From the Dust of the Earth to the Glory of God

What would your Rabboni teach you by the example of His servant, St. Mary Magdalene, one of His dear little lambs?  And what would He teach you by the example of His mercy toward her?

She is among those many people whom Jesus cleansed and healed by His Word and Holy Spirit.  And along with a number of other faithful women, she followed the Lord Jesus as a disciple, as a member of His Church, and she supported Him and His Apostles from her own means.

She followed Him to the last, even to the foot of His Cross on Good Friday.  And then on that first Easter Sunday morning, very early, while it was still dark, she went with several of the other women to show reverence and loving care for the Body of Christ Jesus by anointing it with spices.

She came to the tomb, and there it looked and felt as though all hope were dead and gone.  Already her Lord had been crucified, put to death, and buried.  But then, just when it seemed as though it surely could not get any worse, she found the grave emptied, apparently robbed, His Body gone.  She could do nothing else at that point other than weep with deep sorrow and great mourning.

You also end up at the tomb, bereft of hope and everything you love.  Sooner or later, your own body shall be laid to rest in the dust of the earth.  Whence you were taken, thence you return.  In the meantime, everything around you is likewise returning to the dust.  Your parents, your spouse, even your children; cousins, brothers, grandparents, friends.  One by one, they are taken from you.

Everything ends in dust.  So, with Mary Magdalene you make your way to the tomb, and it is still dark, and you cannot see.  Then you do not know where Jesus is.  You do not know where or how to find His Body.  There is only death, the grave is empty of hope, and there’s nothing you can do.

In fact, He is standing there with you and for you, and He would do for you what you cannot do for Him or yourself or anyone else.  But you do not recognize Him, not through your tears, and not by your own reason and strength.  Like those first Emmaus disciples, you do not yet know Him.

You take Him for a gardener, a man of dust and dirt, like the first man, Adam, and his first son, Cain, who were gardeners.  That’s who Mary thought He was at first, and now you make the same mistake.  Instead of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, you see only mortal flesh and all the practical logistics of death and burial — funeral arrangements, cemeteries, and grave sites.

Whether or not you break down and weep on the outside for anyone to see, you are broken and defeated by death and the grave.  You are powerless to fix it, unable to find what you need, and helpless to feel any better.  So you are sorely tempted to despair altogether and to give up hope.

But right there in the tomb, in the teeth of death, you behold the messengers of the Lord, clothed in white — like your baptismal gown; like the paraments of Christmas and Easter and the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene; like the robes of those who come out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb — because the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom has begun, and all things are made ready, on earth as it is in heaven.  So it is that His messengers are sent to you here, to say, “Come, and do not weep, but rejoice!”

The messengers of the Lord turn your eyes toward Jesus — from the dust of the earth and the gates of Hades to the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — to the gates of heaven, opened by the Lord Jesus Christ.  They point you to Him who was dead, and yet, behold, He lives!  And by their preaching and teaching of His Word, He calls you by name and opens your eyes to behold Him.

He sends His messengers and speaks His Gospel to you.  “I forgive you all your sins.”  All of your doubts and fears, and death itself, He takes it all away.  And in their place He gives you Himself.

That is what Jesus says and does; because, as much as you may love Him for all that He has done for you, He loves you so much more.  And His love does not fail.  His love is stronger than death.

The Church’s Husband sits in the gates of Hades — which He has broken open by His own Cross and Resurrection from the dead — and by and with His Word of the Gospel He adorns His Bride with His own Righteousness, even as He has glorified her with His own Name.  So shall Hades not prevail against her, but as her Husband and her Head has risen from the dead, so she also shall rise.

Thus are you able to stop weeping, to dry your eyes and see clearly.  You need not stare into an empty tomb and wonder what on earth you’re going to do.  Neither your own dust and bones, nor the dust and bones within the tombs of your loved ones, tell the true story of your life and future.

For the Lord Jesus calls you by name from out of death and the grave into the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — from out of the darkness of your sin into the marvelous Light of His Gospel.

It is by the preaching and Ministry of His Gospel that you find Him here, not within the tomb, but in His House and at His Altar.  The Body of Jesus is here for you, that you might find Him and receive Him to yourself, and bear Him within your own body throughout your life on earth, until He shall call you home, both body and soul, to the true Garden — the Paradise of God — forever.

You find Him here, where He finds you with His Word.  It is not yet by sight, but by the sound of His Voice, that you recognize your Good Shepherd, as He calls you to Himself by name.

If you want to know if it is Jesus Christ who is speaking, listen: Does the voice that you hear have the timbre of His Gospel?  Does it sing the melody of forgiveness and salvation?  Does it follow the rhythm of His Cross and Resurrection, the pulse of His Blood poured out for you?  If so, then you know it is the Lord who is speaking and calling you by name; and you know to follow Him.

You follow and lay hold of Him here, where He lays hold of you.  And He will not let you go.  He will not cast you away from His presence.  Nor will He allow you to be snatched out of His hand.

But He would not have you cling to Him as “the Gardener.”  He would not have you cling to Him as the Man of Dirt.  He would not have you cling to Him in the familiar things of this old earth.

His Word to Mary Magdalene, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father,” is challenging and hard to understand.  Elsewhere in the Holy Gospels He does not speak this way.  In St. Matthew the women lay hold of His feet and worship Him, and He does not tell them to stop.  And in both St. Luke and this same chapter of St. John, He invites the disciples to investigate the wounds in His hands and feet and side; He tells St. Thomas to put his finger into the nail wounds, his hand into the spear wound.  Yet, here He tells St. Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to Him.

Understand that He does give Himself into your ears, into your heart and mind by His Word, and into your hands, your mouth, and your body in the Holy Communion, that you might cling to Him — to His Body of flesh and blood — with both your body and your soul — by faith in His Word.

But whereas you also receive with thanksgiving all of His other good gifts in this body and life — your daily bread, your home and family, your body and soul, your reason and all your senses — all of which are sanctified by His Word and Holy Spirit — you do not cling to Him in those things.  Nor do you cling to any of those things as though your life and salvation were found in them.  You rather cling to Jesus by faith — and you worship Him by faith — in the Liturgy of His Gospel.

He would not have you cling to Him on the front side of the Cross and Resurrection.  That is to say, He would not have you cling to Him as the Man from Nazareth on His way to be crucified, put to death, and buried — the Man St. Mary Magdalene had known and loved prior to Good Friday.  But He would have you cling to Him on the far side of His Passion.  He would have you cling to Him as the Lamb who has been slain, and yet, behold, He lives!  He would have you cling to Him as the Crucified One, whose hands and feet and side still bear the wounds of His Cross and Passion.  He would have you cling to Him as the One who has risen from the dead.

God raised this Jesus from the dead.  That is the very heart and soul of the Gospel.  Not in contrast to or contradiction of the Cross, but as the victory and outcome of the Cross.  The Resurrection of the One who was crucified for your transgressions is your Justification; that is your Righteousness, that is your Absolution, that is your Hope, and that is your Life and your Salvation.

