The Bread of Life from the Tree of the Cross

“I Am the Bread of Life.
He who comes to Me will not hunger,
and he who believes in Me will not thirst.”

That is the Word and promise of Christ, the Son of God, your Savior.

You have come to Him, because the Father has called you and given you to this Lord Jesus Christ, His Son.  And you believe in Him, because the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, and He has enlightened you with His gifts, whereby He also sanctifies and keeps you in the one true faith.

You shall by no means be cast out.  You shall not hunger or thirst, nor lack for any good thing in body or soul.  You shall not perish but live.  For Christ the Lord, to whom the Father has given you in love, shall raise you up on the last day to live with Him forever in His Righteousness.

And yet, for now, on your journey to that destination, from the waters of your Baptism you have come to Him in the wilderness.  And here, it seems, there is rather a lot of hunger and thirst.  Indeed, you are hungry and thirsty, not only in your body, but in your heart, mind, and spirit.

Not only that, but you suffer in part because of your faithfulness, because of the Name that you bear, because you are a Christian.  Far from being a remedy against hurt and sorrow, faith actually receives the Cross first of all, which puts you to death and buries you (before it raises you up).

At the same time, it is also true that what you find within yourself is that you are not so faithful.  Instead of steadfast faith and confident trust in the Lord who loves you, you harbor doubts and fears, frustrations and discouragements.  Perhaps even threats of dark despair.  And against those who have sinned against you, instead of the forgiveness and peace that you should exercise, you harbor anger, resentment, and bitterness.  Instead of speaking with the grace of the Gospel, you grumble and complain and utter harsh and spiteful words.  You harden your heart against your neighbor, whom you ought to love and care for.  In doing so, you harden your heart against the Lord your God, the very Father of mercies and God of all comforts.

Thus, you do not yet see what your eyes long to see, neither in yourself, nor in your body and life, nor in the world around you.  And it is so hard to watch and wait upon the Lord.  Your belly may momentarily be filled and satisfied, but it won't be long before it growls and rumbles once again.  And even when your body is full, your heart and mind still hunger for peace and rest.

So, then, why not just give up and die?  That is the question of your old Adam, when he is not striving to make a god out of himself, to obtain and preserve a life for himself.  You can go from towering pride to the pits of despair in a heartbeat.  What is the use, after all?  What is the point?

Your fathers ate their daily bread.  Whatever they were like, whether they prayed or not, whether they were evil or good, God the Father almighty opened His hand to feed them, to shower them with sunshine and rain, to give them everything they needed for this body and life.  Yes, indeed, your fathers ate their bread, thanks be to God — day by day, year after year — and then they died!

How, then, shall you survive and live?  Eat, drink, and be merry, and tomorrow you still die.  Or stop eating altogether and starve yourself to death.  What difference does it make?  Whether you live twenty years or seventy, forty-five or ninety, what does it even matter?  No amount of daily food and drink will spare your life forever.  It’s easy to become cynical and despondent, to slip into self-pity and despair, as even the Prophet Elijah did when all seemed hopeless and pointless.

But now, take your rest under the tree.  For that is where you live and die and rise again.  It shelters you and shades you in any case, even when you are ready to give up and die in disgust.

Consider, beloved, that your Lord Jesus has suffered and died for you in tender-hearted kindness, in mercy and compassion, with great love for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.

His Cross and Passion, His innocent suffering and death were not meaningless or pointless, nor without hope.  These voluntary works of His were, instead, a sweet-smelling sacrifice and offering, by which you are beloved and well-pleasing to God your Father.  You know that is true, because God has raised this same Jesus from the dead, never to die again.  This same Jesus — the Lamb of God, who came down from heaven and became flesh, who took your sins upon Himself and died in your place — He has risen from the dead.  Therefore, you also shall rise and live with Him.

So also, even in your suffering you are not cast aside.  You are not abandoned, nor forgotten.  What you may suffer as a consequence of your sins is a discipline for your good, unto repentance and new life in the free and full forgiveness of all your sins.  And what you suffer in faith and love, as a Christian, is for the glory of God and the good of your neighbor.

The bottom line remains that, baptized into Christ, you do not suffer for yourself, nor by yourself, and you do not die alone. In Christ, you shall not die but live forever.

He who for your sake died and was raised now strengthens and sustains you here under this Tree of His Cross.  Even here in the wilderness of this world, in the valley of the shadow of death.

He loves you.  He is kind and merciful.  He surely does forgive you all your sins.  And where sins are forgiven, death and the grave are undone, and life and salvation are given.

The Father has given His Son from heaven for you, in the flesh, to save you.  To give you life.  That is His good and gracious will!  It is the very thing that God most desires, and He does it.

He stretches out His hand to you in Christ, in order to lay hold of you in love; to raise you up from death to life; to strengthen you in both body and soul, here in time and hereafter for eternity.

See here, then: Christ Jesus feeds you with His own flesh and blood, which He has given into death upon the Cross for you and all people, and which He now gives and pours out for the life of the world, for His Christians to eat and to drink in this Sacred Meal

Arise, therefore. Eat His Body, and drink from His Cup, here under the Tree of His Cross.  The journey is too much for you to travel on your own, but with this Food He travels with you all the way.  He strengthens and sustains you in the one true faith.  He will not let go of you in the heat of the desert, but He shall raise you up in glory at the last.

So does He now grant you to depart in peace and joy, and so shall you also live in peace and joy.

Again I say, arise and eat, as the Lord stretches out His hand to feed you.  On the strength and vitality of this Food, the very Bread of Life, you come to the Mountain of God, now and forever.

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

The Holy Marriage of Christ and His Bride

The Holy Scriptures praise marriage highly, and it is highly to be praised. For it is the culminating high point of the Lord’s good creation: Not simply a man in lonely isolation, but male and female, the Lord God made them in His Image; the woman was taken from the man, then brought to the man and given to him by God, that the two should be united as one flesh.

In this union of husband and wife the Love of God is manifested, and in particular, that God has created you in love, in order to make you His own and unite you to Himself in heart and mind, in body, soul, and spirit, that you should have life in Him and with Him, forever and ever.

So the very Word of God, the almighty and eternal Son by whom the man and the woman, holy marriage, and all of creation has been made, has Himself become flesh, in order to become one flesh with you and with His Holy Bride, the Church. This is the purpose for which God created anything at all and everything that is. This is the Marriage that every other marriage signifies, and which every other marriage is called to celebrate and participate in.

But there is a tension to be found in holy marriage, even at its best in this world, as in the rest of God’s good creation. There is not only the goodness of the creative Word which has established it, but also the brokenness of the fall into sin and the curse of death. It lies in wait even in the marriage rite itself: “Til death us do part.” And you know, perhaps quite personally and painfully, that many different sins may break the bonds of marriage even before death in this fallen world.

Thus, it is all rather precarious, and not so permanent, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to consider all the ways the wine is spent. There are those who have no wife or husband, but who long to be married. And there are those who are married, who regret it and resent their spouses. In all of this, there is the constant temptation of bitterness, cynicism, and despair, whereby God’s good gift of marriage is despised, and its high and holy purpose is denied.

