To Worship the Lord Your God in the Body of Christ Jesus

To live is to worship the Lord your God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And to worship Him is your life and your salvation. It is for this Life that He created you, and to this Life He calls you.

The Lord calls you to Himself, to find your life in Him, and to worship Him by faith in Christ: by serving you, by feeding you, and by caring for your body and soul with His Word and Sacrament.

He does it all by means of this sacred Tradition and this solemn Ceremony, in which the Father hands over His Son, and the Son hands Himself over and gives Himself to you in His Holy Supper.

The Life by which you live is in the Blood of this Lamb, just as life is in the blood of both man and beast. For blood brings oxygen and nutrition to the body; it cleanses the body of infection, disease, and death. So has this Lamb been sacrificed for you, and His lifeblood has been shed for your life, that you should not die but live with God and worship Him in peace. Sacrificed once for all upon the Cross, His Flesh and His Blood are now given and poured out for you, in order to feed you, to quench your thirst, to forgive your sins, and to cleanse you of all that poisons you and kills you.

In this way, the beloved Son — who is the Lamb of God — worships the Father with His Body and His Life; and so does He also love and serve you, His neighbor, by and with His precious Blood.

It is Christ Jesus who thus makes this House of God your home, your place of peace and rest. For here the Ceremony of His Holy Supper (His Passover) is delivered to you, no less than He handed it over to His disciples. By this means, He gives Himself to you as your Meat and Drink indeed. He pours out His Blood to cover you, to shelter and protect you, here within His Father’s House.

Holy Baptism is the door through which you have entered this House, and by which you have been made a member of this Household and Family of God. For in the washing of the water with the Word and Spirit of God, you have been signed by the Cross with the Blood of the Lamb: upon the lintel and the door posts of your body and life, upon your forehead and your heart. So that all you think and say and do is marked by the cruciform Image of God in Christ, in whom you now live.

The Lord has given to His Church on earth these sacred rites and ceremonies as the way and means by which He remembers His people, and by which they worship Him. Thus are His Body and His Blood administered in His Name and stead by those whom He has called and sent. And this Holy Sacrament is both the Sign and the Instrument of His great deliverance, by which you are saved. For the Lord your God sees this Blood of the Lamb, which marks both you and this House wherein you feast and live; His judgment passes over you in mercy, and no plague befalls or destroys you.

This definitive Ceremony of the Lord’s Liturgy — this most sacred Tradition of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who has mercy upon you and grants you peace — this Passover of the New Testament is the first and foremost of days and weeks and months and years. Indeed, it is the beginning of eternity for you, as you eat and drink at the Word of Christ in faith and with thanksgiving. It is a perpetual Memorial established by God for your heart, mind, body, and soul, whereby you worship the Lord here in time and hereafter in Paradise forever. Not by your doing, but by hearing what He says, receiving what He gives, and trusting what He does.

For all of which it truly is meet, right, and salutary to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him in love.

It is likewise by this Meal of His Body and His Blood that you and all the children of God are one Household and Family, fellow members of one Body in Christ Jesus, anointed by one Holy Spirit. You have one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, and one God and Father in Christ, the beloved Son. And you are given to feast upon this one Lamb who has been sacrificed for you, whose Blood now marks your Father’s House. As you eat of His one Body and drink from His Chalice of Salvation, you are bound together with all who eat and drink, as one Body in Him. You are bodied and blooded together with all of your brothers and sisters in Christ, as one Holy Communion in Him.

Thus, you are what you receive, and you receive what you are: The Body of Christ. Not on your own, but together with all who are baptized into Him, who recline at His Table and feast on Him.

To love your neighbor, therefore, is to love the Lord Jesus Christ in your neighbor. This, too, is to worship the Lord your God and to live by faith in Him. And so it is that you love your neighbor as Christ Jesus loves you, because Christ now lives in you, both body and soul, by and with His Word, His Holy Spirit, and His own Body and Blood, given and poured out for you in His Supper.

You wash your neighbor’s feet, as Jesus washes you. Not only metaphorically, but sometimes for real, as when your parents or spouse are no longer able to care for themselves or wash their own bodies, or when you mothers and fathers bathe your little children and wash between their toes.

So do you also tend your neighbor’s wounds, and you tenderly care for his needs and his feelings. You feed his body, you cover his expenses, you clothe his nakedness, and you forgive his sins. You visit him in his affliction, in the house of bondage, and you grieve and mourn with him in the cords of death and the grave. You comfort him with such love as the Lord so patiently lavishes upon you. Indeed, you give life to your neighbor by way of your own blood, sweat, and tears.

And yet, for all of that, if you examine yourself rightly, and if you examine this Body of Christ to which you belong — if you consider even these neighbors here with you, who are your brothers and sisters in Christ, your own kin, the children of your own God and Father in Him — if you thus examine yourself, then you know that you have not loved as Christ has commanded you to love.

You have not let His love have its way with you, and so your love for others has failed. There are those whom you have hurt, and there are those whom you have failed to help. Your thoughts, words, and deeds have been soiled with sin, marred by selfishness, lust, and greed. In your fallen flesh there is nothing else but this vile sin and death, from which you cannot set yourself free.

Nevertheless, the Lord your God has called you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out from under Pharaoh’s bitter yoke. He has delivered you from sin and death. Not because you were more prosperous or stronger than anyone else; not because you were more pious and faithful and sincere; not because you were more Lutheran, more confessional, or more orthodox than others. It is not because you were more plain and simple, nor because you were more formal and elaborate.

The Lord has called you, by His grace alone, with His Gospel of forgiveness. He has passed over your sins in mercy, and He remembers them no more. He has spared you from death and the grave, and He has brought you into Life with Himself. He has done so for His own Name’s sake, for the sake of His divine and holy Love in Christ Jesus, the Lamb who has been slain for your salvation.

So has He named you with His Name by calling you out of bondage and bringing you into His House of peace and rest through the waters of Holy Baptism and the forgiveness of all your sins.

The Father has sacrificed the unblemished Lamb for you at Twilight, and He has marked your door with His Blood. He catechizes you here in His House with His Word; He seats you here at His Table; and He washes your feet with the Absolution of Christ, so that you are clean by His grace.

And here the Father feeds you with the Lamb whom He has chosen from before the foundation of the world; whom He has sacrificed upon the Cross in your place, that you might live by His grace. As He fed the disciples then, even Judas and Peter and Thomas — not because of their faithfulness, but by His own faithfulness — so does He feed you. For the Father loves the disciples of Jesus, whom He has called and chosen by His Word and Holy Spirit. And so does the Father love you, as Christ Jesus loves you, even to His death upon the Cross, and in His Resurrection ever after.

It is by this Love of God for you in Christ Jesus, by the Body and Blood of the Lamb, that you live and worship the Lord your God in body and soul, and that you also love as you are loved, forever.

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

The Treasure of God Is Yours in Christ Jesus

The Heart of God the Father is Christ Jesus. And the heart of Christ is mercy and compassion. Such is the Treasure of God, which He freely bestows upon His creatures in gentleness and peace; for it is always His nature to be gracious and kind. The Father treasures His Son, and for His sake He treasures you. Christ Jesus treasures mercy, and in mercy He forgives you all your sins.

This mercy and compassion of God the Father in Christ Jesus are what characterize the Kingdom of God. This is what life in His Kingdom is like, the way it is lived in His presence by His grace.

