After the Pattern of Christ Jesus

St. Stephen was content and at peace, even as he was being put to death, because he had fixed his hope on the living God.  He wasn’t searching for the meaning of life, because it had already been made known to him by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.  He wasn’t confused about his place and purpose in the world, because he knew himself to be a child of God in Christ.  And he wasn’t nervous or afraid about tomorrow or the next day, because he lived by the grace of his Father.

That explains the striking contrast that we find in the story of Stephen: On the one hand, his fierce and forthright preaching of the Law, and on the other hand, his gracious prayer of forgiveness for those to whom he preached as they were stoning him to death.  He demonstrates the bold courage that characterizes the martyrs of our Lord Jesus, but also the charity and compassion of Christ.  He has the strong confidence and passionate conviction, not of harsh anger, but of faith in the Gospel.

In particular, Stephen knew and trusted that he had a dwelling place with God, because God had made His dwelling place with Stephen in Christ Jesus.  The holy martyr knew that he would be with Christ, with the Father in heaven, because the same Lord Jesus Christ was with him in his suffering and death.  He knew that heaven was his home, and that heaven had been fully opened to him by the Cross and Resurrection of the incarnate Son of God.

The Lord has just as surely done the same for you, as well.  He has become Flesh for you.  He has given Himself for you, even unto death.  He has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven for you, also.  And yet, He also remains with you here in His Church on earth, in His very own Flesh and Blood, with His Word and Holy Spirit.  Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with you here.

What Moses was shown and what he saw on the Mountain was a Type of that incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ, and the Tabernacle that Moses made by God’s direction was according to that holy pattern.  It served the people of God in the wilderness as a means of grace, a proclamation of the Gospel, because it pointed to what has now been accomplished and fulfilled in the Son of Mary.

He is the new and better Joshua, who brings God’s people out of the wilderness into the good land that He has promised, defeating all their enemies before them.  And He is the new and better David — the Son of David who is greater than Solomon — the true King of Peace and holy Wisdom — whose own Body is raised and established as the true Temple of God.  That is to say, not a house for God to live in, as though He were otherwise homeless, but a House in which you live with God.

In Him, by your Baptism into Him, His God and Father is your God and Father.  You bear His own Name and Holy Spirit, because you are born of Him, and you have your Life in Him, and you are a member of His family.  Your house and home are with Him, safe and secure, now and forever.

For Christ Jesus, the beloved Son, has become your Brother in the Flesh and your Savior from sin, death, the devil, and hell.  He is your merciful and great High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.  His sacrificial death is your Atonement and Redemption.  His Resurrection from the dead is your reconciliation and your righteousness with God.  And His Ascension to the Right Hand of the Father is your own happy homecoming, your peaceful resting place, and your Salvation forever.

That is why you can be strong and courageous, like St. Stephen, in doing your job and saying forthrightly what is good and right and true, even when it is painfully difficult, woefully unpopular, and poorly received.  You fear the Lord, because He alone is your true God and Father, but you need not be afraid of any mortal man.  No one can rob you of your Life with God in Christ Jesus.

Along with such courage and confidence, you are also able to be compassionate, kind, and patient, even when you deal with hurtful and unpleasant people.  To be sure, your kind compassion may require the preaching of the Law and the call to repentance, according to your office and vocation.  But such a preaching of repentance — as when the Lord persisted in sending the Prophets to His people of old, and in the case of St. Stephen — is neither vindictive nor mean-spirited, but aims at warning the neighbor of danger and calling him back to the Lord. 

So, too, when you must warn your neighbor, do so in love — truly to rescue him from danger and to lead him to life with yourself — and not out of any anger, defensiveness, fear, or vengeance.

After all, you know that you are safe.  Your life is secure.  You need not guard yourself so fiercely.  God has opened His heaven to you in Christ Jesus, as fully and freely as He did for St. Stephen.  Indeed, through your Holy Baptism you have already died with Christ and entered into Life with God in Him.  That is how sure and certain your Life and your eternal future are and ever shall be.

Dear child of God, you know that for Jesus’ sake your true Father in heaven loves you; that He is pleased with you and delights in you, regardless of what anyone else may think or say or do.  And you know that all of this is solely by His grace and mercy; that He is compassionate, kind, and patient with you — long-suffering, slow to anger, and full of nothing but steadfast love for you.

Therefore, as Christ has given Himself for you and given you His own Life by the Gospel, and as He has become your Righteousness and your Salvation, so is He your Strength and your Song — your Confidence and Courage, on the one hand; your Charity and Compassion, on the other hand.