On the other hand, there is also the risk of idolizing marriage and family, both in a general way, and in your own spouse and children, in particular, whether you have them and make false gods of them, or you covet such people and relationships which God has not given to you.

This is the way of things in the midst of sin and death, namely, that you either despise God’s good creation, because you perceive how fleeting and fading this fallen world is, or you worship the creation instead of the Creator, as though the people and things and opportunities of this life on earth were the source of life and happiness forever. Either way is sinful, and either way you miss the point; whether you are married or unmarried, whether you are rich or poor, and whether you drink freely of wine or only of water.

There is, however, another alternative, which is found only in Christ Jesus. The One by whom and for whom all things are made is still an option, and He is the only option that actually does give life and remains forever. He is no imaginary lover. His Gospel is no hoax. He has come in the flesh in order to be with you, to redeem you in body and soul, to pour out His Life-giving Holy Spirit upon your fallen flesh — through His forgiveness of all your sins — and so to raise you up from death and the grave to the life everlasting with His own God and Father in Paradise.

He is the New Adam, who gives not death but life to all His children. His Bride is the New Eve, whom He cares for and protects, so that she has life in Him, and so that she in turn gives birth to the children of God by His Word and Holy Spirit. He neither takes nor gives forbidden fruit, but He produces and pours out the most excellent Fruit of the Vine, which is the Spiritual Food and Drink of His own flesh and blood. So does the Husband sustain His Wife, and the Bridegroom gives life to His Bride; for He delights in her forever, and He has named her His own.

You see that in Christ Jesus all things are made brand new. From the inside-out, He brings about the New Creation in Himself, in His own holy Body. He first of all becomes true Man, Himself a child of Adam, because He is conceived and born of the Woman. And then He reverses the fall into sin and the curse of death by entering into their arena and taking them on. He sets Himself against the serpent who beguiles, and He perseveres in the true wisdom of steadfast faith, in perfect obedience to His God and Father. He is the promised Seed of the Woman, who crushes the serpent’s head by suffering the serpent to bruise Him. By the shedding of His Blood He atones for the sins of the world, and so it is that, by His death, He conquers death and defeats the devil.

His own Body, crucified and risen from the dead, is the First Fruits of the New Creation. For He was born of the Woman in order to be the New Man, from whom the New Woman is taken and brought to Him and given to Him by the Father. He suffers and dies voluntarily, in love, so that New Life might come forth out of death and the grave, out of the ground that was cursed by sin.

It is in His Holy Church, by His Ministry of the Gospel, that the New Creation of Christ Jesus is now realized, even here on earth in the midst of sin and death. That is the Truth and the Glory of God in Christ, which faith perceives and beholds in the preaching of His Word and in His Holy Sacraments, despite all of the apparent contradictions in this fallen and dying world.

It would still seem that everything is simply running out, falling apart, turning sour, and returning to the dust, until even the dust shall disintegrate and be no more. Yet, here is the Bridegroom who has come; who speaks, and it is so; whose own flesh is the evidence and guarantee that your flesh also shall be raised from the dust of the earth, and shall be glorified in Him, and shall feast with Him in His Kingdom at the Wedding Banquet that is never exhausted and never ends. Thus do you live in your body of flesh and blood within His Holy Church, and within your own place in life.

As the ministers of Christ deal with you by His divine command — as they preach His Word, as they absolve sinners in His stead, as they baptize in His Name, and as they serve His Supper — it is Christ Himself who is at work to fill you up, in body and soul, with His Spirit and His Life.

You also, then, do whatever He tells you to do, in whatever particular place He has stationed you. Proceed according to His Word, in the confidence that He is at work to accomplish His purposes for you, and in you, and through you for others, even though you may have no idea at any given point what He is doing or going to do. The outcome is in His hands, as you, also, are in His hands. Although you know not when or how He will act, His Gospel teaches you that He delights in you, and that He desires to give you His good gifts. For now, that is all you really need to know.

Do not be dissatisfied or discontent with what you have, or with your situation; and do not allow yourself to be eaten up with envy over what you do not have. Instead, receive whatever you are given with thanksgiving to the Lord, and sanctify all of these things unto yourself by the Word of God and prayer, and put them to use in your life on earth to the glory of Christ’s Holy Name and for the benefit of your neighbors in the world. So shall others see His Glory and believe in Him.

If you are married, then be chaste and pure within your marriage. Love and cherish your own spouse, and be faithful to her or him until death. And if you are unmarried, then be chaste and pure in your celibacy, and use your time and energies to serve the Church and the community in holy faith and Christian love. None of you lives unto yourself alone, but each and all of you are called to live unto Christ Jesus, who is your Husband and your Head, both now and forever.

Pray, therefore, in the confidence of Christ Jesus, your Lord. Look to Him for all that you need, for all good things, and learn to live by faith in His vows and promises to you. Be persistent in your prayer; not presumptuous, as though you would dictate what He must do, but in the sure and certain hope that He is gracious, and that He will act in love to save you.

St. Mary sets a beautiful example for the Church, in this regard, in turning to her Son with the need at hand, and then in turning to the servants with the wise counsel to hear and heed His Word. She is not dissuaded by His reply, which sounds like a rebuttal and rejection. Nor does she presume upon Him. She does not command, but she seeks His help, and she trusts that He will provide in due season. His Hour has not yet come, but His great heart of Love, which takes Him to that Hour of the Cross, is ever the same, and is ever open to His people. So His heart is open now to you.

Despite your failings and all that you lack, He rescues and redeems you in love because He is your Bridegroom, and this is how the true Husband cares for His own dear Wife. He does not hold your sins against you, nor does He even look at them, but He lays down His Life and gives Himself for you, in order to bear your burdens, to comfort you in all your griefs, to cover your shame with the glory of His righteousness, and to clothe your nakedness with the beauty of His holiness.

Where you have been prideful of yourself, and where you have made idols out of created things, repent of your sins. Where you have despaired of any hope or help to be found in the Lord your God, and where you have despised the good gifts of His creation, repent of your sins. Believe the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and find yourself, your vocation and life in His Body of flesh and blood.

From His riven side, from the Hour of His Cross, from His open heart of Love, He pours out the water and the blood and the Holy Spirit generously upon you, in order to save you from sin, death, and the devil, and to give you real life forever with Himself, within His own Marriage and Family, which is the household and family of His own God and Father.

From the sacred waters of Holy Baptism to the blessed wine of the Holy Communion, He cleanses and purifies you with His Spirit by His Gospel of forgiveness, and with His holy, precious Blood. And by these same means of grace, He not only quenches your thirst, as with living water, but He also fills you up with genuine joy and gladness, even as He Himself is full of Grace and Truth.

He brings you here to His banquet hall, and His banner over you is love. Here He fills you with good things from the abundance of His House. He takes you to Himself, to have and to hold from this very Hour unto the neverending New Day of the Resurrection. He plights thee His troth, so that He and all His goods are now also your own, and neither He nor they shall be taken from you.