God raised Jesus from the dead.  The One who bore your sins in His Body on the Cross, who died your death and suffered your damnation — God raised Him from the dead – for you – from the dust of the ground into the New Creation, of which His own resurrected Body is the First Fruits.

Do not cling to Him as a gardener of this dead and dying world, but as the Good Shepherd who has laid down His life for you and all His sheep, and who has taken it up again that you may live.

He ascends from death and the grave to His God and Father.  And what a beautiful Word it is that He sends to His disciples by way of Mary Magdalene.  She is not an Apostle, but in this case she is an “apostle to the Apostles,” as the Greek Church has always called her, because she is sent to speak this Word of Jesus to those men whom He calls His brothers.  And the same Word has been written for you, as well; and it is spoken to you again on this night, as it is every Easter morning.

“Tell them,” He says, “that I go to My God and your God, to My Father and your Father.”  And such a precious gift it is that He bestows upon you and all His Christian disciples with these words.  The God of Jesus, who raised Him from the dead, is your God, who shall not fail you, but who shall vindicate you at the last.  He shall not leave you dead and buried in the dirt, but He shall raise you up in glory at the Last Day, and He shall make you perfect, as Christ Himself is perfect.

So also, the Father of Christ Jesus is your Father, and you are beloved and well-pleasing to Him.  He hears and answers when you pray, because He has first of all spoken to you by His Son, and He has called you by name.  He has not only called you by your name, but He has named you with His Name as a beloved son or daughter in Christ, as a member of His household and family.

Thus do you live with Christ Jesus at the right hand of His God and Father in heaven, seated with Him in the heavenly places.  That is where you live.  Not in the dust of the earth, but in the courts of heaven.  Even as Christ lives and abides with His Bride, the Church, in heaven and on earth.

Have you heard what He does for her?  And what she does for her children, the children of God?  He cleanses her, daily and richly He does.  And He clothes her.  He covers her shame with His honor.  He covers her nakedness with His royal garments.  And as she is cloaked in the purple of His Majesty, so does she clothe her children in the scarlet of His Sacrifice.  So are you dressed in such scarlet and covered in such purple, as a royal son or daughter of the King, a member of His Holy Bride.  He feeds you from His own hand, and He quenches your thirst from His own side.

As He thus stretches out His hands to feed you, to cleanse you, to clothe you, and to give you drink — you who belong to His Bride, the Church, likewise stretch out your hands to your neighbors.  As you cling to Christ Jesus by faith in His Word, you cling to your neighbors in love for His sake.

And as Mary Magdalene went to preach that first Easter sermon to the holy Apostles, so do you also confess the same Gospel of the same Christ to your family, friends, and neighbors on earth — to your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus — and even to your pastors!  For what the Lord did for St. Mary Magdalene and His disciples then, He does for you now, as for His whole Church.

He raises you from the dead.  He casts out all your demons, heals your diseases, forgives you all your sins, and raises you from the death of unbelief, sadness, and fear, to the life that is yours in both body and soul by faith in His Gospel.  That is what your Rabboni teaches you, and that is what He gives to you here and now, as He lays hold of you with His Word and Flesh and Blood.

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

The Sons of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus

There is no problem with the Sower, His Seed, or His Field.  These are all very good.  But now there is a problem in His Field because, while His men were sleeping, His enemy was at work, prowling around, sowing seeds of lawlessness in the Sower’s Field.  So, now there are weeds among the wheat.  What shall the Lord and Master of the Field do about it?  What should He do?

What would you do?  If you were the Lord, how would you respond?  Would you exterminate the weeds by whatever means or force necessary?  Would you rip them out and throw them away?

Well, how often do you think and act as though you actually were God?  When someone gets in your way, you remove them.  When someone does something you don’t like, you push back as hard as you’re able.  When someone encroaches on your space, steals your thunder, takes your stuff, messes with your plans, or otherwise cramps your style, you retaliate in order to have your way.

If you’ve worked hard on a project and someone messes it up, how do you respond?  With anger and revenge, or with patience and forgiveness?  And as for those things outside of your control — things you don’t understand, which cause you pain and suffering, grief and disappointment — how do you deal with those things?  Do you aim to force the situation and fix it for yourself, as though you could?  Or do you rail against the Lord and question His wisdom, as though you knew better?

But the true and only God does not think the way you think.  And, Christ be praised, He does not act the way you act.  His ways are not your ways, and His thoughts are not your thoughts.  As you have heard, He does not pull the weeds at once, nor does He permit His servants to do so, because He has mercy.  He is patient and long-suffering.  He would preserve and protect His wheat from all harm and danger.  And so, for the sake of His wheat, He will not destroy the weeds before the harvest.  He knows the wheat would not survive the weeding, and He would save it from the fire.

As with the Parable of the Sower last Sunday, so also with this Parable today, the Lord Jesus is not  offering a lesson in earthly farming or agriculture.  He is teaching the Mysteries of His Kingdom, not the science and savvy of this world and its kingdoms.  And with that in mind, understand that His enemy, the devil, is not capable of creating any plants of his own.  The seeds the devil sows, those of the weeds, are not some new plant alongside the wheat, but a perversion of God’s good creation.  The devil is no creator.  He can only attack and abuse what God has done and given.  So the weeds cannot be separated from the wheat, because they are actually a perversion of the wheat.

Don’t look around the congregation or cast about in your mind concerning your other neighbors, trying to figure out who the weeds are.  Consider your own heart.  Look at your own life.  Listen to your own words.  Examine your thoughts and attitudes in the light of the Ten Commandments.

Don’t look at your neighbor to find where the weeds are.  Rather, look within yourself and groan; not with despair, but in repentance — and with hope for the mercy of God, because He is merciful.

The fact of the matter is, the weeds are not simply planted alongside you in the rows.  They are planted in your own heart and in your flesh.  They are entangled about your roots.  And they have you in their grips, bearing their lawless fruits in your thoughts, in your words, and in your actions.

And all of that is already bad enough.  But there is an even bigger problem, namely, the fact that you can’t tell the difference.  In the Parable at hand, the particular weeds that Jesus describes are indistinguishable from wheat, especially early on.  The Lord thereby underscores the perversity of sin, which prevents you from distinguishing between the weeds and the wheat.

You can’t read your neighbor’s heart, no matter how hard you try and assume that you can.  But neither do you really know your own sinful heart.  You don’t know the depths of your perversity, your sinfulness and guile.  You actually think of yourself, most of the time, as being pretty good.

The most deadly and dangerous thing of all is that you do not know the Sower.  You do not know His Seed, and you do not know the Fruits that He would harvest.  You know none of these things, except by the Word and Spirit of God, who must teach you and must help you in your weakness.

