Through the Water into Life with God in Christ Jesus

In the beginning, from out of nothing, the Holy Triune God created the heavens and the earth by the speaking of the almighty and eternal Word.  The Father spoke forth His only-begotten Son, and with that Word He breathed forth His Life-giving Holy Spirit; and thus did He bring forth all of Creation, beginning with water, a great cosmic deep, and then forming the earth out of water and by water.  That is how He chose to work, to begin and to proceed.  All of this was and is very good, because it was and is the work of God, the Lord, and because He still preserves and provides for His whole Creation in love.  The Father upholds all things by His Word, who is indeed His Son.

All of this the Lord has done, and still does, out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, for the sake of Man, male and female, created in His Image and Likeness for Life with Himself forever.

But of course, our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against the Lord who had created them, who had given them life.  They disobeyed His Holy Word, though it was His Word that brought them into being, gave them body and life, and provided for them. And by their sin they plunged all of mankind, all of their children, into a downward spiral of sin and death and eternal damnation, which is separation from the Holy Triune God, from His Life and His Love and His Light.

Henceforth, all men and women, boys and girls, infants and toddlers receive this inheritance from their parents, from the first moment of conception in the womb.  It is this inheritance that you have likewise received from your father and mother, which you also pass on to your sons and daughters, this heritage of sin and death from which you cannot set yourself free.  The heart, soul, mind, and strength of man, of all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, are sinful from the outset.  That is the stream into which you were born, in which you would drown and die forever without God.

So it was that the Flood, for example, was God’s righteous judgment against the hardened hearts, unbelief, and rampant idolatry of Man.  The Holy Scriptures testify that the Lord was sorry that He had even created Man.  So He brought the waters of the Flood down upon their heads.

Yet, that same Flood, which was indeed the judgment of God against the sins of the world, was also a Type and a Sign of the great Salvation He would accomplish by His own Son, Jesus Christ, by His Holy Cross and Passion in His Body of Flesh and Blood.  For it is upon the head of Christ Jesus that God the Father finally pours out all His righteous wrath and judgment in your stead.

The Flood was thus a Type of that gracious washing of regeneration and rebirth by the Holy Spirit which the Lord has brought about in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  And so it was with faithful Noah and his family, eight souls in all, though they were descendants of Adam and Eve, conceived and born in sin and subject to death, they were saved by the waters of the Flood, which lifted them up in the mercies of God — pointing them and you and all mankind to Christ Jesus, our Savior.

Really, everything in the Old Testament — from before the foundation of the world, and even to the close of the age — it’s all about Jesus, the incarnate Son of God.  Everything depends upon Him, on His Incarnation, His Life, His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension.  Everything depends upon Jesus for its real meaning, for its purpose, and for its fulfillment in divine and holy Love.

So, for example, the Old Testament Exodus from Egypt is finally realized for what it truly is in the Exodus that Jesus accomplishes for us men and our salvation upon the Cross outside of Jerusalem and in His Resurrection from the dead.  He is the Firstborn Son who is put to death to set you free from Pharaoh’s satanic bondage.  And He is the Passover Lamb who is sacrificed in your stead, whose Flesh feeds you for Life, and whose Blood covers and protects you from death.

It is the wood of His Cross that parts the waters of the Red Sea; which is to speak of your Baptism in His Name, whereby you pass through those waters with Him, through death and the grave into Life in the Resurrection.  He feeds you with the heavenly Manna of His holy Body throughout your pilgrimage on earth, and He seals you in the New Covenant of His Blood in the Holy Communion.

In truth, until you finally tread the verge of Jordan — until your body is finally dead and buried from your life in this world — you never do outgrow the necessity and benefits of your Baptism.  As the Catechism has taught you, it possesses a lifelong and daily significance for you.

It is by your Baptism into Christ Jesus that you have been born again to a new and living hope through the Word of His Cross.  Like little fishes you were born in those waters, and as a Christian you live your whole life in those same waters of Holy Baptism, wherein the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have recreated you in the Image and Likeness of God — which is to say, in Christ Jesus.

It is by your Baptism into Christ, the beloved and well-pleasing Son, that you are a dear child of God, and that He is your dear Father in heaven.  And it is by your Baptism in His Name that you have been anointed with the Life-giving Holy Spirit, unto faith and life in Christ Jesus, through the forgiveness of your sins (which you need each day, just as the Lord has taught you to pray).

Your Baptism is and does all of these things, because it is by your Baptism into Christ Jesus that you have been united with Him and bound to Him in His Cross and Resurrection; such that His Good Friday and His Easter are now yours — your dying and rising in and with Him.

Henceforth you live, no longer in Adam and for yourself, but in Him and for Him who for your sake died and was raised.  The river of sin and death flowing from Adam and Eve to all of their children has been cut off, because Christ has taken His stand — together with all of us mortals — in the middle of that stream.  He has planted Himself and His Cross, the true Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat of God, in the midst of the Jordan River.  And by His priestly Sacrifice of His own Body and Life, He has opened the Way for you and for all the baptized — out of the desert wilderness into the Promised Land of heaven, flowing not with sin and death, but with the pure spiritual Milk of His Word, like Water from the Rock, sweeter than honey from the honeycomb.

Thus has the new and greater Joshua, Jesus the Christ, established the New Israel of His Church, wherein He has fixed this Pillar and this Sign of Holy Baptism, which works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal Salvation — to you and to all who believe this, as the Words and Promises of God declare: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.”

It is to this permanent Monument of Holy Baptism that Jesus calls you daily by His Word and Holy Spirit through contrition, repentance, and faith.  For it is with His Baptism that you also have been baptized; only, what was death for Him is now Life for you.  By your Baptism with Christ, your old Adam is crucified, put to death, and buried; he is drowned and destroyed, with all your sinful lusts and desires.  But, so also, by and from those waters of Holy Baptism, you arise and emerge to live before God as a new creation, to live in and with the New Man, the true and better Adam, Jesus Christ, in His righteousness and purity, which are yours by His grace through faith in Him.

So it is that you live with Him in His Kingdom, now and forever; and you do drink His Cup, the overflowing Chalice of His holy and precious Blood, unto the Resurrection and eternal Life.

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

The Baptism of Repentance for the Forgiveness of Sins

St. John the Baptist comes preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And that Baptism which he preaches and administers calls for more than lip service or an outward show, although words and actions are definitely involved.  Genuine repentance includes a confession of the truth as well as godly behavior, both in accordance with the Word of the Lord.  But repentance begins and continues, far more deeply, with a decisive change of heart and mind.  It is to be turned away from one way of life to another, a full conversion of your whole self from the inside-out.

Repentance is both a death and a resurrection, and this is the very thing that such baptizing with water does with you and then also works in you for the rest of your life.  As for Jerome, so also for you, Baptism calls you and converts you to become altogether different than you have been — in your attitudes and commitments, in your thoughts and feelings, and in your words and actions.

Truly to repent is rightly to flee from the wrath to come in the conviction that the one true God exists, that He is the Author and Creator of all things, including you, and that His Law is a serious matter, indeed, which means what it says and holds you accountable for what you have done and for what you have not done.  Repentance thus begins with the fear of the Lord.

God threatens to punish all who break His Commandments.  Therefore, you should fear His wrath and not disobey Him.  The axe is laid at the root of the trees, and eternal fire awaits for the ungodly who do not live in faith and love.  For to flee from God’s righteous wrath is not to run away and flee from Him — as if you ever could escape from His judgment!  It is, rather, to live righteously by faith in His Word, and all the more so as the Day of His Coming (His Advent) approaches.

He is the Lord, your King, who is drawing near.  And St. John the Baptist is sent to prepare the Royal Highway before Him, which shall be called a highway of holiness.  Thus, by his preaching and his Baptism of repentance, he fills up the valleys and flattens the hills, he straightens up the crooked places and smooths out the rough spots.

Where, then, have you been lacking in your labors, whether out of laziness, arrogance, or despair?  And where have you exalted yourself and puffed yourself up with pride?  Where have you turned to the right or to the left, distracted from your duties, or else bounced around from one passion and pursuit to the next, as though you had no clear direction?  Where have you stumbled and fallen?

Such are the places that St. John confronts in you.  And that is where your Baptism would drown and destroy the old Adam in you and put you to death, in order to make you alive and brand new.  That is where your fruitless tree is given to bear the fruits of repentance.  Not only to claim sorrow and regret for past failures, but from the heart to change your behavior; to set your ears, your mind, and your mouth upon the Word of God; to cease from doing evil, and to do what is good and right.

Do you want to receive the Christ who comes, to follow Him into His Kingdom and live with Him in righteousness and purity forever?  Do you want to be a Christian, a child and heir of God?  Then live with both humility and confidence before Him within your vocation and stations in life.  Fulfill your duties faithfully, and carry out your responsibilities with honesty and integrity.  Not for the sake of appearances, to impress people, but in the fear of the Lord and in love for your neighbor.  That is what the preaching of Baptism calls for, and that is how you flee from the wrath to come.

To that end, the Lord begins to purify the sons of Levi, starting with Zacharias and his priestly son, St. John the Baptist.  These righteous men, to whom the Word of the Lord has come, are raised up in striking contrast to the reigning high priest, Caiaphas, and his father-in-law, Annas, who is still pulling strings and calling the shots behind the scenes.  Annas and his whole extended family are something of a religious mafia, as corrupt in their own day as were Eli and his sons in the days when Samuel was born.  It is not to Annas or Caiaphas, however, but to faithful Zacharias in the Temple, offering the incense of Israel’s prayer, that the Archangel Gabriel appears.  And St. John is the one who is called and sent as the messenger of God to prepare the people for Christ Jesus.

By his preaching and Baptism of repentance, St. John offers up the people as a priestly sacrifice to God and as a righteous offering to the Lord.  He slays them with his words in the waters of the Jordan, and then he pulls them back up out of the water and sets them on the path of righteousness in Christ.  And by this repentance thus worked in them by the washing of the water with the Word, the people offer up themselves, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord their God.  They become living sacrifices, entrusting themselves entirely to Him, and so living a new life by faith in His Word.

Such repentance is exemplified later in St. Luke’s Holy Gospel, in the tax collector Zaccheus who restores all that he has stolen and then gives half his money to the poor, and in the soldier at the foot of the Cross who confesses that Jesus is the righteous Son of God after witnessing His death.

You are likewise called to live a life that is pleasing to God, that is, according to His Word in the place where He has stationed you — in the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of repentance and of wisdom, and in the confidence of His faithfulness, His righteousness and steadfastness.

