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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Liturgy and Life

For those who asked, and for anyone else who may be interested, here are the audio-video recordings of the presentation I gave this past month at Calvary Lutheran Church in Wray, Colorado, on the Liturgy and Life. Thanks to my friend and college, Rev. Timothy Davis, and to the members of Calvary, for their gracious hospitality and for the opportunity to consider the life that is ours together in Christ, in the Liturgy of His Gospel, as fellow members of His Church.

The Liturgy and Life: Part One of Four



The Liturgy and Life: Part Two of Four



The Liturgy and Life: Part Three of Four



The Liturgy and Life: Part Four of Four

No More Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places

The Season of Lent, from the earliest days of the Church, has always been a time — not only for repentance — but especially for catechesis in the Christian faith and life, either in preparation for Holy Baptism or in the exercise of the ongoing significance and discipline of Holy Baptism.

To this day, for you, as well, Lent recalls you to the active remembrance of your Baptism into Christ, to the drowning and death of your old Adam through daily contrition and repentance, and to the rising and new life that are yours in the New Man, Christ Jesus, by faith in His Word of the Gospel, His daily forgiveness of your sins.   For you know that you are crucified, dead, and buried with Christ Jesus by your Baptism into His death, that you might also rise and live with Him.

As surely as you have inherited the fall into sin with all its curse and consequences from Adam and Eve, so that you are subject to death and return to the dust of the ground, so much the more do you inherit by grace the Sonship of Christ Jesus, His Spirit and His Name, His Victory over Satan, sin, and death, and His Life with God the Father, by the new birth of water with His Word and Holy Spirit.  As a child of Adam you are born to die, but in Christ Jesus you are a brand new creation.

Conversely, as Lent is training for the life that is yours in Christ Jesus by means of Holy Baptism, so does His Baptism send Jesus into a Lenten wilderness as the One who has taken upon Himself your sin, your death, and your damnation, and bears all of this in His Body under the Law of God.

Henceforth, everything that Jesus does and suffers is not for Himself or His benefit, but in your stead, on your behalf, and for your sake.  That includes His Temptation by Satan, the deceiver and accuser, and His defeat of Satan, not only by resisting all of the devil’s temptations, but decisively by way of His Cross when He will crush that wily serpent’s head.  He wins the victory, not by an exercise of His divine power, but by the exercise of steadfast faith as the true and perfect Man.

The Temptation of our Lord recalls the testing and training of Israel in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt.  For having been baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and having been declared the chosen people of God, His holy children, at Mount Sinai — but having sinned repeatedly against the Lord with their complaints and outright disobedience — the sons of Israel were also disciplined in the wilderness over the course of forty years, an entire generation.

So also Christ Jesus.  Having been declared the beloved and well-pleasing Son of God the Father at His Baptism, anointed and filled by the Holy Spirit in His Body of flesh and blood like yours, He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, in order to be tested and tried by Satan on behalf of all the people.  He is called and given to do and accomplish, for you and for all, what Israel could not — and what you could never hope to do.  In the heat of the harsh desert, in hunger and thirst, He goes toe-to-toe with the old evil foe, in order to resist and overcome his assaults and accusations.

The point is not so much a test to see if the devil might lure Jesus into this or that sin.  It is rather that Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, is tempted in every way that you are, yet without sin.  Where Israel in the wilderness failed in every respect, Jesus in the wilderness passes the test.

It is not only that He sets an example for you to follow.  It is far more that He first of all wins the victory on your behalf.  To that same purpose, throughout His life, from His Baptism to His Cross, He suffers all that you deserve by your sins, and He accomplishes all that you could not.  He does it all in perfect faith, which is to say that He lives the truly human life that you and all the children of Adam were created and meant to live.  He does not rely on Himself, nor does He seek glory for Himself, but He trusts His Father for everything, relies on His Word alone, and receives all things from His hand, including the Cup of suffering and the Cross of death.  So has He accomplished the faith and life which He now delivers to you, by His grace alone, through His Word and Spirit.

Now, then, as you are born again as a child of God by your Baptism into Christ, and as you are called to bear and carry His Cross and follow after Him as a disciple, you also are confronted by the temptations of the devil, the world, and your own mortal flesh in the midst of the wilderness.

Not only are you tempted to do this or that wrong, as you might normally think of temptation, but especially to doubt the Word and promises that God has given and pledged to you in your Baptism.  In much the same way, Adam and Eve fell into sin when they doubted the Word and promises of God in the Garden, His life-giving Word of Creation, His promises of grace and every blessing.  They questioned whether God was faithful and for them, or whether He was holding out on them.

So are you tempted to doubt your sonship in Christ Jesus; tempted to doubt and despise His Word of Holy Absolution; tempted to doubt His Body and Blood in the Sacrament, that these are truly given and poured out for you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation; and tempted to deny and flee His Holy Cross, doubting the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection.

Hand-in-hand with those temptations to doubt and question the Lord’s Word and His gifts of Life, you are likewise tempted to rely upon yourself instead, on your own wisdom, reason, strength, and experience — to measure all of life by your own thoughts and feelings — rather than trusting your God and Father in Christ Jesus for all that you need, in body and soul, for this life and the next.

With that in mind, consider the temptation to make or acquire “bread” for yourself — whether it be food and drink or whatever else you might seek to satisfy the appetites of your fallen flesh.  Such temptations are pursued, and lead to sin, and bring forth death in a wide variety of different ways.  But they are far more a matter of your heart and soul than of your stomach or your body.