It’s not simply that you and your neighbors are sinful, duplicitous and hypocritical, deceptive and deceived.  It’s not only that you and your neighbors are hiding yourselves from each other, playing at charades, and practicing subterfuge in your dealings with each other, as though life were a big game.  It’s worse than that.  Not only do you not know the weeds from the wheat, but you don’t even realize that you don’t know the weeds from the wheat!  Consequently, you call evil, “good,” and you call good, “evil.”  And you have no idea how greatly mistaken you are.

All of which means that, when you set out to weed your fields, what you rip up and throw away are the fruits of grace, mercy, and peace.  And the very things you cultivate, as though they were your crop, are the weeds of pride and envy, selfishness and greed.  And still you do not recognize or understand what you are doing.  In your judgment of others, and in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you are pious and faithful, and that by your wicked works you are reaping life.

But, no, if there are to be any sons of the Kingdom in the final harvest, then it must be the Son of Man who shall sow them, raise them up, and harvest them unto Himself in His Righteousness — by His judgment of forgiveness.  The Lord knows that none of His wheat will survive otherwise.

The wheat cannot live choked out by the weeds.  But the wheat cannot survive a weeding, either.  It will die either way, if the Lord does not act.  He alone is God, the King and Redeemer of Israel.  And He sends no creature to save His Field, but He Himself comes and does it all by His grace.

And here is how He goes about it:

He hides Himself in the Field.  He hides Himself in the Field.  He comes unpretentiously, small and feeble, seemingly helpless.  And He plants Himself in the ground, like the smallest of seeds, easily lost among all of those weeds.  In fact, He allows Himself to become entangled in your weeds, to be completely overgrown by your weeds, until it seems as though He were utterly lost.  He is choked, and He is strangled.  He is crucified, put to death, and buried in the ground.

And then what?  His Tree bears good Fruit.  He rises from the dead.  He has died, but, lo, He lives!  He has overcome all of the devastating consequences of sin and the devil’s perversion of God’s good creation, all the weeds in your heart and life, and all the weeds in the world around you.  And as such, His Word of the Cross is the good Seed of His Gospel.  He proclaims the forgiveness of sins.  He proclaims the free gift of Life and Salvation.  And this He does throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth.  He sows the entire Field with the Seed He has borne by His Cross.

He does not uproot the weeds and burn them.  On the contrary, what He does do is remarkable.  He cares for the weeds along with the wheat for now.  He waters both with His Word and Holy Spirit.  He shines the sunshine of His love on both the evil and the good.  He cultivates the whole Field by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name.  He proclaims the Gospel to all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, without partiality or prejudice — with grace, mercy, and peace for those who have no grace, mercy, or peace.  He preserves both weeds and wheat together in His Field.  And He thereby plunders His enemy of any produce whatsoever.

The Lord takes it all in hand, and rather than exterminating the weeds, He cares for the Field.  His Seed-bearing Fruit of the Cross gives new birth to the sons of God — the sons of the Kingdom, His brothers by grace — because His Cross has made Atonement for the curse.  God’s cursing of the soil, the thorns and thistles that it bears around the world, and all the consequences of the Fall into sin, the Cross of Christ has made Atonement for all of it.  And the Blood which Christ has shed does not cry out for vengeance, because it has cleansed, redeemed, and sanctified His Field.

His own crucified and risen Body is the First Fruits of a New Creation, wherein and whereby the weed-infested wheat is not lost — neither strangled by the weeds nor pulled up with the weeds — but it is rescued, justified, and made holy.  The wheat is saved for the Lord’s great harvest at the last, as surely as the great Weed of His Cross has actually become the new and greater Tree of Life.

Now, to be sure, there will come the consummation of all things and the final harvest, when the Lord shall come in glory with power and great might to judge the living and the dead.  Then all those weeds which still remain shall be purged and removed from the presence of God into the fire.

So, do not ever become comfortable or complacent with any other planting than that of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Pay no heed to any other word than His Word.  And do not fall asleep, but be sober and watchful.  Do not abuse the Lord’s mercy and long-suffering patience as an excuse to cultivate weeds in your life instead of wheat.  Do not mock and despise the Son of Man by disparaging the Fruits of His Cross and serving His enemy.  For all the ways in which you have done so, repent.

But in repenting, take heart, and have patience, that even those weeds which still remain for now — those that you produce in sin and shame within your body and life, and those that threaten to choke you and destroy you with suffering and sorrow, despair and death — the Lord, by His Cross, is using even these weeds to be working His work in you unto daily repentance, faith, and life.

By that which you suffer, by those weeds that beleaguer you day and night, He is calling you daily to repentance — to turn you from the sowing of the devil to the Lord’s own sowing of the Gospel.  He disciplines you now, in both body and soul, not to hurt or harm you, but because He loves you; and by His discipline and His preaching, He is working to harvest you into His Kingdom forever.

He does not uproot you and remove you from His Field with all of your own weeds; nor does He remove all of the weeds that harass and hurt you in this old world of sin and death.  But, by His Word of the Cross, He strengthens and sustains you, protects and preserves you, nurtures you with His forgiveness of your sins, and nourishes you with His Body given and His Blood poured out.

His Cross remains an accomplished fact, the Lord’s perfection of His good Creation, and it renders the weeds impotent against you.  He forces even the weeds to serve His wheat, thereby forming you in His own crucified image and likeness.  Therefore, even though you die, yet shall you live and abide forever with God in both body and soul.  And even now, in your weakness, overgrown and hidden by weeds within and without, the Spirit of Christ intercedes for you and helps you.

Just think of that.  God Himself is praying for you!  Though that may seem strange, He does so that you might stand fast.  He prays for you according to His good and gracious Will for your salvation; and even in His praying He is already acting to save you.  As He speaks, so He does.  It is true.

What now appears to be futile and fatal, He has made into a sure and certain hope — not yet seen, but already accomplished in the Body of Christ Jesus.  It has not yet appeared what you shall be.  What you see and feel in yourself for now, in this dying world, is nothing but weeds, and no wheat.  But when the Lord appears in all His glory, you shall see Him as He is, and you shall be like Him.

In your death and in your resurrection at the last, unto the Life everlasting, all the weeds shall be purged and removed forevermore from your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit; and having thus been purified, as gold and silver are purified by fire, you shall nevermore be plagued by the threat of sin, the assaults and accusations of the devil, or the fear of death, but shall live in perfect peace and joy in the presence of God, in the Light of His countenance, and in the warmth of His Love.

Then the Righteousness of Christ — by which, in His mercy, He has declared you to be righteous by the Gospel — shall shine forth in you like the very Son Himself.  And all the sufferings and sorrows, all the sin and shame of this present evil age, shall be gone and forgotten forever like a dream that is past.  And so shall you abide in the Kingdom of your own dear God and Father.

