18 February 2024

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. 

14 January 2024

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.

07 January 2024

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.

06 January 2024

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

25 December 2023

Perfected in the Flesh of God the Word

A man does not hate his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes his body.  It’s not a matter of pride or personal affection, but of need and survival.  There may be all sorts of things that you really don’t like about your body, and yet you are constrained to care for yourself.  Your aches and pains are bothersome, but you give attention to them rather than ignoring them because they are your own.  Your flaws and weaknesses may frustrate you, and your blemishes and scars may embarrass you, but you deal with all of those things because you cannot separate your body from your self.

There is an immediacy to the demands of your flesh, which you simply can’t ignore.  So you do the best you can to protect and provide for yourself, even though you are not able to preserve your body and life beyond a limited point.  You’re driven to nurture and care for yourself for as long as you are able, all the while you are constantly confronted with the basic fact of your mortality. 

You do not hate your own flesh, but neither can you trust it.  You know that, sooner or later, it’s going to let you down, fall apart, or otherwise betray you.  You serve it every day, because you have to — it eagerly and greedily becomes your god — but your body cannot save you.  Instead, it makes you anxious, angry, and afraid.  Your own flesh discourages and disappoints you.

The whole of creation presents a similar challenge and temptation.  Though the rest of the world is not so personal as your own body of flesh and blood, there is still an immediacy to all the stuff that you can see and touch and taste and smell, surrounding you on all sides and pressing upon you.  It is so tangible, so present, and so solid, as though it were definitive and decisive, whether for good or ill.  Creation promises and threatens, seemingly without any recognition of the Creator.  Thus, faith and fear are misdirected from God to the world.  You either idolize or demonize it.

A case in point is the sun, which God created as a great light to govern the day.  It is surely an impressive and valuable gift, and, oh, how we miss it when it goes down at night or hides behind the clouds.  Of course, we also curse the sun when it beats down too hotly upon us and burns us.  But mostly we rely on it, so much so that we often express our hope for the future with reference to the sun coming up tomorrow.  That may be a confession of confidence in the Lord, who causes the sun to shine on both the evil and the good; or it may be yet another case of pagan idolatry.

You have probably heard, at some point or another, that the Feast of Christmas competed for a time with the pagan festival of sol invictus, the “unconquered sun,” which followed the winter solstice in late December.  The lengthening of the days appeared to be a triumph of creation over death.

Modern conceit is no better than ancient paganism in supposing that, with gadgets and electricity, we are now able to provide and control the light for ourselves, and to keep the darkness at bay.

Christians know and confess that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the true Light, and that by His coming into the world He enlightens every man.  He is the true Sun of Righteousness, who has risen upon us with healing in His wings.  He is neither a creature nor within anyone’s control; He is the divine Word by whom all things are made, and without whom there is nothing at all.  The sun, moon, and stars, the earth and the sea and all that is in them, all of these are His own creation, and He is the One who still preserves them and provides for them in His mercy and by His might.

The Light of this Son, Jesus, is the Life that is His by nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit, from all eternity to all eternity.  It is the holiness of His Life and His freedom as the one true God.  For He is neither constrained by anything nor in need of anything, but He is who He is: He was, He is, and He is to come.  So He remains, always the same, and all of Creation depends on Him.

But why, then, has He created the heavens and the earth?  Not out of boredom or need, but for the sake of holy Love!  Because the divine eternal Life of the Holy Triune God is Love, the Father for His Son, the Son for His Father, in the Holy Spirit, forever and always.  It is in this Love that He always remains, always the same.  And it is solely for the sake of this Love that He creates all things ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” in order to share Himself — His Life, His Light, and His Love — His Glory and His Holiness — with others outside of Himself, that is, with His own creatures.

That is the Grace of God, of which we so often speak, and for which we glorify His holy Name.

By this Grace, through His almighty and eternal Word, the Father created man in His Image; which is already to speak of the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus — the Word-made-Flesh — from the very beginning, from the foundation of the world.  This is a great Mystery, indeed, that man is made in the form and the likeness of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Son.  The first Adam is created to be like the Second.  For the Lord Jesus Christ is the Image of God, the exact representation of His Being.

The Incarnation of our Lord is not an afterthought.  His conception and birth of St. Mary are not a “plan B,” they are the original creative purpose and gracious intention of the Holy Trinity, that God should become Man in this way, in order that man might receive and share the Life of God in Him.  Indeed, that is the very foundation upon which the entire Creation has been established.