It is no sin to work at your job and thereby earn your living.  Indeed, your calling and station are from the Lord, and “whoever will not work, let him not eat.”  But it is a sin to suppose that you are providing for yourself and taking care of yourself, refusing to recognize that your work, your pay, your daily bread, and whatever you have, it all comes to you by grace from the hand of God.

It is likewise a sin, therefore, to neglect your other vocations in life — as a husband and father, for example, or as a wife and mother, as a son or daughter, as a sister or brother — on the pretense that you must work more and more to make money and earn a living for yourself and your family.

At the heart of it, that sort of attitude and that way of life are simply another form of righteousness by works — the self-righteousness of self-chosen works — and not the righteousness of faith.

It is not that faith is lazy or negligent, for the vice of sloth is also sinful and contrary to the Word and will of God.  “Six days you shall labor,” says the Lord.  In love you are called to work and sacrifice for the benefit of your neighbors, beginning with your own household and family, and so also for the household and family of God, and for the poor and needy, the widows and orphans who are with you always in this body and life on earth.  But you thus do what you are given to do because it is given by God, and not because your life depends upon it.  Your life depends on God.

Jesus understood that, and He lived accordingly, even to the death of His Cross.  He was hungry, and He could easily have fed Himself by turning stones into bread or in some other way.  But He lived instead by faith, trusting the Word of His Father, and knowing that God would provide.  He also knew and trusted that His Father’s love is constant and certain, regardless of circumstances.

By contrast to that faith of Christ in the faithfulness of His God and Father, you are tempted to calculate and conclude that, if you are going hungry or going without what you want or need in this life on earth, then the Lord your God has either forgotten you or doesn’t love you, or maybe there is no God after all.  And by the same token, you are likewise tempted to suppose that, if and when you do have plenty of food and money, then God must certainly be very pleased with you.

Neither conclusion is valid.  Neither food and money nor the lack of them are any indication of God’s attitude toward you.  For that you must rely upon His Word, irrespective of your situation.

The most dire predicament may well be the blessed sign of the Holy Cross from the hand of your dear Father in heaven, whereas wealth and riches often become a snare and temptation of Satan.

With or without such things, it is well that you recall the Word of your Lord from Ash Wednesday: “Do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.  But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The Lord Jesus knows what He is saying.  And He knows better than you do that it is not easy.  In the wilderness He has been tempted by the devil, as you are, to lay up treasures for Himself on earth — to turn aside from the Kingdom of God and trade it for the kingdoms of this world — to seek after comfort and power and glory, instead of enduring His hunger and suffering and death.

So it is that you are tempted to give up on the Cross and the hope of the Resurrection, in exchange for instant gratification.  Instead of waiting quietly and patiently on God, you chase after idols.

But the Lord Jesus Christ exercises confidence in His God and Father.  He waits upon the Lord to open His hand and provide the daily bread that He needs to serve and support His body and life, according to the good and gracious will of God.  He trusts His God and Father throughout those long, hard forty days of fasting, without bread, even as that lying and murdering tempter whispers those challenging and taunting questions of doubt: “If You are the Son of God. . . .”

Ah, yes, the big “if.”  Did God really say?  But though Christ Jesus is the Son, He learns obedience through what He suffers in your place.  In godly fear He does not fight temptation as the powerful Son of God, but rather as the true Man, as your Brother in the flesh, as the perfect Second Adam, who lives your life as you are called to live, who faces all the same temptations that you face, but who relies upon the Father and clings to His Word even when all hell breaks loose against Him.

The beloved and well-pleasing Son will not bow down to Satan.  He will not trade the ways of God for the comforts of the world.  His only treasure is the Kingdom of His Father, on earth as it is in heaven.  His heart is set upon His Father’s Will, no matter the cost.  And in the strength of perfect faith and holy love, He renounces the devil, all his works, and all his ways, and willingly receives the Cross from the hand of His God and Father.  That is where He looks for Life, and nowhere else.

It is likewise in the Cross and Passion of the same Lord Jesus Christ that you are granted real life and real glory in the Kingdom of His God and Father.  Despite appearances and feelings, you will surely not find comfort or happiness anywhere else, for everything else will vanish like smoke in the day of trouble.  There is no lasting glory in the kingdoms of this world, no forgiveness of your sins, no resurrection of your body, no life everlasting.  Only empty promises and disappointment.

But take heart, for you are in the wilderness with Christ Jesus.  In the waters of the Jordan you also have received the sign of the Cross from the hand of your Father — not to burden you forever, but to raise you up in glory on the Last Day.  Thus, the daily drowning of your old Adam always brings forth the rising of the New Man, Jesus Christ. Your repentance is always met with His forgiveness.  Your tears of grief and sorrow are replaced by shouts of joy.  Your Lent brings you into Easter.

That is what these forty days are all about.  They teach you and train you to look for Life, and to find it, in the Cross and Passion of your Lord Jesus Christ, in the Fruits of His Cross and Passion.  Thus are you returned to the dying and rising of your Baptism into His Cross and Resurrection.  And here at His Table in the midst of the wilderness, in the presence of your enemies, you are fed upon the Bread of Christ, the Word-made-Flesh, by which you live in God, and He abides in you.