The grace and favor of God are a priceless treasure, indeed. It is a real prize that remains forever, which gives everlasting Life to you. It cannot be earned or purchased, but only received as a gift; not by works, but only through repentant faith in Christ Jesus. And although such repentance and faith are yours, they are not of yourself but of God. They are His good work in you, by grace alone.

You cannot steal this treasure away from God, but neither can it be stolen from you, to whom He has given it freely as a gift by the Gospel. In Christ, this treasure is yours, and you are His own.

When you live by such faith — in the sure hope and certain confidence of Christ — your entire life and your whole world are shaped by the grace and favor of God, by His mercy and compassion.

It is a matter of where you have fixed your focus. That is where your heart and home are. When you are conscious of your life before God in Christ, and you live unto Him by faith in His mercy, then you have true joy, even in the midst of sorrow, and you rest in peace in the midst of death.

But when you are conscious, not of God, but of yourself — when you are not Christ-conscious, but self-conscious — then your body and life in the world are hounded by relentless demands and constant concerns, by worries and anxieties that never fully go away. The harder you try to get on top of it all, the less you are able to set your heart and mind at ease, or to let your body rest.

If what you seek are the praises of people, their admiration, appreciation, and applause, then you already have what you’re going to get, and even that much will not last for long. Fifteen minutes of fame?  Maybe more, maybe less. But not forever, that’s for sure. And it will not satisfy you.

Life on earth is fleeting and failing. So is everything about it, and everything it offers from within. Neither the entire universe nor any part or portion of creation is self-sufficient or self-sustaining. Apart from the Word of God, it withers and fades, it dies and decays.

And yet, you hunger insatiably for those precarious and perishing things, as though they could save you and sustain you, as though they could actually give you life and peace and happiness, and as though your appetites and desires gave you a rightful claim to take and keep whatever you want.

Driven by the passions of your fallen flesh (as it is also mortal and perishing), you’re constantly feeding on the world around you, but you are never content, never satisfied. The more you devour, the more you are consumed by your addictions to that which is not God and cannot give you life.

With yourself at the center, as though you were God, you use and use up whatever you find in self-interest, while you neglect the Lord and your neighbor: without faith, and without love. There are plenty of outright pagans all around you, and professed atheists, who attempt to live without God in the world. But do not pride yourself on the trappings of religion and philanthropy in your life. Even your piety, prayers, and charitable contributions are self-serving, and therefore idolatrous, whenever they are exercised and offered, not in the fear and faith of God, but in order to be noticed and praised by people — whenever your concern is not what you can do to serve others, but what others think of you and say about you, and what you can get them to do for you and give to you.

Repent of your idolatry. Stop worshiping yourself, and stop using your neighbor. Return to the Lord your God. Be reconciled to Him by faith in His Gospel of forgiveness, and live before Him in the righteousness of Christ, your Savior. For He is the One who calls you daily to repentance, not in wrath, but on account of His mercy and compassion for you. He has not hardened His heart against you, nor does He cast you away from His presence. On the contrary, His grace and favor are upon you in the Gospel of His Cross and Passion, and in His Resurrection from the dead.

Therefore, discipline yourself in accordance with His Word, and so bear the fruits of repentance. Not as though to save yourself, but as you live by grace in the presence of God, in His Kingdom. It is to this that He has called you in peace, that His Life might be yours both now and forever.

Discipline your flesh by fasting, in whatever particular ways will be most helpful to you in curbing and resisting your own particular appetites and addictions. That may be food and drink, or it may be something else entirely. Do not despise the good gifts of God, but do not make false gods out of His gifts, either. Rather, temper your consumption. Learn to live without those things that are not beneficial or necessary, and with less of those things that do still belong to your daily bread.

Do not fast to impress God or your neighbor, but to loosen the fallen world’s grip on your mortal flesh, and to exercise hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God in Christ. That is to seek first His Kingdom of heaven, instead of striving to reside in the palaces of earth and reveling in them. Let your body find its resurrection and its real life in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.

Likewise, discipline your heart and mind, your lips and mouth, by the prayer and confession of the Word of God. You will not drive the devil, the world, and your own sinful thoughts and feelings out of your head by your own willpower. You are not equal to that task. But actively take up the Sword of the Spirit, and wield the shield of faith, by hearing and confessing the Word that God speaks to you in Christ Jesus. Call upon His Name in the confidence that your Father in heaven hears and answers your prayers, just as He has promised and has taught you to pray by His Son.

Do not worry whether others are listening or notice. You are not praying to them, but to the Lord. Fix your eyes on Him, by fixing your faith on His Word of the Cross, in which His mercy and forgiveness are given to you. Hear the preaching of His Resurrection, in which you are justified, and reconciled to God, and raised up in peace from death and the grave to the Life everlasting.

So, too, discipline your hands and feet, your attitude and actions toward others, and the use of your possessions, by having mercy on your neighbor and giving alms to help and support him. Do so quietly, and in humility before God. For you know that you deserve nothing but punishment for your sins, and that everything you hold in your hand is nothing but the charity of God. Therefore, do not boast of your good works, nor embarrass your neighbor by announcing your almsgiving. You are not above him, nor is he beholden to you, but you and he alike are beholden to the Lord.

Living before God in the secret place of faith, in the hiddenness of the Cross of Christ, does not mean that you ignore your neighbor or turn your back on your brothers and sisters in their need. It does mean that, instead of viewing other people as an opportunity to achieve your own goals and to advance your own agendas, in Christ you are able to see them as objects of His affection, who are dear to His heart and recipients of His divine compassion. So then do you also love them, and you serve them for Christ Jesus’ sake, because you have also received the treasure of His mercy.

Indeed, you are able to pray to God, your dear Father in heaven, and you are able to give alms, because the Lord your God has had mercy upon you, and has given His only Son to die for you, and has now also given Him to you — into your ears, into your heart and mind, and into your hands and mouth — by the Ministry of His Gospel. You are able to return to the Lord your God, because He has sought you out and found you, and He has come to you in Christ Jesus.

Let such tender mercies of God be your dearest treasure, and so also the character and content of your Christian heart. For this treasure does not decay or turn to dust, and it cannot be taken away from you. It is given to you freely by the Lord your God in Christ Jesus, your Savior, and it is surely not depleted but multiplied by extending it to others in His Name and for His sake.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who is all in all, is all mercy and compassion. He is the One who saves you by His grace. He is the One who fasts in faith before His God and Father, so that, by His hunger and thirst for righteousness, He might establish and obtain the Kingdom of heaven for you and all. So has He made Himself nothing, and humbled Himself unto death, that you should now be fed with His Body and given to drink of His Blood, in which the Kingdom and the righteousness of God are yours. For having become sin and suffered death, He who knew no sin has borne the curse and consequences of your sin, in order to bless you with the Spirit of God unto the Life everlasting.

He who died for you has also risen from the dead, and He ever lives to pray and intercede for you before the throne of God, His Father in heaven. In that Inner Room, which is the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens, He prays for you, and He is heard. Thus are you also brought before God, who is your own Father in Christ Jesus, and you now abide in His presence.

And even that is not all. For not only has Christ given Himself for you, in order to make peace for you with God. And not only has the Father received you to Himself in Christ Jesus, risen from the dead and seated at His right hand. But also here and now, in this Holy Sacrament of His Altar, in this Grain Offering and Drink Offering of Bread and Wine, the Father feeds you with His Son and comes to abide with you in Him. He places His most precious Treasure into your hands.

That is, not only does Christ Jesus give you alms, but He is Himself the Gift of God’s mercy in the Flesh. He is the Bread from heaven, who has given Himself for the Life of the world. And He is the true Vine, who has shed His holy, precious Blood to make Atonement for you and everyone.