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

By the Seed That Is Sown

The Parable of the Sower is such a familiar story, one you’re no doubt well acquainted with.  It’s easily remembered over time, and on the surface it seems so readily understood.  Jesus even gives an explanation, so you might suppose the meaning should be obvious.  And yet, the most crucial point of the Parable itself is the great difficulty with which the Word of Christ is understood at all.

One thing the Parable makes clear is that God’s Word is preached with reckless abandon, scattered to the four winds without prejudice.  The Lord is not stingy with His Word.  As Christ Jesus was crucified for the salvation of all people, so does His Word go out for all people without exception.

But the Parable is chiefly concerned with what happens to that Word in the hearts and lives of those who hear it.  And that is where the difficulty starts in grasping the point at hand.  Many want to make the success or failure of the crop depend upon the prior condition of the soil; which is to say, they want to make the success or failure of God’s Word depend upon those who hear it.

At face value, that sounds like an obvious interpretation.  And yet, it’s another example of hearing the Word without understanding.  The birds have flown off with the real meaning in their gullets.

What is it, then, that constitutes a genuine understanding of the Word of God?  It is more than just knowing the facts about Jesus.  As for that, a person could have the whole Bible memorized without really understanding any of it.  But to understand the Holy Scriptures is to hear and believe God’s Word as the Gospel of Christ Jesus from start to finish.  It all points to Him, to what He has done for you and all people, and to what He continues to do for and with His Church on earth.

Hearing His Word with understanding means repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins — knowing your sins and your unworthiness, and yet believing and trusting that the Lord has gotten forgiveness, life, and salvation for you by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, and that He bestows these good things upon you, by His grace alone, through the preaching of His Gospel.

The fact is, no one understands the Word of Christ and His Gospel by their own reason or strength.  Apart from the Spirit of Christ Jesus, it is never more than “facts” and “information,” which will not save you.  Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is never absent from the Word of Christ.  He is actively present and at work — through that Word — to open up your heart and mind, and to give you the ears of faith.  As Jesus says to His disciples, therefore, “Blessed are your ears, because they hear!”

It’s frustrating to admit, but there’s nothing you can do to make yourself or anyone else believe the Gospel.  For yourself, you can only listen to the Word — and leave it to the Word to do its work.  Likewise, for others, you can only sow the Word into their ears — and leave their hearing of it to the Holy Spirit.  Those who do hear and understand, who believe the Gospel, are blessed to do so.

Of the great crowds that gathered around Jesus, there were many who heard His saving Word and yet bore no fruit.  So, too, those who heard the preaching of St. Matthew and the other Apostles.

And there are likely some of you here today, who hear the Word of the Gospel in this preaching and Liturgy, but who will nonetheless relinquish that Word — and who will thus whither and die.

God grant, by His mercy, that it would not be so.  God grant that each of you would continue to seek out His Word and the preaching of the Gospel, and that you would always hunger and thirst for the precious Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  For it is only by these holy Seeds of His grace and mercy that His Word will survive and grow within your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit.

In the Parable at hand, do not wonder that so much Seed is wasted and lost.  Instead, praise God that anything grows at all!  For in spite of the soil and its enemies — in spite of the rockiness of our hearts, and the ravenous birds of Satan, and the weeds of the world — the Lord still brings forth a harvest from the Seed that He has sown.  And that is truly a miracle of His divine grace.

Consider those various enemies that are lined up in force against your soil.  And think of all the many ways they are working together to root out the Seed of God and get a foothold in your heart.

To begin with, there are those who never hear the Word of the Gospel at all — no doubt many who are closer to home than you prefer to think about.  And that ought to bring a sobering sadness to the heart of every Christian.  Perhaps even worse, there are those who do hear the Word of God in some sense, but for whom the message of the Gospel is twisted and distorted by false doctrine.  In such cases, the Seed is contaminated to the point of being altogether lost.  That is surely one of the primary ways whereby Satan and his “birds” snatch the Word away from those who hear it.

In some cases, a church body or a preacher distorts the Gospel into a new kind of legalism, which effectively destroys the Word and steals it from the hearers.  In other cases, it is the Law of the Lord that is denied or downplayed, to the detriment of repentance, faith, and love.  Elsewhere, the Law and the Gospel are rightly preached unto repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins, but those who hear are scandalized by the straightforward simplicity of that Word of the Cross, which is so contrary to all the “wisdom” of this world.  It makes no sense, it does not sink in, and so it is rejected.  It sits on the surface of the road, until the hungry birds come to snatch it away forever.

In the second place, it is a sad irony of life in this fallen world that, whether things are going well or poorly, you are pulled away from the Word and promises of God.  As Jesus here says, the thorns that choke the growing Seed are both the anxieties of this age and the deceitful appeal of riches.

When the anxieties of your life are piled high — when everything is going wrong, and the weight of the world is heavy on your back — then you are tempted to conclude that God has abandoned you.  His Word of the Gospel seems powerless to help, whereas the challenges are so demanding — and so you are choked away from your only real hope, which is in Christ Jesus, your Savior.

In much the same way, when everything seems to be going right — when you are blessed with food and drink and all that you need to support this body and life — when your family and friends and your possessions appear to be safe and secure — then you are tempted to lose interest in God, as though you did not need Him.  You ignore Him and favor the false security of material things.  His Word seems so pointless, His Gospel so unnecessary, because you see no need for anything.  But in this way, also, you are choked away from real security, which is found only in Christ Jesus.

In the third place, it is easy to see how the world and your flesh cooperate to strip away the Seed of Christ from your heart and life.  By your inheritance from Adam, you are superficial, petty, and shallow.  Going to church, hearing the Gospel, living the Christian life — well, that’s all fine and good from time to time and for awhile.  Many Christians may be active and excited about God’s Word and faith at first.  But even the simple passage of time can wear you down.  You get bored and overconfident, imagining that you’ve heard it all before, that you already know it sufficiently, and that you’ll be just fine coasting forward without the preaching of God’s Word.  All of which goes to show how little you comprehend His Word, its character, content, power, and necessity.

And what happens when the heat begins?  When it falls on you to bear the Cross of Christ Jesus in a world that would eagerly put you to death?  When you are called upon to stand up for the truth of the Gospel in the face of mockery, ridicule, and persecution?  When you’ve already undersold the Word and oversold yourself, it is so tempting and so easy to throw in the towel and give up.  You get tired of the hassle, and it just doesn’t seem all that important or worthwhile.  So you shut your ears and harden your heart to the Word, and you refuse to let it put down roots within you.

What is it, then, that makes the difference from one type of soil to the next, in light of the fact that none of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are immune to the enemies of God’s Word?  The disciples were themselves attacked — and sometimes overcome — by these enemies.  Indeed, Christ Jesus Himself was assaulted by them, as you know from the story of His temptation.  But how did Christ Jesus defeat those temptations?  By relying on the Word of His God and Father.