By these gifts Christ freely gives, by His Word and Holy Spirit, by the grace and mercy of His God and Father, you are well able to sing — together with all those who live by faith in Christ Jesus, including those who have gone before us into glory: “Take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife; though these all be gone, our victory has been won, the Kingdom ours remaineth!”

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

Fasting for and Feasting with the Bridegroom

Christ Jesus, the heavenly Bridegroom, has come, and He is here with you and for you — with or without your prayers, and whether you fast or not.  But He calls you to repentance, to fast and to pray, in order that you might receive Him in faith and rejoice in His salvation.

He comes to seek His Bride, to woo her to Himself, and to make her beautiful in His love for her, adorning her with His own perfect righteousness.  He is, in this same respect, the Good Physician who does not avoid or keep His distance from those who are sick, but who draws near to them in their frailty and weakness, and exposes Himself to their infectious diseases, in order to heal them.

So does He also come to help and heal you.  And to that same end, He calls you to give up and leave behind everything that you have clung to and relied upon in the past.  But that has less to do with your possessions than with your self, your old Adam, your sinful flesh and covetous heart.

For you to be converted from the inside-out, heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit, is not a matter of self-improvement, but the Lord is the One who thus makes you brand new.  So also are all things in heaven and on earth made new for you in Christ Jesus.  Thus do you begin to share your bread with the hungry, you welcome the stranger into your home, you cover the naked and visit the sick and imprisoned.  Whether you have much or little, you begin to share your hospitality with Jesus and His disciples, even as He welcomes you into His Banquet Hall to share in His Wedding Feast.

That Christ Jesus comes to you and calls you to Himself in love — that He rescues you from sin, death, the devil, and hell, and brings you in and with Himself into the Kingdom of His God and Father — that is the righteousness of Christ which is credited to you by faith in His Gospel; and that is your life and health and strength in the presence of God, here in time and hereafter forever.

It is already accomplished and established in Him, who has perfectly fulfilled the Law, on the one hand, but has also borne and satisfied its condemnation and punishment of sin on the other hand.  In keeping company with sinners, such as yourself, He has taken all your sins, your sickness unto death, upon Himself.  So has He entered the badlands, the dead zone, the quarantine, in order to defeat the disease (and death and the devil) by laying down His Life and pouring Himself out.

Once-for-all He has done so.  But His call to repentance, to leave your sin and death behind and follow Him, to receive His righteousness by grace through faith in His Gospel, that is a daily and ongoing call.  Daily He returns you to your Baptism, to die and rise with Him to newness of life.

It is for such repentance that you now fast and pray, that you might also feast in the presence of your Bridegroom.  For He shall never leave you nor forsake you — but you are frequently pulled away from Him by the appetites of your fallen flesh for the fruits of the old evil foe.  That remains a constant temptation in your mortal life on earth, which you will not escape by your own efforts.

You shall not heal yourself, nor shall you justify yourself by your own piety.  Nor do you make things better, but only that much worse, when you flee from the Lord your God, from His Word and prayer, and indulge yourself in the spiritual adultery and fornication of your idolatrous sins.

For all of that, the heavenly Bridegroom has come and sought you out.  He calls you to Himself to be His holy Bride.  He cleanses you, within and without, with His forgiveness of your sins; and He clothes you for the Wedding — and for the Wedding Feast — with His own righteousness and holiness.  As He has done so in your Holy Baptism, so does He continue to do so, again and again, by His preaching of the Holy Gospel and by His spoken Word of Holy Absolution, free and clear.

Not only that, but He has saved the best Wine til now!  His holy and precious Blood has burst the old skins of the Law, and now He pours it out, for you and for the many, in this New Testament.

Here, then, is your great and joyous feasting, even in the midst of your fasting and repentance.  For here, indeed, your Bridegroom is with you — forever and always, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul.

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

Christ Jesus Is Your Grain Offering and Your Drink Offering

There is the danger of complacency in your heart and soul when everything is going well, whereas even a small taste of the consequences of your sin can be enough to send you reeling in despair.  When you are brought to an awareness of your mortality, when you’re caught with your hand in the cookie jar and suffer the penalty, or when you’ve gotten yourself up to your neck in trouble because of your poor choices and reckless behavior, you either panic and scramble or you give up.

The basic instinct of your sinful flesh, when you recognize your predicament, is to work and strive and try harder to please God with improved behavior, or else to pacify Him with your sacrifices.  In point of fact, genuine repentance does involve the sacrifice of yourself and your false gods, as well as positive changes in your life, in what you think and do and say.  Such things belong to the fruits of repentance, but they are not a means of self-justification or atonement for your sins.

If you work and sacrifice in an effort to free yourself from the consequences of your sin, and in the hopes of impressing the Lord your God or simply getting Him off your back, you’ve already failed from the get-go.  No matter what you do, no matter how much you offer, it will never be enough, nor will it ever be good enough.  It will not makes things better, it will only make them worse.  Not only because you are not up to the task and so fall short, but because the effort itself is all wrong.

All of your attempts to fix the problem are flawed from the ground up, because they fail to take sin seriously enough, and they do not realize what sin really is.  By the same token, the presumption that you could actually make things right between you and God demonstrates that you are taking your own self-righteousness far too seriously.  But do you really imagine that you could ever buy God off?  Are you so naive as to suppose you could help Him or give Him something He lacks?

What God desires from you is not your stuff, which is really His stuff anyway; but what He desires is you, your heart, your whole body and life — that you should fear, love, and trust in Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Not that He’s looking to get something from you, but that you should look to Him and rely on Him for life and health and strength and all good things, and that you should thus receive His many good and gracious gifts in faith and with thanksgiving.