In receiving what He gives you and pours out for you, you receive the reward of His mercy, and you are returned to the Lord your God, who loves you with an everlasting Love. For where His Treasure is, there His heart is also. And here the Father opens His great heart of mercy to you in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, your Savior. So does He abide with you, forever and always.

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

Given by Christ Jesus to Be a Shepherd of His Sheep

“Thank God,” Dr. Luther once remarked, “even a seven-year-old child knows what a shepherd is and does.” He feeds and tends the lambs and sheep, and he guards and protects them from predators and other dangers. He puts himself in harm’s way, in order to keep them safe.

That is what the Lord Jesus does for His whole Flock. And that is likewise exactly what a Christian pastor is and does. He feeds and tends the sheep of the Good Shepherd in the good green pastures of His Word, His Law and His Gospel, unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins. And a pastor leads the sheep beside the clean and cleansing waters of Holy Baptism to the Table of the Lord in His Kingdom, all the while defending the flock against false doctrine, idolatrous practices, and all the assaults and accusations of the old evil foe. A pastor invests himself in this work, he spends his body and life for the well-being of the flock placed under his care.

If that sounds like a big job and a daunting task, that’s because it is. And as it is true that each and every Christian is called to bear the Cross and follow after Jesus, it is all the more the case that His pastors, the ministers of His Word, are called upon to serve and to suffer for His Name’s sake. Nor should anyone ever suppose that we can do or manage any of this on our own, by our own reason or strength, education, ingenuity, or what not.

None of us can be a sheep of the Good Shepherd — far less a shepherd of His sheep — by any efforts of our own. Those who attempt to do so are hirelings at best, or, as Jesus says today, they are thieves and robbers. But we are sheep because the Shepherd has called us by name with His Voice of the Gospel. And Pr. Harrison is here given to be a shepherd of the Lord’s sheep in this place, because he enters through the Door into the Sheepfold — in the Name and stead of Jesus.

So, what does this mean for us?  It is a bit confusing on the surface of it, and even the disciples did not understand the Words of our Lord when He first spoke them. But the Key, of course, is Christ Jesus Himself, His Cross and Resurrection. He is the Good Shepherd, and He is the Door by which His sheep and His undershepherds enter in and come and go in peace and safety, faith and love.

As the Good Shepherd, He lays down His Body and Life in death upon the Cross, and then He takes it up again, in order that His sheep might have abundant Life in Him forevermore. This is why He has come — to bear your sins, and the sins of the whole world, in His own Body on the bloody Cross, that you might die to sin and live to righteousness in Him. By His wounds you are healed, and by His bodily Resurrection from the dead you have Righteousness and Life.

Thus has He become the Door, and by your Holy Baptism in His Name you have entered through His death into His resurrected Life in the presence of His God and Father. Even now, living under the Cross in the midst of sin and death, awaiting the Resurrection and the Life everlasting, you live and abide in the House of the Lord, as a sheep of His pasture, in the communion of His Church:

In the Apostles’ Teaching and Fellowship, in the Breaking of the Bread, and in the Prayers of the Church, you live and abide under the care of your Good Shepherd, Christ Jesus, the Chief Pastor and Archbishop of your soul and body, heart, mind, and spirit.

It is by and for this Ministry of the Word and Sacrament that men like Pr. Harrison enter through the Door of Christ Jesus into His Sheepfold, not only to live and abide as one of the sheep, but to serve and care for the lambs and sheep, to feed and tend the flock in the Name and stead of Jesus.

As the sheep are called to learn from Jesus and follow His example, to live and love as He does, so are the pastors of the sheep called to preach the Word of Jesus, to speak with His Voice, to administer His Gifts, and to do what He does for the life and health of His Church in His Name.

Such pastors have beautiful feet, as we have heard, because they are sent to go, to bring and deliver His Word of the Gospel — and in their going, in their preaching and teaching, Christ Jesus Himself is actively present and at work to forgive sins and to grant His beautiful Life and Salvation.

This is not a self-chosen office and work. A man may well aspire to become a pastor and bishop, but it is the Lord who calls, ordains, and sends a man into that Office of the Holy Ministry, albeit through the agency of His Church on earth. Pastors and congregations identify and encourage young men to give themselves for this work. The seminaries train and prepare them, examine them, and then, along with the Council of Presidents, they certify and place them. Churches extend Calls, and those who already serve in the Office ordain new men to that Office and install them in it. But, again, it is the Lord our Good Shepherd who is ever at work throughout this process to bring a man through the Door into His Sheepfold to be a pastor — a shepherd — of His own dear sheep.

So, today, that is what He is doing with you — and for you — Pr. Harrison, for the sake of His dear sheep in this place, for their life and health and strength in Him. And as He is the One who stations you here in His Name, so shall He be and abide with you here in this Vocation and Office. He loves you, as He loves all His pastors; and He loves all His lambs and sheep entrusted to your care.

Along with that, the same Lord Jesus has given you the added benefit of a faithful colleague in this particular pasture, so that you will labor in love for the lambs and sheep alongside Pr. DeBlieck. It is a blessed thing when brothers in arms live and work together in unity, in common cause, not for their own benefit or glory, but for the benefit and blessing of the Lord’s own beloved flock.

Now, then, as the Lord Jesus in His Ministry lives and works, dies and rises, in accordance with the Word and Will of His Father who sent Him, you also are called and ordained to live and work, to bear the cross, to suffer and even to die, in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ who sends you.

So proceed in faith, hope, and love. And do not despair when it may seem that nothing is working or going well; nor fall into the trap of supposing that all of this work depends on you. Simply do what you are called and given to do, knowing that your labors in the Lord are not in vain. He will accomplish His purposes in you, and through you, and for you, all to the glory of His Holy Name.

Lay down your life in love for Christ Jesus and His sheep, in the sure and certain confidence that He will raise you up again, as surely as He daily and richly forgives you all your sins and cleanses you from all unrighteousness by His own Resurrection and the power of His indestructible Life.

You know the work you are given to do, not only because you have been taught and trained by the Church, but also because you are first of all a sheep yourself, and you live as a sheep of the Good Shepherd solely by His grace alone, by faith in His forgiveness of all your sins. You know and understand the challenges and hurts, the weaknesses and fears of this body and life. But you also know and love the sweet comfort and peace of the Gospel, the solid confidence and strength of Holy Baptism, and the forgiveness and fellowship of the Lord’s Altar. And here you are given, not only the duty and responsibility, but the blessed privilege of serving God’s people with these Gifts.

At its heart, the most basic work of a pastor — as we have prayed with the Psalmist this afternoon — is to proclaim the righteousness of the Lord in the great assembly of the Church, in the midst of the great congregation. That is to preach and teach the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and thereby to speak of His faithfulness and salvation, unto repentance and faith in His free and full forgiveness. By the preaching and hearing of this Word of Christ, the Lord Himself obtains faith in the heart, where and when it pleases Him. And as the heart thus believes, so does the Lord put a new song upon the lips and tongues of His dear people, a hymn of praise to the glory of His Holy Name. Blessed are the pastors and all the people of God who live by such faith in His precious Gospel!

Dear saints of University Lutheran Church, hear and heed the Voice of your Good Shepherd in the preaching and teaching of this man, Pr. Harrison, who is here and now given to you by the Lord to be your pastor in His Name, alongside Pr. DeBlieck. Receive the ministry of these men of God in faith and love. Listen to them and learn from them. Allow yourselves to be challenged by them, that you might grow in wisdom and maturity, in the grace and knowledge and fear of the Lord.

