declares to St. Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the Power of the Most High shall overshadow you,” he is using the language of the Old Testament for the Cloud of God’s Glory, the tangible and visible presence of God with His people, which came upon the Tabernacle and filled the Holy of Holies.  Now the Lord overshadows St. Mary and fills her womb.

Here is something brand new.  Henceforth the Lord will abide among His people in the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And as He entered into His own Creation by the way and means of her body, so does He now continue to abide on earth within His holy Christian Church by the ways and means of His Gospel Ministry, by the preaching of His Word and in His Holy Sacraments.  It is within His Body and Bride, the Church, that the Glory of the Lord resides here with you and all His people, unto life and salvation with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in heaven; and that you abide with Him.

But all of this Glory of God in Christ Jesus is hidden in humility and weakness.  It is altogether different than the ways of the world and the ways of your own flesh, which are always seeking after fame and fortune and striving to look good.  The Body and Bride of Christ are not that way in this life on earth.  For here the Church abides with her Lord under the Cross in the midst of sin and death, her true glory hidden from the eyes of men, just as Christ Jesus, the almighty and eternal Son of God, and St. John the Baptist were hidden from sight in the wombs of their Mothers.

No one looking at these two women could ever know or even guess what is going on with them or what the Boys they bear will be.  Such Mysteries are revealed and believed only by the Word and Spirit of the Lord, in ways that no one could ever imagine.  So it is for the Church on earth.  And so it is for you who live by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, St. Mary’s Son.

Consider those things that Gabriel speaks concerning this Lord Jesus, that He will be the Son of the Most High, that He will receive the Throne of His father David, that He will reign over the House of Jacob, and that His Kingdom will have no end.  Such great promises are as remarkable in their own right as the announcement that the Virgin will conceive and bear a Son.  First of all because the royal reign of David and his sons is long gone.  Herod, a half-Jew, sits on the throne of Israel, but he is puppet of Rome who serves at the whim of Caesar.

How, then, shall this Son of David, Jesus Christ, ascend the throne of His father David, and how shall He reign over His Kingdom forever?  What sort of throne and kingdom shall that even be?  Well, His Kingdom is not of this world, that is for sure.  For He reigns in divine Glory from the Throne of His Cross, and His Kingdom is hidden here on earth in the Church of His Holy Gospel.  Although He has been crucified, dead, and buried, He lives and reigns forever in His Resurrection from the dead — which neither the world nor your flesh can see or feel or experience in this life.  It is known and believed only by the revelation of the Word of God, and only by His Holy Spirit.

In all of these things, St. Mary is not only a wonderful vessel of God’s grace, becoming the Mother of God the Son, but she is also a beautiful Icon of the Church and a marvelous example of faith.  For when she hears and receives the Word of the Lord from Gabriel, she believes it, she trusts it. She embraces it in faith, and she prays that it would be true for her as God the Lord has spoken.  “Let it be to me according to Thy Word,” she says. “Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Her initial question sounds on the surface a bit like the question of Zacharias, but it is altogether different.  Zacharias responded to Gabriel, “How will I know that what you have said is true?  And how will I know for certain that it will happen?”  That is a question of doubt.  But Mary’s question is a question of faith, which seeks only the knowledge of the Word of God.  “How will this be?”  She already confesses that it will be.  She asks only for guidance as to how it will come about.

Now, if you think about the answer that Gabriel gives her, that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and that the Power of the Most High will overshadow her, a skeptical person might say, “Well, he hasn’t really answered the question!”  But Mary simply says, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord.”

The righteousness and holiness of God are not something you perform and accomplish for yourself, but which you receive and suffer.  It is only when His Word has had its way with you, that you begin to live by faith and in love according to it.  So it is with St. Mary.  She does not achieve this work of God.  She first of all receives it and believes it, and then she submits to live accordingly.

So it is that you are called to live by faith in the Word that God the Lord declares to you.  For He is with you in the Liturgy of His Word and Sacrament, even as the Son and Holy Spirit ever live to pray and intercede for you before the Father in heaven.  The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary’s Son, speaks to you in the reading and preaching of the Holy Scriptures.  He feeds you with His Body and Blood in the Holy Communion.  And He blesses you with His own Name, the very Name of God, as in your Holy Baptism, so also in His Word of Holy Absolution.

The Lord is with you in these Means of Grace, in the Ministry of His Gospel.  Although it is true that none of you will become the Mother of God, none of you will conceive and bear the Son of God in your womb, yet, in your Baptism you have been conceived and born again of water, Word, and Spirit, and united with Christ Jesus in body and soul.  In Holy Absolution He says to you, as to St. Mary, “Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God.”  He is not here to punish but to save, to do great things for you, to forgive you all your sins, and to reign over you in love forever.

In the Holy Communion He gives you to eat and to drink His own Body and His Blood.  And is this not a sacred intimacy exceeding even that of holy marriage or the bearing of a child?  For in this case the Lord, God Himself, joins Himself to you in human flesh and blood like your own.  He feeds you with Himself, that He should abide in you, and you in Him, as one flesh and blood.

Bear that in mind, and ponder that in your heart, as you go from the Lord’s House, week after week throughout the year, to your home and family, to your job or classroom, and to all your callings and stations in life, whatever they may be.  The Lord is with you.  He is here with you in His Church by the Ministry of His Word and Holy Spirit, and so does He also go with you from this place to all those places where He has positioned you on earth, in all those relationships He has given you.

Live, therefore, according to His Word.  Pray and confess what He has spoken to you, that you are His beloved, that He loves you dearly, that He saves you by His grace, that His Kingdom has no end, and that you belong to His Kingdom by your Baptism into Christ Jesus, which shall not be taken from you.  Pray and confess that Word of the Lord in the face of sin and death, in the face of doubt and fear, and in the face of all the devil’s temptations.

Let is be for you, at all times and in all places, according to the Word and promises of God in Christ Jesus.  Blessed are you who believe His Word, for there will surely be a fulfillment of all that God has spoken to you.  All of His promises are “Yes” and “Amen” in Jesus, your Savior.

Rejoice and be glad in His favor.  The Lord is with you.  And so shall He be unto life everlasting.

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