The harder you try to give Him something else — anything else than your heart and your self — the further and further away you depart from Him, the deeper and deeper you fall into your sins, and the more firmly you entrench yourself in the dust of the earth from which the Lord your God would raise you up.  But why should you die and not live?  Why do you hold yourself back from the Author and Giver of Life?  And why do you trade His grace and mercy for perishable stuff?

Truth be told, you don’t show mercy and charity to the poor and needy as you should; you don’t pray and fast as you should; your heart and your treasures are invested not in heaven but on earth.

But prayer and fasting, charity, and works of mercy will not save you from your sin and death.  As meet, right, and salutary as those basic disciplines of the Christian faith and life truly are, they are not able to reconcile you to God, whose holy Law and righteous judgment condemn you for your lack of faith in Him and for your idolatrous worship of yourself, your flesh, and all manner of false gods.  The discipline of your flesh, the fruits of faith, and works of love are not able to atone for your sins or to redeem your life.  Then again, that is not what they were ever intended to do.  They serve only to exercise and focus your faith and life in Christ, and to steer you clear of further sins.

What you need, though, in order to be rescued from your sin and death — to be forgiven all your sins, to be justified in the presence of God, and to be sanctified unto Life everlasting in body and soul — is nothing you could ever do or achieve for yourself, not at any price, nor by any effort.  Nor have you been created by the Word and Spirit of God to be your own savior, but to live by His grace at all times and in all places, receiving His providential care in faith and with thanksgiving.  That is the life to which you are called throughout Lent, and which you are given by the Ministry of the Gospel in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.  Already and always, we live to and from Easter.

You enter into His Resurrection and His Life by the way and means of His Cross.  Just as it was necessary that the Christ should suffer and die and thereby enter into His Glory through the Cross.  For He is crucified, put to death, and buried on account of your sins, that you should be justified, made brand new, brought to life, and sanctified, body and soul, in His crucified and risen Body.

So must you also be crucified, put to death, and buried with Christ, in heart, mind, body, and soul, that you might also rise with Him to newness of life in Him.  You must become altogether different than you otherwise are and otherwise have been apart from Him.  Because your sin is not so much a case of broken rules and infractions for which you must be punished and for which you could potentially make amends.  It is rather a perversion of your created nature and a devastating, deadly rupture in your relationship with the Lord your God, who is alone your Life and your Salvation.

You cannot save yourself from sin and death because, at the heart of it, you are the problem, you are your own worst enemy.  The Lord calls you to repentance, not that you should raise yourself up by your own bootstraps (which is futile and impossible), but that you should die to yourself in order to live in Christ by faith in His Word, by the grace of His Gospel, by the generous gift of His Holy Spirit, by the power of His own indestructible Life.  Thus are you broken by His Law and by the curse and consequences of your sins, in order to be healed by His forgiveness of all your sins.  You are broken and made contrite in spirit, in order to be cleansed and sanctified by His Spirit.

If you would recognize the seriousness of your sins, and so also the futility of any and all attempts to redeem and save yourself, consider the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as He is lifted up and stretched out upon the Cross as the Propitiation for your sins and for the sins of the whole world.  In His voluntary suffering and death, in the shedding of His holy, precious Blood, you behold just how deadly serious the perversion and rupture of creation by the sin of Adam and his progeny have been.  For it is all met and suffered, blow for blow, by the Son of Man in His Cross and Passion.

But see there in the Crucifixion of your Lord, not only the wickedness of your sin and the righteous wrath and judgment of God against it, but also the way of repentance that He has thereby opened up for you and for all, that He should bring you in and with Himself out of death into life, from the slavery of your sin to the freedom of His forgiveness, from brokenness to wholeness in His Body.  It is for this purpose that He willingly suffers and dies, and it is in this way that He becomes your true Lord.  So is He your Strength and your Song, because He is the Sacrifice of your Salvation.

It is by His Baptism in the Jordan River — from the waters of His Baptism to His death upon the Cross — that He has opened up the heavens and the way to God the Father to you and to all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.  He submitted Himself to St. John’s Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, that you should receive life by repentance and faith in His forgiveness and by the anointing of the Spirit in heart, mind, body, and soul, through Baptism in His Name.  So it is that you are crucified, dead, and buried with Him, that you should rise and live with Him.

It is by His sacrificial death, by the pouring out of His heart and the shedding of His Blood, that He has made atonement for your sins, redeemed you for Himself, and reconciled you to His God and Father in heaven.  This He has done in love, for you and all the world, so that by His death you should not die but live forever in body and soul with Him and with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Consider, then, what He has given up and done without, not to achieve or accomplish anything for Himself (for all things are always His by right), but that you should benefit and be well provided at His expense.  It is by the sweat of His brow and the hard labor of His hands, by His good works of mercy and charity, by His fasting and prayer, by His faith, hope, and love, that you are brought into the presence of God, and that you come to His Father as a beloved child to your own Father.

It is for sake of Jesus Christ, your Savior, the beloved and well-pleasing Son, that God the Lord is gracious and merciful, compassionate and kind, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for you and for your children.  It is for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Savior, that your own dear God and Father in heaven freely and fully forgives you all your sins and remembers them no more.

