The Word of Christ Brings You Home to His Body

Disciples of Emmaus, you know the things that have happened in these days, the things concerning Jesus Christ of Nazareth, His Cross and Passion and His Resurrection from the dead. By His Cross He has redeemed you, forgiven all your sins, and conquered the power that death held over you. And in His Resurrection He has opened up heaven and eternal Life to you and to all who believe in Him, for which He has poured out His Spirit generously upon your body and your soul.

How is it, then, that you are still so often sad? Why should you be so angry or afraid of anything, discouraged or depressed, when Christ your Lord, the Son of God, has suffered these things for you and entered into His Glory? Knowing and confessing all that the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles have told you, why are you so foolish and slow of heart to believe the Gospel?

Here and now, in this body and life, you are making your way and muddling forward without a clear sense of where you really are or where you’re going. The days and hours fly by, seemingly relentless, but you are living in a time between, restless and uncertain on a journey to your true Home, which you can’t yet see or perceive. Your heart, mind, and spirit are tossed about by the turmoil of this perishing world, and you are torn between death and life, between sin and faith, and between what you can and cannot see with your eyes. You are caught between earth and heaven.

Here your senses too easily trick you and fool you, so that earthly things seem powerful, glorious, and heavenly, whereas heavenly things seem ghostly, ghastly, and hard to comprehend or bear.

You live by faith and not by sight along the way, and as such, your only real recourse is the Word of God: The Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles; the Holy Gospel of your Lord Jesus Christ, as written by His Holy Evangelists; and the Word of Christ Himself, the Word made Flesh.

Avail yourself of that Word. Speak it to your neighbor, and ask that it be spoken to you. Confess it and pray it as you go about your days, as you rise up in the morning, and as you go to bed again each night. In particular, give attention to the preaching of the Gospel, the forgiveness of your sins.

I realize that it can seem pointless and useless to “talk about Jesus” in the face of all the hurts and disappointments that wear you out and weigh you down. If that sounds impious to say, or even blasphemous, still, you know that it can feel that way, and that you often live as though it were so.

Consider how easily you are caught up in the maelstrom of this world with all of its anxieties and countless distractions. Think about your daily routines, and how the duties and demands of your job, your classes, your house and home, your family, and all your neighbors roundabout, consume your attention and your energies, so that you end up living and acting as though the Resurrection never happened or did not matter — even now, when Holy Week has ushered you into Easter!

There are those days when you can barely keep yourself going, one foot in front of the other, and you may not feel like talking anymore, and you really don’t want to hear it, not even about Jesus. That’s one of the main reasons that you dare not go it alone, lest you spiral into a silence of the Word of God and give yourself over to the constant buzz, nauseating static, and deadly white noise of your own inner dialogue, which does not believe but doubts and denies the Word of the Lord.

In spite of your nagging and persistent sadness, and no matter what you may be thinking or feeling at any given point, it is in the speaking of His Word — in the conversation about Jesus — that the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Himself draws near and travels right along with you. In and with His Word, by and with His Holy Spirit, He is actively present and opens the Scriptures to you.

He opens up your ears to hear, and He opens up your heart and mind to comprehend and believe the Holy Gospel — to hear and receive the forgiveness of all your sins, which is the solution to all your doubts and fears, the remedy to every infirmity of your heart and mind, body, soul, and spirit.

What is more, it is by and with His Word of the Gospel that He brings you Home, that is, to your true Home, which is the household and family of God, the Body of Christ. On the surface it may appear that He is coming to be your guest, but then it quickly turns about that He is actually the Host who takes you in, and cares for you, and serves you at His Table with His own hand.

With His Word and Holy Spirit, in His own Body of flesh and blood, He comes to make His home with you here — in order to make a Home for you with Him — already now in His Church on earth, and so also in the resurrection of your body to the Life everlasting in the Kingdom of God.

Here then, at His Altar in His House, is the lavish Table at which He tenderly invites you to recline and take your rest, to receive and feast upon the Meal that He has prepared for you and for the many. He takes the bread, He gives thanks, and He gives to you what everyone is looking for and needs: Not the empty tomb, and not only the news and information of the Resurrection, but His own crucified and risen Body in the Breaking of the Bread, the Holy Communion of His Supper.

That is where the whole Christian Church on earth recognizes, receives, and worships her dear Lord Jesus Christ. And that is where you also are at home and at rest: In the Body of Christ Jesus.

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

His God and Father Is Your God and Father

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made that has been made. And that same Word has become Flesh and dwelt among us, conceived and born of St. Mary, in order that we may behold His Glory, the Glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So has He come down from the Father in heaven, and taken our sins upon Himself, into His own Body of flesh and blood, and gone to the Cross, and laid down His Life for all of us in holy Love. In this way — by His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead — He has departed from this vale of tears and returned in the Flesh to His God and Father, that we should live with God in Him.

This is the great journey of the Son of God, from heaven above to earth below, and back again with you in tow. He comes down to raise you up. He becomes like you, that you should become like Him. He has taken your sins upon Himself in order to atone for them, to remove them and be rid of them. But He has taken your Flesh to be His own and retains it in His Resurrection, free of sin and set free from death, in order to give you Communion with the Holy Trinity in body and soul.

It is precisely in this journey of the only-begotten Son that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And no one comes to the Father but by Him, who has come down from the Father and returned to the Father through the suffering and death of His Cross into His great and glorious Resurrection.

That is why He says to you, today, in the accomplished fact of His Cross and Passion, that He is now ascending to His God and Father — who is now also your God and your Father in Christ! For as you share His death by your Baptism in His Name, so do you share His Resurrection from the dead, and His Ascension into heaven, and His Sonship, and His Spirit, and His God and Father. Thus do you live with Him in His Kingdom in His righteousness and purity, now and forever.

In this same pattern of the Cross and Resurrection, such as you share with Christ Jesus by way of His Holy Baptism, so have you heard that Mary Magdalene was brought from darkness into Light.

She came to the tomb while yet in the darkness of her unbelief, overcome with grief and sorrow, and forgetting the promise of the Resurrection. But by His Word and Spirit she was brought into the Light of the revelation of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. By His grace and tender mercy, she was given to see the Lord in whose crucified and risen Flesh the Father is revealed.

