Enter into the Joy of Your Lord by Faith in His Gospel

Whatever you have, whatever your talents, whatever your possessions and abilities, none of these are your own; they are the Lord’s good gifts, which He has entrusted to you as a stewardship.  And as the Scriptures testify, it is required of a steward that he or she be found faithful.

Whatever money you have, it is the Lord’s.  And whatever you are especially good at, those talents, too, are from the Lord — and for the Lord — just as you yourself are His own workmanship.  If you are smart, it is from the Lord.  If you are fast or strong, it is from the Lord.  If you are good at math or music or languages or art, any and all of those skills are a stewardship from your Lord.

Likewise, your callings and stations in life are the positions and responsibilities within which the Lord would have you serve His purposes in faith toward Him and in love toward your neighbors.  And whatever you may hold within your hands, that is not only God’s good gift, but it is His own “stuff,” just as you also are His.  Your whole body and life are a sacred stewardship from the Lord.

Be faithful, therefore, in the use of your talents.  In the fear and faith of God, use them according to His Word.  Use whatever you have to the glory of His Name.  Use it for the benefit of His Kingdom.

Don’t look around at your neighbor to see what he or she has been given to do.  Don’t be counting, comparing, and competing.  Do not harbor pride or envy in your heart.  Do not consider whether you or your neighbor has more or less, because it all remains the Lord’s in any case.  Do not be down in the mouth if you have less, and do not be arrogant if you have been entrusted with more.  Rather, use faithfully however much or little you may have, however many or few your talents.

When you covet what the Lord has entrusted to your neighbor — when you despise or resent your Lord for the ways that He has distributed and managed His own things — then you presume that His things are really yours (or should be), as though by right or merit.  But that is not the case.

Use what God has given you in faith and love — not selfishly, for your own profit.  Be responsible, and take care of yourself and your family, to be sure, but not as though your life and future were in your own hands.  Remember that all you are and all that you have is from the Lord and ever in His hands.  And so use what He has given you in the ways that He intends — in order to return thanks to the praise and glory of His Name, especially by serving and caring for your neighbors.

Don’t be afraid to use the talents God the Lord has entrusted to you.  Don’t be afraid to exercise your stewardship.  Do not be frozen by indecision, as though success or failure depended on you making all the exactly right choices and decisions, doing and saying all the right things.  But rather trust the Lord, and so be faithful in using His good gifts according to His good and gracious Will.

You know His Will from His Word.  He has not left you in the dark.  He has told you what to do.  He has given you guidance in using what He has placed into your hands.

He distributes His gifts according to each man’s ability — and of course, each man’s ability is also from the Lord your God.  So your stewardship is not too hard for you.  Have confidence in your Lord, who has created you and called you in Wisdom, and who continues to care for you in Love.

Do not hoard His gifts, but use them as He intends.  Do not misuse them, but do use them rightly.  Use His Name, which He has given to you in Holy Baptism, by calling upon Him in every trouble, by prayer, praise, and thanksgiving under every circumstance.  Do not despise the good gift of His Word and the preaching of it, but gladly hear and learn it.  Do not despise your parents and the other authorities whom the Lord has placed over you in love for your good, but honor them with obedience, love and serve them, pray for them, and submit to them for God’s sake.  Do not hurt your neighbor, but help him as you can, and provide for his needs of both body and soul.  Do not take your neighbor’s stuff, but help him to guard and keep whatever God has entrusted to him.

Do not covet or jealously desire the position and possessions that God has given to your neighbor according to His divine Wisdom and His good and gracious Will for the repentance and salvation of all people.  Rather, use wisely and well whatever God has entrusted to you.  Serve faithfully within your place, within your position in life.  It is for that that you will be judged and rewarded.

Just as a pastor is a steward of the Mysteries of God, and it is required of him to be found faithful in that stewardship, so is it also required that you be faithful in your stewardship, whatever it may be, whether it is big or small, and whether or not it involves lots of money or people or things.  “Be thou faithful unto death,” trusting and believing that the Lord will give to you the Crown of Life.