And wherever either of your pastors may stumble and misstep at times, be patient and kind, love them, and forgive them, even as you also hear and receive the Lord’s forgiveness of all your sins through the voice and ministry of these dear men. For it is ever and always the case that pastors and laity alike depend upon one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the great Good Shepherd of the sheep. Everything depends on Him. So, do not be afraid, but rely on Him and rest yourself in Him.

Do not listen to strange voices, but flee from strangers and follow Christ Jesus the Lord by giving attention to His Word and availing yourself of His means of grace. And as often as you go astray, return by repentance and faith to the Pastor and Bishop of your soul. Indeed, He comes to you here to give you His abundant Life, and He will not fail, nor shall He ever leave you or forsake you.

Risen from the dead, never to die again, He lives and reigns to all eternity as your gracious God and Lord, your Savior and your Shepherd. And as He lives and abides with you here in peace and love, so shall you live and abide with Him — in His own Holy House — forever and forevermore.

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

Another Angel with the Eternal Gospel to Proclaim

So, we’ve got just two short verses pulled out of their context from the midst of a complex assortment of rather odd and sometimes challenging images and visions concerning the life of the Church under the Cross in these gray and latter days, living in the hope and promise of the Resurrection of the body to the Life everlasting of body and soul.

This is not the way we normally approach the Holy Scriptures, and I don't generally recommend it. But you probably know the reason why in this case. Historically, going back to the 16th century and for centuries beyond, Lutherans identified Dr. Luther himself with that angel flying in mid-heaven. And these were not wild-eyed ignorants who had this opinion. This is what Pastor Bugenhagen preached at Dr. Luther's funeral in 1546; but already in 1522, Michael Steifel had included this identification in a ballad about Dr. Luther and his confession of the Gospel. As late as Dr. C.F.W. Walther, the identification was still being made. And that’s why Revelation 14:6-7 is the historic Epistle associated with the Commemoration of the Reformation.

Now, while we may not be inclined to go with that interpretation, and we certainly don't want to go overboard, I think it’s only fair to honor our fathers in Christ by considering why on earth they would have made this identification.

To begin with, it is a matter of taking seriously just how bad things had gotten prior to the 16th-century Reformation: The false doctrine that was being taught, the practices that furthered that false doctrine. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, this beautiful confession of the Gospel. Certainly there were other reformers prior to Dr. Luther, but still, there is a significant turning point in the 16th century, in which the Gospel — long buried under false doctrine and works righteousness and the sale of indulgences and the selling of masses — suddenly springs forth again in its truth and purity. Our Lutheran forefathers took seriously both the problem that was confronted and the blessed and gracious Gospel that shone forth by the grace of God.

Dr. Luther was an instrument of that preaching and teaching, and it is right that we should give thanks to God for him. We dare not make the Gospel all about Luther. God forbid that we should ever do so! Luther himself would never have wanted such a thing. But it is right that we give thanks to God that Dr. Luther and the Lutheran Reformation were all about the Gospel. We praise God for that, because we recognize the hand of God in those events.

All of this being considered, it is simply a fact that Dr. Luther was “another angel,” a messenger of the Word of God, a preacher and a pastor by the grace of God for the good of His church and to the glory of His Holy Name. It’s interesting, the commentators debate among themselves as to why the first of three angels is called “another angel” right out of the chute, with lots of different answers given. I tend to believe it’s because, in every day and age and every generation, there are these angels whom our Lord raises up for the purpose of preaching and teaching His Word.

Luther was “another angel,” as were the Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, Bishops and Pastors before him. So are some of you already, and so shall others of you be in due time, called, ordained and sent as angels, as messengers of the Word of God.

The angels in the Book of the Revelation are sometimes heavenly spiritual beings, but they are as often as not pastors and bishops of the church on earth. That's how Dr. Luther himself took it, and I think it makes perfect sense. In the chapters where St. John writes to the angels of the seven churches, I'm not sure how he would do that to a heavenly address.

Whoever aspires to be such an angel desires a noble task. And to be sure, as we confess in one of our Collects, God has never failed to raise up such faithful angels, pastors and teachers of His Word, to care for His Church on earth. And according to His promise, He shall continue to do so, even to the close of the age.

The angel is flying in mid-heaven — or directly overhead as this translation puts it — at the high point or the zenith of the day, in one sense above the fray. But really, what we have here, between the heavens and the earth, is this voice that comes from God preaching to those on the earth, warning against the devil, and against his wrath and ire, who has been cast out of heaven and now rages upon the earth with his vicious and vindictive assaults and accusations. 

The angel flying in mid-heaven calls sinners rather to repentance and to faith in the forgiveness of sins, all of this in Jesus’ Name. So, for example, in our Confessions we teach that Christians are to understand the word of Holy Absolution, spoken to them by their pastor, as the very voice of God from heaven, forgiving their sins on earth as it is in heaven.

Whereas, by contrast, if even an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel, other than that of Christ and His Cross and Resurrection, then such an angel would be anathema, accursed, and rejected. And I believe it is fair to say that there was such a false angel, and such a false gospel, in Luther’s day, which he refuted by turning the people back to what God has actually spoken, to the words of Holy Scripture, and to the faithful orthodox confession of the Church catholic.

As the Son of Man was lifted up on the Cross, and thereby draws all people to Himself, so is He also lifted up in the preaching of His Gospel from one end of heaven to the other, even to the ends of the earth, whereby He calls all men to repentance, to the knowledge of the Truth, to Life and Salvation in Himself. So does He give His heavenly gifts by way of earthly means, by words and water, bread and wine, in which heaven and earth are brought together, reconciled, and united by the message and the ministry of Christ Jesus.

So, for example, in your Holy Baptism — the washing of water with His Word here on earth — in that Holy Sacrament the voice of God from an open heaven declares that you also are His beloved and well-pleasing child by the gracious adoption of sons.

This eternal Gospel is a gift that is received from God by His grace. It can only be received, not gotten, not purchased, not earned. It is received and possessed in faith; and as we have heard, so do we also confess it, and pray it, and sing it.

We know what this Gospel is, both from the immediate and larger context of the Book of the Revelation and so also from the Holy Gospel According to St. John. There are any number of connections and parallels between the Revelation and the Gospel of St. John. The Son of God — the Word of God from all eternity who has become Flesh and dwells among us, the Son of Mary — is the Lamb of God who bears in His Body and takes away the sins of the world. He goes to His sacrificial death upon the Cross and sheds His holy and precious Blood to atone for those sins, to ransom and redeem us. And in His Resurrection from the dead, He feeds His Church with His Word and His Flesh and His Blood, for eternal Life with God.

He is the Lamb upon the throne, along with His God and Father — the Lamb who has been slain, and yet, behold, He lives! — by whose Blood and Testimony the saints persevere in holy faith and holy love, even over against the assaults and accusations of Satan.

The angels or messengers of the Gospel, by definition, preach and proclaim this message, and they do so as good news. Even the preaching of repentance is good news for those otherwise lost and blind in their sins. For those angels or messengers who are the pastors and bishops of the Church, this is their divine calling and their holy station, so of course they do this, by the Word and Will of God; and woe to them if they do not! But so does every Christian speak the Gospel, just as he or she has heard it and received it as the very voice of God from heaven in the preaching and administration of the Gospel in the Name of Jesus by their dear pastors here on earth.