His Resurrection is the dawning of the New Creation, a new “in the beginning,” not only for dear St. Mary, but for all the beloved disciples of Jesus — for all of those whom He calls to Himself and catechizes in the one true faith. It is thus on the first day of the week that the Word-made-Flesh declares, in the Voice of His Resurrection from the dead, “Let there be Light!” And it is so.

There is a similar transition from darkness to light, from unbelief to faith, in the case of Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loves. But their journey from death to life in Christ is more ambiguous in this Holy Gospel, and not as poignant or as intimate as that of Mary Magdalene.

Consider how it was for poor, dear Mary to begin with. She comes in the darkness, and then she flees from the empty tomb in fear and sadness and confusion. Even after she returns, she is at a loss and does not know what to do. She weeps with anguish and despair, and she stands there frozen in perplexity and grief. She does not recognize Jesus when He appears, nor does she perceive the evidence of His Resurrection. She supposes that He must be a gardener, as though He were the old Adam who must die, and not the New Man who lives. She is so consumed by her concern for the handling of a corpse, for the burial of the dead, that she cannot comprehend the Light of Christ.

It is rather pathetic, yet also far too familiar to all of us poor sinners.

But Jesus the Good Shepherd calls this poor little sheep, this tender lamb of His, by her name: “Mary,” He says, in much the same way that He has called you by name, and given you His own Name, in your Holy Baptism. And just as He has promised, His sheep hear His voice, they know Him, and they follow Him. As her Teacher, her Rabboni, Jesus catechizes Mary to recognize Him in His risen Flesh. And so does He catechize you by His Word to recognize Him in His Supper.

Even then, dear Mary still wants to cling to the Jesus she has known before — not in the Flesh of His Resurrection, but according to the mortal flesh that bore our sins and griefs and sorrows to the death of His Cross. It is not that He is two different Men with two different Bodies, but that she must let go of the past and lift up her heart and mind to her crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

Here is the problem: Mary at first is trying to hang on to the perishable and the mortal, just as you are tempted to hang on to your old Adam, and to the comfortable familiarity of your life in this world, despite the fact that it is cumbered by sin, by sickness and death. And when a loved one has died, is there not a place in your heart that longs to have him back and keep him here in this vale of tears — even though you know better — because you are selfish and lonely and afraid?

But Jesus, your dear Savior, your crucified and risen Lord, He is not to be sought in the commerce or confines of this body and life. His Kingdom is not of this world. He has returned to the Father in the life of the Resurrection from the dead. He has not left the Body behind; it is in His Body that He has risen from the dead and ascended to the Right Hand of the Father. But so has He also, in His Body, put sin and death and the legacy of sin and death to an end, once and for all. He has put mortality down, in order to raise you up to immortality. He has risen, and He is never to die again.

He thus declares that He is your Brother, and that His God and Father is yours forever in Him. He does not leave humanity behind, but in His Resurrection He reveals Himself as the true and perfect Man, in whom you are justified, reconciled to God, and sanctified by His Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus you are rescued from sin, raised up from death, and seated with Him in the heavenly places.

In His innocent suffering and death, He has descended into the depths of your depravity, into your sin, death, and hell. And so it is that, in His Resurrection and Ascension, He raises you up with Himself to the heights of His divine glory, even to the Bosom of His God and Father in heaven.

Out of the darkness of death He calls you by His Gospel — by His Word of forgiveness, as by the washing of the water with His Word and Holy Spirit — into this Light and Life of His Salvation.

By His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins, He calls you from your unbelief to fear, love, and trust in Him by faith in His Word and promises. He opens your eyes to see that He is your Lord and Savior — to behold in His Flesh the divine Glory of His God and Father, and yet, by His grace, to call this Lord your own dear Brother, and this God your own dear Father.

In this faith and trust and confidence, in this beautiful new relationship that you have been given with the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit — as a beloved child of God in Christ Jesus — He tenderly invites you to lay hold of Him, to embrace Him and cling to Him, to worship and adore Him, here and now at His Altar in His Church, in His holy Body and precious Blood.

Indeed, He thus lays hold of you and clings to you in Love, so that nothing at all, neither sin, nor death, nor the devil and hell, nor anything else, shall ever be able to snatch you away from Him.

Crucified and risen from the dead, immortal, imperishable, and glorious, He gives Himself to you in this Sacrament. He feeds your mortal body with His own Flesh as the guarantee and surety of your own bodily resurrection from the dead to the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Him.

Has He not caused it to be written, and given you to know and believe, that He is your Redeemer, and that He lives!? Indeed He has, and so He does. And as He lives, who once was dead, so shall you also live forever in His Body. Even after your skin and bones have been destroyed, yet, from your own flesh, in the resurrection of your body, with your own two eyes made clear and bright by the Holy Spirit, you shall behold your Savior and your God, and your own dear Father in Him.

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

Creation Is Perfected in the Body of Christ the Crucified

On the sixth day, God created Man in His own Image and Likeness. And what God began on that first Friday, He finishes and fulfills on this Good Friday. For here, in truth, is the Image and Likeness of God, in which man is created:

“Behold the Man,” the King of Creation, reigning from the Tree of His Cross

It is not uncommon, of course, that you may attempt a good work, only to have it go badly wrong and blow up in your face. But that is most certainly not what has happened here. God’s original intention has not been thwarted by the sin of man. What He has done, He has in fact purposed from the very beginning, indeed, from before the foundation of the world.

For the sake of His divine and holy love, God freely chose to create the heavens and the earth. Not for His own benefit, but for the sake of loving His creatures and benefitting them. He creates all things in order to love the man and the woman, the king and the queen of His first creation, made in His Image to live and reign with Him in Paradise eternally.

Already then, the Lord not only knows how things are going to go, but He willingly and graciously commits Himself to that very suffering and death which we here remember on this sacred day.

No one takes His life from Him, but He lays it down willingly for us poor sinners, His fallen and rebellious creatures, in order to raise us up with Himself by His Cross and in His Resurrection.

Thus, Adam was created in the Image and Likeness of this Man, the incarnate Son, the Seed of the Woman, who is more specifically the Crucified One, sacrificed for us men and our salvation.

Yet, even though God has created you to be and to live in the Image and Likeness of Christ, your sinful proclivity is to “create” gods of your own likeness, in your own image — false gods of selfish, self-serving, self-centered self-love. Those false gods and idols of yours are gods of power and greed and competition, gods of envy and revenge. And in your worship of such gods, your self-love is matched only by your hatred of anything that would hurt you, by your fear of anything that would threaten your freedom, and by your animosity toward anyone who might insult you.