From the beginning, it is this Word of God — the only-begotten of the Father — who fills Creation with divine Life and Light and Love.  Not only does He bring all things which have been made into existence, but He undergirds them and sustains them.  Neither man, nor the sun in the sky, nor any creature under heaven is self-existing or self-sufficient.  That is why the fall into sin is so deadly and destructive.  In turning away from the Word of God, man plunges everything into darkness.

Despite all that, we rejoice and give thanks on this holy day because divine Love has moved to rescue and redeem, to sanctify and save His fallen creation.  Not only does He restore man to the starting point, but He fulfills and perfects mankind, as He intended, in His Image and Likeness, in holiness and righteousness.  That is what God the Word begins to do in His becoming Flesh.

By His conception in the womb of St. Mary, and by His holy Nativity, He makes Himself one with His Creation.  He enters into it, and by doing so He becomes the definitive part of it.

He comes to His own, to the work of His own hands, and although He is neither comprehended nor received by those whom He has come to save, He accomplishes and brings about a New Creation in Himself.  He does not scrap it all and start over, but He restores all of Creation by the forgiveness of man’s sin, by the sacrificing of His own Flesh and the shedding of His own Blood.

In doing so, in laying down His body and life in this way, He does not hate His own Flesh, but in Love He gives Himself for you, so that you might become a member of His Body and His Bride.

Although this may seem self-defeating and tragic, namely, that the Son of God should suffer and die for sinners, it is precisely in this way that He brings about the fulfillment and perfection of His Creation.  It’s not as though sin and death were ever by the Lord’s design or doing, but they are utterly unable to thwart His purposes; they rather become the occasion for His great Salvation.

As God in the Flesh, He saves you from sin and death, and He gives you Life and Light and Love.  This, too, is a creatio ex nihilo, a “creation out of nothing,” for there was nothing and no one else  who could have done this thing.  It is God Himself, and He alone, who saves you.  But being also the true and perfect Man, He does so in perfect faith, in perfect love for His own God and Father, and in holy love for you and for all people.  Grace and truth are thus realized in Jesus Christ.  The faith and love required by the Law are accomplished and established in Him, in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood.  And so the “government” of the whole world is upon His shoulders.  The “economy” of the whole Creation rests on Him, and resides in Him, and shall not be shaken.

It is for this purpose that He became Flesh and was made Man, so that, by His Cross — and in His Resurrection from the dead — you who were dead in your trespasses and sin should be given the New Birth of the children of God by the washing of water with His Word and Holy Spirit.  Your Baptism into Christ Jesus is the New Creation by which you have become the man or the woman that God intended you to be, a beloved son or daughter after His own heart, in whom He delights.

No longer do you live and die in the darkness, because the Light of Christ has risen upon you and shines in your heart through His Gospel.  No longer are you driven by desperation to take care of yourself at the expense of others, since the Life of Christ now fills you and sustains you through His Word and Spirit.  No longer are you cast off and distant from God, because He has drawn near to you in Love, and you now live and abide in Him by faith in the Word of Christ, your Savior. 

The same living Word of God is with you, because God the Father speaks to you by His Son in the preaching of the Gospel.  And He is no empty or futile word.  He is not white noise or meaningless chatter.  No, the very One who speaks and is spoken to you is the creative and life-giving Word by whom all things are made.  By Him you are named with the excellent Name of God Himself, and sanctified by His Holy Spirit, and glorified with the radiance of His own divine Glory.

By the preaching of this Word, the Lord God Almighty bares His holy arm — the arm of Christ the Crucified He bares — to all the nations of the world, even to the ends of the earth.  And not only does He make known His Salvation, but His Gospel actually saves you and grants you His peace, because it does exactly what it says, which is to forgive you by the Cross of Christ Jesus.

That same Word of the Gospel becomes Flesh for you in this Sacrament.  The One who has become like you, now feeds you with Himself, so that you might become like Him.  The One who shed His Blood for you, now pours out His Blood for you to drink from His Chalice with the mouth of your own body of flesh, that you should thus be cleansed and refreshed with the Life and Love of God.

See, then, how solid, how present, how immediate and tangible this Word is for you.  See here how the true Sun of Righteousness now shines upon you.  See here the perfection of Creation in His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you.  And know that in this eating and drinking you are granted to become flesh of His Flesh and blood of His Blood; that you are thereby wed to Him as a member of His holy Bride; and that all of you are knit together as one holy Body of Christ.