He is the Lord, He changes not.  From everlasting to everlasting, He is God.  His promises are true, His Covenant is certain.  Though you have wandered far from Him and forsaken His Word, return to Him, for He returns to you.  He draws near for judgment, for justice and righteousness, in order to make all things new and right, in order to restore the people of His choosing as a priestly nation in holiness and righteousness before Him forever and ever.  That is what He comes to do for you.

But, honestly, who can endure His coming?  Who can stand in His judgment when He appears?  Who can survive His Advent?  For even on your best day, no matter how hard you try, there is yet more to be done, and there is still sin in your heart and life.  Outwardly, your words and actions do not fully measure up, but inwardly it is far worse.  You neither fear the Lord your God, nor do you love and trust in Him, not as you ought.  There are still valleys to be filled, hills to be flattened.

The holy and righteous Law of God leaves no one unscathed.  It does not accuse you falsely, nor does it demand from you more than is fair.  And yet, for all your effort, you cannot live up to it, nor can you make amends for all of your wrongdoing.  Will you pay back four times over all that you have taken from your neighbor?  Will you give all of your possessions, or even half of them, to the poor?  And would you thereby atone for all your sins and justify yourself before the Lord?

No, the axe still cuts you down, the fire still consumes you.  The Law is insatiable in its demands and prohibitions, in its condemnations and its punishments, until it is fulfilled in the righteousness of perfect faith and holy love.  But such righteousness and holiness are beyond your grasp.  They are not a work that you can do or achieve for yourself, but a work that only God can accomplish.  You do not perform it, but suffer it.  And only then, after it has killed you, do you begin to live it.

St. John is not a motivational speaker, nor a self-help guru, but a preacher of repentance.  It is true that he baptizes with water, but the Word that he preaches, being God’s Word, is a fire that burns.

Even so, it is also the Gospel that St. John preaches to the people, though he does not fully realize or understand at first what his baptizing with water shall do.  He rightly preaches the Law, but to begin with he does not perceive that Christ Jesus will submit Himself to the righteous judgment of that very Law.  He preaches a Baptism of repentance, and then he is confronted by the Christ who suffers that Baptism and repents for the sins of the world.  That is how and why St. John’s Baptism of repentance is for the forgiveness of sins.  And so it is that, afterwards, he points to Christ Jesus and say: There’s the Lamb of God, the Sacrifice to end all sacrifice for sin, who makes Atonement for the world, who justifies and sanctifies all who believe and are baptized into Him.

Jesus is mightier than John, not in threats and punishments, but in mercy and compassion for poor, miserable sinners.  He is the Lord, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquities and sins.  That is the character of His Heart, the essence of His Being, the perfection of His almighty Power.  That is the sort of Lord He is, the true and only God who is Life and Light and Love.  That is why you are not consumed, even though you deserve nothing but punishment.

It’s not as though the Lord overlooks sin or takes it lightly, but that He is mightier than you — in taking sin and death upon Himself, and suffering their worst, and establishing the righteousness of perfect faith and holy love in His own faithfulness, in His own Body of flesh and blood.

St. John’s preaching and Baptism prepare you for the coming of the Lord, because they make ready the way by which He comes to you.  That is to say, Christ Jesus comes by the way of repentance, which He thereby opens up for you, for Jerome, and for all people, by taking responsibility for the sins of the world, by making Himself accountable for all of them and suffering their consequences.

The Lord Jesus submits Himself to St. John’s Baptism, not to flee, but to bear the wrath to come.  He suffers the axe and the fire by His Cross and Passion.  He bears the Tree of the Cross, and by it He bears the fruits of repentance — which are for you the fruits of righteousness and salvation.

This is the good work that your dear Lord Jesus Christ has already accomplished for you, which He has also begun to work in you, as also in Jerome, by His preaching and His Baptism.  By the Fruits of His Cross and in His Resurrection, He brings you daily to repentance and purifies your heart and life by faith.  And just as surely as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, so shall He bring this good work of His to perfection in you, both body and soul, forever.

Not only does He daily and richly forgive you all your sins by the Fruits of His Cross — that is, by the preaching of His Gospel of forgiveness, by His spoken Word of Holy Absolution, by the daily remembrance of your Baptism, and by His Food and Drink of the Holy Communion — but He also bears good fruits in you by the same means of grace, after the same kind as His own Tree.  For the Gospel bears the fruits of faith and love in the righteousness of Christ Jesus, your Savior.

He puts to death all that is sinful, unholy, and unrighteous in your heart, mind, body, and soul, but then He also raises you up to newness of Life in Him.  That is the repentance of His own Cross and Resurrection, now worked in you by His Law and His Gospel.  In this way, and by these means, He removes the chaff from your life, from your thoughts, words, and actions, and He gathers you as finest wheat into His Barn, that is, into His Church and into His Kingdom, now and forever.

He does it by His Word of the Cross, to and from your Baptism, day by day throughout your life.  He crucifies you with that Word, as He puts you to death and buries you with Himself by those waters; so that you die to yourself, to your old attitudes, behaviors, and commitments, and you rise up to live unto righteousness in Him.  You follow Him through the waters into the way of faith and love.  And all throughout the journey, you are blameless before God in this Lord Jesus Christ.

When Joshua led the sons of Israel through the waters of the Jordan River into the Promised Land, he established a memorial of twelve stones, both on the shore and in the midst of the water, in the very place where the sons of Levi had stood with the Ark of the Covenant until all the people had passed through those waters out of the wilderness into that Paradise flowing with milk and honey.

So has this priestly son, St. John the Baptist, stood with Christ Jesus in the midst of the Jordan, to whom Jerome and you have come, as to a living Stone — rejected by men, but choice and precious to God.  And you, also, are a living stone in Him, built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, in order to offer up sacrifices that are pleasing to God through the same Lord Jesus Christ.

From such stones, firmly established in the midst of these waters, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has raised you up as a beloved and well-pleasing child in His Name.  He has dressed you with His own tunic, so that you are now fully clothed and covered in His righteousness and holiness.  And He who has the Food of everlasting Life now feeds you with the Fruits of the Cross, the Body and Blood of the Lamb.  Therefore, in His Flesh, you taste and see the Salvation of God.

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

Living as a Little Lamb of the Good Shepherd

The Lord is your Good Shepherd, and with Him all good things are yours, for His goodness is not an abstraction, it is His faithfulness in action.  Not only is He intrinsically good, He is also good at what He does.  He acts in love to meet your needs, and all His works are noble, right, and true.

He is not like the hirelings that you tend to enlist and rely upon.  They cut and run just when you need them most, because they do not care about you, they care only about themselves; and they are just as needy, just as scared, and just as flawed and helpless in themselves as you are in yourself.  But the Lord your God is not like that.  He needs nothing, but He gives everything to you in love.

A sheep without a real shepherd is in real trouble, like a newborn infant without a Mom or Dad, because there are so many needs, so many dangers, and so many enemies in this body and life.  The wolf is on the prowl.  The lion, also, seeking whom he may devour.  And the serpent lies in wait.  But if those predators don’t get you, then your own hunger will.  A sheep needs food and drink to survive.  If that isn’t provided for you, or if you aren’t content with what you’re given, then your searching and scavenging for what you want and need is liable to get you lost.  Alone in the dark, in unfamiliar territory, in places where you don’t belong, you’re going to get hurt or worse.

But your Shepherd, who is faithful, good, and true, is not a hired hand who runs away from danger; nor does He let you wander into it.  You are His own sheep, and He cares for you.  He is not working to make a living at your expense.  He rather lays down His own Body and Life to protect and save you, to give you life and preserve it, and to keep you in safety and perfect Peace.

He saw the wolf coming — and He ran — but He did not run away, He raced to help you.  He heard the lion’s roar, the serpent’s hiss, the big bad bear’s deep guttural growl, and He took His stand and set Himself between those predators and you.  He did not simply holler at them or chase them off.  Nor did He fight them, tooth and claw, as one might expect.  But He dealt them a far more deadly and permanent defeat, in such a way that they are no longer able to hurt you anymore.

The Good Shepherd lays down His Life for the sheep.  But what does that accomplish, if the wolf simply waits until the Shepherd is dead and gone, and then proceeds to snatch and eat the sheep?  Heroic sacrifice, great!  But what’s the point, if it only postpones the inevitable?

No, the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, so that He may takes it up again; and in His rising from the dead He obtains and establishes the life of all His sheep in Himself forever.  This is the great Mystery of His divine and essential goodness, which He exercises in human flesh and blood like yours, that you should have Life with God in Him.  Such is the special authority of His faithfulness and love in His keeping and fulfilling the commandment of His God and Father.

So this Shepherd, in sheep’s clothing, defeats the wolf at its own game.  He shuts the lion’s mouth and crushes the serpent’s head by giving Himself as a tasty little Lamb into their sharp teeth.  They cannot resist this prize.  They can’t believe it is so easy!  But they are in for a surprise.  For this Shepherd is the Sacrifice that ruins their appetite once and for all.  He is not a hunter who kills the wolf with knife or gun, in order to open it up and bring Granny and Little Red back out.  No, He allows Himself to be chewed up and swallowed, in order to burst the belly of the beast from the inside-out.  That is what His dying and rising have done, and He has left your enemies undone.

The predators still prowl for a little while now, and they can act all fierce and scary, but they are toothless, and they have terrible tummy troubles.  They have no stomach for you, who belong to the Good Shepherd.  For not only does He gather you close to Himself and stand over you to guard and protect you by the power of His own indestructible Body and Life; but He also feeds you with Himself, so that He abides in you with His own Flesh and Blood, and you also abide in Him.

As you are thus fed with the Meat and Drink of your Good Shepherd, the wolf, the lion, and the snake, and even the big ol’ bear should know better than to eat you.  Oh, to be sure, they still eye you hungrily and greedily — more so than ever — you know how it is when you aren’t allowed to eat what you want!  They salivate over your body and soul.  But whenever they try to snatch you and swallow you down, they get a taste of that Shepherd who abides in you, and they become ill.  They cannot hold His Liquor.  They cannot digest His Food.  And they cannot have His little lamb.

Nor will those great and greedy enemies of man be permitted to maul or manhandle Belteshazzar, who is baptized into Christ Jesus, signed and sealed by His Cross in heart, mind, body, and soul.

Now, if abiding with your Good Shepherd and staying close to Him depended on you and your own efforts and faithfulness, you should already realize that would not work.  As it is, you wander and stray, you get yourself hopelessly lost, caught in some thicket, or broken and bleeding at the bottom of a deep dark hole.  Often as not, those deadly predators don’t even have to go looking for you, because you’re out there chasing them down.  That’s not as it should be, but as it is.