So it is that you become like Him.  Which is also to become like St. Stephen, who was recreated in the Image and Likeness of God, after the pattern of Christ Jesus, by his own Holy Baptism.

Therefore, you also live, you suffer, and you die, as Stephen did — like Christ — by grace through faith in the Gospel.  That is the only power and poise that you will ever need.  And it is yours!

You have the Tabernacle of the Testimony here in the wilderness, that is to say, the preaching of the Gospel.  That is the true wisdom and eloquence of the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus, calling you daily to repentance, unto faith, through the forgiveness of all your sins.  It cleanses you and clothes you with the Blood of the Lamb; as in your Holy Baptism, so also in the Holy Communion.

The saints who have gone before you, especially the holy martyrs like St. Stephen, are another kind of “Tabernacle of the Testimony,” because they have lived in their own flesh and followed by faith the same pattern they were shown in Christ Jesus.  And you, in turn, follow the same pattern as a living testimony to your neighbor, so that your neighbor may then see the Son of Man in you.

Be Thou faithful unto death, and He will give you the crown of Life.  That was His sure and certain promise to St. Stephen (whose name means “crown”), and His promise to you is no less sure and certain.  Indeed, it is already a “bird in the hand,” because your dear Lord Jesus Christ, the very King of heaven, has already crowned you with His own royalty and righteousness by the Gospel. He has crowned you with Himself and with His Glory, having made of you His royal Bride, His Queen.  And as He spoke by the Prophet Isaiah, you are a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.

You are another Stephen, by virtue of your Baptism into the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  And as He did for that holy Stephen, for whom we give thanks and praise to God this day, so does He also bring you through the waters of your Baptism into the heaven He has opened to you by His own Baptism.  He will bring you through death and the grave into the Life everlasting, as even now He brings you through the great tribulation into His own Resurrection and Ascension.

Already you live with Him in God, by grace through faith in His Gospel, because God tabernacles here with you in Him, that is, in His Flesh and Blood and in His Word of forgiveness.  For that dear Lord Jesus binds together in Himself, forever, both God and Man, both heaven and earth.

Here at His Altar — and so also from this Altar into the world in your calling and station, even through the wilderness — you live before the Throne of God; you live and abide in His Temple.

Your sins are all forgiven.  Forgive those, also, who trespass against you.  For you are righteous and holy before God and precious in His sight for the sake of Jesus Christ.  As He has risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the Right Hand of His God and Father, so shall you not die but live.  Does He not feed you with His Body and pour out His Blood for you to drink?  Yes, He does.  He sees to it that neither His Word nor His Table are neglected in this place.  Therefore, you lack nothing, nor shall you ever lack for what you need.  Your sure and certain hope for Life and Salvation are here for you in the forgiveness of your sins and in the Meat and Drink of Christ

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

A Light in the Darkness for You

You may not be a shepherd, but you do have your own watch to keep — your own flock to guard and protect, to feed and to care for, and your own field in which to abide.  You have the duties of your office, the responsibilities of your particular station in life.

But whether you work the day shift or at night, evenings and weekends, or on call 24/7, you live and work in the midst of a deep darkness.  And sometimes that darkness looms and grows and thickens to the point where it threatens to swallow you up completely.  Left alone and afraid in the darkness, unable to see which way to turn, you may not see any hope for tomorrow.  In the dead of the night, when you cannot sleep — or when your sleep is assailed with nightmares — it does not appear that the sun will ever shine on you again.  No matter how many lights you turn on, no matter how many watts you burn, the darkness crowds upon you, and you can’t turn back the night.

Really, though, I’m not speaking so much about the natural darkness that comes with the setting of the sun at the end of each day.  Indeed, the darkest hours aren’t always at night.  Nor is the darkness only on the outside, surrounding you.  There is a deeper darkness within you, gnawing away at you and eating you up from the inside-out.  It is the native darkness of your fallen old man, the darkness of your heart and mind, beclouded by sin, ignorant of God, tempted to wickedness and evil on the one hand, but then also accused, ashamed, and afraid, on the other hand.

That is the darkness which blackens your thoughts and feelings and makes it impossible for you to see or perceive anything clearly, even at high noon.  You live, as it were, always at night, always in the dark.  You do your job and tend your sheep, but you do it like a hireling; you despise and resent the flock, you grumble and complain.  You run away and hide, on the inside at least, when push comes to shove.  You work without joy, because you have to, in order to make ends meet, and you count the hours, the days, the weeks, and the years until you can finally be done with it all.