Heed and follow His example, and resist the assaults and accusations of the devil, the world, and your own flesh, by availing yourself of God’s Word.  Give attention to the preaching of the Gospel, eat and drink the Word-made-Flesh-and-Blood, and so receive the forgiveness of all your sins.  Immerse your home and family in the Gospel of Christ Jesus by the catechesis and daily prayer of His Word.  Bind it to your forehead, nail it to your doors, and speak it to your children when you get up, as you go about your day, and as you go to bed.  That is how you hold on to the Seed.

The thing of it is, no matter what the soil may be like, there simply is no produce whatsoever apart from the Seed.  It is the Seed that grows and produces fruit after its own kind.  All the soil can do (of itself) is hinder or destroy what the Seed would otherwise do.  The advantage of the “good soil” is not in the soil itself, but rather in the fact that it hangs onto the Seed as it grows and matures.  The other types of soil, for all of those various reasons, allow the Seed to get away from them.  Likewise, your only hope for producing fruit is in clinging to the Word and Sacraments of Christ.

With all the many hardships lined up against the soil, those little Seeds of Christ seem so small and powerless.  And as you face the trials and tribulations of this life, the Ministry of the Gospel in the simple Means of Grace appears to be of little or no help in preserving your body, soul, and spirit.

To be sure, the Gospel includes no promise of an easy or trouble-free life in this world.  Quite the opposite is true.  The Lord Jesus promises a cross and suffering to those who follow after Him — the very sorts of things that harass the soil in this Parable.  It is therefore only by faith — and not by sight or sense — that you cling for dear life to the Seed in spite of its helpless appearance.

It is by faith alone that you know and understand this seemingly insignificant little Seed — the Word of the Gospel — to be the power of God unto salvation.  For it is quite true that the Gospel gives no guarantees of any easy answers for your life in this fallen world.  Likely as not, your life here will get worse, as the devil, the world, and your flesh rebel and rage against you.

Yet, that tiny Seed of the Gospel, buried underground (as though dead and gone), will accomplish the  good and gracious will of God for your salvation.  His Word will not return to Him empty or void, but it will accomplish all that He desires and achieve the purpose for which He speaks it.

Sprouting, and growing, and digging down roots deeper and deeper into your heart, mind, body, and soul — the mustard seed becomes a mighty tree!  The grain of wheat becomes a bushel.  And at the last, the Sower and Lord of the Harvest will gather His sheaves — and because of His Seed, He will gather you — into the harvest home of heaven.  God is faithful, and His Seed will do it.

In the meantime, Christ Jesus is already bearing and producing His own good fruits in you by His Word and Spirit through the Ministry of His Gospel.  For the Seed that He sows brings forth good fruits after His own kind.  Which is to say that He brings forth the fruits of the Gospel in your life.

Thus do you bear the fruit of forgiveness for your neighbors.  You bear the fruit of Christian love, not only for your family and friends, but also for your enemies.  You bear the fruit of sacrificial service on behalf of others, not expecting payment or praise, but out of gratitude for the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus.  In short, you live the Gospel in your life, as the Lord has lived and died for you.

Of course, you no doubt realize that you are daily falling short of such fruits of the Gospel.  Even so, the beauty of the Gospel is that Christ Jesus keeps on coming after you with His Word and the preaching of it.  He goes right on sowing His Seed with reckless abandon, planting His Word of forgiveness in your heart, and feeding you with the fruits of His Cross, His holy Body and precious Blood.  He tills your soil with His Law, then sows again your rows and furrows with His Gospel.

And like the soil of creation — cursed by God in the Garden of Eden, in the hope of liberation from the curse of sin and death — you also wait in eager expectation for the Resurrection of all flesh, for the final healing of your soil, and for the redemption of your body unto everlasting Life.

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

The Childishness of the Christian Faith

Most of you have probably been confronted, at some point, by those who question the practice of infant Baptism.  Young children, they argue, don’t know what’s going on; they have no way of understanding the Christian faith, and no means of making a personal commitment.  They reason that no one should be baptized until they’ve grown up enough to decide for themselves.

On the surface of it, by human standards and experience, that all sounds good and right.  It seems like basic common sense.  The trouble is that it does not fit or agree with the Word of the Lord, who actually reveals and teaches more-or-less the opposite of this worldly reasoning.

After all, what does Jesus say?  Does He say, “let the grown-ups come to Me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as them”?  No, He does not.  Does He say, “unless you grow up and become like an adult, you will never enter the Kingdom of God”?  No, He does not.  Instead, the Lord Jesus indicates on various occasions that little children are the very model and example for everyone else, and that anyone who does not receive His Kingdom like a little child will not enter it at all.

Along the very same lines, in this morning’s Holy Gospel, what does Jesus say?  He gives thanks that His Father has revealed Christ and His Gospel to infants, and not to the wise and intelligent.

Which means that you must become like an infant — like a helpless little child — if you are to enter the Kingdom of God.  But what does it mean to become like an “infant” before the Lord your God?  It clearly does not mean that only actual babies will know God, though it surely ought to silence anyone who would hinder and prevent the infants and young children from coming to the Lord Jesus.  But no, for you or anyone to be and to live as an “infant” in relation to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to live by faith in His gracious charity and providential care.

No matter how many infants you may have seen — and we’ve seen a lot here at Emmaus over this past year — it’s still a bit of a shock to witness the utter helplessness and tiny frailty of a newborn.  Even the largest of babies are completely unable to do anything for themselves.  Someone has to do absolutely everything for an infant — feeding, clothing, cleaning, holding, rocking, soothing — every day, 24/7.  Otherwise, the fact of the matter is brutally simple, the child will die.

And infants do have a sense of that.  Call it “instinct,” or better yet, the gracious design of God, the Creator.  But a newborn infant will automatically search for his or her mother’s milk.  And a newborn infant will quickly respond with recognition to the voices and presence of Mom and Dad.  A newborn infant rightly clings for dear life to the parents whom God the Lord has provided.

That is where you also stand in relation to the Lord your God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth.  That is the case for every man, woman, and child, whether they acknowledge Him or not.

It is the Lord who causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the evil and the good; just as He is the One who give daily bread to every person on earth.  So has He taught you to pray and give thanks for His gracious hand of preservation in all things — in every breath that you take.

He must do absolutely everything for you — feeding, clothing, holding, soothing — every day, 24/7.  Else you die.  Thus, by faith, you wait upon Him for all that you need to support this body and life, and with the Psalmist you confess: “The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their meat in due season; You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

It is likewise by faith that you look to the Lord your God — to the Father in His Son and by His Spirit — for the forgiveness of all your sins, for the salvation of both your body and your soul, and for eternal Life with God in Christ Jesus.  That is what it means to be an “infant” before Him.

Now, to be sure, being a “little child” can be a frightening (helpless) experience, especially as you are confronted by the big bad world with all its challenges.  It is only by faith in Christ Jesus that you are able to make it from one day to the next with confidence, knowing that your Father in heaven has you and all things in His hands.  That is the confident peace of an infant cradled in the powerful arms of a tender and loving Father.  For He is your Father, and you are His own child.