Even so, the Good Shepherd cares for His sheep.  He truly does.  As surely as He laid down His Life for you and took it up again, so does He care for you in every way.  Not only has He defeated your enemies, but He still keeps you safe from them.  So has He called you by His Voice of the Gospel to live as a sheep within His fold.  Here He feeds you with the green grass of His Word, He refreshes you with the living waters of His Spirit by His forgiveness of all your sins, and He provides you with all that you need — although He does not give you everything that your fleshly appetites crave and desire, lest you make yourself sick with your gluttony, drunkenness, and lust.

He guards and keeps you under His protection, so that you are able to graze freely and safely on the good Food that He provides.  And with His Rod and Staff He guides and governs you in the good way that you should go, which is the way of Life — within His green pastures and alongside the streams that flow from His Cross, from His innermost being, from His Font, Pulpit, and Altar.

It is by and with these means of His Grace, by the Ministry of His Gospel, that He actively knows you and loves you and bestows His own divine, eternal Life upon you in body, soul, and spirit.  For His knowing and loving are not so much intellect and emotion as they are activity and gift.

He has known you in love by His becoming like you in every way — true Man of flesh and blood forevermore — who has also experienced all your suffering and temptation, all your sin and death.

And He knows you and loves you now by giving you Himself, His Body and Life, His Word and Holy Spirit, by the preaching of His Word and in the administration of His Holy Sacraments.  To give Himself to you in this way is the knowledge of intimacy, the way the Bridegroom knows and loves His Bride; which goes beyond the honeymoon to the sharing of life together as one Flesh.

Your Good Shepherd knows you that well.  What is more, He knows you in the way the Father knows the Son in the Holy Spirit, in the divine Love of the Holy Trinity.  Therefore, do not ever suppose that He does not understand or care about you.  Rather, listen to His Voice of the Gospel, and learn to know Him in the preaching of His Word, even as He knows the Father in Himself.

We often recognize a father in his sons, because his sons have received and made their own what was their Dad’s.  All the more do you know God the Father in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is of one and the same divine nature.  And as you know the Father by His Son, so do you know the Son by the Word that He speaks to you, by the good Gifts that He gives to you, and by the Life and Love that He bestows upon you by His Gospel.  Not only do you know Him in this way, but you also become like Him, begotten of God by His grace, a son of God in Christ, through faith in His Name.

As the Good Shepherd has become like the sheep, so do you, His sheep, become like your Good Shepherd, because He is ever and always with you, protecting you and providing for you in love.

Do not be afraid.  Even if you are given up as a sacrificial lamb, know that your Good Shepherd has already gone before you, and He also now goes with you, through the valley of the shadow of death into the glorious Light of His Resurrection and His Life everlasting.

If you are commanded by God and called upon to lay down your life for your neighbor within your office and station in life, know that your God and Father will raise you up again, as surely as He has raised Christ Jesus from the dead.  For His Resurrection is your resurrection and your life in Him, come what may.  He laid down His Life for you, and took it up again, in holy faith and holy love, that you should not perish but have abundant Life in body and soul, now and forever, in Him.

His Resurrection is your resurrection, not only when you are faithful and true, but also when you have fallen and totally blown it; not only when you suffer patiently for doing what is right, but also when you suffer the consequences of your own faults and failings.  That is the whole point.  That is why your Shepherd has not only chased off the wolf, the lion, the serpent, and the bear, and kept them all at bay, but He has knocked out their teeth, shut their mouths, and broken their jaws.

Sin, death, and the devil have been robbed of their power and their sting, because God’s own Law has been perfectly fulfilled and completely satisfied by the Good Shepherd Himself, on behalf of His sheep.  So the Lord does not accuse you but forgives you.  That is what His dying for you has done, and that is what His rising for you means.  There is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.

His rising from the dead is your comfort and your confidence in the face of every contradiction, in the midst of all your chaos and confusion.  Face to face with the big bad wolf, surrounded on all sides by voracious predators, your Good Shepherd stands fast, and He’s got you covered.  He shelters and protects you round about.  You’ve got nowhere to run, but He has come running to you, in order to be with you, to defend you, to save you, and to love you, now and forever.

When the wolf would stare you down to intimidate and frighten you with accusation, guilt, and shame, your Good Shepherd stares down that wicked wolf with the Atonement and Redemption of the Cross, with the free and full forgiveness of your sins.  So, then, even when your heart quails in fear and your own conscience condemns you, the Lord who loves you comforts and assures you with His Voice of the Gospel, and He strengthens and sustains you with Peace in His presence.  Because He is your Shepherd and He is with you, you are kept safe and secure in and with Him.

In fact, you are far better off than simply “safe and sound,” and your Shepherd gives you so much more than peace and quiet.  Not only does He spare your life and provide your basic necessities, but He brings you into His royal Palace and seats you at His banquet Table.  He actually gives you a place of honor, and He glorifies you — in the presence of His Father, the great King, on the one hand — and in the face of all your enemies, to their great shame and disgrace, on the other hand.

You shall not be given as food for your foes to consume, but the Lord here gives Himself as Food for you, so that you shall not go hungry or starve.  You shall not want for anything.  Though you have been thirsty and dehydrated, His Cup runs over with abundant Life, which He pours out for you generously, that you may drink your fill and be constantly refreshed in both body and soul.

Though you have been unholy and unhappy, the Lord your Shepherd anoints you with the Oil of gladness.  He pours out His Spirit upon you to sanctify you with His divine goodness and true joy, as He has anointed Belteshazzar in body and soul with His Spirit by water and His Word today.

Though you have been lost, alone, and afraid — and there are many days when you still feel that way — the truth is that your Good Shepherd has come for you; He has already found you, He has snatched you out of danger and from the jaws of death, and He has brought you Home rejoicing.

In reclining here at His Table you lie down in His green Pastures.  In drinking from His Chalice you rest beside His peaceful Waters.  And living here and now by the Preaching of your Good Shepherd, you already dwell in the House of the Lord, and so shall you abide with Him forever.

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

Baptized into the Entire History and Life of Christ Jesus

The Sacrament of Holy Baptism is the fulfillment of Lent and everything it is about.  The baptismal Font is the location of your own personal Holy Week, where you are drowned and buried with Christ Jesus in His death, and so also united with Him in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.

The waters of Holy Baptism, administered with the Word of Christ Himself, are the means by which Good Friday and Easter become “meaningful,” important, and significant for you.  For the Passion, Cross, and Resurrection of Jesus are not just ancient history or memorable events of the past; they are an eternal reality that you enter into and share with Him by way of this Sacrament.

So it is that the sacred Season of Lent, such as we have known it and observe it, developed as a time of preparation for Holy Baptism.  The older candidates for Holy Baptism would be engaged in a final period of focused catechesis in the foundational stories of the Holy Scriptures and the chief parts of the Christian faith and life throughout the “forty days” of Lent, in the hope and expectation that they would receive the washing of water with the Word at the Easter Vigil.

It is both interesting and instructive to consider the content of their Lenten catechesis.  In the last few weeks they would, for example, receive and memorize the Creed and the Our Father, the most basic confession and prayer of the Church, such as we have recently considered, which they would also confess and pray beginning with their Baptism in the Name of the Lord.  And in particular, along with those “chief parts” of the faith, their pastor or catechist would review the entire Old Testament history of Salvation — Creation, the Flood, the slavery of Egypt and the Exodus, the Manna in the wilderness, and the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Canaan.

Now, on the one hand, that sounds like basic Sunday School stuff.  And of course it makes good sense in that respect, also.  But more to the point is the connection between those Old Testament events and the cosmic reality and divine significance at work in the waters of Holy Baptism.

The fact is that everything God was doing for the life and salvation of His people throughout the Old Testament — and really throughout history — and all that He has done for the world in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son — He has done for you and given to you, personally, in Holy Baptism.

The waters of your Baptism are for you the waters of the New Creation — the great cosmic deep over which the Spirit of God hovers as divine and Life-giving Breath.  And again, they are the waters of the Flood, whereby sin, death, and all the power of the devil — your old Adam and all his cohorts, the whole motley crew — are drowned and destroyed; whereas the same waters of Holy Baptism uphold and support the Holy Ark of Christendom, wherein you are kept safe and sound, dry and secure, along with faithful Noah and his family.  And emerging from that deluge of the Font, like a newborn infant from the womb, you arise and live as a beloved child of God.

It is precisely in this way, by the catechesis of the Word of God and by the washing of the water with His Word, that you have actually become a part of that Christian faith and life and salvation which you have been taught to confess in the Creed.  Do you believe in God the Father Almighty? Yes.  Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord? Yes. And do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Yes.  Well, the Life and Light and Love of that Holy Triune God is the divine and eternal reality that you have received and entered into by the grace of God in your Holy Baptism.

Everything that you confess by the Word and Spirit of God along with the whole Church on earth, is now your story, your life, and your salvation in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, is the Key that has made all of this possible for you.  For He is the One who has conquered sin, death, the devil, and hell, by His Sacrifice upon the Cross.  And He is the One who has opened heaven to all those who believe and are baptized into Him.

So, too, it is the Baptism of Christ Jesus Himself in the Jordan River that has sanctified the waters of your Baptism to be a gracious washing of forgiveness, divine Life, and eternal Salvation.  For though He is the almighty and eternal Son of God from all eternity, holy, sinless, and perfect, He entered the waters of the Jordan and took upon Himself all of your sins and death and suffering, in order to carry all those things in His own Body and put them to death in Himself on the Cross.

Consequently, when you entered the waters of your Baptism, saturated with sin and weighed down by your own mortality, you received in exchange the Righteousness and Holiness of Jesus and all the benefits of His Sacrifice upon the Cross and His Resurrection from the dead.  All that He is and everything that He has done has thus been freely given to you and credited to your account.

So it is that you have become — and so you are — a son of God in Christ Jesus, regardless of whether you’re a boy or girl, a man or woman; because your relationship to God the Father is in His beloved Son, Christ Jesus.  As I have often said, the voice of God from His opened heaven now declares that you are His beloved and well-pleasing son, because you are baptized into Christ; which is how and why you have the blessed privilege of praying to God as your own dear Father.

So have you also received the Holy Spirit, as surely as He descended on Christ Jesus in bodily form as a dove at His Baptism.  For all that He has received is given to you, as well, by the ways and means of the Gospel.  The Spirit of God has been poured out upon you generously in your Holy Baptism, and now He wells up in you as a Spring of Living Water which flows outward in holy faith and holy love, in the prayer and confession of the Word that God the Father speaks to you in His Son.  The same Spirit preserves your faith and life in Christ within His Holy Church.