The one true God is utterly unlike those false gods and idols that you worship and serve in your sinful unbelief. And so it is that, when He reveals Himself as He truly is in the Man of sorrows, you do not even recognize Him as a Man, far less as God in the Flesh. But so indeed He is. His almighty power is thus made known chiefly in showing mercy and pity toward those who deserve nothing but punishment. And the height of His divine glory is not selfishness, but Self-sacrificing love for poor, miserable sinners like yourself, who hate Him, and hurt Him, and betray Him for money, who deny Him and flee from Him, and who put Him to death, even death on the Cross.

He turns the other cheek to those who hit and punch and slap Him, and He does not retaliate. He loves His enemies, and He prays for those who persecute Him. He likewise prays for you, as well, that His Father would not hold your sins against you.

It is therefore in the frailty and weakness of His flesh and blood upon the Cross — in His Body made mortal by your sins — in His bitter suffering and innocent death, and in the shedding of His holy, precious Blood — it is there that the Image and Likeness of God are most clearly and fully revealed, and are now accomplished and perfected in this one true Man, the new and better Adam.

It is in this Image, in the Likeness of Christ, the Crucified One, that you are recreated to live with Him in His Kingdom forever. To live as He has lived in the fear and faith of His God and Father. To love as He loves you. To forgive others as He forgives you. And to sacrifice yourself for the sake of your neighbor, within your own calling, as Jesus Christ has sacrificed Himself for you.

So it is that, as the woman, Eve, was taken from the side of the man, Adam, and then brought to the man and given to him as his bride, now the Bride of Christ, His Holy Church, the Mother of all the living, is taken from the riven side of this Man, Jesus Christ, and made alive in the river of living water and life-giving blood that He pours out from His Body in the sacred sleep of death.

If you would be His disciple, His man or His woman, you are entrusted to this Holy Mother, His Church on earth as it is in heaven. You are born again by the water, Word, and Spirit of Christ. And as often as your sin has robbed you of His Breath of Life, you are resuscitated by His Word of Peace, His Word of Holy Absolution, the forgiveness of all your sins in His Name and stead. There is nothing that is held against you, since He has made Atonement for all of your iniquities.

Thus are you nourished at the Church’s festal board, fed with the Body and Blood of the firstborn Son who has been given in the place of lambs and sheep who love to wander, and who has been slain upon the Cross for you and for all of the children of men.

By the same token, the Woman herself, the Bride of Christ, His Holy Church, the Mother of all the sons and daughters of God, she is entrusted to the one who testifies. She is committed in body and soul to the Apostolic witness of the Cross and Crucifixion of the New Adam, Jesus Christ. And she is cared for by the preaching and confession of this same Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, whose Blood cleanses the Woman and all of her children. It is His Blood that also covers you and shields you from the death and damnation you deserve.

In Him who is the very Image and Likeness of God, crucified for your transgressions and raised for your justification — though you are a child of dust, subject to death and the grave for your sins — yet, in Him, you are resurrected from the dust of the earth and returned to the Garden of God, to Paradise the blest, where you are fed forevermore with the Fruits of this Tree of Life. “Behold the life-giving Cross, on which was hung the salvation of the world!” Take and eat. Drink of it, all of you. Taste and see that the Lord is very good, and that His loving-kindness endures forever.

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

He's By Your Side Upon the Plain

The Kingdom of God is at hand in Christ Jesus, and His Baptism has become your Holy Baptism.  Thus, you are a beloved son of God the Father, and you are well-pleasing to Him, because Christ has bound Himself to you, and you to Him, by and with His own Name.  The Father has opened heaven to you in the Body of the incarnate Son, and He has poured out His Holy Spirit upon you.

Consequently, in this mortal life on earth you now find yourself in the arena between God and the devil, and you are driven into personal conflict with the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh.  Day after day, you are tempted by these enemies of God to doubt, deny, and disobey His Word.

At the same time, your dear God and Father in heaven would test you, as He tested Abraham.  He does not tempt you to sin, nor to any evil, but He does try your heart and mind in order to test, instruct, and strengthen your faith in His Word and in the promises of your Holy Baptism.  So it is that you are daily being put to death, and daily being raised to newness of life in Christ Jesus.

Life is a battlefield when the Kingdom of God invades the devil’s stomping grounds.  Which is why — because the Lord Jesus has been baptized to be your Champion and your Savior — He is immediately driven by the Spirit of God from the waters of His Baptism into the wilderness, there to be tempted by Satan, in order to engage that wicked foe in a strange and dreadful contest.  Thus, the Son of David goes out to meet a bigger, badder Goliath than this world has ever dreamed of.

The wilderness is where Christ contends with Satan, because the wilderness is where you also are tested and trained.  The wilderness is where the fallen children of Adam & Eve learn how to live in Paradise again, that is, by faith in the Word and works of God, to rest in His gracious promises.  The wilderness is that long stretch of desert between Egypt and Canaan, wherein the children of God are catechized to enter the Good Land that He will give them according to His tender mercy.  And it is where you are taught to live in the Kingdom of God by faith, and so also to work in love for God and for your neighbor, instead of trusting and loving only yourself.  To that end, it is in the wilderness that you are called to repent and believe the Gospel.  But, of course, it is especially at those points of repentance, faith, and love that you are under attack and assaulted by the devil.

The Lord your God tests you and tries you, in order to clarify and strengthen your faith and your confession.  The devil tempts you into all kinds of evil, in order to rob you of life and bring you to death and condemnation.  So it is that Satan wickedly entices you to disobey God’s Word; and then, in craftiness and spite, he is also the first in line to accuse you and bring charges against you.

At every point in your life on earth, this battle is waged: In your successes, and in your suffering and failures.  In what you have, and in what you lack or lose.  In what God has promised, and in what you covet for yourself that God has not given you.  Always the devil is tempting you to question and contradict, to ignore and despise what God has spoken, both the Law and the Gospel.

But now, let God and His Word be true, and know that everything else is a lie and a deception.

Trust the Lord, your God and Father in Christ Jesus. Cling to His Word, come hell or high water against you.  Do not despair of His goodness, nor despise His good gifts of body and soul.

Do not be deceived or misled into evil, which has merely the appearance of “good,” yet leads only to death.  Beware the assaults and temptations of the enemy: the lies, the flattery, the questions, and the accusations of the devil; the enticements and attacks of the world; and the lusts and desires of your own mortal flesh, which are the rotting cesspool out of which all sin and death proceed.