As you are broken in heart, mind, and spirit by His Law, so much the more does He heal you in body and soul by the Ministry of His Gospel.  And as often as you are sorrowful and cast down by your sins and their consequences in this world, and by the sins of those who trespass against you, so often does He comfort your troubled conscience, cheer your sorrowing spirit, grant peace to your heart and mind, and lift up your countenance in the hope and confidence of the Resurrection.

Here and now, in this poor life of labor, He does it all in the secret place of the Cross, which the world cannot see and does not comprehend, and which your own fallen flesh, sinful heart, and beclouded mind cannot understand and would prefer to do without.  Yet, by His Word and Holy Spirit, you embrace and hold fast to His Cross in repentance and faith.  So also, by His grace, you receive, rely upon, and rest yourself in the Fruits of the Cross of Christ — in the remembrance of your Holy Baptism, in Confession and Absolution, and in the Holy Supper of His Body and Blood.

Though it is hard and often hurts, it is by His Cross that you die to yourself, to your sins, and to this fallen and perishing world, that you might live unto God in the righteousness and innocence of Christ, the Son of God.  It is by His Cross and in His Resurrection that you are thus born again as a well-pleasing child of God the Father.  For His crucified and risen Body is the acceptable Sacrifice and sweet-smelling Incense by which your prayers are heard and answered in the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens, and by which you enter with all boldness and confidence into the presence of God, not to be cast out, but to abide forever in His Peace.

You know your Father’s heart and mind concerning you, according to His Word and Promise, by what He says to you, does for you, and gives to you within His Church on earth.  For He is faithful, and He does what He has spoken.  Day by day He opens His hand in mercy to satisfy all the needs of your body and soul, not only here in time, but unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

He strengthens and sustains you in the one true faith by His Word and Holy Spirit, daily and richly forgiving you all your sins through His Holy Absolution and by the preaching of His Holy Gospel.  And not only does He feed and clothe and shelter your body here on earth, but He feeds you with the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus in His Supper, as He has clothed you with the righteousness and holiness of Christ in Holy Baptism, and as He shelters and protects you within His Church.

It is for this reason that you feed and clothe and shelter your neighbors on earth, even the least of them, and especially your brothers and sisters in Christ, your fellow members of the household and family of God.  Not to atone for your sins, but because your Lord has made Atonement for you by His Cross.  Not to justify yourself, but because your Lord has justified you by His Resurrection.  And not to look good in the eyes of men, but to glorify your God and Father in heaven by works of mercy like His own, bearing fruits of faith and love after the same kind as the Cross of Christ.

It is in Christ your Savior that you relate to your Father in heaven and to your neighbors on earth.  For He is your merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God.  And not only that, but He is the true Temple of God in whom you live, and He is the once-for-all Sacrifice to end all other sacrifices for sin.  So also is He the Grain Offering and the Drink Offering by which you have fellowship with God and with one another.  You eat His Body and drink His Blood in faith and with thanksgiving, and you are bound together with all the baptized as one Body in Him.

These Gifts Christ freely gives — His Holy Word and Sacraments, His means of grace, the Liturgy of His Gospel — these are the sacred Alms He gives to you in the hiddenness of His Cross.  These are His mercy toward you, by which you draw near to God in peace, as He draws nears to you in love.  And these Gifts of Christ are your true and greatest treasure, on earth as it is in heaven, that where the Body of Christ Jesus is given and received, there your heart will be and abide forever.

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

Given the Eyes of Faith to See Christ the Crucified

Everything hinges and depends upon the Word of God in Christ.  However, because it centers in His Cross, His Word remains a great Mystery, and even His disciples are blind to what it means and signifies (for Him and for themselves), until it is revealed and explained by the Holy Spirit.

As a case in point, St. Luke has carefully and purposely contrasted here the blind ignorance of the twelve disciples with the faith of the blind man.  Where he without eyes could see by faith who and what Jesus is, the twelve disciples understood nothing because His Word of the Cross was hidden from them.  Seeing, they could not see; and hearing, they could neither hear nor understand.

Yet, the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus are the fulfillment of all that the Prophets had written concerning the Son of Man.  This is what the Word of God is all about!  This is what it means for Jesus to be the “Son of Man,” the incarnate God, given and poured out for the salvation of sinners, that He might justify the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve in His Resurrection from the dead.

Contrary to all human wisdom, reason, and strength, the Cross and Passion of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, are the revelation of the grace and glory of God in the flesh.  There, in the Body of Christ the Crucified, the heart of God is opened to you in love, to forgive you and to save you.

But you are not able to recognize this true divine reality with the eyes in your head.  Nor can you measure any of this accurately according to outward appearances.  Apart from the Word and Spirit of God, you can neither see nor hear nor understand what any of this is or what it really means.

It is already a struggle to see and believe that Christ the Crucified is the Power and Wisdom and Glory of God in the flesh, and that His Cross and Passion are forgiveness, life, and salvation for the world.  But now you are called, as well, to bear and to carry His Cross, to suffer His Passion, to live and die with Him in your own body and life as a disciple of this one Lord, Jesus Christ.

The challenge, then, is to recognize the gracious presence of God in the Cross of Christ that you bear and suffer.  It is not “in spite of the Cross,” but it is by and with and in the Cross that you are glorified with the Glory of God in Christ Jesus.  Just at those times and in those places when you are most tempted to suppose (and complain) that the Lord your God has forgotten you, that He has abandoned you, that He is angry at you — or, at your most cynical, that there is no God at all — it is then and there that He calls you to rejoice and give thanks that He is with you to glorify you.