Accordingly, just as the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus are far more than just historical events of the past, so is your Baptism far more than just another memorable date on the calendar of your life.  Indeed, your Baptism has an ongoing, daily, and lifelong significance, which actually defines your entire vocation as a Christian and all that you do and say as a disciple of Christ Jesus.

The drowning and dying of your old Adam and all his cohorts, which began with your personal Flood in the baptismal Font, is a drowning and dying that must continue throughout your life on earth.  In this body and life, there is never a point at which you can say that sin is once and for all behind you.  It is a battle that rages both within you and all around you until the Lord shall finally call you from this fallen and perishing world to Himself in heaven.

But the battle you engage with sin and your old Adam is not won by your good intentions or firm resolutions on your part.  As Christ defeated Satan by clinging to the Word of God and allowing Himself to be killed, so do you triumph by clinging to His Word and allowing yourself to be put to death with Him.  And what that means for you, specifically, is daily contrition and repentance, the confession of your sins, and the exercise of faith in the forgiveness of the Gospel.

In this way, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism already anticipates and really initiates the Fifth Chief Part on Confession and Holy Absolution.  For Dr. Luther, confessing your sins and receiving forgiveness in the Name of Christ Jesus was simply the ongoing activity of Baptism in your life.  It is not only for those who find themselves in a crisis over some great unusual sin; it is the most natural thing in the world for Christians, who acknowledge their sins and yet cling to their Lord.

Indeed, repentance and forgiveness are yet another way in which Holy Baptism continues to bring the reality and significance of those Old Testament events into your personal story as a child of God in Christ.  This, too, belongs to your Exodus from the slavery of sin to the freedom of faith.

Baptism is your crossing of the Red Sea out of the Egypt of sin; and at the last, Baptism will be your crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Paradise.  Then shall you be raised from the dust of the earth to be glorified and live in your own body, like unto the glorious Body of Christ Jesus.  And in the meantime, you live in the desert with your Lord and with His people, feasting on the Manna from heaven which He alone provides, and trusting His providential care for all that you need in both body and soul, both for this life and for the Life everlasting.

As you live this way in Christ Jesus — walking, as it were, on the waters of your Baptism — you find that He and His Spirit live in you, as well.  Despite your sins and weaknesses, which persist throughout your life on earth, you also begin to live the New Life that is yours in Christ Jesus by the washing of water with His Word.  Hence, the Law of God, including the Ten Commandments, is no longer just a curb to restrain you or a club to crush you in your sins, but now also a positive description of who you are in Christ Jesus, a beloved child of God anointed by His Holy Spirit.

What it all boils down to is this: In Holy Baptism the Life of Christ Jesus has become your own — the Life that He lived and offered for you and for all, for the forgiveness of your sins and the hope of eternal salvation — and the Life He continues to live in you and through you.  It is His Life which defines your identity as a beloved child of God and permeates all that you do and say.

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

As the Words and Promises of God Declare

To be a disciple of Christ Jesus is to follow after Him in the Way that He has already gone before you, which is to say, in the Way of His Cross, in the hope and promise of His Resurrection and His Ascension to the Right Hand of His God and Father, where He ever lives as your High Priest.

As disciples are made by Holy Baptism in His Name and by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, so was the Lord Jesus Himself baptized for you and all people, for the repentance and forgiveness of the world, and for the fulfilling of all righteousness, so that you and all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve might be justified and saved from sin, death, and hell.

Just think of what the Baptism of Jesus signified and meant for Him.  In submitting to St. John’s “Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, including all of your sins of thought, word, and deed, every last one of them.  His Baptism did not make Him clean — He was already spotless, pure, and holy.  It rather saturated Him with all the dirt of fallen man, with all the filth and stench of sinful unbelief and disobedience.

He took upon Himself and bore in His own Body all your lying and cheating, your covetous lust, your cursing and dirty jokes, your laziness and negligence, your adultery and murder, your stealing, and your gossiping.  He took all of your sins — and every other sin from Adam to the close of the age — and He took responsibility for all of it, as though He alone were guilty, sinful, and unclean.

And His reward for this great work of divine and holy love was suffering and death.  Submitting to His Baptism meant committing Himself to be crucified, put to death, and buried.  Stepping into the water was, for Jesus, a return to the dust of the earth from which the first man had been taken.

For Christ Jesus as for you, His Baptism indicated that He should be drowned and die with all your sinful lusts and evil desires — in the place of your old Adam.

But that is not the whole significance of His Baptism.  For He also received the blessing of His Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit there in the waters of the Jordan River, as the Pledge and Promise that His Father would not abandon Him to the grave nor allow His Flesh to suffer decay, but would pour out the Spirit upon His crucified Body and raise Him again from the dust of the earth.  And this Word and promise He received in your place, as your Substitute and Savior.

Of course, the Father and the Holy Spirit and immortal Life belong to the Son of God from all eternity, according to His own divine nature.  But in the waters of His Baptism — as the true and perfect Man, yet voluntarily bearing the curse and consequence of sin — He received the blessing of the Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit as a pledge that in Him all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve would be redeemed and raised up in righteousness and holiness; that mortal flesh, after returning to the dust, would yet receive the Holy Spirit and rise up again to live forever.

Your dear Lord Jesus thus lived as you are called to live, that is, by faith in the Word and promise of His God and Father.  He proceeded from the waters of the Jordan in that holy faith, in love for His Father and in love for you and for all His neighbors of all times and places.  Against the devil’s temptations, He relied on God the Father’s sure and certain Word: “You are My beloved Son.”

In such faith and confidence He lived faithfully within His own vocation, and He carried out the works of love that belonged to His own office and station in life.  He honored His father and mother and submitted to them.  He loved His family and friends.  He ate and drank with sinners.  He healed the sick, and cast out demons, and raised the dead.  He fed the hungry with good food.  He taught the Word of God, preached the Gospel, confessed the faith, and prayed without ceasing.

And for this love and faithfulness, for the Name of the Lord that He glorified, He was persecuted, betrayed and arrested, falsely accused and mocked, beaten and blasphemed, unjustly sentenced to death, and crucified in public shame.  All of which He bore in peace and patience.  He persevered in love for all people, even those who were putting Him to death.  He forgave those who trespassed against Him.  He turned the other cheek, and He suffered His outer and inner garments to be taken from Him.  He did not retaliate, nor did He revile in return, but He relied on His God and Father.

So, if you find that your Christian discipleship is difficult and challenging, do not imagine that Christ Jesus is unaware of or unfamiliar with those challenges and difficulties.  Even His family and friends did not know what to make of Him or what to do with Him.  They misunderstood Him and wanted all the wrong things from Him.  The rulers of the people were jealous and hateful of Him, and conspired against Him, and stirred up the crowds to cry out for His death.

You do not have a Savior and High Priest who is unable to sympathize with you, but One who has been tempted and tormented in all the ways that you are, who has borne all of your sins as though they were His own, and who has shared all your suffering, sorrow, sickness, shame, and death.

Although He is the Son of God from all eternity, nevertheless, in human flesh and blood just like yours He learned the faith and the obedience of sonship through what He suffered in your place.

He learned, not as though He were ever ignorant or naive, but by the way of personal experience, by living your human life as you are called to live, first hand, in His own person.  He did so, not out of intellectual curiosity, as though for some kind of experiment or science project, but in order to establish divine sonship for you in human flesh and blood.  So did He also receive and bear the Spirit of God in His truly human flesh and blood for you and your salvation, in order that your fallen flesh might receive and bear the same Holy Spirit and be raised up to eternal Life with God.

The Lord Jesus Christ thus lived by faith in the Word and promise of His Father.  He lived in the hope of His mercy by the grace and guidance of the Spirit.  He did what His Father called Him to do, and He spoke as His Father gave Him to speak.  In steadfast faith and flawless love, He was handed over to the Cross by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, and He humbly accepted the same, submitting His human will to the divine Will in the hope of the Resurrection.

It is there on the Cross — on the one hand enduring the condemnation of the Law that He perfectly fulfilled, and suffering the separation of sin from the Father He loved and trusted, while on the other hand continuing to trust and believe His Father’s steadfast love and faithfulness — it is there that He permanently established divine sonship for you.  So that, even in the midst of your sin and in the face of your death, the promise of the Gospel and the Sabbath Rest of Christ remain for you.

He has weathered the perfect storm in order to bring you safely through it in and with Himself.  He has endured the inner conflict of the Old Man and the New Man in His own Body, even unto the death of His Cross.  And though sin and death were crucified and put to death in Him, He has prevailed in faith and love, and He has been raised up by the Spirit of His Father as the new and better Adam, as the First Fruits of the New Creation, as the Head of His Body and Bride, the holy Christian Church, in order to be the Firstborn of a great multitude of divine sons and daughters — called and gathered from all the nations, from every tribe and tongue and culture and ethnicity.

Having thus received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father in His Resurrection from the dead, He has poured out the same Spirit generously upon you in the waters of your Holy Baptism.  Not only that, but He continues to pour out the Spirit upon you in the Absolution of the Gospel, in the Word of forgiveness that is preached to you, and in the Spiritual Food and Drink of His Supper.

He has also given you the Word and promise of His God and Father, that you are a dear son of God in Him, beloved and well-pleasing to the Father; that all of your sins are freely and fully forgiven; that God has reconciled you to Himself in Christ; and that, even though you die, yet shall you live.

In this Gospel of Christ Jesus, the Father moves toward you in love, and He gives Himself to you, and He embraces you to Himself as a beloved child, always raising you up from death to Life, from out of darkness into Light, and from the dust of the earth to be a living creature in His own Image.

You are raised up in and with Christ Jesus to live and move and have your being in Him: To move in love — within Him, and through Him, by the Holy Spirit — unto His God and Father in heaven.

That Life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit — that movement of your body and life toward God your Father in heaven, as a living sacrifice — that true faith and worship of the Father in the Spirit and the Truth — is lived from your Holy Baptism through death and the grave into the Resurrection.

It is by the way of the Cross, not for the sake of gratuitous violence or suffering, but in order to work in you a genuine sacrifice of repentance, faith, and love.  So that you, who are a son of God in Christ Jesus by His grace, may learn the faith and obedience of sonship in Him.  And so that sin and unbelief and all their deadly fruits may be crucified and put to death in you.  And so that you, in bearing the Cross for your neighbor, might love your neighbor as the Lord Jesus loves you.

That way of the Cross — which is the way of Christian discipleship — is difficult and challenging, make no mistake about it.  Indeed, it would be utterly impossible for you apart from Christ, if He had not gone before you and established that way in faith and love, in His own flesh and blood.