This Gospel, though given in earthly words and earthly means, is eternal, not only in its permanent establishment in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus, but so also in the way that it is continually preached and proclaimed in every age, even to the ends of the earth. It did not cease with the Ascension of Christ Jesus or the death of His Apostles, it persists even to the close of the age, always efficacious, always the living and Life-giving Word of God Himself.

By that preaching, that eternal Gospel bestows eternal Gifts which give eternal Life to the whole Church of all times and places — and so also to each and every one of you here and now — eternal Gifts unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

This true Gospel and the true doctrine of Christ Jesus and His Word are confessed and proclaimed to and for all those residing on the earth in all times and places, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. And with this verse also in mind, Dr. Luther was identified with the angel flying in mid-heaven, especially because of his translation of the Bible into German, making the precious Word of God and the holy Gospel more accessible and more understandable to those people in his day. As Lutherans we treasure the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular, and the preaching of the Holy Scriptures, the catechesis of the Word of God, so that people hear it and learn it and know it and love it.

It is precisely because of our insistence on the pure Gospel and the authority of the Word of God for doctrine and practice that the Lutheran church has always been zealous in the preaching of the Gospel and the teaching of the Word far and wide. This is why we are committed to the mission of the Church in every place, both at home and abroad. And along the same lines, we also insist upon the need for ongoing catechesis of those who are already disciples, that we should teach them the faith and obedience of all that our Lord Jesus has spoken and commanded. After all, the “Great Commission” at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel, which is indeed echoed in this passage in the Book of the Revelation, calls for such ongoing catechesis, always aiming toward faith and life and obedience to Christ Jesus, the life of faith and holy love.

If you look at the actual proclamation of the eternal Gospel as it’s described in these couple of verses, the focus here is not so much on the content of the Gospel, but rather on the appropriate response to the preaching of that Gospel:

To “fear God,” to begin with, because it is the beginning of all true wisdom, it is foundational and central to both repentance and to faith. To fear God is to recognize both His authority and your sin, for which you deserve nothing but punishment. It is also to revere Him and His Word, to hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. And it is to rely upon and to respect His Judgment as just and true, decisive and right.

To “give Him the glory” is simply to acknowledge the glory that is already His from all eternity, quite apart from us; but we give Him that glory by confessing who He is, what He has done, what He still does, and what He has promised, all on the basis of what He has revealed and spoken to us by His Son. The Father is glorified in His Son, and the Father glorifies the Son in Himself; and He does it by the way of the Cross and in the Resurrection.

As in St. John 12 — which actually has quite a few parallels to these verses in Revelation — judgment is wrought upon the earth, and the ruler of this world is cast out, by the lifting up of the Son of Man in death upon the Cross. So it is that the Voice from heaven (again!) declares that the Father is glorifying His Name in this One who is to be crucified. And you in turn glorify God by confessing the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, and so also by bearing His Cross with patience and peace in your own body and life, trusting the Word and promises of God, that He will raise you from the dead, glorified like unto Christ Himself.

As Satan was cast out of heaven, having been defeated by St. Michael and all the holy angels in that great heavenly battle, he has brought his wrath and violence down to the earth and to the sea, and he attacks you also in your conscience with his vile accusations. Sadly, by the very Law of God, many of those accusations would stick and find root in your heart and life. And yet, that old dragon or serpent who is called the devil and Satan is overcome by the Blood of Christ, the Lamb, and by the confession of His Cross, whereby sin has been atoned for, including all of your sins; whereby the world has been redeemed and reconciled to God, and you also are redeemed and reconciled to God; whereby death has been defeated and undone, and the Kingdom of Heaven has been opened to all who believe and are baptized into Christ Jesus.

Glorify God by believing and confessing that victory of the Cross of Christ and His Resurrection from the dead, whereby He judges you righteous by His grace through faith in His Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins.

And instead of pursuing the idolatrous worship of the beast and all the false gods of this fallen and perishing world, worship the true and only God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them, who has also redeemed you and the whole of His good creation from sin and death, and who pours out the Holy Spirit generously upon you in streams of living water flowing from the innermost being of Christ the Crucified.

And as you are redeemed and sanctified in both your body and your soul, in your heart, mind, and spirit, by the Word & Spirit, Flesh & Blood of Jesus, so worship God by faith with both your body and your soul, with your heart, mind, and spirit, by confessing Christ Jesus from within your own proper calling and station and life. Thus, whatever your place in life may be, you also become “another angel” of the eternal Gospel of our Savior, Christ Jesus, for your neighbor.

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

The Son of God and Abraham Sets You Free

Jesus addresses this Word, in the first place, to those Jews who believed in Him. They had that much right, superficially at least, though they did not yet realize what it really means or requires.

What Jesus here declares and promises, not only then, but also here and now to you, pertains to Himself and His Word. That is, and was, and always will be the decisive matter. He and what He says are what it’s all about. Everything depends on Him, and therefore on His Word.

Would you be a Christian and share His Life and Salvation? Well that you should. Here, then, is how: You have Jesus as your Lord, you abide in Him and He abides in you, by remaining in His Word; by hearing it, believing it, confessing it and praying it, and living by faith according to it.

By this way and means of His Word, you follow Him as a disciple to the Cross, to be crucified and die with Him, and so also to rise and live with Him, both here in time and hereafter in eternity.

Thus, by His Word, by faith in His Word, you are given to know the Truth, which is Christ Jesus Himself, His Father and His Spirit, in whom alone there is true freedom and eternal Life.

So, again, everything, everything, everything — including the sixteenth-century Reformation and the life of the Church in our own day and always — everything depends upon Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is salvation in no one other than Him, nor at all apart from Him. Apart from Christ Jesus there is only sin, death, and damnation.

Consequently, what Jesus proclaims in this Gospel strikes your old Adam with the judgment of the Law, because He leaves no room for any other way of life or salvation than Himself and His Word. He takes away all of your self-righteousness, so that you might receive, by grace alone, through faith alone, that righteousness which is in Christ alone, prior to any and all good works of yours.

You cannot rely upon yourself, nor upon anything else other than the Lord Jesus who is with you by and with and through His Word. And that is the case, not only once upon a time, not just to begin with, nor only for a little while, but forever and ever, Amen.

His Word not only calls you in repentance to the waters of Holy Baptism, it brings you through those waters, and it leads you from those waters throughout your life in the daily dying and rising of contrition, repentance, and faith in the forgiveness of sins. It lays the Cross of Christ upon you unto newness of life — unto the death and resurrection of your body — unto the Life everlasting.

The Life that you live by faith in Christ Jesus is not completed with the rite of Confirmation. Far less is it sufficient to be listed on the membership roles of a congregation, which means little or nothing apart from an actual participation in the Liturgy of preaching and the Sacrament.

Genuine Life with God in Christ is not a matter of genealogy, pedigree, or holding a leadership office. It is not measured or determined by niceness or piety or sincerity or effort.

Your only true and lasting Life — the Life for which you have been created by the true and only God  — is in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son. And that Lord Jesus Christ is with you, and He is for you, in and with His Word. Which is to say that He is with you, not simply in the Holy Scriptures, but in the Word that He speaks to you and for you in your Holy Baptism, in the Holy Absolution of your sins, and in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood. He abides with you in the daily catechesis of His Word and prayer, and especially in the preaching of His Gospel.

Faith comes by hearing, as the Apostle St. Paul has written, because hearing and believing are by the Word of Christ which is preached to you in His Name and stead.