Unfortunately, your sinful human pride often rejects the peace of God, as you persist in trying to make it through life on your own, to “grow up” and assert your independence — independence from God and from everyone else, even though such self-centered isolation is not freedom at all but captivity to the idolatry of yourself and the selfishness of your sin.  You take a certain pride in going it alone, in doing it yourself, in standing your ground against all odds, in being your own man or woman.  Sink or swim, with Ol’ Blue Eyes you want to be able to sing: “I did it my way!”

Eventually, though, you do reach a point where you realize that you aren’t going to make it on your own, no matter how hard you might try; a point at which you are reduced to “infancy” in the face of something that you simply can’t handle or control.  Facing death, for example, may cause even proud adults to weep and cry like babies.  No amount of stubborn human pride can ward off death for long (or at all), and so you are driven (hopefully) to seek out the strong, comforting hand of your Father in heaven.  Without such trials in your life, you might never look to the Lord for the help you need.  You might never become the “infant” you must be, clinging to Him for dear life.

But when the Lord has reduced you to infancy in this way, using the trials and heartaches of this life to drive you back to Himself, He then reveals Himself to you in Christ Jesus, and He brings you into His Kingdom like a newborn baby.  That is the very essence of faith, a simple and childish trust in the Lord, like that of an infant in his or her parents.  Thus do you rely upon your God and Father in Christ Jesus, and you rely on Him for all that you need, for both this life and the next.

Remember the story of Jesus and Nicodemous in St. John’s Holy Gospel?  We heard it again this past week at Betty’s funeral.  Nicodemous was befuddled and confused by the Word of Jesus, but he was actually much closer to the truth than he realized, when he asked, no doubt rhetorically and sarcastically, “Can an old man enter again into his mother’s womb, in order to be born again?”  The answer, in one sense, is yes.  He must be born again.  He must become like a newborn child.

But the womb that he enters is not that of his earthly mother.  It is rather the womb of the Church, that is, the Font of Holy Baptism.  For just as the Church is described in the Holy Scriptures as the Bride of Christ Jesus, so is she also the Mother of all His Christians.  From the waters of the Font she gives birth to the children of God by His Word and Holy Spirit.  Thus, you do receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, because that is what you are — born from those holy waters.

Regrettably, there is a negative side to your “childishness,” a mischievous disobedience which is always seeking to crawl out from under the care and supervision of your dear Father in heaven.  Like a strong-willed toddler you push the boundaries to test and see what you can get away with; and like a restless teen you rebel from time to time, in search of “freedom” and “independence” from the Lord (which is not life but death).  You keep striving to feel as though you were really on your own, doing your own thing, making your own decisions, and standing your own ground.

When that is where you’re at — when you refuse to recognize or seek the gracious providence of God; when you do not look to Him and wait upon Him for all that is necessary to the life of your body and soul — then you are not an infant of the Lord, but one of those “wise and intelligent” adults who struggle and strive to make it on their own.  And the Gospel of God is hidden from you.

But then you are also among the “weak and heavy-laden,” the “weary and burdened,” whom Jesus invites to Himself in this Holy Gospel.  He refers to those who are worn out from their labors and burdened with a load of responsibilities.  I reckon you know that feeling.  Making a living in this world is often hard work, both mentally and physically exhausting.  Such work is commendable, unless it belongs to your efforts to get by on your own apart from God.  You’ll burn yourself out with those efforts eventually.  But already they are running you in the wrong direction spiritually.

Christ be praised that, when you wind up running away like that, futilely trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, He does not leave you go and write you off.  He is always going after you, setting out to save you from fatal disaster, and bringing you back to God the Father in repentance.  And for Jesus’ sake, your God and Father welcomes you home with forgiveness, inviting you to be and to live as His child, to receive and to rely upon His Fatherly care for you.

When you thus wait upon the hand of God in this way, then you can live your life and go about your work with joyful confidence, knowing that He is with you and that He is taking care of you.

So, too, your life is not burdensome when you understand that Christ Jesus has already given you Himself and all good things — forgiveness, life, and salvation — freely, with no strings attached.  His yoke is not another heavy load for you to bear, but a joyful privilege and a sharing in His life.  Though you bear the Cross as His disciple, it does not weigh you down but raises you up in Him.

Your Lord is not a harsh taskmaster but a gentle Savior.  He has not made you a child of His Father in order to enslave you and put you to work, as though He needed anything from you.  No, He has made you a child of God that you might live freely as a member of His own household and family.

The yoke of the Lord Jesus might feel heavy and burdensome at times — until you find yourself out from under it, facing life without your Father and without your blessed Savior — until you once more hit the “wall” and are driven to fall back into His arms.  Maybe it is sickness or death, maybe depression or grief, maybe a sense of failure or the accusations of your guilty conscience.  There are plenty of things that you can’t handle in this body and life on earth.  No one lives or survives a single day apart from the providence of God.  And, honestly, I don’t know how anyone copes with all of the challenges apart from the hope that is ours in the Gospel of Christ Jesus.  There are those who drag themselves through life without acknowledging the Lord, but the truth is, there is no purpose or meaning to life — there is no real life — except by faith in His Gospel.

Hence His Word to you this morning, emphasizing not only your helplessness and weakness, but especially His strength on your behalf, His gracious salvation, and His aid and comfort for you and all the children of God.  The Lord is both almighty and all-merciful, and He has openly declared His good and gracious will toward you by the Cross and Resurrection of the incarnate Son.  So it is that He governs the whole of His creation — He rules all things in heaven and on earth — for the blessing and benefit of His household and family, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

His almighty power would be quite threatening and scary, were it not for the gentleness and tender mercies of the Lord for His beloved children.  You see that especially in Christ Jesus, the obedient Son of the Father, who humbled Himself unto death as the Lamb led to the slaughter.  In fact, the Holy Triune God is not revealed or known rightly at all, except in Christ the Crucified.  But so does He continue to humble Himself among us, feeding the children of His Father with Himself — His precious Body and His Blood of the New Covenant — under the earthly means of simple bread and wine.  Here is where you know God as He is, a gentle Savior caring for His children.

Thus, as in the familiar and well-loved Parable of the Prodigal Son, you have here the evidence and every indication that your Father’s house remains wide open to you, and that His arms are always stretching out to gather you back to Himself.  Time and again, your Savior tenderly invites: “Come unto Me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest!”  And by His grace, He makes you a little child once more — an infant, cradled gently in His embrace, safe and sound forever.

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

He Who Dies by This Sword, Lives by This Sword

If there is a more difficult Word of Jesus than the one at hand in this morning’s Holy Gospel, I’m hard pressed to know what it would be.  It’s not that what He says is hard to understand, but it is devastatingly difficult to accept it and take it to heart.  A flash of steel, as it were, a cut and thrust, and just like that He has pierced your heart and separated the very marrow from your bones.  Yet, he who dies by this Sword, lives by this Sword.  And there is no other real life than that.