This true and perfect Man surely does not hate you or any of the members of His Body.  He loves you dearly, and He nourishes and cherishes you with all that He is and has.  Not by any constraint, and not with any selfish desperation, but in the perfect freedom of His holiness and divine grace.

Nowhere is the heart of God more open to you than here at His Altar in His Body and Blood.

The Eucharist is the New Song that you sing to the Lord, the Good News that you shout joyfully to all the world; because the incarnate God, the Word-made-Flesh, here opens your mouth, your lips, and your tongue, to feed you in body and soul with Himself to the glory of His holy Name.

All the holy angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven worship Him who is your Savior, and all of Creation rejoices in His mighty works and great Salvation.  And of His fulness you receive, His grace upon grace everlasting, in His Word and in His Flesh which are for you.

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

05 November 2023

Christ Jesus Is the Life and Light and Salvation of Body and Soul

It is evident that Jairus has been catechized by the Word of the Lord, for he comes to Jesus in the hope of His mercy. He worships Him by faith with his prayers and petitions, and with his body, too, prostrate before his Lord in humility. The posture of his body confesses the faith in his heart.

It is evident that he, a ruler of the synagogue, has not only cared for others with God’s Word and prayer, but has catechized his own little daughter, as well; else she would not only be sleeping. The Christian fears the grave as little as her bed, but those who die apart from Christ are swallowed up, body and soul, by eternal death.

Such death is the legacy and inheritance of all the daughters and sons of Adam & Eve. All of you will die — and must die — because all of you sin and fall short of the Glory of God. Indeed, it is necessary that you die to your sin, to yourself, and to the world, in order that you be set free and raised up to newness of life in the Body of Christ Jesus.

But so it is, in Him, that death does not have the last word, final though it seems. Even death cannot end your gladness when you have become a child, not only of man, but of God. By faith in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, you live, even though you die. That is our bold confession, on this day as throughout the year, as we remember with thanksgiving the faithful departed who have gone before us over this past year. They are not “dead and gone,” but alive forever with the Lord.

For the very Son of God has come in the flesh, with a Body and Blood like your own, conceived and born of the Woman, St. Mary, herself a daughter of Adam. He has entered into the house of sin and death where you are. He has crossed over to the other side of the sea in the new and greater Exodus of His Cross and Resurrection, even as He was baptized for you and for all righteousness in the waters of the Jordan River. He made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over; and, as you are baptized into Him, you pass through death into Life everlasting with Him.

To that end, He now comes with His Ministers of the Gospel, who follow Him and bear His Name, who preach His Word and give His good gifts to the children of men. With His Word and the touch of His hand, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you and His whole Christian Church with the Holy Spirit of His God and Father. So does His Word go out into all the world, His Voice to the ends of the earth. And His Word declares that Life and Light and Salvation are found in Him.

Jairus is prompted to seek Him out by his desperate need for the sake of his dear daughter, and by his faith in the Word and Flesh of Christ Jesus he prays and intercedes for his girl, for the life and health and strength of her body. He prostrates himself and worships Jesus with his heart and mind, with his words and actions, and with his whole body, as well. And his prayer is that Jesus would come in the flesh to lay His hands on the little girl, in order to raise her up from death to life again.

You hear the attention that is given here to the body. And at the same time, you know that your own body is afflicted by the curse of sin and death. Your flesh suffers and decays, it perishes and fades like the grass and its flower. There is no lasting life but only sickness and death in your body.

That poor woman with the twelve-year hemorrhage certainly knew and experienced that frailty of her flesh and the weight of her mortality.

For all of that, the truth remains that Christ Jesus has come in His own Body of flesh and blood. He has suffered and died for all your sins and transgressions, and He is risen from the dead in His glorified Body for your justification, in order to rescue and raise you in both body and soul. For all that He has accomplished for you in His Body, He has also given to you in Holy Baptism, and He continues to bestow upon you in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood. Already in the Gospel He delivers your soul from death — as He will your body in the Resurrection.

Therefore, do not weep and wail and mourn like those who have no hope.  Rather, pray, praise, and give thanks in the hope and confidence of Christ. Call upon the Name of the Lord, trusting that He hears and answers your prayers and supplications, and that He saves you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Do not be afraid, but seek Him where He may be found, and so lay hold of Him by the “hem of His garment,” which is to say, by availing yourself of His Word and Sacrament.