The simple fact of the matter is that you cannot live without these means of grace and forgiveness and salvation, because you cannot live without Jesus, and these are His ways and means. Not as works of men, though He administers His gifts through men whom He has called and sent with His authority; nor as works of the Church, though the Lord gives them to you within the fellowship of His Church; but as God’s Service, the Ministry of Christ for the rescue and salvation of sinners.

That is why the protest of the people in this Holy Gospel, that they are Abraham’s children, falls flat and does not cut it. First of all, because Christ Jesus is the Seed of Abraham by whom all the nations of the earth are blessed and are called to bless the Lord and one another with His Word.

And then, also, because the true children of Abraham are those who share Abraham’s faith in the one true God. It is not a matter of human genealogy, but of faith and trust in the God of Abraham, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That point likewise rules out modern appeals to the so-called “Abrahamic faith,” as if Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all religions of one and the same God. For Abraham’s faith is fulfilled only in Christ Jesus. There is no other God than Him, and no one knows the Father or receives the Holy Spirit except by Christ and by His Word.

Similarly, it does you no good to appeal to your Lutheran pedigree, if you do not share the faith and confession of Martin Luther, which is the faith and confession of Christ Jesus, crucified for your transgressions, raised for your justification, given and poured out for you in the Sacrament.

Have you been confirmed? Good for you! But do you pray and confess your Catechism every day, as Dr. Luther did, and as he taught and urged others to do for themselves and for their families?

And do you actually practice and live, as well as believe and confess, the Six Chief Parts of the Christian faith and life? Are you doing as you promised at your Confirmation? More important and to the point, are you living by faith in the Word of Christ in the Communion of His Church?

If you are doing well, praise God for that, and continue by His grace to abide in His Word.

And if you recognize that in so many ways you have failed to remain steadfast in the Word of the Lord, then repent, and put your trust in Christ Jesus, your Savior. Which is not simply a matter of the feelings in your heart or the thoughts in your head, but of where your body is, and of what you do with your body; that you are in the Lord’s Church and at the Lord’s Altar, with the preaching of Christ in your ears, and with His Body and His Blood in your mouth and in your stomach.

It is to this Life in Christ that repentance brings you. For the Lord does not expose your sins and bring them to your attention in order to crush and destroy you forever. He crucifies your old Adam with all your sinful lusts and desires, in order to raise you up again, body and soul, through His free and full forgiveness of all your sins, so that you might live by faith in His Word as a new man or woman, abiding by His grace in the presence of God in the righteousness and purity of Christ.

It’s not a matter of trying harder, as though you could justify yourself and set things right with God by your own best efforts. Apart from faith in Christ, apart from His Word and Holy Spirit, your self-righteous striving only adds to your sin and makes things that much worse instead of better.

By the same token, the point is not that you should give up or quit the work that God has given you to do. There is no virtue or benefit to be found in your laziness, negligence, selfishness, or greed. Refusing to do your duty and giving yourself over to sin will not help at all, but further hardens your heart, separates you from God, and drives you that much closer to death and damnation.

No, to live by the righteousness of God is a matter of trusting Christ in His Word and the preaching of it, in those ways and means of His grace where He has promised to be with you and for you with His forgiveness and salvation. It is to seek and receive Him there, to cling to Him there, and to find Him there, where He comes to you and finds you and binds you to Himself.

Truth be told, apart from Christ Jesus you are a slave to sin, and you are bound for death and damnation. Your case is utterly hopeless without your dear Savior. You will not make it, and you will not last without Him. Besides all that, heaven itself would be void and bare without Christ Jesus, anyway; so there would be no point in making it without Him, even if you could.

By contrast, the Life of the Church on earth in the Liturgy of her Lord is not simply a means to some other end, but is already the Life and Salvation with God to which He calls you by His Gospel. Pursuing other ways and means of life is nothing but a perverse path of self-destruction.

But, that you not die as you deserve, all of your sin, your idolatry and unbelief are remedied and overcome by the Son who sets you free indeed. For He is the Son of God, who out of love for you has become your Brother in the flesh, the Seed of Abraham who has fulfilled all the Words and promises of God in His own Body.  He has set you free from sin, death, and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy and precious Blood and His innocent suffering and death.

So it is that, by His grace, you are now His very own, and by faith in His Word you now live with Him in His Kingdom. Even in great frailty and weakness under the Cross, you love and serve Him in the righteousness, innocence, and blessedness of His Resurrection, because He has first loved you, and His love for you never ends. He ever lives to make intercession for you before the Throne of God in heaven, even as He serves you in His House and at His Table here on earth.

All that He has done for you and won for you by His Cross and in His Resurrection, He gives to you, freely and generously, by His grace alone, by the way and means of His Gospel within His holy Christian Church. These fruits of His Cross, the Tree of Life, are distributed and set before you, not as a burden or a work for you to do, but as the most precious gifts of Christ Jesus.

Thus does He give Himself to you, and with His Body and His Blood and His forgiveness of all your sins, He gives you all the righteousness and Life of His own Resurrection from the dead.

It is in this way, also, that is to say, in His giving of Himself to you in Word and Sacrament, that your dear Lord Jesus daily returns you to the life-giving waters of your Holy Baptism; that He pours out His Holy Spirit generously upon you; that He daily and richly forgives you all your sins, strengthens your faith, and keeps you steadfast in the one true faith, unto the Life everlasting.

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

Sustained by the Holy Angels of God

It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should give all thanks and praise to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for His precious and merciful work in establishing His Church in this place and preserving this congregation of His people for the past 175 years, and continuing to this day! Indeed, we join with the angels and archangels and all the hosts of heaven, including all the saints who have gone before us from this place to the nearer presence of Christ, in praising the Lord for His faithfulness over these past seven generations, and for the promise of His loving-kindness to generations yet to come, who by His grace will learn to love Him and to live by faith in His Word. 

It is by His grace alone that you are here (each of you and all of you together), and by His grace alone that you remain and persevere — by the Means of His Grace and the Ministry of His Gospel through the agency of His faithful servants, both heavenly and human.

For all that, the devil and his wicked angels hate you on account of Christ Jesus, your Savior, the incarnate Son of God. That old dragon despises each one of you as a child of God in Christ, and all of you together as members of the Body and Bride of Christ. Indeed, the more faithful you are, the more the devil spites and despises you in body and soul, as well as your whole congregation.

By the same token, St. Michael and all the holy angels love and serve you for the sake of your dear Lord Jesus Christ; for He has become like you, Flesh of your flesh and Blood of your blood, by His conception and birth from the Blessed Virgin Mary; and so has He also, in turn, raised you up and recreated you to be like Him, a participant in His divine nature by grace through faith in Him, by His Word and Holy Spirit. Consequently, the holy angels see Christ the Lord in you — He who is the very Image and Likeness of God in the Flesh — in whose truly human face both they and we behold the light of the revelation of the glory of God the Father.

All of which drives the devil to fury and great wrath, utterly consumed by envy and jealousy, by his pride and self-conceit. He does not consider it appropriate or fitting that God should become Man, nor that man should be exalted above the majestic and powerful angels. So consumed by his envy and driven to rage by his pride, the devil is relentless in his assaults and accusations against you. He would do anything to remove you from the favor of God. Hence, he is called “Satan,” the accuser. And to that very end he tempts you to sin in every way that he can — he tempts you to turn away from God, to fear, love, and trust in anything and everything else! And then, quick as a wink, the devil is the first in line to accuse you of the very sins into which he has tempted you!

To say it again, the devil hates you. And the bottom line is that he is a liar and a murderer from the beginning. But because he masquerades as an angel of light, and because your own heart, mind, and soul are sinful and unclean, you are too easily deceived and misled into the devil’s snares.