But now Christ has lived that life for you, and He has gone that way of the Cross for you, and He has died that death for you.  He has borne your sins and suffered all their consequences.  He has atoned for all your sins and reconciled you to God.  This is most certainly true.  So God has also raised this same Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and exalted this beloved Son at His Right Hand, and placed all your enemies beneath His feet, crushed and defeated beneath His wounded heel.

That is how and why He pours out His living and Life-giving Holy Spirit upon you through the Gospel of His Cross, raising you daily from death to Life.  It is for this reason that He has called and sent His servants, not only to baptize you in His Name, but to catechize you with His Word, and to commune you with His Body and Blood in remembrance of Him, with His own authority.

These Gifts Christ freely gives are the First Fruits of His Cross and Passion.  And the same Tree of the Cross bears good fruits in you after its own kind.  The Cross bears such fruits in you, even as it is crushing and killing the old Adam in your heart, mind, body, and soul.  Do not suppose that He is out to get rid of you, but remember what His Father has spoken to you in Holy Baptism:

“You are My beloved son!  With you I am well-pleased.”  I am not angry or upset with you.  I am not out to punish you.  Your sins are all forgiven.  You shall not die forever, for whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved.  “This promise is for you and for your children.”

Bind that Word and promise of the Father to yourself — to your heart, mind, body, and soul — by giving attention to the ongoing catechesis of Christ Jesus.  Listen to the preaching of His Word, and know that it is preached to you as a sure and certain Word of Life.

Better yet, take to heart that He has bound Himself to you, and that He binds you to Himself, by His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, and by His divine and holy Name.  Just as He has promised, He is with you always, even to the close of the age.  He shall never leave you nor forsake you.

As He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the Right Hand of the Father, so does He bear the good fruits of His Cross in you: Forgiveness of sins, received and given; faith and love and self-sacrifice, but also resurrection and newness of life — day after day by His grace, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul with the Holy Trinity.

Christ has died, and Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!  And by the power of His own indestructible Life, He enlivens you with His Word and Holy Spirit, both now and forevermore.

As you are baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so surely are you a beloved and well-pleasing son of God in Christ Jesus, by His grace, through faith in Him.  His Cross and Resurrection, His Spirit, His Father, His House and Home, and His whole Body and Life are yours.  So has He taught you to pray with the confidence of a dear child to your own dear Father.  And so does He invite you to recline here at His Table, that He should feed you with His holy Body and His precious Blood, from His own hand, for the forgiveness of your sins and Life and Salvation.

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

Through the Narrow Door of Baptism and the Cross of Christ

He’s making His way to Jerusalem.  St. Luke has made that plain already, and here the steadfast journey continues.  The Lord Jesus has set His face toward His Holy City and the Sacrifice that He will offer there.  He has fixed His eyes upon His Cross and Passion, upon His Passover and His Exodus, by which He will bring His people out of death into life.  For by the offering of Himself once for all, He returns to His Father and opens the Kingdom of God to all who follow after Him.

It is a narrow door through which He passes, blazing the trail for you and Philippa and whoever believes and is baptized into Him.  It is like being born from your mother’s womb, in which the curse of sin and death contends with the promise and gift of new life.  And it is like a camel being drawn through the eye of a needle.  It seems impossibly small, and it is ludicrous to suppose that anyone could do it.  But what man could not do, the Lord Jesus Christ does for you and for all.

He first entered that narrow door when He entered the waters of the Jordan River to be baptized by St. John; and from those waters He passes through His crucifixion, death, and burial, into His Resurrection and His Ascension to the Right Hand of His Father.  It is all about sonship and what it means to be and to live as a child of God, even and especially in the midst of sin and death.  He bears and suffers the curse of the fall into sin, by taking His place at the head of a long line of sinners, in order to open the door and lead them through it, to bear His Bride over the threshold.

He gives Himself to be squeezed by the pressure, the tightness, the weight of the world, and the entire burden of the Law, and through it all He remains faithful.  He relies upon His Father, come hell or high water against Him.  When He is reviled, He does not revile in return, but He simply keeps on entrusting Himself to the One who will rescue Him from out of death, and raise Him up from out of the tomb, and bring Him finally through the narrow door into the breadth, and height, and depth of divine Glory.  He thus receives the inheritance of the Father’s Son, who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven into our flesh, and bore our sin, and was disciplined in our place, in order to make a place for all the sons and daughters of Adam in the Household of His God and Father.  That is what He has done for you, and that is what He gives to you by His Word.

He calls you to follow Him to Jerusalem, to His Cross and Passion, and to enter with Him through that narrow door of His death into His Resurrection and the Life everlasting in His Kingdom.

Because He has already done it, now is the acceptable and opportune time, now is the day of salvation.  He has opened the door by the sacrifice of His own Body and by the shedding of His holy and precious Blood; and now by the preaching of His Word He brings you safely through that door, albeit putting you to death and raising you to life again in Himself.  It is by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, which both kills and makes alive.  It is by your Baptism into His Cross and Resurrection, as it is for Philippa henceforth.  That is your Exodus, your going out and your coming in, which brings you to the Passover of the Lamb within His Father’s Kingdom.

You “strive to enter” through that narrow door, as Jesus urges you to do, not by the futile striving of self-righteousness, but by the striving of contrition and repentance.  That is the very opposite of relying on yourself and trying to enter by your own effort.  It is, rather, to be crucified and put to death and buried to yourself, and to find your righteousness, life, and salvation in Christ alone.

Apart from Christ Jesus — which is to say, apart from the Ministry of His Gospel and faith in His Gospel — all of your works, from the inside-out, and all of your thoughts, words, and actions, even at your very best, are all works of unrighteousness.  Indeed, the harder you try to impress the Lord your God with such behavior, the further you wander from His Kingdom and His Righteousness.  But if you want to be saved, if you want to live, abandon all that sort of striving and fix your hope on the Cross of Christ.  His Cross is the Sign that He has raised up in the midst of His people, to which He calls you, and by which He crucifies you, in order to raise you up to a brand new life.

So, He is not talking about simple proximity, simply being in His presence, in the right place at the right time.  Sitting in the pew for the sermon, and even kneeling at the rail for the Sacrament, that will not get you through the narrow door.  Don’t congratulate yourself that you are here, and do not presume that Christ must let you in because you’ve done your bit and paid your dues.  If you imagine that you are doing the Lord a favor by coming to His House and hearing His Word, eating His Food and drinking from His Cup, then you are still too full of yourself, and you surely do not have the fear of God in your heart and mind.  Name dropping isn’t going to work with the Head of the House, and if all you’ve got is your personal pedigree and good attendance card, then you’re not getting in.  But why would you even want to enter, if it seems like such a chore to you?

Now, to be sure, it is exactly right that you should want to enter through the door into the Lord’s House, for your Salvation is here.  Simply coming to church, in itself, is certainly no guarantee of righteousness and salvation, that is true.  But not coming to church at all is even worse, and is absolutely not the remedy or solution to sin, death, and hell.  Instead, you are called to the Cross at the center of the Church’s life in Christ.  Not to be a passive observer or a listener only, but to worship the Lord Jesus Christ by repentant faith in His Word; to hear and heed His preaching, and to eat and drink His Supper in the holiness and righteousness of faith in His forgiveness of sins.

To worship the one Lord, Jesus Christ, is to stop worshiping yourself and all your false gods in the world.  It is to deny yourself, to take up His Cross and follow Him; to drown and destroy the old Adam in you, and to live as the New Man lives, in faith toward God, in fervent love for Him above all else, and in genuine love for your neighbor as yourself.  It is to be at peace with God, and in so far as it depends on you to be at peace with all people, in the confidence that God is at peace with you in Christ Jesus.  And in such peace, hope, and love, you worship Christ in righteousness by pouring yourself out in service to your neighbor, strengthening the weak and healing the sick, and pursuing harmony with everyone, rather than harboring bitterness toward anyone.

That is the life of repentance, faith, and love to which your Baptism has called you, into which it has ushered you by the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  It is the ongoing life of righteousness and holiness to which the Lord has called Philippa by His Word and in her Holy Baptism this morning.

But the hard and solid fact is that you can’t achieve any of this by your own power or volition.  The door is too narrow, and your ego will not fit through it.  That is why your ego must be sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross, upon the Whole Burnt Offering of Christ Jesus, if you are to enter in.

But that is not your work.  It is the Service of your merciful and great High Priest, that is, the same Lord Jesus Christ.  You begin to worship Him, in other words, as He comes to you and gathers you to Himself, in order to bear you to the Father in His own Body of flesh and blood.  He is the Clean Vessel in which you are borne, who offers you up to His God and Father as a grain offering, acceptable and well-pleasing in His sight, and as a sweet-smelling aroma in His nostrils.

You are consecrated to the Lord your God by Christ Jesus and by His Sacrifice.  Not that you must offer Him, but that He offers you to the Father in Himself; and the Father reconciles you to Himself and receives you to Himself in His beloved and well-pleasing Son.

And so it is that Philippa has been consecrated to the Lord, the one true God, justified by His grace and sanctified by His Spirit.  Not by any work of hers, but by His sacred work for her, as for you.

As Christ passed through the cities, towns, and villages on His way to the Cross in Jerusalem, so has He come here to your town, in order to gather you to Himself and take your sins upon Himself.  He calls you by the preaching of repentance unto faith in His forgiveness, and He bears you in His Body through death into life.  Following after Him through Holy Baptism, you have entered the narrow door that He has opened by His Cross and Resurrection.  And what that means for the rest of your life is the daily dying and rising of contrition and repentance, confession and absolution, until your Baptism culminates and comes to rest in the death and resurrection of your body, unto the life everlasting of your body and soul in the Kingdom of God.

This daily dying and rising of repentant faith is the way of the Cross by which you live.  But again, your striving and suffering, and even your sacrifices, are not meritorious works by which you save yourself and your own skin.  No, this is the discipline of your God and Father, who teaches you and trains you to live as His dear child and heir.  He does not leave you alone to be a passive observer or a listener only, but by His Word and Holy Spirit He lays the Cross of Christ upon your heart and mind, your body and soul, in order to conform you to the Image of His Son.  He does so in love, in order to give you life, lest you perish forever in your works of unrighteousness.  And so it is that He brings you through the narrow door to Himself.

Even now, by His grace, you live by faith in His Word and promise, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did in their pilgrimage on earth, in the midst of frailty and weakness.  And here you are seated with them, with Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles and Evangelists, with the holy martyrs and all saints, at the Table of Christ Jesus in the Kingdom of God.  Not simply “in His presence,” nor eating and drinking His Body and Blood unto condemnation, but receiving the Food and Drink with which He feeds you in repentance and faith, with gratitude in your heart and thanksgiving on your lips.  Here the Lord your God receives you to Himself in peace, even as He gives Himself to you in love, with mercy and forgiveness for all your sins.  If you would enter His Kingdom and be saved at the last, then here receive these gifts Christ freely gives to you, the Fruits of His Sacrifice for you.