Sometimes crass, sometimes subtle, the devil is always crafty, and every sin to which he tempts you is dangerous and deadly.  Do not kid yourself.  It is not true that “all sins are equal,” but all sin, by definition, is contrary to the Word of the Lord, and that is always to your detriment.  Every denial, and every disobedience of what God the Lord has spoken, is a refusal and rejection of the Life that is found only in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  That is why the soul that sins shall die.

Where, then, shall you live?  In the Kingdom of God by His grace?  Or with the devil in his prison house of death and despair?  That is what it comes down to, finally.  You cannot have it both ways.

Repent of your sins and sacrifice your idols.  Worship the Lord your God by faith in His Gospel.  Not that He needs anything from you, but that you need Him for everything.  Rest your hopes in Him and call upon His Name.  Rejoice in His forgiveness, and know that He well provides for you.  He saves you from every evil of body and soul.  He raises you up, even from death and the grave.

Remember that you are baptized, and remember what God has said to you and done for you by that washing of water with His Word.  As father Abraham clung to the Covenant of Circumcision and persevered in the promises of God — even when he was tried and tested so poignantly in the case of his beloved Isaac — so cling to the Word and promises of God in Christ Jesus, in whose Name you are baptized, whose Cross you bear, and whose Resurrection from the dead you also share.

Renounce the devil, all his works and all his ways.  That’s not a one-time deal, it’s a lifelong battle and a deadly serious business.  But your life and your allegiance belong to the Holy Triune God.

See here, you will not starve.  The Lord your God will feed you according to His mercy.  And you shall not go naked, for God the Lord will clothe and shelter you in peace.  Nor shall you die alone.  The Lord is with you, in death as in life, and in the Resurrection.  He is your sure and certain hope.

There is no temptation with which you are tempted that He has not also endured and resisted on your behalf — in flesh and blood like your own — even in the wilderness of your sin and death.  And there is no suffering that you suffer which He has not also suffered in your place, so that by His Cross and Passion He should overcome them.  He has defeated your enemies.  He has atoned for your sins.  He has conquered your death.  His Resurrection from the dead is God’s own pledge and promise to you, which stands fast and forever, as Christ Himself lives and reigns to all eternity.

He has set Himself to be your Champion.  He’s by your side upon the plain!  He has taken His stand against the roaring lion that threatens to devour you; He has smashed his teeth and broken his jaw.  He has crushed the serpent’s shifting, hissing head beneath His own bruised and bloodied heel.  He is faithful, and He does what He has promised.  There is no shifting or turning with Him.

The devil is always shifting and turning.  When one strategy fails, he simply switches to another.  He’ll tell you one thing in the morning and another thing at night.  From one day to the next, from one week to the next, the devil is full of nothing but constant lies and deceptions.  He cares nothing for the truth, but only for your death and your damnation by whatever means he might employ.

Your own sinful heart is likewise full of guile, and the world is also deceitful and dishonest. But not so with your Father in heaven.  He speaks from His heart in Christ Jesus, His beloved Son, and His Word is always the Truth.  He will not change His mind concerning you.  What God the Father says to you in Christ is and always shall be so.  You are sheltered under the shadow of His wings.

Christ be praised, the Kingdom of God does not rest upon your faithfulness.  It does not even rest upon your repentance or your faith.  It does not depend on you at all.  But the Kingdom of God is at hand for you in the Body of Christ Jesus.  It is as sure and certain as His Nativity, His Baptism, His Life, His Death, and His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  So it is that your repentance and your faith, your life and your salvation, rest firmly upon Him.  And He shall not be moved.

Consider the example of your Lord Jesus Christ, therefore — though it is always much more than just an example — because everything He does, He does it all for you, that you might live in Him.

Amid the wild beasts and the wicked assaults of the devil, the Lord Jesus, in humility and faith, relies upon His Father and receives the ministry of His Father’s holy angels.  So, too, He sends His ministering spirits to care for you, both His holy angels and His mortal preachers of the Gospel,  in order to preserve your faith and life in both body and soul, unto the Life everlasting.

He provides the sustenance that you need in the midst of the wilderness.  Not miraculous bread from desert stones, but the Living and Life-giving Bread of His own Body, which is given for you.  And as He thus serves you with Himself, will He not also freely give you every good thing?

It is most certainly true.  You are beloved of the Lord.  You are a son or daughter of God the Father in Christ Jesus, and He is well pleased with you.  That is the truth.  Your sins are all forgiven, and God holds none of them against you.  From the waters of your Holy Baptism He has clothed you in the righteousness and holiness, the innocence and blessedness of Jesus, the incarnate Son.  He cleanses and restores you with His holy and precious Blood, which is poured out for you to drink.

By Himself He has sworn, He has bound Himself to you.  He is yours, and you are His forever.  The heavens stand open, and the Kingdom of God is here for you.  Amen, Amen, it shall be so!

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

Upon This Rock Christ Builds His Church

The Church’s one Foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord – the almighty and eternal Son of the Living God, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, put to death and buried, risen from the dead, ascended to the Right Hand of the Father, but given and poured out for us Christians to eat and to drink in His Holy Supper here on earth.

He is the Foundation, or, as the Scriptures say, the Cornerstone who gives shape and strength and stability to the Foundation of His Apostles and Prophets. And He is the Wise Man who establishes, builds, protects, and sustains His Church – His House – upon the Rock, as we have heard in this familiar Holy Gospel this afternoon.

Because He builds His House upon the Rock, it stands fast against the winds and waves and storms that rage against it; and according to His Word and promise, even the gates of hell (or Hades) are unable to prevail against His Church.

As to “the Rock,” a lot of ink has been spilled over the years debating what it is and how that works.  It’s certainly not Simon Peter in and of himself as a fallen and fallible human being. Indeed, the Holy Gospels do not cover up or hide his human foibles and failings at various points along the way. Yet, the Lord chose Simon Barjona, called him to faith and discipleship, forgave his sins, restored him following his denials, and sent him to preach and administer the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome (from Pentecost to Martyrdom). Thus do our Lutheran Confessions assert that our Lord addresses Simon Peter as an Apostle, a called and ordained minister of His Word, and says, “Upon this Rock,” that is, upon this Ministry – the Ministry of the Confession of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And that apostolic Ministry, upon which Christ Jesus builds His Church, continues around the world to this day, to the ends of the earth – and so also to this place – even to the close of the age.