Perhaps you already have all the answers and know the score, as you suppose.  Be that as it may, this Word of Jesus still confronts you with a constant challenge, a daily crucifixion of your body and soul and your sinful life in this fallen world.  Quite apart from what you know, it is how you live and die that matters here.  Theoretical affirmations and the best of intentions won’t save you.

Who is your God?  That is the question.  Not the means that you enlist to achieve some other end, but the heart and soul, the center, and the goal of your whole life, what it is that you’re living for.

How do you measure and evaluate your life? — And if you think of yourself and your life as some kind of independent, self-existing entity, that is already the problem that puts you at odds with the Lord Jesus.  But what do you reckon as life?  A long and happy marriage?  Healthy and successful children, or your own good health and well being?  Property, savings, and investments?  Good times, good friends, and a good reputation?  A solid job with a significant title and description?

If you’re looking to find your life in any of these things, then you’ve already forfeited your life, whether you achieve your goals or not.  Then your heart is in the wrong place, longing for and clinging to the wrong gods.  And in countless big and little ways, your idolatry will show itself in the choices that you make between this and that, in the priorities you exercise from day to day.

If the decisive and definitive priorities of your “life” are anything other than Christ Jesus and His Word, then you are worshiping a false god; and if the Lord does not then cut you to the quick with His mighty Sword, you shall be left to die in your sins, in your false belief, despair, and shame.

But as this dear Lord Jesus Christ, the true and only God in flesh and blood like yours, in mercy calls you to repentance and puts you to death by His Word and Spirit, so does He bring you to life in and with Himself, both now and forever in body and soul.  You find your life in Him, already here and now by faith, and hereafter in eternity, in the Resurrection, by losing the life that you’ve been striving to find for yourself in the things of this earth.  “Finders, weepers. Losers, keepers!”

I know that sounds and seems all wrong, because all the ways that you think and feel are also being crucified and put to death, in order that you should be entirely recreated and made altogether new in both body and soul; that you should be granted the heart, mind, and spirit of Christ Jesus.

Until you learn to think rightly about God in Christ Jesus — which is more than knowledge in your head; it is faith in your heart; fear, love, and trust in Jesus above all else; and the discipline of your flesh by His Word — until you thus learn to think correctly about the Lord your God, you won’t be able to get anything else right, either.  It is not possible.  Then God’s good gifts will be idols or demons in your life, and you’ll bounce from one extreme to another until you perish forever.

The better the gifts, the more dangerous the temptation.  It’s not that the gifts are a problem; they are from the Lord, and they are truly good.  But so long as your heart and your head are all wrong, God’s good gifts will remain problematic for you.  At the very heart of your sin, you fear, love, and trust all the wrong gods — which are really no gods at all; they cannot give you life or save you.

It’s not only when you compromise Christ Jesus and your confession of His Name for the sake of your family and your place in the world.  It’s also when you attempt to “balance” Christ Jesus and His Word alongside your other priorities, as though He were merely one god within your pantheon.  There is to be no equal distribution of your affection, allegiance, and attentions.  You shall have no other gods before Him.  You shall have no other gods beside this one Lord, Jesus Christ.

Repent of your idolatry, and redefine your family values.  Whether married or unmarried, with or without children; widowed, orphaned, and distressed, or overwhelmed with too many people who depend on you — bow your head and bend your knee to no other name than that of Christ Jesus.  Whatever gifts He gives to you in this body and life, be they few or many, receive them in His Name, in faith and with thanksgiving, and use them under His authority, sanctified by His Word.

Practically speaking, you are neither to despise nor to depend upon your peeps and possessions.  You are simply to love your neighbors for Jesus’ sake; to exercise His good gifts to the glory of His Name, to the praise of His glorious grace; to watch and pray, as you wait upon the Lord and look to Him for Life; and to suffer all, even death, rather than deny, disregard, or disobey Him.

Die to the world, therefore, and to your own self-righteous pretense of life in this world, in order to be wed to Christ Jesus and to live in Him.  Is that not what the Lord your God has spoken?  That He should be your Bridegroom, your Husband and your Head, and that you should be a member of His Holy Bride?  So have you been named by His Name and adorned with His righteousness; that, forsaking all others, you should be joined to His Body — of one flesh and blood with Him.

Put yourself to death, and so live unto Christ, by taking up His Cross and following after Him.  That is repentance and faith — to be turned away from sinful unbelief to the mercies of the Lord in His Gospel of forgiveness.  It is to trust the promise of His Resurrection in the face of the grave.

It is to fear the wrath and displeasure of God, so that you flee from temptation and tremble at the very thought of breaking His Commandments; and so that you refuse to be swayed or persuaded by the disapproval, frowns, raised eyebrows, cold shoulders, or threats of peers and princes.  It is to love and worship the Lord Jesus Christ, to delight in His Word and the preaching of it, and to value His Gospel, His mercy and forgiveness, above and beyond all the praise and flattery of man.

This new Life, which is by faith in Christ Jesus alone, begins with and continues from your Holy Baptism in His Name.  But it is already the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name which brings you to such faith, and so also to the waters of His Baptism, that you should thereby die and rise with Him, and so live with Him in righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

This dying and rising of repentance and faith, which is both accomplished in and signified by the water and the Word of your Baptism, is the labor and delivery of your new birth into a new family.  Therein you are named by the true God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ, adopted by grace as a beloved son or daughter, as surely as Christ is the Head of His Body, the Church.  Henceforth, by His Word, your heart, mind, body, and soul are animated with His living and life-giving Spirit.

This family and fellowship of the Holy Triune God is your permanent vocation and identity, which already now and forevermore defines and determines your entire place and life in this world and the next.  It is not what you do that determines what you are, but who and what you are in Christ Jesus determines what you do.  Thus do you live and love and serve in His Name and for His sake.

There is a readiness and willingness in you to lose all things and to let go of everyone else on earth, lest you let go of Christ and lose Him.  It is not your human family, nor your friends, far less your property and possessions, for which you “risk it all” and dedicate yourself “at all costs.”  But if you are called upon to put yourself in harm’s way, to defend and protect, and to lay down your body and life in self-sacrificing love for your neighbor, this, too, is in the faith and love of Christ Jesus.  And by the same faith, you are ready, willing, and able to risk losing your place in the world and your neighbor’s friendship, for the sake of the friendship of Christ and your place in His family.

Do you see, then, how everything in your life, your day-to-day decisions and activities, and your long-term commitments and pursuits, are all now governed by this entirely new set of criteria and priorities?  Not the ties of human flesh and blood, nor the aspirations and affections of this body and life, but the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ, His Body and His Life, His Name, His Calling, and His affection for you and all the children of God — these guide and govern all that you do.