Beloved, you are not a spectator or an “innocent bystander,” but a recipient of these good things and a participant in the very Life of God in Christ.  It’s a matter of your death and life in Him.  And this is your Father’s House, where you belong, where you now live as His own dear child.  He knows your name, for He has named you with His own.  And He knows where you are from, for He has called you from the ends of the earth, from the four corners of the compass, to Himself.

As you have heard His call and come at the sound of His Voice, rejoice and be glad, for that is the gracious gift and good work of the Holy Spirit through the Word and preaching of Christ Jesus.

As your Holy Baptism is the narrow door by which you have entered the Kingdom of your God and Father in Christ Jesus, so is the Altar His Table, at which you are invited to recline within His house and home.  For the Holy Supper of Christ’s true Body and true Blood is the heart and center of the Church’s life and salvation, already here in time and hereafter in eternity.

Here you have come, not to the fire and brimstone of Mount Sinai, but to the beauty and grace of Mount Zion, to the holy City of the living God, to the true Jerusalem, on earth as it is in heaven; to myriads of angels and archangels, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect; because here you have come to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to His sprinkled Blood, with which He cleanses you and sanctifies you, and by which you see God and live.

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

Christ Jesus Tells You Plainly that He Is Your Good Shepherd

“Tell us plainly, if you are the Christ!”  It is not an uncommon question in the Holy Gospels.  The disciples ask Jesus much the same thing on Maundy Thursday.  And Caiaphas, the High Priest, puts this question to Jesus and demands with a solemn oath by the living God that He must tell them plainly, if He is the Christ, the Son of God.

The group that poses the question on the occasion before us this morning has already surrounded Him.  It is a hostile question, soon to be followed by the picking up of stones to throw at Him, to bruise Him, to put Him to death.  His death is coming, but this is not that Hour; it will come according to His time, according to the good and gracious will of God.  No one takes His life from Him.  He will lay it down willingly, and He will take it up again.  All of this He does for His sheep.

Often as not, though, it is His sheep who are asking Him, requesting of Him, and even demanding of Him, “Tell us plainly, if you are the Christ!”  It is essentially the question that St. John the Baptist puts to Jesus while languishing in Herod’s prison awaiting his death.  “Tell us, are you the coming One, or not?  Should we look for someone else?”  Tell us plainly, if you are the Christ.

It is more or less the question of St. Paul the Apostle, as well, when he three times prays fervently that God the Lord would remove his thorn in the flesh.  But of course, God’s response to St. Paul is a No: “My grace is sufficient for you.  My power is made perfect in weakness.”

You also ask of Jesus, that He should tell you plainly, if He is the Christ.  To be sure, you confess Him to be the Christ.  You confess His holy Name.  You confess His Creed.  You know that He died, you know that He rose, and you know that He’s coming again.  But, “tell us plainly, Jesus!”

You’d prefer to see it a little more clearly in your life.  You want to see and feel and experience that Jesus is the Christ, that He is your Savior, that He is your Good Shepherd and you His sheep.  You want to hear it, see it, and feel it plainly, instead of the hidden “glory” of the Cross.  Truth be told, you’d really like a whole lot less of the Cross and a whole lot more of the Resurrection.

Meanwhile, there is plenty in the world around you that is painfully clear and obvious.  You can hardly glance at a screen without learning of some new tragedy or outright act of terrorism.  Week after week, it’s one thing after another.  Burning buildings, crashing airplanes, mass shootings, and wicked abuse and neglect within families.  All of that seems far too plain and obvious.

The sins of your neighbor against you, they are plain and obvious.  And sometimes, when the Law has done its work, your own sins are plain and obvious, and your guilt weighs upon you, and your anxiety keeps you awake at night.  The bills are obvious.  The repairs that are needed are obvious.  Your health, and your children’s health, and your parents’ health, all of that is plain and obvious.

And you would long for Jesus to be at least as obvious as all of that bad stuff; that He should let you know and tell you plainly, that He is with you, that He is your Savior and Good Shepherd.

The thing is, though, that He has told you.  And He continues to let you know, to make Himself known to you.  He reveals and gives Himself to you.  And He reveals the Father to you in Himself.  He makes clear to you the good and gracious will of God, both by His Word and by His works — as He has done for Benedict this morning, and for you, as well, in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism: Here is repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins, the dying of the Cross, and the rising of the Resurrection, all tangible, sure, and certain in the washing of the water with His Word and Spirit.

To begin with, the Lord your God has made His Law plain and clear to you, especially in the Ten Commandments, but so also in your vocations and stations in life.  He sets your neighbor right there alongside of you, that you should love him and serve him.  The Law is ultimately plain and simple: Love God, and love your neighbor, for love is the fulfillment of the Law.  So, then, do it.

Honor your father and mother.  Don’t simply begrudgingly obey them when you’re little and you have no choice.  Relationships change and develop over time, as you and your parents grow older, but you never do outgrow the Fourth Commandment.  It may not be easy, but it is plain enough.

Each and all of the Commandments address your place in life and your relationships in some way or another, and the Lord has surely explained what that requires of you in clear and simple words.  So, too, His servant, Dr. Luther, has taught the Commandments plainly in the Small Catechism.  Again, there is no lack of clarity in regards to the Law of the Lord and what it means for you in this body and life.  There may well be times when parents, pastors, or teachers can be of help to you in clarifying your duties in particular cases.  But most of the time it is not so much that you do not know what you should be doing, but that it is difficult, painful, and unpleasant to carry out.

In any event, the Lord has made plain His Word in the Ten Commandments.  Why do you not keep them?  He has even left you a perfect example in His own perfect life of faith and love, even unto death, that you should follow after Him and walk in His footsteps, just as He has lived and walked on His way of the Cross.  His sheep hear His voice and follow Him.  Why do you not follow Him?  Why do you not trust your Father in heaven?  Why do you not love your neighbor as yourself?

The same Lord Jesus has also spoken the Gospel plainly to you, His forgiveness of all your sins.  For He has taken them all away.  And He offers you His own Life.  Why do you not believe Him?  Why do you worry and fret about where you stand before the Lord?  He has given Himself for you.  He has redeemed you from the curse of sin and death by His own Holy Cross and Passion, by the shedding of His holy and precious Blood.  Why do you not fear, love, and trust in Him?  Why do you question and accuse Him?  Why do you doubt?  Why are you so afraid so much of the time?

You do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because you do not listen to His voice.  You do not hear and heed His Word and take it to heart.  You do not follow after Him in this body and life.

And as you do not listen to His voice, as you do not avail yourself of His preaching, as you do not follow in His steps, you are no sheep of His.  That is the hard Word of Jesus this morning.  If you do not listen to His voice, if you do not fear, love, and trust in Him, then you are not His sheep.

Those are hard Words.  But Jesus speaks them in order to call you to repentance, to call you back to Himself.  Do not be unbelieving, but believe.  Listen to your Shepherd’s voice.  Hear and heed what He says to you.  He is the Good Shepherd.  His sheep hear His voice and follow Him.

Even in His preaching of the Law, He is already speaking to you in love, according to His mercy, by His grace alone.  He does not write you off and give up on you.  For all the times that you have not listened, in His faithfulness He keeps on preaching, that you might live by faith in His Word.

So it is that you are His dear sheep, and you do follow after Him in faith and love, but only as you are hearing the Word He preaches.  Not only once upon a time or for a few years way back when, but throughout your life on earth, even unto death.  For you, as for Benedict, to be a sheep of the Good Shepherd is to be a disciple of Christ Jesus, which is to live and abide in the significance of your Holy Baptism, being catechized in the keeping of all that Christ has entrusted to His Church.

Holy Baptism is a profound gift of God, it is His good work and gracious blessing.  But it is not a one-shot deal that you leave behind you in the past, nor an insurance policy that sets your free to live a reckless and self-centered life.  It is rather the new birth of the Word and Holy Spirit, by which you have become a child of God and a sheep of His pasture, that you should live and abide with Him in Christ Jesus, nourished on the green grass of His Word and the preaching of it.

That is why the good and gracious will of God includes (and requires) that He would keep you steadfast in His Word and faith throughout this body and life, lest you depart from Him and die.

Do you long to know Him better, to know Him as your Shepherd?  Do you long to hear it plainly?  Listen to His voice.  Give attention to His gifts.  For He knows you in love, and that comes first.

He knows your sins and your weaknesses.  He knows your frailties and your failures.  And yet, He chooses to know you according to His grace and tender mercy.  He chooses to know you through His forgiveness of all your sins.  He chooses to know you in His righteousness, by grace.  And in His knowing you, He teaches you to know Him, to love Him, and to follow Him as your Shepherd.

Do you pray to Him?  Do you talk to Him?  That is good and right.  Indeed, you should pray even more faithfully and frequently than you do.  Your days and nights, your weeks and months and years should all be punctuated with prayer.  St. Paul says that you should “pray without ceasing.”  And your Lord Himself teaches you “to pray at all times and not lose heart.”  So do it.

Pray, praise, and give thanks in the confidence that your prayers are joined to those of Christ and the Spirit, who intercede for you in love; and they are heard and answered by the Father in heaven.

But your prayer — the true Christian prayer of faith — begins not with your speaking but with His.  His sheep listen before they speak.  For it is by His Word that you are taught to pray and confess, even as you are thereby taught to know Him.  Lay hold of Him by giving attention to His Word.

His Law truly exposes and condemns your sin and unbelief, but His Gospel truly forgives your sins and thereby calls you to faith and to newness of life in Christ.  You are able to lay hold of Christ Jesus in His Word because He lays hold of you there.  That is how He takes you by the hand.  That is how He lays you across His shoulders.  And that is how He brings you home again, rejoicing.

Everything depends upon Him.  And because He is true and faithful, all is sure and certain in Him.  He does and accomplishes everything, for you and for all people, by the preaching of His Word.  The One who promises is faithful, and He will do it.  As He has done so in the past, and as He shall do in your future, as well, so is He doing even now, all by His Word and the preaching of it.

Consider how it is for little Benedict this morning.  He has not baptized himself, nor could he even bring himself to be baptized.  He must rely upon his Lord, upon his parents and his pastor, and upon the congregation, to carry him and care for him, and even to pray and speak his confession for him.  And mark this well, that you stand before the Lord in no other way than Benedict does.

Consider, too, the Holy Gospel at hand.  Consider what your Good Shepherd has done for you by His pure divine grace — willingly and voluntarily — in love and mercy and compassion.