It is to this same Ministry – of the Confession of Christ Jesus – that Pr. Hesse has been ordained, and for which he has now been called to St. John Lutheran Church here in Aurora, Indiana.

So has the Lord intended, from before the foundation of the world, that His servant Mark Hesse should become part of the foundation of His Church in this time and place. To that end, in all that he says and does Pr. Hesse is to be guided and governed by the Word of Christ Jesus, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures by the Holy Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists.

Pr. Hesse has but one Name to proclaim and declare, one Name in which to Baptize and Absolve you, and one Name to rely upon, come hell or high water against him. That is the Name of the one Lord, Jesus Christ, given here in your midst from God the Father in heaven.

Pr. Hesse will have nothing else to offer you or give you than that, and there is really nothing else in heaven or on earth that you and your congregation need – nothing else that really matters. This is the point and purpose of it all, and it is more than sufficient, more than adequate.

It is revealed and given, first of all, in Holy Baptism, just as it was in the Baptism of our Lord that God the Father anointed Him with the Holy Spirit as the Christ and openly declared Him to be His beloved and well-pleasing Son. That is where Simon Peter learned to know and confess who Jesus is. And so, too, it is in your Holy Baptism that you have been named with His Name, anointed with His Spirit as a Christian, and adopted by God the Father as a beloved and well-pleasing son or daughter in Christ Jesus.

A pastor is given no greater or higher privilege than that of baptizing disciples of Jesus in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for such baptizing with water and the Word works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal Life and Salvation to all who believe this, according to the sure and certain promises of God.

And of course, it is not to be forgotten or taken lightly that pastors also have this great blessing and benefit of Holy Baptism. That is not what makes a man a pastor, but it is the confidence and hope in which he is sustained in the Office of the Ministry and in all of his callings and stations in life. You are first and foremost a Christian, a child of God, before you are called, ordained, and sent to be a pastor of the Lord’s people, a shepherd of the Lord’s sheep under the Good Shepherd.

Forgiveness of sin does not begin and end with Holy Baptism. Indeed, forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name is at the very center of the Church and Ministry, the heart and soul of this Office and work to which you are called and ordained. You yourself depend upon the forgiveness of your own sins; and you, in turn, are given the tremendous privilege and responsibility to forgive the sins of others.

To be sure, it is the duty of every Christian to forgive as we are freely forgiven by the Lord Jesus, to forgive those who trespass against us, and to be reconciled with those we have trespassed against. But as a pastor, you are also entrusted with the office and exercise of the Keys – the preaching and administration of the Gospel – unto repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins. You are to hear the confessions of God’s people with the ears of Christ Jesus, and to absolve them with His Word, with His Voice, in His Name and stead. However odd that might seem, that is how our dear Lord Jesus chooses to deal with us on earth.

And that is why it is so fundamental and so necessary to the integrity of the Office, to the Church and Ministry of the Gospel, that you maintain the absolute confidentiality of those things that are confessed to you. As Christ forgives the sins of His people through the Word that He speaks with your lips, it is vital that your lips not speak of those sins to anyone else, anywhere, at any time. They are altogether swallowed up by the Gospel, removed as far as the East is from the West, and remembered no more before God in heaven. Whatever temporal consequences remain on earth are the concern and responsibility of other authorities.

By the same token, where you are given to confront and deal with those who refuse to repent of their sins but persist in them with hardness of heart, there you must exercise the binding key, as needs may be, that the Lord’s Church and Ministry not become agents of evil or a den of thieves. Our hope and prayer, even then, is that the Lord in His mercy would work repentance in their hearts, unto faith in His free and full forgiveness of sins. But His forgiveness is deliverance from sin and every evil, not a license to continue in sin.

To those who believe and are baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus, who live in the promise and significance of their Holy Baptism, and who by faith confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, you are also given the profound privilege – as already here this afternoon – of administering His Body and His Blood in remembrance of Him. That goes hand-in-hand with the proclamation of His death until He comes, the preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name. To celebrate the Lord’s Supper is an exercise of pastoral care, within a context of ongoing pastoral care. It is the Family Meal at the heart of the Lord’s House, and you are the housefather entrusted with the stewardship of this Mystery for the children of God under your care.

Are you up to the task? No, of course not! None of us are, not of ourselves. Consider again St. Peter and his faults and failings. As Luther confesses, if this Ministry depended on us, it would all fall apart and go to rack and ruin. Yet, this is how the Lord has determined to preserve, protect, and prosper His Church on earth, and so shall He be with you, strengthen and sustain you in this Office and work. Your labors are not in vain in Him! He rather delights to work by the way of His Cross, and He manifests His glorious power precisely in such weakness, in the frailty of flesh and blood.

There is salvation by no other way or means than the Ministry of the Confession of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. Though He is despised and rejected by the world, He is the Cornerstone upon whom everything rests and depends. And by the preaching of His Word and the Ministry of His Gospel, He has granted to you – to His pastors and to all His people – such exceedingly precious and very great promises, that you should become partakers of the divine nature in Him. For He became like you, that you should become like Him.

As He was crucified for your transgressions and has been raised for your justification, so are you raised from death to eternal Life, in both body and soul, in and with Him. This is what it means that the gates of hell (or Hades) shall not prevail against His Church. Death and the grave do not get to have the last word against you, because they are defeated, undone, and burst apart from the inside-out by the Lord Jesus Christ. Death no longer has any hold on Him, and neither shall it be able to hold onto you. For Christ is risen from the dead, and He has opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all who believe and are baptized in His Name.

Built on this Rock, the Church shall stand, even when steeples are falling. For here stands the Font before our eyes, declaring how God has received us. The Altar recalls Christ’s Sacrifice and what His Supper here gives us. And here sound the Scriptures that proclaim Christ Jesus, forever the same, our Savior and our Redeemer!

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

United with Christ: in His Cross and in His Office

By a son’s reckoning, it will be twenty years ago this June; if memory serves me well, it was on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist — or, in any case, it was close enough — when you were ordained as a Minister of Christ and a Pastor of His Church.  Even though you remained at Grace Lutheran, Wood River, Nebraska, where you had served as a Vicar in their vacancy, nevertheless, you were surely able to sense the profound difference that began with your Ordination: Not unlike the difference between engagement and holy marriage.