But you cannot embrace the Cross of Christ Jesus as the Grace and Glory of God, as your Life and your Salvation, except by His Word and Holy Spirit.  It is only by the preaching of His Word, which is the work of His Spirit, that you are called and converted from your blind unbelief to see and believe the truth — in the humility of true repentance, but so also in the confidence of faith.

So, there you sit by the side of the road — squatting in a gutter at the edge of town — a poor, blind beggar.  A poor, miserable sinner.  You have nothing of your own, nothing to show for yourself.  And all that you deserve from the Lord your God is nothing else but punishment for your sins.

Well, okay, it may be that you’ve managed to cobble together a comfortable life for yourself in this world, or an adequate existence at any rate, better than others.  But you know that is not your true spiritual condition, not apart from Christ Jesus.  Apart from Him, your life is neither comfortable nor adequate, but rather on its way from bad to worse.  And in your native sinfulness, you could not see or find the Lord Jesus anywhere.  You could not see or understand anything as it really is, nor could you see or find any hope for the future.  In truth, apart from Christ there is no hope.

So you squat and waste away in your rut by the side of the road, a poor beggar.  That is what the Cross must make of you.  That is what repentance does.  It reduces you to nothing and leaves you with nothing to show for yourself, nothing to offer to God or anyone else, but only your desperate and pitiful need.  To that end the Cross is laid upon you, in order to put you to death with Christ the Crucified and bring you by way of His Cross into His Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

Repentance is no game, nor is it a mental exercise.  It begins with the dreadful experience of death and the grave, the anguish of your sins, and a little taste of hell in your heart, mind, body, and soul.  It is the crushing realization that, in yourself, because of your sin, you have no power, no strength, no hope for the future, no choices to make, and no opportunities, nothing but emptiness and want.

And then comes the Word of Christ.  You cannot see Him with your eyes, but you hear the Word which declares that Jesus is drawing near and passing by.  That Word reaches into your darkness, past your blindness, and calls you to attention.  It is true, there is no hope in you, but there is every hope for you in this Man from Nazareth.  And though you are blind to His presence, unable to find Him, the Word proclaims that He is here.  He has come to where you are on His way to the Cross.

And because you have been reduced to nothing but emptiness and need, the Word of Christ Jesus elicits from you the most basic prayer of faith: “Kyrie Eleison!” “Lord, have mercy!”  What else can you say?  You have nothing else to offer, and nothing with which to bargain or barter with the Lord.  You are a beggar.  There is no merit or worthiness in you.  So you simply cry out for mercy.

It is a deeply heartfelt prayer.  It is a groan of anguish and a cry of desperation, a plea for help from the only One who can help.  It is the voice of faith in its purest and most childlike state, small and fragile, helpless and weak, relying on the mercy of the Lord, the Son of David, Jesus Christ.  Under the weight of the Cross, you cry out for mercy to Him who bears and carries the Cross for you.

But of course, as soon as you begin to pray — as soon as repentance and faith begin to offer up their Kyrie Eleison! — the devil, the world, and your own flesh rise up against you, determined to keep you from Jesus.  “Hush your mouth,” they say.  “Be content with sin, death, and hell, and do not presume to ask for mercy.  Don’t pray.  Don’t hope.  Don’t trust.  Just give up, and shut up.”

So it is that voices of opposition strive to keep you from hearing and receiving the Word of Jesus, and to dissuade you from calling upon His Name and coming to Him at His Word.  But such voices do not belong to those who follow after Jesus.  They are the false noises and the fatal cacophony of those who presume to go before Him, who presume to lead and guide Him.  They know nothing of the Cross, but only the power, might, and wisdom of the world.  They are puffed up with their own reason and strength, and they insist that you must likewise be measured by their standards.

It is the Word of Jesus on His way to the Cross that defends you against those false and misleading voices of doubt and despair.  So faith persists in the confidence of His Word, which declares that He is close at hand.  And His Cross has taught you to know and believe these two most basic facts: You need Him, who alone is able to help and save you; and He has come for you in divine love.

So you will not shut up, nor will you give up, but you will cry out all the more: Lord, have mercy!

But, O Lord, how long!?  How long must we grope about in this deep darkness?  How long must we languish in our poverty and pathetic degradation, begging for mercy by the side of the road?  How long must we pray and cry out, before the Lord opens His hand and pours out His mercy?

If you are asking how long you must bear the Cross and suffer such difficulties, the answer is that your entire life in this world is lived under the Cross of Christ, which is paradoxically your glory, your strength, your sure confidence and hope — all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

But if you are asking how long it will be until the Lord Jesus hears and answers your cry for mercy, He has already answered before you have asked.  Indeed, He has planted Himself here, that even a blind beggar may find Him and lay hold of Him; and He calls for you to be brought to Him.

Against all those voices of opposition, He has commanded that you should be brought to Him.  He speaks with the authority of His own Cross and Resurrection, and His Word gives you confidence.  For not only has He drawn near to you, but He is calling for you to be drawn near to Him.

Your prayer for mercy is not in vain.  It is heard, and it is answered.  For the Lord invites you to pray, to lay your every need and every request before Him.  What is more, He has given you the very words with which to pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven.”  He has indeed commanded you to pray, and He has promised that, whatever you ask in His Name, it will be granted.  So it is that His Word comes to your rescue.  It opens your ears to hear, your eyes to see, and your lips to pray.