Not what your senses, your intellect, or your emotions tell you, no matter how convincingly, but what Jesus says and does for you and gives to you determines what is true and what is real. The world will mock and scorn, it will laugh and ridicule the hope that is in you. But never mind that.

The Lord your God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live by and from Him. And by His grace, by His Ministry of the Gospel, He has delivered you from the domain of darkness, death, and damnation, and brought you into the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom you have redemption through His Blood, the free and full forgiveness of all your sins in Christ Jesus.

He raises you up and gives you life, already here and now in your body on earth. As surely as He has purified your heart and cleansed your conscience by the washing of your body with the water and His Word in Holy Baptism, so surely does He enliven your body with His Holy Spirit; so that you rise up and live and walk in His Way — from your childhood into your teens and adulthood.

He stretches out His hand to lay hold of you in love, to strengthen and sustain your faith and life in Him through the blessing of His Word and Holy Spirit. And it is your faith in Him that saves you, not as any kind of work or merit on your part, but as receiving and relying on His good Gifts.

The Synagogue and Sabbath Rest of Christ Jesus are where He catechizes you with His Word and calls you daily to repentance. Thus He returns you, again and again, to the significance of your Holy Baptism, to your dying and rising with Him. And He feeds you with Himself for the Life everlasting of your body and soul. He comes to abide with you, that you should abide in Him.

So now, in turn, confess the faith to your neighbors, and catechize your daughters and sons with the Word of Christ Jesus. Be as earnest and eager to do so as Jairus was to seek out Jesus for the sake of his dear little daughter; for it is by the catechesis of the Word of Christ Jesus that you give true and lasting Life to your children and preserve them in body and soul for now and forever.

And little girl, or little boy — young woman, or young man — child of God, whatever your age, do not continue to sin with your body, nor give yourself over to the laziness of apathy and despair, but worship the Lord your God — and love your neighbor as yourself — in and with your body.

As a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, follow Him on the Way that leads to Life even in the midst of death. Enter with Him into the House of your true Father and Mother, in which your weeping is turned into joy and your sorrow gives way to feasting. For your heavenly Bridegroom is here with you, feeding you with the Meat and Drink indeed of His holy Body and precious Blood, that you should not die but live, now and forever. He abides with you, and you abide in Him, both body and soul, waking, sleeping, in life, in death, and in the Resurrection to the Life everlasting

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

08 October 2023

The Marriage Feast of the King's Son

The Kingdom of Heaven is all about the Father and His Son and the great Marriage Feast of Christ Jesus and His Bride, the Holy Christian Church.

From the Foundation of the World, from the Fall into Sin, through all the ages of the Patriarchs and Prophets, to the coming of our Lord in the Flesh, His Cross and Resurrection, even to the close of the age, the Lord provides for His people (and all His creatures); He feeds them in body and soul, for this life and the Life everlasting, and He promises a great Feast indeed.

Now, as we have depicted in our Lord’s Parable this morning, what He promised and provided for His people in the Old Testament was frequently despised, neglected, and rejected; and in response, He disciplined His people and called them to repentance — to receive the food with which He fed them, to rely upon His providential care, and to rejoice in His gracious gifts.

And in His tender mercies, long-suffering patience, and steadfast loving-kindness, He continued to preserve His people, to provide for them and feed them.

And when the time was fully come, the Father sent forth His dearly-beloved only-begotten Son into our Flesh, to call and claim His Bride and bring her Home rejoicing.

Thus did St. John the Baptist go before Him, to preach and prepare His Way, as the Best Man for the Bridegroom. He pointed the people to Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world — in whom all the promises and all the sacrifices of fattened calves, goats and bulls, sheep and oxen have found their fulfillment, their meaning and significance.

To that end, the Lord Jesus Himself, the incarnate Son of God, was sacrificed once-for-all upon His Cross, in order to atone for the sins of the world, to redeem the world for God, to justify all of us poor sinners and reconcile us to His God and Father — no longer as strangers and aliens, but as His own dear Bride, a Princess indeed, a daughter of the King.

This is truly a cause for great rejoicing, now and forever — in the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom, which has no end. For not only is the Lamb of God sacrificed, but His own Flesh and Blood are the Meal of Salvation for His Bride and all her dear children.