It was at that point, now almost twenty years ago, when you received the special gifts of the Holy Spirit which are known collectively as the Office of the Holy Ministry; when you yourself — your body and soul, your eyes, ears, reason and all your senses, and all that you are — were given as a gift of the Spirit to the Church on earth; when the yoke of Christ Himself — the mantle of His Holy Prophets and Apostles — was laid upon you, not as a burden, but a joyous vocation under the Cross; when, in addition to your other vocations as a child (and as a child of God), as a husband and father, you were also called to be a Shepherd of the flock under the Good Shepherd of us all, Jesus Christ.

From the first, there is a particularity to all of this.  You became, and you have remained, a Minister of Christ in His Church; and, as such, you have served in a wide variety of ways and places.  But you are (and you must be) also a Pastor of His Church in a particular place: At Grace, Wood River; at Peace, McCook, Nebraska; and now at Our Savior in Milford, Illinois.

This particularity — this “locatedness” of your pastoral Ministry — is a continuation and extension of the very Incarnation that we have so recently celebrated in the Holy Nativity of Christ our Lord.  For it is the scandalous particularity of the Christian faith, that we can point to this Baby in this place at this time — and/or to this Man on this Cross at this time — born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate — and precisely (and only) here in Him, we confess, is the one true God in the Flesh, who for us and our salvation came down from heaven to earth.

Now, you are not God!  You are not the Lord Jesus Christ!  But we can point to you — and, as of today, we can point to you here in this place at this time — and we confess that you will speak with the Voice of Christ to these people, and you will administer for them the works of Christ Himself.

That is the very point and purpose for which we have been gathered today: that we might see with our eyes, and confess with our lips, that God has placed you here to speak and act for Him, and in your Ministry to be His active Gospel–presence among these dear people, for whom Christ died.

Today, you do not become what you were not, but what you have been, what God has given you to be in your Ordination, is now given to and for the Lutheran Church of Our Savior here in Milford, Illinois.  In all of its particularities — even peculiarities, “warts and all,” as your dear wife might say — God is present and at work in this place, at this time, in and through you.

In this respect, it is so fitting and appropriate that the Lord has chosen this day — the First Sunday after the Epiphany: the Baptism of Our Lord — to install you in this new Office of responsibility.  For just as our Lord Jesus did not receive the Holy Spirit for the first time at His Baptism (as though He were previously without the Spirit), but He was visibly and publicly anointed by the Spirit — when He descended bodily upon Him in the form of a dove — to “install” Him into His Office and Holy Ministry as the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world.

What He was from all eternity, He now becomes for us and our salvation, as He is baptized into the eventuality of His own Cross and Passion (unto death).  Henceforth, all that He is, and all that He does, is for us.  And so also for you: Henceforth, all that you are and all that you do, as a Minister of Christ and as a Pastor of His Church, is for Our Savior here in Milford.

Now, there are many who would say that your Ministry is an extension of your own Holy Baptism.  But that is only indirectly true, and it is misleading to follow down that road of logic.  By all means, there is no greater treasure in your life than Holy Baptism!  But it is not by virtue of your Baptism that you speak the words and work the works of Christ as a Pastor of His Church.  Rather, as the Liturgy of the Holy Communion has so well taught us, it is by virtue of your Office as a Called and Ordained Servant of the Word that you forgive sins, and preach the Gospel, and baptize, and distribute the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus to and for His people (and now also in this place), all in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

To be sure, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism belongs to all of this; and the waters of your own Holy Baptism are also involved.  For in the washing of those waters with the Word you were united with Christ in His Cross and Resurrection, anointed by His Spirit, and adopted as a son of God the Father.  And, as such a child of God, you bear His Holy Name in all of your various vocations.  So it is that your entire life, in all its aspects, is an ongoing confession of the Creed, including also your vocation as a Minister of Christ.

But this vocation was not given to you in your Baptism.  There you were called to be and to live as a child of God.  But you were called to be a child of your parents when you were born; you were called to be a husband when you were married; you were called to be a father when your children were born; and you were called to be a Pastor when you were ordained to this Office of the Holy Ministry.  And you serve faithfully in this Office — as in all your other vocations — because you are a baptized child of God who lives in Christ, and Christ in you, by grace through faith in Him.

But whereas Holy Baptism united you with Christ in His Cross and Resurrection as a child of God, your Ordination united you with Christ in His Office of preaching and teaching and otherwise administering His Holy Gospel of forgiveness unto others.  By your Holy Baptism, you became a disciple; by your Ordination, you have been sent to make disciples.

As a child of God, you stand in the waters of the Jordan with Christ Jesus, and you hear the Voice of your dear Father in heaven declaring, that you are His beloved son, with whom He is well pleased.

But as a Minister of Christ, you stand on the banks of the Jordan with St. John, preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and baptizing other sons of God through Christ your Lord.

The nature of your Ministry is, in many ways, very much like that of St. John the Baptist, but more so.  You do not prepare for a Christ who is yet to come in the first place, but you preach and bestow a Christ who has already come, and you proclaim His death until His comes again.  And yet, it is still the preaching of repentance, which Jesus Himself describes (following His Resurrection) as being on par with the Cross and Resurrection in its divine necessity.  Without such preaching, the forgiveness and life and salvation of the Cross would never be distributed and received.

Thus were the Holy Apostles sent to preach repentance in the Name of Jesus to all the nations.  And so have you been sent to preach this same repentance, in the Name and stead of this same Jesus, for the forgiveness of these dear people who are now entrusted to your care.

This is the “Word and Sacrament Ministry” with which you are charged by Christ Himself.  And this “Word and Sacrament” is no mere cliché.  It must be understood and carried out quite specifically and concretely in your flesh-and-blood preaching, living, and embodiment of the Holy Gospel.

Which means that you will hear the confession of real sins by real sinners, and you will forgive those sins with the spoken Word of Holy Absolution.  It means that you will visit those frail, hurting people who are hospitalized or homebound, that the Word of Christ might dwell among them and with them.  It means that you will administer the Holy Communion, putting the true Body and Blood of Jesus into the mouths of His people.  And it means, of course, that you will Baptize young and old into His very real and eternally-significant Cross and Resurrection.

In the footsteps of the Holy Apostles, you are sent by Christ with His own authority, who is with you in all that you say and do — to baptize, to teach, to pray, to feed the flock with the Word and Flesh of the One who sends you; to speak with His Voice, and to work His own works with His own hands, as it were, according to His Words and promises: He who receives you, receives Him who sent you; and He who hears you, hears Him who sent you, even Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior.