Now, to be sure, He answers your prayer for daily bread, for all that you need to support this body and life, just as He has taught you to pray.  Cast all of your anxieties on Him, therefore, because He truly cares about you, and He provides food and clothing, shelter and protection for your body.  But even better, He opens your blind eyes to behold and believe His true Glory, which is to say, His Holy Cross and Passion, whereby He has obtained the forgiveness of all your sins, conquered death in order to give you life, and defeated the devil in order to save you for eternity in heaven.

Of course it is true that, no matter what your circumstances in this world, for now you are not yet able to see the Lord Jesus with the eyeballs in your head.  And for as long as you live in this world, always under the Cross, you will not be able to “feel” His presence with you here.  For now it is by faith alone, and not by sight.  Blessed are you, therefore, who have not seen but have believed.

But how so are you blessed, and how do you believe what you cannot see and the world denies?  It is by the Word of Christ the Crucified.  “Faith alone” depends upon “the Word alone.”  Not just any Word, but the Word of God in Christ.  And not just any Christ, but Jesus Christ the Crucified.

The truth of the matter is that, if you could see Him, this crucified Lord Jesus Christ, you would be no less confused and scandalized than the disciples were then.  Just as you are so challenged, and sometimes shaken, when you are confronted by the Cross in your own Christian faith and life.

Even so, the Word of Christ prevails.  Not only has it alerted you to His gracious presence.  Not only has it called you to Him and invited you to pray.  His Word now also gives you Christ Himself and such good things as you could never dare hope for.  He speaks to you today, and your sins are forgiven.  He speaks to you today, and your faith is strengthened unto Life everlasting.  He speaks to you today, and He thereby gives to you His own holy Body and His holy, precious Blood, which He has sacrificed for you upon His Cross, that you should live in Him, and He in you, forever.

He speaks to you today, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.  For He speaks to you from His own Cross, the One who has been mocked and spitefully treated and spit upon, scourged and put to death for you and your salvation, who has risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.  Today, then, as you hear His Voice, do not harden your heart, and do not suppose that He has hardened His heart against you, but enter into His Peace and Rest by faith in His mercy.

You are a beggar, that is true — truer than you even know.  But Christ be praised, He is the Savior of such beggars.  He is your Savior, and He has had mercy upon you.  His Word has saved you.  Come, then, rise up from your gutter, and follow Him on the Way that leads to Life everlasting.

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

The Glory of God in the Exodus of Christ Jesus

If not for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is alone your Savior and Redeemer, you would remain trapped in Egypt, held in bondage by a tyrant Pharaoh.  Whether you know it or not, you were conceived and born in sin — a slave to sin — fast bound in Satan’s chains, death brooding darkly over you.  From the start, sin and death have been your torment night and day, the inheritance you received from your parents, grandparents, and all your ancestors, all the way back to Adam and Eve.  Left to yourself, you fall deeper and deeper into their bondage, until life itself becomes a living hell.

It is because of your sin that you are mortal, that you are dead and dying.  And that consequence of sin is something you cannot simply ignore or deny, much less escape.  Day by day, the older you get, your body is wearing out, slowing down, falling apart, and returning to the dust of the ground.  And yet, despite all that, your sin feels quite comfortable.  You would be happy to remain in the Egypt of your sin, if only that Pharaoh, death, would get off your back.  As it is, when the Lord lays the Cross upon your body and life in the wilderness, you long to return to Egypt, to the lusts of your flesh, and to the bondage and consequences of your sin.  You remember only its comforts and none of its tyranny, although it is your sin that enslaves you and kills you in body and soul.

The Law cannot save you from this prison house of sin and death.  But when you hear what God would have you do, your instinct is that, if you would only try harder, if you could only do better, then perhaps you could set yourself free.  With Moses, though, you still wander in the wilderness.

The Law of God is good and wise, it is His good and gracious will, and it points you to the good Land that God has promised, so that you are able to see it from afar.  But you shall not enter that Land by or with the Law.  For even great and faithful Moses dies outside of Canaan.  And so does the Law of God accuse you of your sins and condemn you to death.  It cannot bring you into life.

It is, instead, the new and greater Joshua who leads you and brings you into the Kingdom of God.  It is He who has fulfilled and satisfied the Law for you and thereby released you from its death-grip.  And all of this He has accomplished, for you and for all, by His own Cross and Resurrection.

This “Joshua,” Christ Jesus the Lord, Yahweh in the flesh, the incarnate God, He is the true and perfect Passover.  He is the Lamb of God who takes upon Himself and takes away your sins, who is sacrificed in your place, whose Blood covers and protects you from death and the devil.  He is the firstborn Son who is slain, that you should be set free from Egypt and Pharaoh’s bitter yoke.

So, too, He is the Crossing of the Red Sea out of that cruel bondage.  As His arms are lifted up for you upon the Cross, the waters are parted, that you might pass with Him through death into life.  Pharaoh and his army are drowned in those waters, but you live in them because Christ has entered into those deep waters, has suffered their torrent and assault, and has overcome them for you.

And He is with you now as you journey through the wilderness.  He is your Pillar of Cloud by day, and He is your Pillar of Fire by night.  He is the manifest presence of God here with you, powerful to save you and sustain you in the desert.  His Word and Holy Spirit guide and guard you.  They go ahead of you, and they surround you on all sides, a solid wall between you and all your enemies.