When you care for the sheep with no other goal than caring for yourself and meeting your needs, then the darkness emerges from within you in the form of self-preservation and self-protection, and it descends upon your heart and mind in the form of fear, desperation, and finally despair.  That is the darkness which would eventually consume you altogether, dragging you into the long dark night of death and the grave and eternal damnation.

Except that, now, the true Light has come.  The same true God who caused the Light to shine out of the darkness in the beginning, has caused the Light of His Glory to shine upon you by His grace.  He’s doing it right now, as a matter of fact, in the middle of this dark night, in the midst of all the darkness in this fallen world.  As always, it is by and with His Word that His Light shines for you.  His Word is the Light, which is preached to you, that you might see God and have Life in Him.

This Light of the revelation of the Glory of God is scary in its own way.  When you’ve been in the dark for so long, you know how it is — the light hurts your eyes.  And when you’ve been hiding in the darkness, doing what you should not and neglecting what you should, then having the lights suddenly flipped on might well freak you out and make you sore afraid.  For the Light exposes the deeds of darkness and makes it clear that you have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.

Then again, when you’re lost in the dark and looking for the light, it can seem like the Light of the Lord has been overcome by thick clouds and deep shadows.  For the irony and paradox of the Cross, which is the Hour of God’s Glory in Christ Jesus, is that it appears completely otherwise.

Because it is the Light of the Cross that shines upon you in the Word of Christ, your life on earth is not all blue skies and sunshine, but overcast and overshadowed, maybe even dark and cold and dreary.  The days are short, your nights are long.  And when all the excitement and celebration of the holidays have come and gone, the presents have been opened and put away, the decorations taken down, and even the leftovers have all been eaten, there will still be your job to do, your studies to resume, and either the frenzy or the boredom, the loneliness or chaos of your life.

And the prospect that nothing will ever change or get any better may be your greatest fear of all.

But to each and all of you I say, Fear not.  For right here, right now, I bring to you good news of great joy.  This is a Word of Peace, not only for shepherds “once upon a time,” but for all people, and so also for each and all of you.  These glad tidings are preached to you as you keep your watch, tend your sheep, and abide in your field by night as by day.  This message rings out to the ends of the earth, and so also here it is spoken and heard, confessed, prayed, and sung.  It is proclaimed for you, first of all, but in such a way that you are also able to speak it and sing it for others.

This Word of the Gospel is full of great joy, because it meets your deepest needs, delivers you from death, and gives you true and everlasting Life with God.  It is comfort and Peace.  It is Light in the darkness.  It is rescue and relief, protection from danger, tender care, and free Salvation.

It is unto you that a Savior has been born.  He is your Savior, and so He comes for you here and now, right where you are.  He is born “in the same country,” that is to say, not Palestine per se, nor the U.S.A.  Neither Canada, Tanzania, Russia, or the Ukraine.  But all of the above, in the same country and commerce where men and women live and work, the tangible world of sunshine and rain, of eating and drinking, waking and sleeping.  The Lord has been born for you into all of that.

He has come, not simply to be with you and keep you company as you go about your days and nights, but to be your Savior — to save you from all that darkens your world, and from all that brings death into your life.  He comes to do it by His Cross, by submitting Himself to the darkness of death and the grave, allowing Himself to be swallowed up by them — and then triumphing over them and swallowing them up, once and for all.  The darkness does not overcome Him — indeed, it cannot — and so it is dispersed by Him who is the Light.  Death and the grave cannot hold Him, because death is actually defeated by His Death.  So He has risen, and He shall never die again.

As death no longer has any lordship over Him, neither shall it be allowed to rule over you anymore forever.  For your Savior, Christ Jesus — born into the House and Lineage of David, a Man after His Father’s heart — He is your Shepherd and your King.

Even a little child knows that a Shepherd guards and protects His flock from danger, and also feeds and cares for His sheep, leading them into good green pastures and alongside cool clear waters.  That is what your Shepherd does for you, so that you have Life, and so that death is kept at bay.

Because He is also your King, the government rests fully upon His shoulders, and not upon you.  He is not a tyrant, nor a cruel dictator, but an “everlasting Father” for His people.  That is to say, again, that He feeds and clothes you, shelters and protects you, teaches and trains you.  All of this by His grace, without any merit or worthiness in you, but with fatherly divine goodness and mercy.