If you are a husband, use your gifts — use God’s gifts — to love and serve your wife, to protect her and provide for her, to care for her.  And if you are a wife, use the gifts that God has given you to love and serve your husband, to do what is good and right, and to care for your own family.

If you are a father or a mother, use the gifts of God to love and care for your children, to teach them what they need to know, not least of all the Word of God.  Bring them to church and teach them how to pray.  Teach them by your words and by your example.  That is your stewardship.

If you are a child, use the gifts that God has given you to love and serve your parents and siblings, your playmates and your peers.  If you are a student, use the gifts of God to study faithfully, to learn, to grow in knowledge and wisdom.  And if you are a teacher, use the gifts of God to teach.

Whatever your occupation, work to benefit your employer and to serve your customers and clients.

And whatever your calling and station in life, enter into the joy of your Master.  That is to enter into the joy of repentance and faith, of life and love, of righteousness and peace, justice and truth.

Do not use your talents for wickedness, certainly.  Do not squander God’s possessions on foolish things or wicked things.  But do not be lazy, either.  The lazy and wicked slave who is condemned in our Lord’s Parable is not a man who has squandered his Master’s money on fast living, but one who has simply not used it at all.  So, then, do not neglect the talents with which the Lord your God has blessed you, by failing to do what is good and right according to your abilities and the position in life that He has given you.  For it is to this that you are called.  It is a sacred trust.  Your entire life is lived before the Lord, to whom you are accountable for all that you do with His gifts.

What shall be the settling of accounts when your Lord returns from His long journey?  When the books are opened, what will the ledger show?  What will you have to say?

Where you have not used the talents that God has given you to glorify His Name and to serve your neighbor in love, Repent.  Turn away from evil and begin to do what is good and right.

Do not devise excuses for yourself.  Do not claim fear or ignorance, as though this would get you off the hook.  But invest yourself and your talents in bringing forth the praise and glory of God, in bearing fruits worthy of repentance, in bearing fruits worthy of your Lord and Master.

Indeed, let us consider what sort of Man the Lord is.  What is He like?  Is He a “hard man”?  Is He a harsh taskmaster?  Does He care only about what He can get from you, this One who has given you everything you are and have?  Is that what He is like?  Is He a “hard man” because He reaps where He has not sown and gathers where He has not planted?  Or is it not, rather, that He is gracious and merciful, that He is generous and kind in calling all men to Himself?  Why?  Because He needs something from them?  Not at all.  It is rather because He desires all men to be saved.

What sort of Man is He when He causes His Seed to be sown and His Word to be preached even to the ends of the earth?  In point of fact, He does not take anything away, but He freely gives everything to His own creatures.  If you listen carefully, He’s not at all the sort of master that third slave claims Him to be.  He takes the one talent back from him, but He doesn’t take it for Himself; He gives it to another servant.  He clings to nothing for Himself.  He is gracious.  He is generous.  He is kind.  He is not harsh but bounteous in bestowing His gifts upon His people.  Upon you.

This Rich Man has actually made Himself poor to the point of death, in order to make you rich with all the wealth and riches of His Kingdom.  He has liquidated everything, His whole Body and Life upon the Cross, in order that you should have divine, eternal Life with God forevermore.

That is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  The King has gotten a Sacrifice for Himself.  He has gotten a Lamb for Himself to offer.  The King has buried His singular, greatest Treasure, His own beloved Son, in the ground of the earth.  He has put Him in the dark.  He has buried Him.  That is the journey on which your Lord Jesus has embarked — by the way of the Cross, through death and the grave, through the valley of the shadow of death — in order to atone for your sins by His own holy and precious Blood, and to justify you in righteousness before His Father in His Resurrection.

He has borne your sin and shame.  He has borne your failure to use the talents He has given you.  He has borne your falsehood.  He has borne your arrogance and fear, your pride, and your despair.  He has borne it all, and He has suffered for it.  He has been cast out into the outer darkness of death and the grave.  You know that He has done it.  And He has done it all for you.