Beloved of the Lord, He is the Giver of the Feast, and He is the Feast Itself, in which you behold His Glory: The Glory of His Cross and Resurrection, and His Glory as your Bridegroom, from whom you shall never be parted; for He will never leave you nor forsake you.

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

Receive and Eat the Bread of Life

Although the sinful world and your fallen flesh are prone to make a multiplicity of false gods out of many things, there is in fact only one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Maker of the heavens and the earth and of all that is in them.  And as there is but one true God, there is only one Way to know Him and love Him, to believe and trust in Him, to find Him and come to Him.

In short, there are not many ways to God, but one Way only, by which He first of all comes to you.

That one and only Way to God is Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In accordance with the Holy Scriptures, in fulfillment of all the words and promises of God, He has come down from heaven, from the bosom of His Father, in order to seek you out and find you, to draw you to Himself in body and soul forever, and to bring you in and with Himself, in His own Body of flesh and blood, to the Father by the Spirit.

Therefore, if you would have the one true God as your God, seek the Lord Jesus Christ, find Him and come to Him, by the way and means of that one boat which He has provided for you on earth, that is, by His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, the holy ark of Christendom.  For that is where and how He is with you and abides with you in the flesh, so that you may abide with Him.

So then, here you are, and He is here for you within His House, in the Ministry of His Gospel, in His Word and Sacrament.  But what are you looking for, and what do you hope to find?  For what purpose do you seek the Lord Jesus?  What is it that you want Him to do for you and give to you?

Do you seek the Lord Jesus in order to receive and eat the Food that He provides for eternal life?

Or, are you longing to eat your fill of the food that perishes?  Is it your hope and your goal to use the Lord Jesus, as though He were merely a means to some other end?  As though He were your tool and your ticket to achieving the wealth of this fallen world?  That you might gorge yourself on the flesh pots of Egypt, and that you should thus be consumed by your slavery to sin and death.

If you live and work for perishable food, then you will perish with it.  For the appetite and gluttony of the flesh, whether of food or fornication, will eat you up with its own consuming death, for it is contrary to God’s Word and faith.  Such craving is to put your faith and trust in idols and false gods, which cannot save you.  If you hunger and thirst for such gods, you will die in your unbelief.

To be sure, the one true God in mercy does provide you with daily bread for this body and life, for which you are to give Him thanks and praise.  It is a good gift of the Creator.  But it is not the source or substance of your life and health and strength.  Such bread is for now, but not forever.
Even the miraculous Old Testament Manna pointed beyond itself to something more.  It lasted only for the day that it was given, that the people should learn to live, not by such bread for their bodies, but by faith in the Word and promises of God and in love according to His commandments.

What then shall you do?  And how then shall you live?  To what does that Manna point you?

It is simple, really.  Jesus tells you straight up.  Listen to what He says, and believe in Him.  Eat the Food of the Son of Man, which He gives to you by grace, by and with His Word of the Gospel.  For God the Father has set His seal upon this Lord Jesus — by His Baptism in the Jordan River.

There is one Baptism, as St. Paul has testified, and that is the Holy Baptism of the one Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the one God and Father and the one Holy Spirit are revealed and made known.  God is manifested in His Body of flesh and blood, as Christ is anointed by the Spirit, crucified for your transgressions, and raised from the dead by the glory of the Father for your justification.

You are baptized into the same Lord Jesus Christ.  You share His Cross and Resurrection because  you share His one Baptism for the forgiveness of all your sins.  And you thus bear His Holy Spirit and the Name of His God and Father in your own body and soul as a Christian disciple of Jesus.

Believe in Him, therefore, whom the Father has sent and gives to you from heaven for the life of the world.  He is the evening and morning Sacrifice, who arises before God as a pleasing aroma on your behalf.  He is the Passover Lamb who has been given in your place, whose blood covers and protects you from death, and whose flesh feeds and nourishes you for life with God.  And He is the true Manna from heaven, who sustains you through the wilderness into the Promised Land.

This almighty and eternal Son of the living God, He is the One who has descended — He has come down from heaven, and become flesh, and has borne all sin and death for us men and our salvation.

He has led captivity captive by handing Himself over to sacrificial death upon the Cross, undoing sin, death, and all the power of the devil by His own voluntary suffering and innocent bloodshed.

And in His Resurrection and Ascension, He freely gives His good gifts to His people, His Church, even to the close of the age.  That is to say, as St. Paul has written, the Lord gives not just talents, abilities, and skills, and not only money and other tangible resources for the logistics of life in the world, but first of all, above all else, He gives the gifts of men who preach and teach His Word.  He gives the Prophets and Apostles, the holy Evangelists, and the pastors and teachers who care for His flock.  He gives the Ministry of the Gospel for the administration of His Food and Drink.

In this Word and the preaching of it, and in this sacred Food and Drink, the crucified and risen Lord Jesus gives Himself to you, that you should receive and eat the living Bread from heaven, by which alone you have eternal life in body and soul.  For He who speaks, and He who feeds you, is Himself the incarnate Word of God and the Bread of Life, who gives Life to the whole world.

As you thus hear Him and receive Him, as you eat this Bread of Christ and drink His Cup, so then, live and work in the sure and certain hope of your calling as a Christian.  Which is also to say, live in the sure and certain hope of your Holy Baptism, whereby the Lord has set His seal upon you.  Live by hearing and heeding His Word, and by receiving His good gifts according to His Word.

To live by the Word of Christ, to abide in Him by faith in His Gospel, and to confess and call upon His Name — that is the Unity of the Spirit and the Bond of Peace in the one Body of Christ Jesus, in which you remain as you go about your days and duties within all your offices and stations in life.  Thus do you have peace and rest, even in your labors; and, though you die, yet shall you live.

Here set before you is the Sign which Jesus does, that you may believe in Him and trust in Him.  For here, at His Altar in His Church, is the true Manna, the Bread from heaven, which the Father provides for you here on earth, in order that you may live, day by day, unto the Resurrection of your body and the life everlasting of your body and soul in the Paradise that He has promised.

What is it?  What is this Bread?  What is this Cup?  It is the Body of Christ, which is given for you.  It is the New Testament in His Blood, poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins, and for your life and salvation with God both now and forever.

By these means, the Body and Blood of Christ His Son, the Father loves you and provides for you, He feeds and nourishes you, He cares for you.  And by these same means, by this Meat and Drink indeed, you also learn to know and trust your Father’s love, His providence, and His faithfulness.  For here you are taught by God that He cares for you, and that He will bring you safely home.

As He gives to you this true and living Bread from heaven for your body and your soul, unto the life everlasting, so shall He certainly also provide you with daily bread for this body and life.  He knows your needs and well provides them.  But He is also doing and giving so much more.

For the very Son of God here lays hold of your body with His own Body, so that your body shall be raised and live with Him in glory, immortal and imperishable, like unto His own glorious Body.