Beware of succumbing to the envy and jealousy, the pride and conceit such as the devil has. Do not despise your neighbor, nor tempt him, nor resent the grace of God in Christ for your neighbor. Rather, as the Lord has taught you, love and serve Christ Jesus in your neighbor, and especially in your fellow Christians, your brothers and sisters in the family of God. Thereby you become an “angel” of Christ Jesus to your neighbor, a messenger of peace and joy and the grace of God.

Where you have despised any of His “little ones” (of any age) — any of those who believe and are baptized into Him — wherever you have caused them to stumble and to fall, Repent. Cut off such temptations and sins altogether, not by mutilating your body, but by disciplining your flesh, your eyes, your heart and mind. Be drowned and destroyed in the depths of your Holy Baptism, along with your Satanic old Adam and all your evil lusts and desires, by daily contrition and repentance.

Confess your sins, and avail yourself of God’s good gift of Holy Absolution from your pastors. For they are angels of God in the flesh, called and sent to give you His good gifts of the Gospel.

Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, your Maker and Redeemer. Humble yourself to be and live like a little child who must rely upon your Father for absolutely everything, beginning with grace, with mercy and forgiveness. Humble yourself under God, and rejoice that He raises you up from the depths of the sea and the dust of the earth to shine like the stars of heaven with the pure and perfect righteousness of Christ Jesus, your Savior.

Humble yourself, and do not rely upon yourself but upon the Lord your God. And pray. Pray in the confidence of the Cross and Resurrection of your merciful and great High Priest, Christ Jesus. For in Him — by His Cross and in His bodily Resurrection from the dead — every prayer of faith has already been answered, “Yes, and Amen!” once and for all. For you!

The Lord hears and answers your prayer in love, by His grace. The Father hears and answers your prayer for the sake of Christ, His beloved and well-pleasing Son. In Him, indeed, you are beloved and well-pleasing, as well, and there is no good thing that your Father in heaven shall withhold from you. He hears and answers your prayer. He responds in love, always, and He serves you by the means of His good creation.

That is a pivotal point to this day and occasion, to the Feast of St. Michael & All Angels, and to the celebration of your anniversary as a congregation of the Lord’s Church on earth:

The Lord God serves you by the means of His good creation. That is why there are such things as the holy angels. Not because God needed a “helping hand,” but because He delights to serve His creatures with His creation, with His creatures. And so He serves you by His good creation, by the agency of His ministers, the holy angels; and by the human angels (or messengers) whom He calls, ordains, and sends in His Name as your pastors; and by the created elements that He employs with His Word, the waters of Holy Baptism, the bread and the wine of the Holy Communion, which are the very Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.

By these Means of Grace — by these means of creation — according to and with the Word of God, you are well served by your Father in heaven. Indeed, it is by and with and through these creaturely ways and means that He has established and still preserves St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lafayette, Indiana. For so does He forgive you all your sins, and pour out His Spirit generously upon you, and grant you His divine, eternal Life in the Body of Christ Jesus — no less than He, the Son of God, has become Flesh and tabernacles with you here.

These servants of God, both the heavenly and the human, guard and keep you in both body and soul. In a variety of circumstances, His angels lift you up and keep you in all your ways, lest you strike your foot and stumble and fall. While they often do protect your mortal flesh and blood from harm and danger, on account of the Flesh and Blood of Christ, they all the more protect your soul and body from the assaults and accusations of the devil — by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the testimony of His Word — which is to say, chiefly, by the preaching and ministry of your pastors.

By the Means of His Grace — His Gospel-Word and Sacrament — His tangible forgiveness of your sins — the servants of God preserve your life and bring you through the great tribulation clothed in the righteousness of Christ. For Christ has atoned for all of your sins by His holy and precious Blood, and by His Word of the Gospel He daily and richly, fully and freely forgives you.

Through the Ministry of the Gospel — by the preaching of His Word, and by the administration of His Body and His Blood — He interposes Himself and His Redemption, His Reconciliation, and His Righteousness between you and all the accusations of Satan. And because those accusations cannot stand against Him, they cannot stand against you, either. You are in Christ by His grace, by His Gospel; and He lives in you. And He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

When the holy angels do permit the hurt and harm of your mortal body, as Christ also suffered and died in His human flesh and blood upon the Cross, the Lord thereby humbles you unto repentance: to become like a little child and learn to rely upon God, to be returned to the cleansing waters of your Baptism, to be brought to the Healing Medicine of His Altar, and to be raised up from death to life, from the dust of the earth to shine like the stars (in body and soul) forever and ever.

That dying and rising of repentance and faith, that rhythm of humble confession, free and full forgiveness, and newness of life in Christ Jesus, is how and why you are here — how and why St. James is here — how and why your pastors are here. And it is for this very purpose that God preserves you in this place by and with His messengers.

So do we give Him thanks and praise for His heavenly angels, those great majestic creatures who guard and keep us night and day, though hidden from our sight. And we rightly thank Him, also, for His human angels (the called and ordained servants of His Word) — those earthen vessels of His grace, mercy, and peace — who love and serve His people in His Name and stead. Not only Pastor Bombaro and Pastor Barcott, but the long line of pastors whom the Lord has provided for His people in this place over the past 175 years, and for His Church on earth from the beginning.

Here again this morning, as for these past 17-1/2 decades, the angels and people of God are gathered together around the Lamb upon His Throne, encircling the Fruits of His Cross, which is the Tree of Life. Here again this morning, on earth as it is in heaven, the great prince of God’s people, St. Michael the Archangel, and all the holy angels, the cherubim and seraphim, join with us, the children of God, in praising the Holy Trinity and giving Him thanks for His great Salvation in Christ Jesus. And for His Name’s sake, His holy angels also guard and keep you in body and soul, in safety and peace, at His holy Banquet Table. For they do always behold the Face of God the Father in you, His beloved and well-pleasing son or daughter.

For watchful is the angel band that follows Christ on every hand, to guard His people where they go and break the counsel of the foe. They never rest nor sleep as we; their whole delight is but to be with our Lord Jesus, and to keep His little flock, His lambs and sheep.

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

The Strong Word of Him Who Shall Not Be Tamed

Do not suppose that you are safe, keeping your head down and focusing on your own family, or, even more narrowly, focusing on yourself and “keeping your nose clean” while the world around you burns. And do not suppose that your neighbor or the world is the greatest threat that faces you.

For, behold, the storm of the Lord has gone forth in wrath, and it swirls down upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord does not turn back, until He has performed and carried out all the purpose of His heart. There is nowhere you can flee to hide yourself away from Him; nor does it do you any good to cry out, “Peace, Peace,” where there is no peace.

Is His Word not a fire, and a hammer that shatters rocks?  Surely it is!  For God threatens to punish all those who break His commandments. Therefore, you should fear His wrath and not disobey Him. But, as He also promises grace and every blessing to all those who keep His commandments, you should love and trust in Him, and gladly do what He commands.

That is not yet the Gospel, but it is the Word of the Lord — His good and acceptable Will — which you ignore at your own peril. So does He call and send His pastors and preachers to speak His Word to you and to His whole Church, to call sinners to repentance — away from their sins and the deadly consequences of their sins — to faith and life according to His Word, now and forever.