You live within a new household and family, which is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of the one God and Father of one Lord, Jesus Christ.  It is established here on earth, even here in this place, as it is in heaven, by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel of Christ.  He has told you where and how this gift is given and accomplished, and He has attached His Word and promise to this Ministry of His Gospel.  He says to the men who are sent in His Name and stead, “Whoever receives you, receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives Him who sent Me.”

Thus do you receive and welcome His prophets and His righteous saints in the Name of this Lord Jesus Christ.  And you care for His “little ones,” for His dear disciples of all ages and abilities, in all sorts of big and little ways, as you are so enabled by His grace — all for His Name’s sake.

In these servants of His, you receive Christ Jesus Himself and the gracious reward of His Gospel: Not a righteousness of the Law, but the righteousness of faith, which is busy and active in love.

It is not that you are worthy of yourself to love and serve the Lord Jesus.  But He is worthy of your faith and love, your reverence, and your trust — and He has called you to Himself by His Gospel.

In tender mercy and compassion, by His Word and Holy Spirit, He bestows on you His worthiness, His righteousness and holiness.  For His sake you shall live and by no means lose your reward.

Here and now, in the gracious hospitality of Christ Jesus your Savior, at His Table in His Father’s House, He presses into your hand and places upon your lips the pledge and promise of His grace, mercy, and peace toward you, and the surety of your place in the household and family of God.

If there is a more beautiful and comforting Word of Jesus than the Gospel that He speaks to you here at His Altar, I am hard pressed to know what it could be: “Take, and eat,” He says, “this is My Body, which is given for you.”  And again, He invites, “Drink of it, all of you,” as He pours out His Cup, the New Testament in His Blood, for you, His little one, “for the forgiveness of all your sins,” unto Life and Salvation with Him in both your body and your soul, forever and ever.

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

The Preacher Prepares You for the Coming of Christ Jesus

The coming of Christ, the Son of God, is at once the most wonderful and the most terrible thing.

He comes as the true Light in the midst of deep darkness, in order to lead you out of Egypt by His mighty outstretched arm, to save you from sin and death, and to bring you into the Promised Land.

But how shall you receive Him?

The sad fact is that you cannot; not by any wisdom, power, strength, or ability of your own.  Your sin, which cuts you off and separates you from God, likewise prevents you from receiving Him and His salvation in faith.  What is more, by your sins what you deserve from the Lord your God is condemnation, punishment, and death.  For you are sinful and unclean, unrighteous, and unholy.  Therefore, you cannot abide or survive in His presence, nor can you stand in His judgment.

And yet, for all of that, it is with tender mercy and divine compassion that He comes.  It is by and with grace that He takes every initiative in coming to you with life and light and love and peace.

So then, in order to prepare you for His coming, the Lord raises up, calls, and sends a messenger before His face.  He sends a preacher to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins.  And in sending such a man to preach His Word, He sends one who is like Himself.  For the Lord Jesus Christ is the very Word of God in human Flesh; He has become true Man for us men and our salvation.

Already ahead of the Lord’s own miraculous conception and birth, you see the grace, mercy, and peace of God in the way that St. John the Baptist is conceived and born and given his name.  It is not by the reason or strength of his old man and his barren old mother, but by the grace of God.

St. John’s entire life, from even before his conception, and even while yet in the womb, is bound up with the coming of Christ Jesus and proclaims that.  That’s especially true of his preaching and his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; but it’s all about Jesus, it all point to Him.

Indeed, it is only by such preaching of the Word that you are prepared for Christ Jesus.  It is only by such preaching that you or anyone else can receive Him and respond to Him in faith and love.

Praise God for His preachers, for His messengers who go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way — who are sent to prepare you for His coming.  You would be lost without them.

But there is still a problem.  You can no more receive or respond to the preaching of the Word than you could receive the Word-made-Flesh Himself.  Your sin still gets in the way and prevents you.  The Law of God — by whomever it is preached — still condemns you and puts you to death.

You cannot live without Him.  But left in your sin, you could not live with Him, either.  Damned if you, and damned if you don’t, so long as you remain in yourself, in your own heart and mind.

The solution and salvation are not from within you, but from without.  The preaching of the Word of Christ accomplishes His purposes and saves you from sin, death, and hell; not by any power, response, understanding, or effort of yours, but only because Christ Jesus submits Himself to that preaching and fulfills that Word of God in His own Body and Life in your stead, on your behalf.

So it is that the Lord Jesus will hear and heed and respond to the preaching of St. John the Baptist, in order to accomplish and establish the righteousness of God for you and for all people.

It is especially in this way that St. John prepares the Way of the Lord.  He preaches the Law to which Jesus submits Himself in order to redeem you and all those who were conceived and born under the Law.  St. John preaches the repentance which Jesus undergoes by His voluntary death upon the Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead — whereby He opens the way of repentance to you.  St. John preaches and administers the Baptism of repentance, to which the Lord Jesus submits Himself in faith and love, so that, by the Lord’s own death on your behalf, your Baptism is for you the forgiveness of all your sins and a participation in His Resurrection from the dead.

The Word of Christ Jesus that is preached and given to you is a living and active and powerful Word, because it is a Word that has already been fulfilled and established forever in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, the preaching of repentance not only puts you to death, but it also raises you to life in body and soul, in heart, mind, and spirit.  It causes the Light to shine upon you, where previously you walked in darkness.  It grants you the new birth of the Holy Spirit, and it bestows upon you the Name of God by His grace.  It gives you that perfect peace which far surpasses all human understanding and achievement, because it is the Word of Christ who has reconciled you to God.

That is how and why the preaching of repentance is the preaching of forgiveness in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And such preaching does and gives exactly what it proclaims!  Which is to say that it calls you and brings you to faith and to life through the forgiveness of all your sins.

It is by this preaching of the Word of Christ Jesus that you are prepared for His coming and made ready to receive Him in faith and love.  But what is more, it is precisely by the preaching of His Word that Christ Jesus comes to you in love and visits you with tender mercy and compassion.

He remembers you with this preaching — not just with thoughts in His head and feelings in His heart, but with His whole Body and Life, His Flesh and Blood, His Words and His Actions.  So it is that He raises you up from death to life, and He brings you into His House, in order to feed you at His Table and to unite you with Himself in the New Covenant of His Body given and His Blood poured out for you and for the many, for the free and full forgiveness of sins.

This is a most precious Feast — though it may sometimes taste like locusts and wild honey in your mouth.  It sustains you in the wilderness of this world unto life in the Promised Land forever.  So do you continue to live and grow and become strong, by grace through faith in this Word of Christ.

It is this peaching of the Word of Christ which has opened your ears and your heart to receive Him, and has released you from all your sins, which also now opens your lips to show forth His praise, and looses your tongue to confess His holy Name, that His great mercy may be displayed in you.

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.