The Lord Jesus also feeds you on the way, not only from His hand but with Himself, His Flesh and Blood.  He who is the true Manna from heaven, the Bread of Life — the Living Bread who gives you Life — He feeds and nourishes you on the pilgrims’ way.  You may grow tired of Him, you may grumble and complain against Him, but He remains your Daily Bread, today and every day.

He is the Rock that follows you, and from His riven side flow rivers of Living Water, His Word and Holy Spirit, His cleansing and quenching Blood.  These gifts that come freely from Him are what sustain you on the journey.  These gifts are what keep you alive, although you continue to sin and repeatedly fall into sin with every step.  Your sins would kill you, but Jesus redeems you.  His death has conquered death, and His Life is your life indeed in body and soul, now and forever.

By the Gospel of His Cross and Resurrection, He is and remains your Sabbath Rest along the way, even in the wilderness.  For at the new and better Mountain of His Holy Cross, He has established the New Covenant of forgiveness and life in His own Blood, shed for you, poured out for you, given for you to drink.  He is the Bull who is sacrificed as a Whole Burnt Offering, for Atonement, Thanksgiving, and Fellowship with God.  His Blood is offered to His Father, and His Blood now anoints you in body and soul, that you should belong to His Body and Bride, His Holy Church.

His Body is your Tabernacle in the wilderness and the true Temple of God in heaven and on earth, for He is indeed Immanuel, God with us.  His Flesh and Blood — conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified and risen from the dead, now given and poured out for you to eat and to drink here at His Altar — these are your Dwelling Place, your Sanctuary in the world, where you abide with God and He with you.  For Christ Jesus is your merciful and great High Priest, who has given Himself to atone for all your sins, who is risen from the dead and ever lives to make intercession for you.

Just so, He is also the true Joshua who leads you through the waters of the Jordan — through the waters of your Holy Baptism, as through the waters of His own Baptism in the Jordan River — out of the wilderness of sin and death into the Promised Land of milk and honey and every good thing.

Not only do you see it from afar, as you do for now by faith, but so shall you enter into that Good Land with the Lord Jesus Christ, in both your body and your soul, in and with His Body, crucified for your transgressions, risen from the dead for your justification, and ascended to the Right Hand of the Father as the Pledge and Promise of your own Ascension.  When your Baptism is finally completed in death, and you then tread the verge of Jordan, then you shall follow Him who is the true Ark of the Covenant into that Good Land which God has sworn to give you by His own Name, by His Word and Holy Spirit.  Then you shall enter, body and soul, the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom forever, as surely as you share in that Feast here at His Altar here and now.

For the time being, here in the wilderness, you do grow weary and faint.  You are overwhelmed by drowsiness and overcome by sleep.  Your sin hinders and entangles you.  Though you struggle against it, day after day you stumble and fall into various vices and shameful sins, into false beliefs and temptations to despair.  The angel of death is always stalking you, while Satan prowls around doing his best to devour you.  Left to your own devices, you would most certainly be done for.

But see here, Yahweh Sabaoth is with you, not to punish but to save.  The Lord of hosts, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is your God, and He has become your Champion.  He is with you in the Flesh of Jesus Christ, and He remains a very present Help at all times and in all places.  He has called you out of Egypt, and He has sealed you with His Blood, that you might be His own, and live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness and holiness.

This Man, the Son of Mary, Jesus Christ, He is the one true God in flesh and blood like your own.  He is the beloved and well-pleasing Son of God the Father, by whom and for whom all things in heaven and on earth exist.  He is the Chosen One — anointed in His Body by the Father with the Holy Spirit to be the Christ, your Savior — chosen and anointed to suffer and die in His Body, that you might live in His Body.  For He is the Glory of God incarnate, in the flesh.  He is the Word-made-Flesh who tabernacles with you, who dwells with you in love.  And He is powerful to save.

Day after day, this is what He does, He saves you from yourself.  He saves you from your sins and their enslavement of your body and soul.  He saves you from the power of death and from your fear of death.  He saves you from that cruel taskmaster, the devil, from all his works and all his ways.

Your Savior, Christ Jesus, is by your side upon the plain with His good Gifts and Spirit, that you should behold the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God in His Face, which shines upon you in the Ministry of His Holy Gospel.  By His Word and the preaching of it, by His forgiveness of your sins, and by His Holy Sacraments, you are set free.  He speaks to you in peace from His Holy and Life-giving Cross, and in His Resurrection from the dead He breathes His Holy Spirit into your heart, mind, body, and soul through the Gospel.  Therefore, Satan, sin, and death cannot harm you.  For the Son of God has set you free in His own great Exodus, and in Him you are free indeed.

It is by His Holy Baptism that He has brought you out of Egypt in and with Himself, and so shall He also bring you into Canaan, clothed in the beautiful white robes of His glorious righteousness.

You have heard how it was manifested in Moses and Elijah as they shared in the Glory of Christ.  So shall you share the Glory of Christ in both body and soul forever and ever, because His Blood, that of the perfect Lamb, covers and protects you from death.  And His Body is your true Spiritual Food, by which your body and soul are transfigured to be like Him in your resurrection from the dead on the last day, when you shall live forevermore with Christ and with His whole Church in Glory forever.  For with Moses and Elijah, with Peter, James, and John, and with all the company of heaven, with those who go before and those who follow after, your place is with Christ Jesus.

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