As to what that means and what that looks like: To fear, love, and trust in God above all things is to be more afraid of breaking His Law than of dying; more afraid of His fire, which burns forever, than of the fire which burns for but a little while here on earth. It is to trust in Him, to believe in His Word and rely upon His promises, more than you rely upon your own thoughts and feelings and opinions; more than your own wisdom, reason, or senses suggest; and more than your own strength and cleverness may seem to achieve. And it is to love Him more than your parents, spouse, and children; indeed, to love Him more than yourself, more than your own body and life.

In all of this, the Lord Jesus confronts you with a contradiction — with a Cross and crucifixion — which you cannot control or contain (nor can you survive by your own powers or wherewithal).

He has already taught you that it is foolish to put your trust in riches, which cannot save you; and that it is foolish to worry about food and clothing, because there are more important things, and your worry does not help, but the Lord your God provides all that you need. But now He goes even further. He teaches that there can be no compromise between Himself and your life in this world. Even your own household and family shall be divided by the sharp two-edged Sword of His Word, which cuts you to the quick, and pierces your soul, and separates the marrow from your bones. He is, in fact, relentless in cutting you off from every other god than Himself.

There is no safety or salvation anywhere else, nor in anyone else but Him. Yet, do not be naive. He is not “safe.” He is not “tame.” He has come to cast fire upon the earth. He burns up the chaff, the hay, the straw, and the stubble, in order to cleanse you and purify you, in both body and soul, in heart, mind, and spirit, as silver and gold are purged of all impurities by fire.

This is the irony, the paradox and contradiction of the Cross of Christ: It is by dying that you live. He puts you to death, in order to raise you up in His own Resurrection, unto the Life everlasting.

It is for this very purpose that He sends you a pastor to preach His Law and His Gospel, repentance and forgiveness of sins — to crucify you with Himself, and to raise you up again from death and the grave to newness of life, to live before God in righteousness and purity forever and ever.

So, then, hear and heed His Word, and fix your eyes on this very Jesus who brings, not peace, but division and fire. He is the Author and Perfecter of your faith and life, who has endured the Cross and borne the shame for the joy of your salvation. Consider Him who has willingly suffered such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary or lose heart. More than that, consider that He has been baptized, even unto death upon the Cross, in order to bear the righteous wrath and judgment of God against all sin. For that is where and how the Lord has performed and carried out the purposes of His heart. That is what His coming means, and what it aims at.

You don’t have to live in Israel to understand that a cloud rolling in off the Mediterranean Sea is going to bring rain, and that a hot wind blowing in from the desert is gonna be a scorcher. And you know how to read the world in which you live, too, with varying degrees of accuracy, whether it be the weather and traffic conditions, the best time and place to shop or see a movie, the stock market or your sports league of choice. Would that people knew the Word of God and the remembrance of His saints as well as they know the stats and gossip on their favorite celebrities!

But the Lord your God has not left you ignorant or clueless about His coming and His presence. It is only that you cannot recognize or interpret these signs, except by His Word and Holy Spirit. By fire and water, that is how He comes: The pillar of fire by night, and the pillar of cloud by day. Fire and billowing smoke upon the Mountain, and towering walls of water on the right and on the left through the midst of the Sea. The fire of God’s consuming presence receiving the whole burnt offerings on His Altar, and the Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

So, here you are then, with the Egyptians hard on your heels and the Red Sea before you. Caught between the fire and the flood. Between the God whose promise is for you and for your children, and the same God who commands you to sacrifice your son, your only son, your “Isaac,” whom you love. Caught in a trap, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but die. Therefore, be still. And know that He, the Lord, is God. He wounds in order to heal. He kills, and He brings you to life.

It is a terrifying thing to be caught up in the hands of the living God. But, as there is no escaping from those hands, consider also what those hands have done:

They are stretched out upon the hard wood of the Cross, as Isaac once bore the wood upon the Mountain. Only, here the beloved Son is not spared, but the Father delivers Him up for us all. He whose Word the mountains rendeth, He lays within the grave. He who shall not be tamed is wounded for your transgressions, chastised for your iniquities, and put to death for your sins. By His stripes and scars you are healed, and in His Resurrection and Ascension is your righteousness and peace with God in heaven. In His Body, crucified and risen, is your new household and family.

This is the completion of His Baptism, the fulfillment of all righteousness, which He took upon Himself when He took His stand with sinners in the waters of the Jordan River and submitted Himself to St. John’s Baptism of repentance. Into the water He goes, until He is drowned and destroyed in the sins of the world, in all your sinful lusts and desires; and then He comes forth and arises when His God and Father raises Him from death and the grave to life again.

This is how He kindles the fire which God casts upon the earth from heaven. Your merciful and great High Priest does not allow that fire to go out, but He lays Himself upon it as your Whole Burnt Offering. He is the Atonement for all your sins, and the Sacrifice of Propitiation, not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. And as He rises, then, like incense, He is a sweet-smelling aroma with which His God and Father is well-pleased: And so are you also received into His favor, forever and ever.

That which He did and provided for His people by the Tabernacle, Temple, and Priesthood in the Old Testament, He does for you in His Church on earth by the Ministry of the Gospel in the Word and Sacraments. As the Old Testament sacrifices anticipated the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, so do the New Testament Means of Grace deliver the fruits and benefits of His now once-for-all accomplished Sacrifice, whereby your sins are all forgiven and you have peace with God.

Thus do you flee the wrath of God by fleeing to His mercy in Christ Jesus. You enter the dark passage through the walls of deep water in the confidence of His Resurrection. You sacrifice your life, goods, fame, child, and wife, in the sure and certain hope of Him who loves you, who has promised you His Kingdom. By such faith, you live in the righteousness of Christ. You shut the lion’s mouth; you quench the fire’s power; you escape the edge of the sword. In weakness you are made strong, and in the fear of the Lord you are wise — because the Mighty One has done great things for you, whose almighty power is made known in His mercy and compassion for you.

In the world you have tribulation. The Cross does not remove that conflict, but, far from it, the Cross stirs the pot and fuels the fire. Within and without, you are crucified and put to death. And, as often as you would flee the Cross, as though to find your safety in the world, the Lord pursues you with His mighty Sword. He comes to you, again and again, through the preaching and ministry of His servants — called, ordained, and sent in His Name and stead to address you with His Word and confront you with His Cross.

But, lest you wonder why He is so persistent in coming after you in this way, let me tell you:

He is not mean, and He does not seek your death, but He desires to give you His own Life. To be sure, He is not safe, but He is good, and it is in love that He pursues you. He would turn you from your sin and death, back to Himself, to call upon His holy Name, and to hide yourself in Him.

When you perceive the pillar of cloud arise from the waters of your Baptism, and you hear the Voice of the Spirit blowing across the desert of your dried-up dead bones, know that He who brings you out of Egypt will bring you into Canaan. As surely as your Savior, Christ Jesus, has passed through death into life, so surely does He bring you through the fire and the water with Himself. He has overcome the world, and He has reconciled you and all the world to God.

That is where your peace is found: in the house and home of your Father, in the fellowship of His family and friends, in the unity of His Holy Spirit, in the Holy Communion of His beloved Son. Not as the world gives, does He give to you here, but through the voice of your pastor He forgives you all your sins; He remembers them no more, nor does He count them against you.

He has turned aside His fierce anger from you, because His Son — His only Son, Christ Jesus, whom He loves — has fulfilled the purpose of His heart for your salvation. So shall He sustain you by the gracious Ministry of His Gospel. For you are righteous in His sight, for Jesus’ sake, and He will never let the righteous fall. Many are the afflictions of the Righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all. As He raised Christ Jesus from the dead, so shall He raise you forevermore.

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