Come, then, eat this Bread, and you will never go hungry.  Drink of this Cup, and you will never go thirsty, regardless of your circumstances.  This Flesh and Blood of Christ, which the Father gives and pours out for you on earth, is food enough that you may eat, and be well fed, and live.

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

To Eat the Food the Lord Provides

It happens again that there is a large crowd which is hungry and has no food to eat.  And they have no money to purchase what they need.  But they are gathered by and for the Word of Jesus, and they are taught to rely upon His Word and to live in body and soul by the food that He provides.

Previously it was the crowd of five thousand men in Jewish territory, along with their women and children, whom the Lord Jesus fed and satisfied from the five loaves of bread and a few fishes.  All four of the Holy Gospels include that story, the miraculous “Feeding of the Five Thousand.”

Now it is another feeding, this time of four thousand Gentiles in Gentile territory.  And though it may seem odd to our way of thinking, the Evangelist St. Mark has made of point of providing the statistics, that is, the numbers of things involved, and to make a comparison of the two stories on that basis.  In the Bible, such numbers are often significant of theological concerns.

The five loaves of bread that fed the five thousand call to mind the five books of Moses, which Jesus fulfills in Himself as the promised Messiah of Israel.  But the seven loaves of bread with which He now feeds the four thousand — and the seven baskets of the broken bread remaining — signify the seven days of the creation story, and therefore the whole world, brought into being by the Word and Spirit of God, and given Sabbath Rest in the completion of His good work.

So, too, the sevens of this feeding story point to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ Jesus pours out upon His Church on Pentecost Day, and by whom He renews His good creation.

The number seven also has Gentile connotations.  For example, there are the seven deacons in the Acts of the Apostles, appointed to serve the tables of the Gentile Christians; and seven letters in the Book of the Revelation, which St. John addresses to the seven congregations of Asia Minor.

Likewise, the number four thousand suggests the four corners of the globe — East and West, North and South — multiplied by the number of completeness, that is, by 1000, which is 10 three times over (like the Ten Commandments of the Holy Trinity).  It embraces all the nations of the world.

There were in the previous case twelve baskets remaining from the feeding of the five thousand, signifying the twelve tribes of old Israel and the twelve Apostles of the New Israel of Christ.  And now the seven baskets remaining from this feeding of the four thousand signify that Jesus feeds His entire Church on earth, both Jews and Gentiles, and disciples from all nations, including you.

Jesus is the Lord, the great Good Shepherd of His sheep, who leads His flock by His Word, even through the wilderness, into the green pastures of His Church.  Even in the midst of sin and death, He feeds His lambs and sheep with food from His Table, as He does for you in His Holy Supper.  He provides the living Bread and life-giving Meat and Drink for both your body and your soul.

The Lord Jesus is not limited by the limited resources of this fallen and perishing world.  You have heard, for example, how He fed those who were with Him for three days in the desert wilderness.  And you have also been called to live with Him under the Cross — to be crucified, dead, and buried with the Lord Jesus, by your Baptism into His death, as you heard from St. Paul last week — in the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection from the dead.  Already now, by faith in His crucified and risen body, you do begin to live with Him and to walk with Him in newness of life.

You live with Him, and the desert actually becomes a kind of paradise, because Christ Jesus provides an overabundance of all that you need, with room to spare and always more left over.  Indeed, His Cup of Salvation is poured out for you and overflows with His forgiveness of sins and His gift of life.  He supplies more than enough for all the nations; for the people of all times and places; for all the men, women, and children; for His one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church.

Along with this gracious general Providence of God in Christ, the feeding of the four thousand  also teaches you concerning the Lord’s Supper.  In both cases, both then and now, He takes the bread, He gives thanks, He breaks the bread, and He gives it to His disciples.  As He fed the bodies of that hungry crowd, so does He feed His people with His own holy Body and precious Blood.

By His grace and power, there is never any lack.  The Food that He provides never runs out.  What is more, that divine Food with which He feeds you is more than sufficient to feed your body and soul, to nourish your Christian faith and life, and to carry you home to life everlasting in heaven.

Notice that Jesus makes a point of giving the food that He provides to His disciples — that is, to His holy Apostles, the Ministers of His Gospel — that they should give this food to the people.

Even though His own disciples often do not understand what He is saying and doing — and they may forget the feeding that He has previously done (such as when He fed the five thousand) — nevertheless, He calls them into His service, and He sends them to His people to act in His Name.

In the same way, think about how the Lord Jesus has always fed and clothed and cared for you in every way, for your body and life on earth, and for your life and salvation in the Kingdom of God.  And yet, how often do you also wonder and worry, and doubt, and question where and how your needs will be met tomorrow and the next day?  You are as slow to catch on as those disciples were.

In each and every case, it is the one Lord Jesus Christ who feeds His flock.  But He continues to do so through His called and ordained servants of His Word, also to this day and in this place.

In the words and actions of His servants, in their preaching and ministry by His Word, Christ the Lord is speaking and acting to feed you with His gifts of life: forgiveness and life and salvation.

All of this Jesus does out of His divine compassion for you and for all people, who are lost and helpless without Him, like lambs and sheep without a shepherd to feed, protect, and care for them.

Such “compassion” is a divine attribute.  For the Lord, the one true God, is moved with such compassion in the very depths of His Being, in the depths of the Father’s Love for His Son, and in the Son’s Love for His Father in the Holy Spirit.

This word compassion indicates that His guts (His intestines) churned within Him on account of His tender grace and mercy toward the helpless, the hopeless, and the hurting.

The same root word for guts (or intestines) has sacrificial implications on the basis of the Old Testament animal sacrifices.  But here it is pointing to the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Himself.  To be sure, the Lord’s deep compassion for you and for all people took Him to the Cross on your behalf, to sacrifice Himself, His body and life, His guts and intestines, for your salvation.

It is from His Cross, with the fruits of His own Sacrifice there, that He now and always feeds you here within His Church on earth through the ministry of His called and ordained servants, who are your shepherds in His Name.  He feeds you on the green pastures of His Word in their preaching of His Holy Gospel, and He feeds you with His own Body and Blood in the Holy Communion.

As I have said, the Lord Jesus does all of this out of His deep divine compassion for you, so that you are not condemned to death and damnation, but you have life and salvation in Him forever.

With such tender compassion for you, Jesus has suffered and died in your stead for the forgiveness of all your sins.  And He is risen from the dead for you, in order to open up heaven as your home.

To this day, and even to the close of the age, in His steadfast love and mercy for you, He feeds you with the Bread of Life, which is His sacrificial Body given for you, and He pours out for you the overflowing Cup of His Salvation, which is the New Testament in His own sacrificial Blood.

Eat well, therefore.  Be nourished, satisfied, and sustained in body and soul by this Food and Drink that Jesus provides for you from His own hand, which your pastors give to you by His authority.

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

Your Righteousness Before God and Man

It is because of who you are in Christ that you now live in the way that God has called you to live.  That is the way of righteousness for which you have been created, redeemed, and sanctified by His Word and Holy Spirit.  For the salvation that Christ your Savior has accomplished for you and for all people is not the abolishment of the Law but its true and perfect fulfillment.  Not only does He keep all of the commandments of God, but, in His doing so, He also teaches you to do the same.