The Word — who was in the beginning with God, who is God, through whom all things are made — He has become flesh, and He tabernacles with you, in order to spread His tabernacle over you.  He has come to you and dwells with you here in love, the incarnate Son of God, Christ Jesus.  He has come down from heaven to seek and to save His little lost sheep — to seek and to save you.

So has He also laid down His life for you and all His lambs and sheep.  And He has taken it up from death and the grave, that He should raise you up in His own bodily Resurrection from the dead, that you also should have life in Him.  He has called you by His own Name, and you are His.  He has washed you with the water and His Word.  He has cleansed you of all of your sins; He heals you of all of your iniquities.  He leads you to His Table, and here He feeds you from His hand.

These are His good works, which testify of Him and tell you plainly that He is the Christ, that He is your Savior and Good Shepherd forever.  For so does He take you into His strong hand, and He shall never let you go.  So does He know you and love you, care for you and shelter you, feed you and provide for you.  And thus do you live and abide with Him in the House of the Lord forever.

Look, He has spread His Table before you.  And though your enemies may surround you on all sides with big rocks in their hands, they shall not be able to hurt you or snatch you from Christ.  For your Shepherd is with you, and His Cup overflows with your forgiveness, life, and salvation.

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

Baptized with the Baptism of Christ

The Season of Lent developed in connection with a period of intensive catechesis in preparation for Holy Baptism, which then took place at the Easter Vigil in that hinge between the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.  Along the same lines, Lent was also an opportunity for those who had departed from the faith and life of their Baptism to return to the Lord their God in heart, mind, body, and soul, by way of repentance and reconciliation.

By the Word and Spirit of God, this sacred Season of Lent remains to this day, also now for you, as a time of catechesis and repentance in which you follow the Lord Jesus up to Jerusalem.

Lent calls you to be baptized with the Baptism of Christ.  Or, if you are already baptized into Him, it calls you to remember and return to the significance of your Holy Baptism.  Either way, you are called to follow this Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, on His way of the Cross, which is to say that you are called to suffer and die with Him, that you might live with Him by faith in His Word.

What, then, is this Holy Baptism to which you are called?  It is the working of the New Creation by the washing of water with the Word and Spirit of Christ, the incarnate Son, whereby the first creation is fulfilled and comes to fruition in you, according to the good and gracious will of God.

You are a new creature, a new man or woman, by your Baptism into Christ, because it first of all puts you to death and buries you with Christ, and then also raises you up and gives you new birth in His Resurrection from the dead.  Though hidden from your eyes, that is the labor and delivery that occurs in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, as it has been instituted by Christ Jesus, our Lord.

By the rites and ceremonies of His Word and work in Holy Baptism, in the waters administered in His Name at His divine command, you are crucified with Christ Jesus.  For He has sanctified the waters of your Baptism with His own Baptism in the Jordan River, the Baptism He completed and perfected by His Cross and Passion in Jerusalem.  He was baptized into His own death and burial, and that is why your Holy Baptism is a sharing or participation in His Crucifixion.

It is not that you atone for anyone’s sins, not even your own; neither are you given as a ransom for anyone’s life.  But the Lord Jesus has opened the way for you — through death and the grave into the resurrection and the life everlasting — so that now you follow after Him by faith in His Word.  You follow Him through the waters of Holy Baptism into the grace and glory of His Kingdom.

Thus are you cleansed and refreshed in body and soul, inside and out, with the spiritual water from the Rock who not only leads the way but also follows after as your rear guard, sword, and shield.  For the water that fills the font of Holy Baptism is the water that flows with the precious Blood of Christ from His pierced side, from His crucified Body, from the innermost depths of His heart.

So it is that Holy Baptism brings about a new heavens and a new earth, a new home for you, where righteousness dwells.  It ushers you into that home, that you may live and abide with the Father in Christ Jesus as a member of His household and family, and so rest in the peace of His Spirit.

Your Baptism in His Name justifies you with the righteousness of Christ, it reconciles you to His God and Father as your own dear God and Father, and it pours out His Spirit and His Life upon your body and soul through His free and full forgiveness of all your sins.  So everything is made brand new.  Your slate is wiped cleaned.  For Baptism is not only a new creation, it is a new and better flood, which drowns and destroys the old Adam in you with all his mockery and worldly desires, and washes away your sins, while preserving you in safety aboard the Ark of the Church.

It is within His Church, as a member of His Body, united with Him in His Cross and Resurrection by your Baptism in His Name, that you belong to the Bride of Christ.  For He has clothed you in the white wedding gown of His righteousness; He has adorned you in the beauty of His holiness.

Baptized into Christ Jesus, you share His Glory by His grace.  So it is that your place is with Him in His Kingdom.  Indeed, His Royal Majesty crowns you with His divine and everlasting Life, as He honors you with His Word of the Gospel and anoints you with the Holy Spirit; and so also as He shares His Cross and Passion with you in the hope and promise of His Resurrection.

Of course, that is all pretty different than what James and John were envisioning.  But it is also far better than anything they (or you) could ever have imagined.  And it is yours by the Baptism of Christ, that is, by and through the water included in His command and combined with His Word.

Water by itself is already God’s good creation and good gift, whereby He grants and brings forth life on earth.  Water quenches thirst and cleanses the body.  It refreshes human beings, animals, and grass and trees and plants of every kind.  Together with sunshine, the rain which waters the earth is by the grace of God, by His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, also for all the wicked.

But water by itself does not forgive sins or rescue from death and the devil.  Water by itself is providence for life on earth, but not a source or means of eternal life.  By itself, it is only water and not Holy Baptism.  But with the Word of God, simple water becomes something altogether more.

That is how the Holy Triune God has delighted to work from the beginning in His divine wisdom.  When He first created the heavens and the earth, He started with the deep waters, over which His Spirit hovered, and out of which His Word brought forth the world and everything in it.  So, too, with the waters of the flood He cleansed His creation and rescued faithful Noah and his family.

And after He brought His Israel out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea — as He would later bring them through the waters of the Jordan River into Canaan — He provided them with water from the Rock in the midst of the desert.  And how did He do that?  In each and every case, He did it by His Holy Word.  “Speak to the Rock,” He said to Moses, and “thus bring forth water.”

It is by the Word of Christ Jesus, that is, by the Speaking of God the Father in His Son, that the waters of your Holy Baptism have been filled with the significance of His own Baptism.

And what is that significance?  It is the Voice of the Father from a wide open heaven, declaring His Name and His Glory upon the waters which have cleansed and covered you.  It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit, descending upon your body in the bodily form of this sacred bath, and resting and remaining upon your body and life as you rest and remain in the Body of Christ by faith.

The Lord thus reveals Himself as the Holy, Holy, Holy One, by sanctifying you with His Holiness in the waters of your Baptism.  Which is utterly unlike the greatness and the glory of the Gentiles.  It is divine grace and the gift of Life, accomplished and bestowed upon His own creation by the Lord’s Self-Sacrifice, by the pouring out of His Body and Life even unto death upon the Cross.

In the same way that the waters become such a Life-giving Baptism by the Word of Christ Jesus, so do His preaching and His catechesis continue, day by day throughout your life on earth, even to the close of the age.  And by this ongoing Word of Christ, He reminds you of the significance of your Holy Baptism, He returns you to its repentance, and He restores you to its righteousness.

What does that mean for you?  And what does that look like in practice?  It means that your life is found in Christ Jesus, and that your greatness and your glory as a Christian are that of His grace and of His Sacrifice.  Which is to say that, far from being ashamed of His Gospel and His Cross, these things of Christ are your greatest pride and joy, in which alone you boast and glory.

At the same time, it means that all your worldly ambitions, your sinful human ego, your envy and jealousy, and your competition and contention with others, with your brothers and sisters in Christ, and with all of your neighbors — all of this is crucified and put to death in you.  And instead of all that muckety-muck, you begin to love your neighbors, your friends and foes alike, in the way that Christ Jesus lives in love for you and lays down His Body and Life to serve and care for you.

As you are baptized in His Name, do not grumble or complain against the Lord your God, who has brought you out of Egypt with His mighty arm and outstretched hand; nor grumble and complain against His servants and His people, but love them and forgive them in patience and in peace.

Your Baptism into Christ Jesus catechizes you to live in humility, repentance, and faith, relying not upon yourself, but upon the Lord who calls you to believe and trust His Word and promise.  He is faithful, and He will do it.  He alone is your Hope and your Help, and He is your Salvation.

Even Moses and Aaron, and James and John, and the other Apostles, all fell short in their faith and love, and too often stumbled off the road of discipleship into the ditch of ego and envy, ignorance, indignation, and incredulity.  It is far too easy to fear man more than God, and to love the praises of men more than God.  Be on guard against those dangers and temptations, and repent of those sins in your heart and life.  But do not despair.  Rather, in repentance look to Christ, and live.

Your Baptism, your discipleship, your life and your salvation, none of these rest on your shoulders, nor do they depend upon you and your faithfulness.  Each and all of these are the gracious gift and good work of God in Christ.  So do you rest upon His shoulders, and so do you depend upon Him, upon His Baptism and His Cup, and upon His faithful, loving Service for you and for all people.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has drained the Cup of God’s righteous wrath and anger against your sins, in order to atone for all of those sins — to atone for the sins of the whole world — to ransom and redeem you from death and the devil forever.  He has accomplished and completed the significance of His Baptism by His Cross and Passion, by His innocent suffering and death, and by the outpouring of His holy and precious Blood.  So it is that death is destroyed and the devil is defeated, for the Body and Life of the very Son of God have been given for you.

This is the greatness and the glory of God, that He has reconciled the world to Himself in Christ Jesus, who has not only died for you, but has also risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever.  And He has done all of this by grace, for the forgiveness and salvation of sinners, including you, no more nor less than for James and John, for Simon Peter, for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul.  No distinctions.  No exceptions.  The incarnate Son of God has become the Servant and the Slave of all people, and He has given Himself as the Sacrifice of propitiation for the sins of the world.

With the same loving service, by the same divine grace, the crucified and risen Lord Jesus also now cleanses and sanctifies you with His own righteousness and holiness.  He has done so in the waters of your Holy Baptism, and those same waters remain, daily washing away all of your sins.  For you stand, by faith, in the midst of the River of Life, constantly flowing from His pierced side, and constantly cleansing you of all unrighteousness.  So, too, the ongoing catechesis of Christ, the preaching of His Gospel, and His Word of Holy Absolution, are always putting you back into that cleansing flood, into that holy bath, into that living and Life-giving water from the Rock of Ages.