In this respect, both you — and these people of Our Savior — must realize that you are sent, not only to tell them “about” Jesus, “about” the Gospel, “about” the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation; but here among them you are given to embody the Gospel in your Office, to deal with them with the Law and Gospel, as the one through whom Christ, their dear Lord, deals with them Himself: to forgive their sins in fact, and to bestow His own divine life and eternal salvation in their ears, in their hands, in their mouths, and thereby into their hearts and lives.

How shall you rise to this occasion and live up to this Office and responsibility?  You shall not.  But Christ shall raise you up, even as He shall raise up His people in this place through you.

As a Minister of Christ, as a Pastor of His Church, you must also live from that same Word that you preach, from that same Body and Blood that you administer, in those same holy waters with which you baptize.  In this respect, you shall find your best example in St. John the Baptist when he is languishing in prison, waiting for his head to be removed, and suffering the doubts and fears of his own sinful heart.  What, then, does he do?   He seeks out a Word from Jesus, the Voice of the Gospel, which is the one and only thing that will sustain you in the Office of the Holy Ministry.

The Lord will seek you out, because He loves you, and He will not let you go beyond the sound of His Voice.  But you must also seek out His Voice for yourself, and give ear to it — from your Brothers and Fathers in Christ, through Individual Confession and Holy Absolution, as well as through the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren.

And dear people of Our Savior, as you also must live from the Word and Voice of Jesus, which you will now hear from this Pastor in this place (under the Cross, amidst all the hurts and frailties of life), remember, too, that as you have heard, so ought you to speak a Word of the Gospel — a Word from Jesus — to your family and friends, to your neighbors and acquaintances, and to your Pastor, who lives by grace and mercy and forgiveness no less than you.

And now, to all of you, a beautiful example of how to live such a life in such a way.  Martin Luther used to get out of bed each morning and begin his day with a reminder to himself:  “I Am Baptized!”

That simple confession of faith sustained his confidence and hope in Christ, even in the middle of all sorts of personal doubts, ongoing challenges, and numerous threats from all around him.  Whenever he was tempted or afraid, he likewise recalled his Baptism by making the sign of the Cross (as he did in all his prayers and at meals), marking him as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified.  He took comfort in the fact that he was baptized into the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, that he had thereby received forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, and that he was thus a beloved child of God the Father.

You have that same comfort in the waters of your own Holy Baptism — consecrated and set apart by Christ Himself today in His Baptism.  To the human eye and senses, according to the wisdom of this world, it is nothing but a splash of ordinary water (an empty symbol).  But to the eyes of faith, according to the gracious Will and Wisdom of God, it is a gracious water of life, a rich and full washing of regeneration; it works the forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the Words and promises of God declare: “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.”  Grant this Lord, unto us all, for Jesus’ sake!

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

To Worship the Lord Jesus in Faith and Love

The Magi were probably from Babylon or Persia, that part of the world, east of the Promised Land.  They were not magicians or alchemists, but scientists and scholars, astronomers.  We know that Babylon already had such people in the days of Daniel, and it is surely no coincidence that Daniel, after interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, was made the chief of all the magi in Babylon.  He also continued to serve in that capacity when the Medes and Persians took over.

So, it is no wonder that Magi from the East had some awareness of what was going on among the people of Israel.  For the faithful Prophet Daniel, who lived according to the Word of the Lord, would also have confessed and taught the Wisdom of that Word, including the Prophecies of the Christ who was to come: The Scepter of Judah and the Star of Jacob.

When the Magi observed a bright new light in the sky, in the area assigned to Judah, they would have known from the Word of the Lord what this meant.  The King had come who would reign over the nations with a scepter of righteousness.  It was His star that had risen.

It is important to understand that, while the star was the sign of Christ’s birth, it was the Scriptures that actually guided the Magi to Him.  The Scriptures pointed them, first of all, to the land of Israel, to Judah.  And the Scriptures also then directed them to Bethlehem, to the City of David.

But why did they go?  Why did they bother?  Why did the Magi travel that great distance?  Why did they search so diligently?  And why did they rejoice so greatly when they found the Child?

They could have been saved by faith in the Word of God without making the long trip to see Him in person.  They could have rejoiced in the Savior from afar.  But they did not.  They undertook the journey.  They were compelled by faith and love to seek Him out.  And they tell us plainly why they went.  It was to worship Him.  That’s why they made the journey: To worship the Christ.

So, when they entered the house and saw the Child with His Mother, they fell down and prostrated themselves before Him.  They worshiped Him with their bodies, with their treasures, and with their very lives.  They entrusted themselves to Him.  They worshiped Him in the beauty of His holiness, even in the frailty of His human flesh and blood, an Infant in His Mother’s lap.

They saw the same thing anyone else would have seen.  But the Word told them what to believe about this little Boy.  That He is God.  That He is the King.  That He is the Savior, the Christ, the Ruler who has come.  So they prostrated themselves before Him.  They humbled themselves in His presence.  And they gave Him their costly treasures.  As their lives belong to Him, so with body and life they worshiped Him who is manifest God in the Flesh, and who has come to save them.

They came and worshiped Him, not as though to grovel and beg to get something from Him, but because they knew and believed that He had come freely, in love, to give them everything by grace.  There was nothing else they needed any longer.  In this Child they found and received everything that matters.  And that made all the difference in the world.

The same God and Savior has also revealed Himself to you.  He has also spoken His Word to you.  And He has given His Word to you, as well — His Word-made-Flesh — in outward, visible, external Means of Grace, in the preaching and Ministry of the Gospel.  That is where and how you find the Christ, your Savior!  That is where and how you find the Lord your God.

Heaven and earth stand up and take notice, because in the simple preaching of the Word of God by ministers all over the world, from pulpits just like this one — and from this very pulpit — divine Mysteries are revealed, which even the angels know only by this preaching of the Gospel.

This Word tells you where God is for you.  And the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God is revealed to you in the face of Jesus Christ, the Babe, the Son of Mary, the Crucified One who suffered under Pontius Pilate.  In Him, in His Flesh, God Himself is with you.

The Gospel of Christ reveals Him to you by forgiving your sins in His Name.  It gives you His Life and Salvation, because it gives you Jesus Himself.  And in doing so, it calls you to faith in Him.