His teaching and His righteousness are not like those of the scribes and Pharisees.  But He does not dismisses the Law, which is the Word of God and the revelation of His good and acceptable Will.  Jesus does not trade legalism for a liberal permission to indulge in wickedness, as though sin and disobedience were okay.  He has not come to set you free from the righteousness of God, but to bring you into the glorious liberty and genuine righteousness of God’s beloved children.

The righteousness of which your dear Lord Jesus speaks, and for which He has set you free by His Gospel, is not some amount of stuff to be purchased or sold, earned, or traded in the market.  And it is not a self-contained idea or feeling inside your head or your heart.  There is no righteousness in isolation from God and your neighbor.

The righteousness of Christ is the right relationship of a beloved son to His true God and Father in heaven.  It is a relationship of faith and love: to fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and, for His sake, to love your neighbor as yourself.  This living and loving proceed from within the relationship of sonship.  As you are a son of God by grace, by your Baptism into Christ, so do you now live as a son of God, sanctifying His Name in your words and actions by faith in Christ.

This is the righteousness that Christ has accomplished and fulfilled from His own Baptism in the Jordan River unto His Cross and Passion, and established for you in His Resurrection from the dead, unto the life everlasting.  It is by His dying and rising that you enter the Kingdom of heaven, and by which you live with Him in His Kingdom in own His righteousness and holiness forever.

That means dying to yourself and to your own self-righteousness, and rising to newness of life in Christ Jesus.  It is thus a matter of repentance and of faith in His forgiveness of your sins.  It is not imaginary, nor is it by your own reason and strength.  It happens by His Word as you receive and use His means of grace; as you remember and return to your Holy Baptism by confessing your sins and receiving Holy Absolution from your pastor; and as you receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Communion.  By His mercy, it is the daily new beginning of a brand new way of life.

To point out that your righteousness before God is by faith in Christ Jesus, by faith in His Gospel, is not to say that it may be kept hidden away within your heart, as though it were a private matter.  In fact, it cannot be that way.  No, the righteousness of faith before God is demonstrated in love before people.  It is foolish to suppose that a Christian disciple of Jesus could be or live otherwise.

To refrain from loving your neighbor, to neglect your duties and responsibilities, to ignore or disobey the commandments of God, is to deny your very identity as a child of God: like salt that is not salty, or water that is not wet.  It is to disown the family of God, to run away from His home, and to set yourself outside of His Kingdom and His righteousness.  It is to lose everything.

So, wherever you have disregarded the commandments of God, as though they had no authority over you; wherever you have hidden yourself away from your neighbor and his needs; wherever you have been concerned with lighting only your own path and progress, instead of shining a light for your neighbor and glorifying your God and Father in Christ Jesus — I say to you now: Repent.  Return to the Lord your God, and live unto your Father in Christ to the glory of His Holy Name.

If you are a Christian, live as a Christian.  For you are baptized into Christ.  You are crucified, dead, and buried with Him through your Baptism into His death, and you are raised with Him in His Resurrection from the dead.  Therefore, die to yourself and to your sins, to your old ways of life, and rise with Christ each day to live unto righteousness as a child of God.  And if you are not yet a Christian, become one, so that you may live: Repent and be baptized, and believe the Holy Gospel, that for Christ’s sake all your sins are forgiven and you are justified by His grace.

It is by the mercies of God in Christ Jesus that you are His own child, named with His own Name.  You are a beloved member of His household and family, a royal citizen and heir of His Kingdom.  That is who and what you are by the grace of God the Father through Jesus Christ, His Son.  And who you are and how you live belong together, like your hand in a glove.  The righteousness of your life is an exercise of the righteousness that is your relationship with God in Christ by faith.

So it is that both your repentance and your righteousness result in new behaviors, in keeping with the commandments of God.  In Christ you are a new creation, a new person, a new man, woman, or child.  You do not live all by yourself in isolation, independent of others, but you live and act within your relationship to God, and so also in a new relationship with all your neighbors in the world.  You think and speak and act differently, because, by the Word and Spirit of your God and Father, you have the heart and mind of Christ.  It is no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you.

This is truly an amazing new reality, a new way of life, which you could never accomplish or achieve for yourself.  It is given to you by the gracious adoption of God.  You do not storm the gates of heaven with your good works, but you do good works of faith and love because God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has called you to be His very own, He has brought you into His home as a member of His family, and He has established you forever and ever within His Kingdom of grace.  Not only do you live with Him, but you live in Him; and He now lives and moves in you.

The commandments of God, from the greatest to the least, describe this Life of God as it is lived in human flesh and blood.  It is the Life of His children, of His people, of His family, on earth as it is in heaven.  It is the Life of Christ, the incarnate Son, for you and for all.  It is the Life that is lived in His Kingdom, where you now live by His grace through faith in His Gospel.  It is a life that can be seen, which fills the whole house with the Light of Christ to the glory of His Father.

What, then, shall your life in Christ look like?  Instead of using and manipulating your neighbor, set him free and serve him.  Instead of clinging to what you have and striving to get more and more at your neighbor’s expense, share what you have been given, and use whatever means the Lord has provided to care for the people around you.  Instead of entertainment and personal pleasure, invest yourself in your relationships and in your actual vocations.  Befriend and benefit your neighbor instead of trying to avoid him.  Care for both his body and his soul, giving tangible gifts of money, food, and clothing, and forgiving the sins of those who trespass against you, rather than holding grudges and harboring bitterness against them.  Be at peace with all people.  Let your gentleness and kindness be obvious to all.  In the confidence of Christ, sacrifice yourself to serve others.

The great Mystery of His own Cross and Sacrifice is the culmination of His divine righteousness, the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets.  It is the righteousness of the one true God, the Holy Trinity, who acts entirely in Love, in accordance with His own divine nature, which is Love.  It is the righteousness of perfect faith and perfect love on the part of the Son for His Father — not hidden away within the inner Life of the Godhead, but on display upon the Cross before all men.

It is by His Cross and Passion that Jesus keeps the commandments of God to their completion, and He catechizes you to live the same way.  You are not the Savior of the world, but you are crucified and raised with Him, so that you now live in righteousness and purity in Him, in faith toward God, and in love for your neighbor.  He teaches you by His instruction and example, to be sure, but, more than that, His living and active Word of the Cross puts you to death and brings you to life in His own crucified and risen Body.  His Cross, therefore, is not only your crucifixion, death, and burial.  It is also your Atonement and Redemption, your Reconciliation with God and man, and your Righteousness forever in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  You live because He lives.

The same Lord Jesus Christ, crucified for your sins and risen from the dead, is your Righteousness and Sanctification.  He has gone before you through death into life, and He also now journeys with you all the way.  He has opened up the way for you to enter the Kingdom of heaven.  Indeed, He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, by which, even now, you have access to the Holy of Holies, to the Mercy Seat, and to God the Father in heaven.  So do you live as a child of God by faith in His forgiveness, by His Word and Spirit.  And this Lord Jesus, who goes before you into Glory, guards and keeps you on your right and on your left and all around you, to preserve you steadfast in His Righteousness and Peace, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting in Him.