King Jesus does not take a census of the people in order to tax the world.  He distributes His own wealth to you and all your fellow citizens of His Kingdom, so that you and your neighbor are well supplied and able to love and serve and care for each other with the good gifts of your King.

So, consider how it is: You are saved by Him, and now you live by His grace and mercy, and you have Peace in the Light of His Gospel.  For He is the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, and having been anointed by the Spirit of His Father in His Body of flesh and blood, He pours out the Holy Spirit upon you through His forgiving of all your sins.  Indeed, He is the Lord Himself — the almighty and eternal Son of God, begotten of the Father from all eternity — but He has also become true Man, a human being like yourself, by His conception and birth of St. Mary.  In Him, God and Man are perfectly and permanently united.  So, also, in Him you are united with God in perfect Peace.

Come, then, avail yourself of these good things.  Seek and find your Savior in the place where He directs you to go, so that you might worship and adore Him by first of all hearing His Word and receiving His good gifts; and that you should then also return thanks, bend your knee and lift up your voice, and love and serve your neighbor in the Name and for the sake of your true King.

You find Him in the city of David, that is, in Bethlehem, the “House of Bread.”  Not by accident or coincidence is your Savior found in such a House, for He is the true and living Bread come down from heaven.  But His Bethlehem is not far away from you, on the other side of the planet.  It is found, and He is found, wherever His Church is gathered by and for the preaching of His Gospel and the giving of His Body in remembrance of Him.  The household and family of His Church, in which that Bread is administered with His Word, is where you find the Son of David.

He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, in anticipation of the clothes that will wrap and swaddle His Body when He is taken down from the Cross and buried.  For He wraps Himself in your frailty and weakness, in your fallen-ness, in your mortality and death.  But so does He also burst the bonds of sin and death and set you free.  The swaddling clothes of His humble nativity and of His tomb are a sign of His Victory over death and the grave, which He has accomplished for you and for all, that He might wrap Himself up and give Himself to you under the Tree of His Cross.

So is He wrapped and swaddled now upon the Altar of His Church, in the Cup and on the Plate, reverently adorned with linens recalling both His burial and His Resurrection from the dead.

If you want to find Him, do so here at His Altar.  If the wood of the manger has given way to the wood of the Cross, so is the Cross set before you in the wood of this Altar.  And it is still a manger of sorts, that is, a feeding trough from which you eat and drink.  Here is where His sheep are fed with the Food and Drink that are His own holy Body and His own most precious Blood.

Little wonder, then, that angels and archangels and all the host of heaven are gathered here with you and join with you in praising God.  For wherever the Body and Blood of the incarnate Son of God are found, there all of heaven takes notice, pays devout attention, and sings with great joy and gladness to the glory, honor, thanks, and praise of the Holy Triune God.  All the saints and holy angels in heaven and on earth rejoice, give thanks, and sing, because the Lord our God has become Man, and He has saved the sons of men for the Life everlasting.

The same Lord God in mercy sends His messengers to you, to shepherd you as His dear sheep by the preaching and teaching of His Word, in order to bring you these glad tidings.

Do keep these things, as St. Mary did, and ponder them both day and night in your heart and mind.  Savor these glad tidings in your words and actions.  For this Word of Christ Jesus is the Light that disperses the gloom and scatters the darkness.  So it does for you, as you hear it and remember it; and so it does for your neighbor, as you also speak it and share it with those whom you encounter.

With this Word, and by this Light, return to your own field and your flock with thanksgiving to God, and be at Peace in the sure and certain hope of Christ Jesus.  The Truth is that His Incarnation and His Birth, His Cross and Resurrection, have already changed everything for the better.

Though it is still dark in this perishing world, and the night seems to reign without ending, in fact everything is just as it has been told to you.  Your Light has come in the Flesh and Blood of Christ Jesus, and the Grace of God has appeared in the preaching of His Gospel.  The eternal Day has already dawned in the bodily Resurrection of the same Lord Jesus from the dead, and as you are redeemed by His Cross, so shall you also rise and live forever in His Light.

What your eyes have not yet seen shall at last appear, suddenly bursting into the midst of this long dark night.  As surely as the Gospel is here preached and the Sacrament administered for the forgiveness of your sins, so surely does your Savior come to you, and His Glory shines upon you, and so surely will He bring you home rejoicing.  Then there shall be no more night forever, but only the Light of the Word-made-Flesh, forever and forevermore.

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