But He has not returned from His journey void or empty-handed.  He has not come back looking for you to help Him.  But in His own crucified and risen Body He has become the Firstfruits of an abundant harvest.  He does indeed reap where He has not sown, and He gathers where He has not planted, in this respect: He reaps life from out of death, from the curse of your sins.  He gathers victory from out of the grave — which was not His own, but He made it His, that it should not be yours forever.  He has compounded interest on His investment, far more than you could ever count.

And here is the currency of His Kingdom.  This is the coin of His realm, as I’ve often said.  Not gold or silver, not dollars and cents, but the free and full forgiveness of all your debts and all your trespasses.  Not the money in your bank account, but His own holy Body and His precious Blood, given and poured out into your mouth — into your body — for the forgiveness of all your sins.

That forgiveness is the foremost talent with which He blesses you.  That is the treasure that He places into your hands — the forgiveness of all your sins.  And with that forgiveness, He gives you Himself, His Life and Salvation, and all good things.  That is what He gives you here and now.

He has been faithful in much.  He has been faithful in everything, in order that He should freely bestow upon you all the treasures of His divine and heavenly Kingdom.

Therefore, as you are forgiven much — as you are forgiven everything — so also love much.  Trust the Lord your God, your Savior and King.  Love Him, and so also love your neighbor in the Name and for the sake of this dear Lord Jesus Christ.  As you are forgiven much, love much, and forgive those who trespass against you.  Multiply the talents of Christ by forgiving as you are forgiven.

That is the marvelous divine paradox of your Lord’s Kingdom.  His talents bear interest as they are given away.  His Gospel increases as it is spoken.  His forgiveness is multiplied as it is shared.

So, then, forgive as you are forgiven.  And by His forgiveness, enter into the Joy of your Master.

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

Glorifying Christ Jesus in the Lives of All His Saints

When the Reverend Wilhelm Löhe sent his first colony of Lutherans from Germany to settle in this country, having prepared them to establish the church and community of Frankenmuth (Michigan), he was hopeful that those faithful Lutherans would be able to evangelize the Native Americans: “You are my ‘epistle’ to the heathen,” he told them.  “For by your Christian way of life, and by your piety, the heathen will come to recognize how pleasant it is to have fellowship with Jesus.”

Pastor Löhe correctly understood that the Gospel is proclaimed — not only from the pulpit to the people of God already assembled around it — but also in the lives of His people out in the world.  For hearing and receiving the Gospel of Christ Jesus in the Liturgy, His dear people then also live that same Holy Gospel to the glory of His Holy Name in the midst of their neighbors on earth.

Throughout the history of the Church on earth, that is the most fundamental and important way in which Missions and Evangelism happen.  And so it was that a good number of American Indians were baptized as a direct result of the Frankenmuth colony.  But even apart from any such outward and observable “success,” the fact is that the Gospel of Christ Jesus is lived and confessed in the lives of His people.  And so do their bodies and lives continue to be His “epistle” to the world.

Thus are those 19th-century Lutherans of Frankenmuth part of the great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, along with Dr. Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and all the Lutheran Reformers of the 16th-century, and the faithful Christians of all times and places, including those we remember with thanksgiving at the Lord’s Altar here at Emmaus this morning, who with us are members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the Right Hand of the Throne of God.

So reads the Letter to the Hebrews, concluding its commemoration of the Old Testament Saints who lived and died by faith in the promise of Christ Jesus.  They are set before us as examples, that we might find in them — and in all the faithful departed — a living demonstration of the Christian faith; that you should be encouraged in the race you still run, looking with them unto Christ Jesus.

The Feast of All Saints and the commemoration of those who have gone before us in the faith are not only appropriate and salutary observances, but they are very much in keeping with the Word of God.  As the people of God, belonging to the Body and Bride of Christ our Lord — as members of His Holy Church — we do not forget our fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, who have fought the good fight and finished their race on earth; we remember and give thanks for them.

We do not worship the saints who have gone before, nor do we have any command or promise of God concerning any sort of prayer to or for the faithful departed.  We put no faith or trust in them, but fear, love, and trust in the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and find our hope in the one Lord, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer — just as all the saints have ever done.