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

To Worship the Lord Your God in the Flesh

No one has taken a whip to her back, but a string of doctors have taken all her money without helping.  In fact, she has grown worse under their care.

Twelve years of bleeding from the inside out.  The curse of sin upon the first Woman has been multiplied in this daughter of Eve.  Her life is in the blood, but it won’t stop flowing out of her, slipping away.  And so she is left anemic and drained, low on energy, and tired in every way.

How many of her clothes has she had to scrub clean or discard in all that time?  How often has she broken down and sobbed in discouragement?  We do not know such details, but imagine yourself in her place, and consider the metaphorical whips that have fallen upon you over the years.

To pile insult onto injury, her burden is embarrassing, so that she is ashamed and wants to hide herself away from any attention.  Indeed, the Law of God is clear concerning her condition and its consequences.  She is unclean.  She is not to go out into public.  She is not even to be in church.

And yet, you have heard the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He was rich but for our sake became poor, so that, by His poverty, you and that woman and all of us might become rich.  Don’t imagine dollar signs here, but do look to Him for salvation, for life and health and strength and every good thing.  For here is the great Physician of body and soul, who does in fact make house calls.  He has come to help.  He will not take all your money and leave you still bleeding, but He pours Himself out for you, and gives Himself to you, in order to fill you up with His own Life.

Therefore, worship and adore Him: With your heart by faith; and with your lips by confessing Him and calling on His Name; and with your body, also, since your body shall be raised to eternal life.

To “worship” is to bow, to genuflect or kneel, to fall at the feet of Jesus, the Lord, and prostrate yourself before Him.  Such outward bodily “worship” will avail you nothing without faith, but where your heart bows before Him, there your mind and mouth and hands and feet and your whole body will follow suit.  Don’t worry, Jesus isn’t keeping score, and neither am I.  Don’t try to score each other, either.  But do worship the Lord Jesus and lay hold of Him where He is found.

What He has accomplished for you, in and with His Body and His Blood, He gives to you in the means of grace, in the Ministry of the Gospel, which you receive with your body.  Your ears hear His Word.  Your eyes see the sign of His Cross set before you, and they see the administration of His Holy Sacraments.  Your body has been washed with the water included in His command and combined with His Word in Holy Baptism.  And so do you eat His Body and drink His Blood with your mouth, with your lips and tongue and teeth and throat.

To receive these good gifts of Christ Jesus with your body, in faith, is to worship Him most surely. In this way, by these means, you seek Him out, and lay yourself before Him, and call upon His Name in the hope and expectation that He will hear you and help you.

That is what Jairus did.  For he was a leader of the local synagogue, and he knew the Scriptures, the Word and promises of God, and evidently recognized that Word made flesh in Christ Jesus.  In faith and hope he approached Jesus and fell at His feet.  He worshiped Him with his body, and with prayer and petition for his little daughter who was at the point of death.

Now she was only twelve years old, which seems a tender age at which to die.  You moms and dads, picture one of your daughters — or one of your sons, for that matter — wasting away before your eyes and dying.  If there’s anything worse than dealing with your own frailty, weakness, and mortality, it is the anguish and sorrow of watching your own child suffer and die, and realizing how utterly helpless and powerless you are to save her (or him).

By the grace of God you pray, as Jairus prayed, that Jesus would come and help.  And do you see how bodily all of this is?  Jairus prays, not only with his mouth, but with his body prostrate at the feet of Jesus.  He implores the Lord to come, to lay His hands on the little girl so that she will get well and live.  He’s pleading for her salvation, that is what his words imply, but his immediate concern and prayer are for her bodily health and well-being.  He wants her to go to heaven in the resurrection of the righteous, but right now he does not want her to die.  He loves his little girl and does not want to lose her.  So Jairus goes to Jesus and confesses that He is the Lord, the Author and Giver of Life, and that His flesh — the touch of His hand — is strong and powerful to save.

The Lord Jesus responds right away by going with Jairus, just as He also hears and answers all your prayers.  Indeed, He is God’s Answer and Amen to your prayers.  Before you have called, and while you are yet speaking, the Father in heaven has given this same Son, Jesus Christ, for you and for your children.  He has had mercy and compassion upon you, and He comes to save you.

But then there is this interruption, this intrusion and delay.  Pushing through the crowd, like trying to swim your way upstream, having appealed to the Lord and secured His promise of help, you’re anxious to get home, to see some results, to experience the blessed relief and the great joy of an answered prayer.  It’s your turn.  Your need is so great and the time is so short.  Yet, Jesus stops and turns and waits upon another.  He turns His body and His attention to someone else, and you are left waiting until it is seemingly too late, while not yours but your neighbor’s prayer is granted.

The woman has it right, of course, in knowing and believing that Jesus is the answer to her need, according to what she had heard about Him.  That Word and promise is all that she has, so that is where she puts her faith.  Her prayer is not with her voice but in the reaching out of her hand.  She lays hold of Jesus in faith by laying hold of His cloak, His garments.  For He is the merciful and great High Priest, and the hem of His garment is bound up with the Word of God.  That is how the Lord God works: He attaches His Word and His promises to external things which you can touch and take hold of.  That is where faith looks for Him, and finds Him, and receives Him.

You also lay hold of Him in faith according to His Word: in the waters of Holy Baptism, and in the bread and wine which are His Body and His Blood in the Holy Communion.  And power goes out from His Holy Body to the one who lays hold of Him by faith.  The crowd presses upon Him, but it is by faith in His Word that you discern and receive the Life that is in Him.

That is how it was for the woman in this Gospel, and so also for you.  Immediately, the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed.  After twelve long years, she was suddenly no longer broken and dying, but made whole and clean and filled with Life.  Because Jesus has borne our griefs and carried all our sorrows in His Body, and He has poured out His Blood for all of us.  He was whipped for our transgressions, and by His scourging we are healed.

Faith receives that healing, that forgiveness, life, and salvation in the means of grace, in the Gospel of Christ Jesus.  It is here for you to have and to hold, so that you also may have peace and joy.

Which is all well and good for that woman, whom Jesus tenderly addresses as a “daughter.”  But what about the synagogue official’s little girl?  What about his daughter?  And what about you and your children and your hurts and desperate needs?

They came to Jairus with the news, like the dreaded phone call in the middle of the night.  It’s too late.  It’s all over.  “Your daughter has died.”  End of story.  “Why trouble the Teacher anymore?”

And yet, the Teacher has something more to say.  Even now, He teaches you: “Do not be afraid any longer.  Only believe.”  Sounds like Jairus was afraid at that point, as you can well imagine, just as you are afraid and tempted to despair.  But the story does not turn on what Jairus was thinking or feeling, or doing or saying.  Everything moves with Jesus.  He is the One who speaks and acts.