But we know how lukewarm the world is — and even our own mortal flesh — how readily we forego the things of Christ and the Kingdom of God for our earthly enterprises, our farms and our business dealings, so that we ignore His summons and decline His invitation.

So, too, St. John the Baptist, Christ Jesus Himself, and almost all of His holy Apostles were not simply ignored but persecuted and put to death for their preaching of the precious Holy Gospel.

The Lord’s own chosen people, by and large, refused and rejected Him — for which reason God sent the Roman armies as the instruments of His judgment to tear down, burn, and destroy the once holy city of Jerusalem — a sobering indication that the external walls and trappings of the Church on earth will not preserve a rebellious and hard-hearted people from the Lord’s just judgment.

The King’s Feast is prepared and ready, nevertheless. The promised Christ has come, His Cross and Resurrection have been accomplished, and His Body and His Blood are given and poured out as Meat and Drink indeed for His disciples to eat and to drink in faith and with thanksgiving.

The Lord’s Supper is, indeed, already the true and real Foretaste of the Feast that is hosted and celebrated forever in Paradise. And this Holy Supper, with all that it gives and does, is the Heart and Center of the Church — on earth as it is in heaven. Not a means to some other end, it is the Kingdom of Heaven among us, the Banquet of the King’s own dear Son and His Royal Bride.

Thus, in the sending of His Apostles to make disciples of all the nations — by the preaching and catechesis of His Word and by Holy Baptism in His Name — the Lord Jesus calls and invites all people to come and enter into His Wedding Feast in the Kingdom of His God and Father.

That is the very invitation that each of you has received through the Ministry of the Word. And that  is why you are here this morning, in anticipation of the Final Judgment, the Resurrection of all flesh, and the Life everlasting of body and soul in and with Christ Jesus, the heavenly Bridegroom.

So, it is good and right that you are here. And for those who are baptized and catechized in the Name of the Lord, who confess His holy Name, it is good and right that you should feast upon the Lamb of God here at His Table in His Home, in His Supper. Truly, forgiveness, life, and salvation are here freely given and bestowed upon you in the Word and Flesh of Christ Jesus.

But take heed to His warning in this Parable, that you not presume upon your gracious Host by entering upon His Feast without the wedding garment.

The ending of the Parable at hand is a call to repentance and the fear of the Lord. Not that you should rely upon yourself and your own righteousness (which is nothing), but that you should be clothed in Christ Jesus and His righteousness and holiness by grace through faith in His Word.

Just as the City and Temple of Jerusalem were no protection against the judgment of God for those who refused and rejected His beloved Son, so it is that simply being in church, sitting in the pew, hearing the Word with your ears, and receiving the Sacrament into your body will not save you apart from faith in Christ Jesus, by which alone you are justified and holy in the presence of God.

What then? Where faith and love are lacking in your heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit, what shall you do about that? If you have soiled, forgotten, or misplaced your wedding garment, how then shall you be dressed for the King’s Banquet?

Repent of your sins and avail yourself of His Word, whereby He does and accomplishes all things. Return to the significance of your Holy Baptism by contrition and repentance, confession and Absolution. The Lord who adorned you with His righteousness in those waters to be a member of His Bride, likewise cleanses you and covers you again by and with His Word of forgiveness.

It is His Word of the Gospel that renews, strengthens, and sustains your faith and life in Him, whereby He also bears good fruits in you after His own kind. Thus do you hallow His Name and honor your Bridegroom with the good works of your calling and stations, leading a good life in holy faith and holy love by His Word and Holy Spirit.

To be sure, your sins persist in this body and life, and your works are never perfect in themselves. But where you recognize your sins and weaknesses, failures and shortcomings, take to heart the grace and mercy and forgiveness of your Lord, who loves you. Fear, love, and trust in Him, not by your own reason or strength, but by faith in His Word and promises. His judgment does not fall upon those who trust in Him and partake of His Feast in the hope and confidence of His Gospel, no matter how frail and faulty your life has been. He has called you to come, that He should feed you with Himself and all the fruits and benefits of His Cross and Resurrection.

Therefore, look to Him and wait upon His mercy. And see here how He opens wide His generous hand to give you His Meat and Drink indeed. Truly does He satisfy your body and soul with His own divine Life, with His own holy Body and precious Blood. And so does He also adorn you as His own Bride with His own Righteousness, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

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