But we do remember the faithful departed to the Glory of God in Christ Jesus, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, and in the ways that our Lutheran Confessions attest and affirm.  Though we do not pray to the Saints for their assistance, we look to their faithful example for encouragement in our Christian faith and life.  We give thanks and praise to God for His grace and mercy toward them, and for all that He has granted to His Church on earth by way of their words and actions in this body and life.  And we rejoice in the living fellowship we have with them in Christ Jesus.

In all these ways, it is a given that our focus is fixed on Christ Jesus, who alone is All in All.  The saints are rightly honored when we look on them as living “stained-glass windows,” through whom the Light of Christ now shines upon us.  For their steadfast faith and good works are not a product of their own reason or strength, but the presence of Christ and the work of His Holy Spirit in them.

That is precisely to the point of the Beatitudes (or Blessings) of this morning’s Holy Gospel, those beautiful Words of our Lord from His Sermon on the Mount.  For they are first of all a description of Christ Jesus.  He is the One who, though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that He might obtain for you the Kingdom of Heaven.  He is the One who is truly gentle, meek, and mild, who by His death redeemed the entire earth.  He is the Merciful One, who is Mercy itself; He is the Peacemaker, who has accomplished a true and lasting Peace between God and man.  He is the only-begotten Son of God, who was reviled and persecuted for the sake of righteousness, that He might earn for you a very great reward and freely bestow all the blessings of heaven upon you.

By the same token, the Beatitudes are also a description, not only of Christ Jesus, but of those who find their life and hope in Him.  He speaks in the plural throughout, thereby revealing that all of His blessings are given to His people, as well.  And so, for example, in the faithful departed we see that blessed reflection of Christ Jesus Himself, because He lives His divine and holy life in them and through them.  We follow and draw strength from their example, because it is His.

What is more, and most wondrous of all, as you are thus encouraged and strengthened in your faith and life in Christ, you also now find in the Beatitudes a description of the life that Christ Jesus lives in and through you.  For by grace through faith in Him, you also are a living reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ for others, that He might bless your neighbors through your example.  As Jesus clearly says, “Blessed are you when you suffer for My sake.”  For His Life has become yours.

For the time being, of course, the blessed life that you have in Christ Jesus includes His Cross and Suffering, just as it has for those who have gone before us in the faith and confession of His Name.  But you may greatly rejoice even in this, because it is a participation in the Cross of Christ Jesus.  And if you suffer and die with Him, you know that you shall also rise and live with Him, as well.

As you struggle though this life under the Cross on your pilgrimage to heaven, you do well to find comfort and strength in the witness and example of the faithful departed of all times and places.  Not only are their lives and good works a confession of the Christian faith, but their victory in Christ Jesus over death and the grave is a powerful witness, even as you struggle feebly on.

Not only that, but you already share in the heavenly fellowship of that great cloud of witnesses, especially as you are gathered together here at the Lord’s Altar for the Holy Communion.  For here in this place, week after week, year after year, the Lord Himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, tabernacles with you in the Flesh.  He is here to feed you with Himself, to join Himself to you and bind you to Himself — not only in some sort of abstract “spiritual” sense, but in the truly Spiritual fact of His own Body given for you and His Blood poured out for you.

Christ Jesus is here present with you and for you; and wherever Christ is, there is the greatest glory and blessing of heaven itself.  Indeed, in the words of one beautiful hymn, heaven itself would be void and bare if not for the presence of Christ Jesus.  But He is present here in the Sacrament of His Altar, granting you the forgiveness of all your sins, and so also His Life and Salvation in body and soul.  And because all those who have departed in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus are with Him forever, you can rejoice in their presence here with you, as well, closer than ever in Him.