That faith to which the Gospel calls you is not a dead or dormant thing.  It is rather a living and active thing, and before it has even been told what to do, it is already busy doing it.

And what is it that faith does?  First of all, it listens to the Word of God.  There is nothing more vital to faith than that.  Faith gives attention to God’s Word and the preaching of it, because it is by His Word that God does and gives all things.  It is by His Word that He gives life.

Faith hears and believes what the Word of God declares.  And according to that Word, it receives the Gifts of God within His Church on earth in the Ministry of His Gospel.  It knows that Christ is here at hand to save and to give life.  Faith is willing to stake everything on that.  Indeed, it will suffer and die a thousand deaths before it would ever give that up.

Faith will likewise travel a thousand miles, it will go even to the ends of the earth, in order to find the Christ Child, to worship and adore Him.  Faith spares no expense.  There is no treasure on earth that it would not freely give up, because Jesus has come, the Treasure of heaven.  The riches of God are here in Him.  Everything else is rubbish by comparison (and nothing at all without Him).

So faith seeks out the Christ where His Word has determined and directed you to go.  It looks to the Signs that He has designated.  Not to stars in the sky, not for you; that was for the Magi then.  For you the Signs are here on earth, within the Lord’s House, in water, bread, and wine.  That is where Christ Jesus is for you, the Lord your God in the Flesh.  That is where you find Him.

And that is where you go to worship Him in faith and love, with heart and mind, with body, soul, and spirit.  To serve Him, not because you “have to,” although He is your Lord and God, and you are His creature and His servant; but you serve Him, as you love Him, because He serves you.

You love Him and serve Him because He has given Himself entirely for you and to you, and because your life is found entirely in Him.  Thus do you worship Him with all that you are and have.  In and with your heart, to be sure.  It is in and with your heart that you cling to Him by faith, come hell or high water against you, no matter what may happen to your body.

But as your heart loves and worships Christ Jesus, so does your body also, as it can.  You prostrate yourself before Him.  You bend your knees and bow your head.  You humble yourself before Him.  And you worship Him with your hands and feet, your mouth and lips and tongue, and with your whole life.  Your flesh is put into His service.  You’ll bleed and die if necessary, for the sake of this King who has saved you by the voluntary shedding of His Blood for you upon the Cross.

You will spare no expense to love Him, to serve Him, and to worship Him.  For whatever you have is from Him in the first place, and He will not fail to supply whatever is needed for your body and life, here in time and hereafter in eternity.  So you will do whatever.  You will open your treasures, be they great or small, and give Him whatever you have, because He has given you everything.

You worship Him with heart, soul, mind, and strength, with your body and life, your flesh and blood, and with your time, treasures, and talents.  You worship Him with all that you are and have.  Not to purchase His blessing (which is not for sale, in any case), but to thank and praise Him for all His grace and every blessing, for all that He is, and for all that He has done for you in love.

Thus, you live a very different life than the world does.  And you live in a completely different way than the Herods of the world.  You live in a different way because you have a new and different King in Christ Jesus.  And in Him you have found a new and different house and home with God.  You have a new Fatherland.  So you walk by a new and different way, just as the Magi did.

You love and serve the Lord Jesus, and for His sake you love and serve His people.  As the Magi served Mary and Joseph with their gifts — which paid for their flight into Egypt — so do you love and serve Christ by loving and serving His people, providing for their needs in this body and life with whatever means the Lord has placed into your stewardship.  You look for ways to love and serve Him by faith, by loving and serving those around you who are hungry, who need shelter and protection, mercy and care.  You do it for Jesus’ sake.  And in this way, too, you worship Him.

His Word tells you what to do and how.  He has not left you without guidance.  His Word warns you against all harm and danger.  As He warned the Magi against Herod, so does He warn you.  His Law warns you against the ways that would destroy your faith and life in Christ.  And His Law guides you, as well, in the way that you should go.  It guides your footsteps in the way of peace.

His Word teaches you how to live as a Christian.  How to live under Christ and serve Him in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

And by faith you do.  Because it is not only His Law that guides and warns you, but His Gospel lights your way.  His Gospel forgives every misstep, every wrong turn, every false direction.  His Gospel shines the Light of His grace, mercy, and peace upon you.  His Gospel forgives your sins.

He does not ask you to fight His battles, but He fights for you.  He is not a king like the rulers of this world.  He is God Himself, who reigns in love over His creation, the work of His own hands.

The kings of this earth and their subjects live in fear.  They are terrified of death, and so they fear the judgment of God against their sins.  They do not understand that He comes with forgiveness and salvation.  They tremble and shake at the coming of Christ Jesus.  And in response, they avoid Him, or else they seek to “worship” Him with a sword and violent bloodshed, because He threatens their existence, their self-chosen place and purpose in the world, and their idolatrous lifestyle.

Be on guard against that violence of unbelief in your own sinful heart and soul.  For it is not only those tyrants in high places who seek to be rid of the Lord Jesus.  It is whatever would dethrone Him from reigning over you as your King.  It is whatever would take His place in your body and life.  When you set Him aside in favor of your own passions and pursuits, you follow the lead of those who sought to end His life then, and the lead of those who refuse and reject Him to this day.

They suppose that He has come to take away what they love.  And to that extent they are right!  He has come to take away what they love, but so also to give them that which is actually worth loving, that which is necessary for life and salvation.  He has come to replace their false gods and idols with Himself, the true God in the Flesh.  He has come to give them real life instead of death.

Now, by the grace of God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, you have been called from the darkness into the Light, into the Kingdom of His beloved Son, Christ Jesus.  Baptized in His Name, you live no longer for yourself but for Him who for your sake died and was raised.  No longer terrified by death, you fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.  You serve and worship Him by faith

Your King has set you free from the bondage of sin and the fear of death, so you may proceed in peace with exceedingly great joy.  You live according to His Word, because you are free to do so.  You are a free citizen of His Kingdom.  Wherever in the world you live, you are His very own.

He seeks you out, and He finds you.  And now, as then, it is God Himself who gives the greatest Treasure.  You worship Him, not because He needs your gifts, but because He has given you every good and perfect Gift already.  It’s all yours in Jesus Christ!  He places it into your hand, into your mouth, and into your body, that you may have life in both body and soul, both now and forever.  Oh, come, let us worship Him!  Let us kneel and bow down at the Altar of the Lord, our Savior.

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