The woman with the twelve-year flow of blood went looking for Him and found Him where His Word said that He would be.  You also seek Him where He may be found.  And you call on Him, for yourself and for your neighbor, as Jairus besought Him in the first place for his little daughter.

By comparison, that twelve-year-old girl does absolutely nothing for herself in this case.  We are told nothing of her faith.  Besides, she’s already dead when Jesus shows up.  Do not suppose that her family, friends, and doctors have made some kind of medical mistake in thinking that she has died.  The Word of Jesus, that “the child has not died, but is asleep,” is not a second opinion or a different diagnosis, but a powerful Word of Life that makes all things new.

Of course the world regards the Word of Jesus as ridiculous.  So the people go from a wailing commotion to hysterical laughter, from devilish despair to the mockery of unbelief.

But for all of that, the Lord Jesus enters in and casts out doubt and fear and blasphemy and sin.  He takes hold of that little girl, and He calls her to “Get up!”  He speaks the Resurrection Word, and as surely as the death of Jesus swallows up death forever, so surely do His flesh and His Word raise up the dead in His own rising.  Immediately the girls gets up and begins to walk.  She lives.

You live, too, because the same Lord Jesus has done the very same thing for you.  Others have prayed and interceded for you, surely, but even when everyone else in the world has been silenced, Jesus enters in and saves you.  He comes into your room of death, and He takes you by the hand, in order to raise you up from death to life.

He has done it in your Baptism: by the hand and mouth of your pastor, with the water and the Word.  He does the same thing with His Word of Absolution: His forgiveness says to you, “Get up, and go in peace.”  Not only are you healed of your deepest affliction, but you are brought back from the dead.  Today, if you hear His voice, do not be afraid anymore, but only believe.

Wait upon the Lord, for He will help you.  If He delays in answering your prayers, He has not forgotten you.  If He causes grief, He will also have compassion.  He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons and daughters of men, and He will not reject forever.  His steadfast love never ceases, but His mercies are new every morning.  He forgives you all your sins, and He will save you from all evil.  He is faithful, and He will do it.

It is good and right for you to seek Him out, to lay hold of Him in His means of grace, to avail yourself of His Gospel, and to worship Him with heart and mind, body and soul.  But rest assured that His faithfulness is greater than yours.  Therefore He has borne the yoke for you, that you might be set free by His hard labor and by His patient obedience.  In silence before His accusers, He has waited upon His Father to vindicate Him and to deliver Him out of death for your justification.  He has given His cheek to the smiters and put His mouth in the dust, that you might have hope, even when it all seems so very hopeless.

In truth, as God has raised this same Lord Jesus from the dead, you have a sure and certain hope in Him.  Therefore, hang on to Him for dear life.  Grab hold of His garments here, in the preaching of His Word and in His Sacrament, and don’t let go.  Do so in the confidence that He holds on to you.  For the One who took you by the hand and raised you up through the waters of your Baptism, here also gives you something to eat.  He feeds you with His Body, and His Blood still flows for you, poured out from His Cup, that you might be filled with the power of His indestructible Life.

That fact stands fast and remains forever, even in the face of suffering, sickness, sin, and death.  For He has called you His daughter, His son, and He shall not let you go.  No one shall ever snatch you out of His hand.  If you can imagine the loving care and concern of Jairus for his daughter, so much greater is the love and compassion of the Lord your God for you, His own dear child.

In the death of Jesus Christ for you, your death is but a peaceful sleep and Sabbath rest.  And in His Resurrection from the dead, you also are made well, and you live in soul and body forever.

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

Christ Orders His Creation in Peace

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep.  By His Word and Spirit He brought forth light out of the darkness, and He established a beautiful and brilliant order throughout His Creation.  It is still by His Word and Spirit that He creates and gives life and upholds all things in their proper place.  Whereas, apart from His Word and Spirit, creation collapses back into chaos.

Now there is such chaos in the world on account of man’s sin.  For the Lord God, who made the man in His Image, also gave the man dominion over the creation.  By the Word of the Lord, the man was to exercise authority over the earth, to govern it according to the good order that God had put into place, and to act as God’s own agent and representative.  Thus, for example, it was the man who gave names to all the animals.  So, too, the man and his wife were to fill the earth with children, and to subdue it, not as tyrants, but as a godly king and queen over God’s good creation.  When the woman and the man deviated from God’s Word and reversed the order of His creation, they opened the floodgates to the deep dark waters of chaos: Real storms that wreak havoc on land, at sea, and in the air, and a host of metaphorical storms that threaten you inside and out.

Even after the fall into sin, man still attempts to exercise dominion; and so you should, in keeping with your place in life, your office and station, according to the Ten Commandments.  The chaos of sin and death is undone by the right logic of the Word of God, by the keeping of His good and acceptable will.  When you fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and you listen to His Word and call upon His Name, and you honor your father and your mother, and you faithfully love and cherish your spouse, and you do no harm to your neighbor but help him in every way that you can, then the light shines in the darkness, and the chaos gives way to a beautiful order and form.

Yet, man attempts to exercise dominion, not by living under the authority of God’s Word, but by imposing his own will against his neighbor, and by pitting his own strength against the challenges and dangers of life in a fallen world.  He sets his own wisdom, ingenuity, and skill to the task of survival.  He takes on the chaos like an exhilarating adventure.  He thrills at the prospect of riding the storm out and forcing it to serve his purposes.  He harnesses the wind and dams the water.

It can be an invigorating contest, up until the point when it all goes horribly wrong and becomes life-threatening.  Then it’s no fun anymore, but scary.  Not only the danger that threatens your body and life, but the overcoming of your will, that is the most disturbing chaos.  The danger can be a thrill, but not the realization that you are powerless, that you are at the whim of wind and wave.  That is when the chaos rolls over you completely and drags you down into its depths of darkness.

The external chaos is bad enough, whether it be a destructive storm, an oppressive boss, unruly children, or financial calamity.  Those outside forces make you angry or afraid, or both, and they can fill your days and nights with anxiety.

Even more alarming and disarming than the outward turmoil is the chaos within you which drives your thoughts and feelings, your words and actions.  You would like to believe that you’re in charge of those things; that, whereas others may push you around and refuse to listen to you, at least you have your own mind, your own will, and that you’re still your own person.  Except that the storms inside of you are tossing you about and threatening to overwhelm you as much or more than anything that rages against you from without.  Even there, within yourself, you’re powerless to take control.  Lustful thoughts seize your mind, no matter how hard you try to resist them.  Envy and jealousy drive you to resent and avoid the very neighbor you are called to love and care for.  Bitterness and regret cast long dark shadows across your heart, no matter how pleasant your outward demeanor may be.  Failure and disappointment rob you of any confidence or ambition.

In the face of all such storms, within and without, the Lord Jesus has come to help you, and He is here with you.  He is the Christ, the Son of God in the flesh, who with His Word brings peace and calm to His Creation.  He undoes the chaos and orders all things rightly with His divine Wisdom.  Even the winds and waves obey Him.  For He is the Word-made-Flesh by whom all things are made, and He is the true Man who exercises godly dominion over God’s Creation.