He therefore gives to you, His beloved and beautiful Bride, to drink from His Chalice of Salvation.  There is no poison in this Cup, nor the wrath of God against you, but the precious Blood of Jesus poured out for you in love and mercy and forgiveness.  He has gone up to Jerusalem ahead of you, in order to prepare a place for you at His Table in His Kingdom.  That is the place He has prepared, which He now gives by grace alone to all who believe and are baptized into Him.

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

To Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness

There is a deep darkness that lies thick and heavy upon you, and really upon all of God’s creation.  The days have not been as dark and gloomy this winter as they typically would be this time of year, but our culture and society have gotten darker in countless ways, regardless of the weather.  And there is a darkness within you, as well, in your heart and mind and in your flesh, which threatens to drag you down into its depths of despair.  It may be the weight of anxiety and pressures at work, or a constant stress and tension in your relationships.  Perhaps it is failing eyesight or dementia.

It’s different in some ways for everyone, but you do have your own darkness of body and soul.  In one way or another, it all stems from the darkness which is sin and death, the heart of which is your ignorance of God.  Your sin is a kind of ongoing solar eclipse, which blocks out and cuts off His Light from your heart, mind, body, and life.   So you are not able to know Him by sinful nature.  That is the real darkness that blinds you to all that is noble, just, beautiful, and true.  Not only that, but it is a darkness so deep that all of your senses are numbed by it, and you do not even know it.

But now the grace of God has appeared in the Person of Christ Jesus, and by this very preaching of His Word He shines the Light of God into the heart of your deep darkness, not only to expose the problem for what it really is, but also as the Lord’s own solution and His great Salvation.  By His Word and the preaching of it, He gives you more than facts and information about Himself; He reveals and gives Himself to you, and He embraces you to Himself with divine and personal intimacy, that you might live in the Light of His presence and bask in the sunshine of His Love.

It is entirely by His grace.  Nothing forces Him.  He is not compelled by any outside agency, nor by any inner need or lack on His part.  He is moved from within by His own divine, eternal Love.

So does He reveal Himself to you by His Word and Spirit in and with His good creation.  For even though this world is full of sin and death and falling apart, nevertheless, all that He has made is still very good, as He has spoken.  Therefore, He does not abandon the works of His hands, but He enters in to redeem and rescue His creation.  He is conceived and born of the Woman, that by His flesh and blood He might sanctify you in body and soul and make all things new in heaven and on earth — within His own Body, first of all, crucified for your sins and raised for your justification.

Thus do we rejoice in the life that He has given to this brand new human being, Fredrick William James, whose conception and birth are sanctified by the conception and birth of the Son of God in human flesh and blood exactly like his own.  All the more do we give thanks that he has here and now been given the new birth of water, Word, and Spirit in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  For the same Lord Jesus Christ who has become like us, flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has so granted that we should not only come to know Him in His mercy through the Gospel, but that we should become like Him in body and soul.

By the Light of the revelation of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, you are given to know and love the Lord your God.  To receive all good things from Him.  To hear and trust His Word to you.  Even more, to eat and drink His Word-made-Flesh, given and poured out for you.

It is by these ways and means of His grace toward you, in the hearing, receiving, and trusting of these good gifts which are yours in Christ Jesus, that you worship the Lord your God in Spirit and in Truth, in righteousness and peace, and in the beauty of holiness.

It is for such worship of God that you have been created, and it is for such worship of God that you are redeemed and sanctified by the incarnate Son.  Not that He needs anything from you, but that you might live with Him forever, enlightened by His Love for you and glorified in His presence.  To worship Him in the beauty of holiness is to live by His grace as a member of His household and family, as a beloved child of God the Father in Christ Jesus, adorned with His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, as surely as Fredrick is adorned with Christ on this glorious day.

This true spiritual worship of the one true God not only begins with His revealing and giving of Himself to you, by grace; it likewise continues with His revealing and giving of Himself to you, by grace.  You worship Him because of who He is and what He does, thereby reflecting the Light of His Glory and echoing the Word that God the Father speaks to you by His Son, as you live with Him in body and soul by His Spirit.  It’s not a means to some other end; it is your life with God.

Now, the fact is that, even in the miry bog of your thick darkness — even in your native ignorance of the one true God — yet, because you have been created to worship the Lord, you will worship something or someone in some way or another.  You will worship something or someone, because you are a worshiping creature, whatever else you might do.  That is true of little Fredrick William James, who from his mother’s womb and as a newborn infant has been created by God to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, in the beauty of the holiness and righteousness of the Lord Jesus.  And that is true for you, as well, throughout your entire life, from your conception unto all eternity.

It is only that, apart from the Word of God and the gracious gifts of His Gospel, it is impossible for you to worship Him by faith.  In the deep darkness of your sin, subject to death and the grave, you do not know Him as He is.  So, instead of worshiping the Lord, you make gods out of other things and other people.  Above all, you make a god of yourself.  And you worship those false gods and dead idols by devoting yourself to them; by trusting them, and fearing them, and loving them; and by despairing when they are lost — for every one of them surely will be lost, sooner or later.

Apart from the Light of Christ, your worship will always be false and misdirected toward that which does not last and cannot save you.  It will be idolatrous and blasphemous.  It will not be a way of life and light and love, but a downward spiral of death and damnation, moving further and further away from the true God, and descending ever deeper and deeper into darkness and despair.

But now Christ has come to shine His Light upon you in love and give you life in place of death.

You and Fredrick and all the children of God worship Him in the Spirit and in Truth, because He makes Himself known to you, and He gives Himself to you, in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.  You worship the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Body of the incarnate Son.

That you might know where He is and how to find Him, and that you might worship Him by faith, He guides you and directs you by His Word and Holy Spirit, as surely as He did for the Magi.  He shines the Light of His Gospel upon you, that you should know Him and love Him as He truly is, and recognize Him in the poverty and weakness of His Cross, in the mercy of His forgiveness.

It is by His Word and the preaching of it that He calls you and draws you to Himself, as it was by the Holy Scriptures that He identified the significance of the star to the Magi, and by the Word of the Prophet that He pointed them from the capital city of Jerusalem to the little burg of Bethlehem.

But along with the preaching of His Word, He also attaches His Word and promise of the Gospel to signs which He has given, as surely He did in the case of that star.  It was the attaching of His Word to that particular star which signified the birth of a King within Judah.  So was it the Word that God spoke through the angel to the shepherds that gave significance to swaddling clothes and a manger in Bethlehem.  And so has God attached His Word to the signs He has given to you.

He attaches His Word and promise to the washing of water in His Name, and it becomes a life-giving water, rich in grace.  So has the Lord made Himself known to Fredrick this morning, that this little infant son should join with us in worshiping the Lord in the beauty of holiness.  And the same Lord attaches His Word and promise to this unassuming supper of simple bread and wine, that you and all the faithful might receive and eat and drink the very Body and Blood of the Lamb, and thereby worship the true and only God in the Son of St. Mary, in faith and with thanksgiving.

He makes Himself known and gives Himself to you by His Word and through these sacred Signs of His Gospel, all within His Church on earth.  Take to heart what St. Paul has written, lest you suppose that life on earth were nought but misery and drudgery.  For all the heavenly powers and authorities learn the Mystery of God by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ within His Church on earth!  Heaven does not know Him better than you do, because heaven finds out what God is really like in the flesh and blood of Jesus, and Christ Jesus has come to abide with you on earth.

He is with you in His Church, as He is always “with His Mother” in this whole second chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel.  Look and see.  Over and over again, the holy Evangelist is at pains to say, “The Child with His Mother.”  She is indeed the living evidence of His Incarnation, proof positive that He is true Man, of human flesh and blood like yours.  For He is born of this Woman.  But she is also a living icon and a symbol, as well as a member, a preeminent member, of His Holy Church.  The Child is always with His Mother because Christ the Lord is always with His Church.

So it is that He is here with Fredrick, and He is here with you, within His Church.  He is here with you in the preaching of the Mystery of His grace, which was hidden so long but now is revealed.

He comes to you here within His Church on earth, and in the washing of the water with His Word He has made of you a member of His Church.  He has named you with His Name and poured out His Spirit generously upon you.  His God and Father is now your God and Father.  And as the Christ Chid is always with His Mother, so is the same Lord Jesus Christ ever and always with you.

So it is that you worship the Father in His Son and by His Spirit within His Church on earth, as you hear His Word and receive the Gifts of His Gospel.  As He causes His Light to shine upon you in Christ Jesus, His Light is reflected in your words and actions to the glory of His Holy Name.  As you hear His Word, so do you pray and confess His Word.  As you are clothed with the holiness and righteousness of Christ in Holy Baptism, so do you clothe and shelter your neighbor in love.  And as you are fed by Christ in His Supper, so do you feed and care for your neighbor in peace.

You worship the Lord your God in Spirit and in Truth, in the beauty of holiness, in heart, mind, and spirit, and so also with your body, as well, in faith and love.  For your body also participates in the salvation of Christ, and your body also shall be raised from the dead in glory at the last, as surely as Christ Jesus Himself is risen from the dead and lives forever in His own glorious Body.

Thus do you acknowledge the Lord and worship Him with your body, as you enter here into His House and meet Him at His Altar.  Like the Magi, you bow before the Lord your God, the Babe, the Son of Mary.  In His Body and His Blood, hidden from your sight but revealed by His Word, you worship Him as your Prophet, Priest, and King.  And with your gifts, your gold, “your incense and myrrh,” or whatever means you may have, you worship Christ Jesus as your Savior and God.

And then you return from His House, and you go back to your own country, to your own place in life, to your own home and family and neighbors and friends.  But you do so by another Way, a new and better Way.  For you have a new King, who rules over you in grace and love, and who causes the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God to shine upon you through His Gospel.

He scatters the darkness and disperses the gloom.  Not that you won’t have dark days.  Not that you won’t get depressed and discouraged.  Not that your eyes and your mind won’t ever falter or fail.  But Christ the Lord is with you in the midst of suffering and death.  He scatters the darkness and disperses the gloom by the way of His own Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead, and by His preaching of the Gospel of forgiveness, whereby He gives you life with God in Himself.

Lift up your eyes and see.  Open your ears and hear.  You are not alone.  For Christ is with you here and now, and as you go about all your days and nights on earth.  Not only that, but in Him you belong to the household and family of God.  Indeed, Fredrick William James and every baptized Christian of all times and in all places are your own brothers and sisters and family in Christ Jesus.  For His Church is your Mother, and His God and Father is your God and Father.  His House is your house and home.  And all the treasures of His Kingdom, all the wealth and riches of His heaven, are given to you in His Body and Blood, which are your Meat and Drink indeed, forever and ever.

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