But why, then, are the disciples even more afraid when Jesus has quieted the wind and stilled the waves than they were of the storm in the first place?  That is what St. Mark has written:  Before, they were afraid because they were perishing, but afterwards they are very much afraid.  Why?  And why are you so afraid of the good and right ordering that Jesus establishes by His Word?

Such fear is another aspect of the chaos inside of you.  It is the fear of sin and death, instead of the faith and love of God.  For in your fallen state, the power and authority and right ordering of the Word of Christ confronts you and challenges you with the force of the Law, with the imposing of His will upon whatever is contrary to His Word.  So, yes, all the chaos in the world that threatens you must obey Him and submit to Him.  But so is your own chaotic and sinful behavior confronted by the authority of His commands, and your own stubborn will is silenced and stilled before Him.

That recognition of the Lord and His authority, according to the power and judgment of His Law, is even more frightening than the chaos that rages all around you.  For it presses upon you and contradicts your will, and in a single stroke it undoes all of your self-righteousness and sin.

That’s what you hear when Jesus speaks and the winds and waves obey Him.  And that’s what you hear when the Lord speaks to Job in response to that poor man’s worries and complaints.  That’s what you hear in response to your own sufferings, your struggles and sorrows.  After all, who are you (a finite fallen creature) to call into question or complain about the judgments of the Lord?

But God is not backhanding Job with chastisement when He speaks.  He does not add yet another crushing blow atop the assaults and accusations of the devil.  He does not compound the chaos, and neither does He calm things down by constraining and compelling Job to “shut up.”  Rather, He quiets Job with comfort and consolation in his suffering.  The Lord reveals the mysterious truth that suffering is not a mark of His displeasure, nor is it foreign to His good and gracious purpose.

It is true that the Law reveals the good and right order of God’s world, as He intends it to be and to live.  But there is a deeper and different authority of the Law than its demands and prohibitions, than its threats and punishments.  All of these confront you and accuse you, and weigh so heavily upon you, but only because your heart and mind, your body and spirit, and the whole sinful world around you, are out of order and chaotic with sinful unbelief and stubborn disobedience.  At the heart of the Law itself, however, is the harmony of faith and love, the peaceful unity of the Holy Triune God, who lives in perfect freedom and acts in perfect love, who gives life to those who are His own creatures, to those whose very existence is brought about by His free choice of grace.

Which is also to say that the foundation and good order of Creation, as well as the fulfillment of the Law, is finally nothing else and nothing less than Christ the Crucified.  He is the Cornerstone, not only of His Church, but of the heavens and the earth and of all things, visible and invisible.  From before the foundation of the world, this Lamb was slain for the life and salvation of all flesh, and God’s good Creation is now completed and perfected in the Resurrection of this same Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.  His Self-sacrifice upon the Cross is the Self-giving Love of God, the divine grace by which and for which whatever is made has been made.

As the Lord your God established His Creation upon the dying and rising of Christ Jesus, so does He renew His Creation and bring it into peace and quiet, not by imposing His sovereign will upon it, nor by forcing and constraining it to obey the rules and behave, but by entering into it, becoming part of it, and establishing the good order of His Word and Will in Himself, in His own flesh.

The Son of God enters the waters of St. Mary’s womb, and He is born from those waters under the Law, in order to redeem those under the Law.  He then enters the waters of St. John’s baptism in the Jordan River, thereby submitting Himself to sacrificial death as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world, and from those waters He emerges to make His way steadfastly to the Cross.  So does He also embark upon the sea, in order to cross over with His people — through death into life — and He too is found on the boat in the chaotic storm, amid the raging winds and thrashing waves.

He is on board “just as He is.”  He has flesh and blood like you.  He sleeps because He is true Man.  That means, not only that He has gotten tired and must sleep, just as you must take your rest, but also that He lives by faith, as you are called to live.  Only, where you often cannot sleep but toss and turn at night, He rests in peace and quietness while the winds and waves toss the boat about.  It is neither exhaustion, nor laziness, nor a lack of care and concern for His fellows, but faith and trust in His Father which enable the Lord Jesus to sleep in peace even in the midst of chaos.

He lives as true Man by entrusting Himself entirely to His God and Father, in order to live entirely from Him.  This is how all of Creation, and man in particular, is created to live.  So that is how Jesus lives, and that is how He dies.  For not only does He lay Himself down to sleep in the peace of His Father, but so does He lay down His life, even unto death, in the confidence of His Father’s love and care for Him.  But consider the striking contrast between His peaceful sleeping and His panic-stricken disciples, who wonder whether He even cares that they are perishing.

And yet, it is in His sleeping, even unto death upon the Cross, that He fully sets Himself, His faith, and His love against the chaos of sinful unbelief.  His voluntary suffering and death, in faithful obedience to His God and Father, atones for all of man’s sin and remedies the brokenness of the Creation.  So, too, it is in His rising from the dead that all of Creation is fully restored in peace, as life and immortality are brought to light through the preaching of the Gospel.  When He wakes and rises from His sleep, He speaks, and all becomes perfectly calm.

It is in His dying and rising that Christ Jesus receives the authority to exercise a godly dominion of love over all of His Creation.  For He is the one true God, who has become true Man and given Himself for all mankind.  Because He has risen from the dead, the whole earth is full of His Glory.

Nowhere is that Glory of God more clear than in the Holy Communion.  There the Lord exercises dominion over His Creation by taking bread and wine and giving them to you as His own Body and Blood, crucified and risen, as Meat and Drink indeed for your own body of flesh and blood.  He uses His dominion to bless and sanctify Creation, to love and to give life by giving Himself.  And right there, in His Body and His Blood, is the heart and center of His Peace.  For the Peace of the Lord, the Pax Domini, is with you in this Holy Sacrament, given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  With this forgiveness, the winds and waves are hushed and stilled.

This, then, is how He truly cares for you in all things, in body and soul, both now and forever.  Not by enslaving you, but by feeding you with Himself, with His own flesh, and by forgiving you with His own voice of the Gospel.  He speaks, and it is so.

As you hear this Word of His and receive His gifts, remember that you are baptized into Him; that you are in the boat with Him, and He is in the boat with you, that is, within the Holy Ark of His Church.  And here you are safe in the midst of the storm, even though you are sometimes so afraid, and even though it seems as though your Lord were sleeping and not very much concerned about you.  He has laid Himself down to sleep in flesh and blood like yours, so that you may find your peace and rest and quiet sleep in Him, and that He should raise you up with Himself in His rising.

By the authority of His Cross and the Resurrection of His Body, by the power of His indestructible life, He stills the storm, He quiets the waves, He calms your heart and mind with His Peace, and He brings you through the deadly waters into the safe harbor and salvation of His Kingdom.  For all of Creation is made brand new and beautiful in His crucified and risen Body.  And you are a member of His Body, here and now and hereafter in eternity, even as you eat His Body and drink His Blood.  So does He abide in you, and so do you abide in Him in perfect Peace.

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