As Pastor Löhe expressed it so beautifully: “To me it is such a joyous thought that I am not alone, that I do not travel by myself, but that I am accompanied on my pilgrimage through the valley of the shadow by a communion of believers.  Right in the midst of this life’s barren wilderness, this thought can dissolve all sorrow in forgetfulness.  Yet, this communion of saints is no mere thought but an unshakable certainty.  I know from the mouth of God that I am not alone.  I rejoice over this from the bottom of my heart.  Unfortunately, though, my joy is not unmixed with sorrow, for death takes away many whom I love.  Like candles, one after another in the bright circle of my friends goes out, the empty places turn dark, and seldom does another star fill the dark void.  This brings pain and longing.  But I do not forget that these brethren of whom I speak are just hidden from my sight and have been placed in higher positions in the Kingdom of God.  Those who live in the Lord and those who, while out of the body, abide in Him; those who are still pilgrims and those who are already home; those who walk by faith and those who walk by sight — these are not two separated flocks, but one: one before God, and one according to their own consciousness” in Christ Jesus.

It truly is meet, right, and salutary, therefore, that the Liturgy of Christ here on earth unites us with all the company of heaven, as we are also gathered around the Lamb upon His Throne.  Indeed, He feeds you here at His Altar with a gracious Foretaste of that same Wedding Feast which they eat and drink in His Kingdom without end.  Thus do we rightly sing with All Saints and Angels the majestic hymn that is chanted forever in heaven: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, who was and is and is to come.  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.  Blessed is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest!”

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

Concerning the Practice of Closed Communion as Pastoral Care

For those who have asked, and for anyone else who may be interested, here are some audio recordings from the recent Indiana District Pastors' Conference on Closed Communion:

Closed Communion as Pastoral Care on the Basis of the New Testament

Concluding Panel Discussion with President Brege and the Regional Vice Presidents

Sons of God the Father in Great David's Greater Son

What do you think about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?

You know and you confess from the Holy Scriptures that He is both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is the one true God, begotten of God the Father from all eternity, but He is also the true Man, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the house and lineage of David.

But now, then, let us also ask, Whose son are you?  Who is your father?

On the one hand, according to your flesh and blood, by nature, you are a child of Adam.  But on the other hand, as you are baptized into Christ Jesus, born again in the washing of the water with His Word and Spirit, you are a child of God by grace.  So, whose son are you?  Who is your father?

Fathers train and teach their children to embrace their values and to follow their way of life.  They train and teach their sons, in particular, to become men like themselves.  And sons, indeed, both resemble and emulate their fathers — whether biological or adopted — whether for good or ill.

So, too, as you have heard from the Lord this morning, you are to be holy, as the Lord your God and Father is holy.  You are to be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.  As He has redeemed you, taken you to be His own, named you with His Name, and made you His child and heir, you are to live according to His Word, to love Him above all, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

The Ten Commandments, summarized in the two great commandments of love — the first and second tables of the Law — describe the life that God desires for you, the life that He would have you live with Him forever.  To live that life is to fear, love, and trust in Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, above everything else.  And to live that life by faith in Him is to love your neighbor as the Lord loves you — to do no harm, but to serve and care for others in Christ Jesus.

Everything depends upon these two great commandments of God.  All the Law and the Prophets hinge on these Words of the Lord, which reveal His good and acceptable Will for life and love.

That Will of God is first of all a matter of the heart.  If the heart is not right, then nothing else will be right, nor can it be.  So it is first of all a matter of the heart, which is then also manifested in the flesh.  For as you believe and as you love in your heart, so do you speak and act and live by faith.

Where, then, do you see such perfect faith and holy love enfleshed?  Where are all the Law and all the Prophets fulfilled, completed, and perfected to the glory of our God and Father in heaven?  Where is the Man who is perfect and holy, as the Father is perfect and holy?

You do not see it or feel it or experience it in your own heart and life, nor in your flesh and blood.  In yourself, in your thoughts, words, and actions, you perceive nothing but sin and death, from which you can by no means set yourself free.  You do not live as God the Lord has commanded.

So, then, whose son are you?  Who is your father?  Is it the one true God or the devil himself?  What do your words and actions confess?  How do you live in relation to God and your neighbor?

But what about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?  He is, indeed, both David’s Son and David’s Lord, because He is both God and Man.  He is the Man after God’s own heart, because He has a heart of perfect faith and holy love.  And that holy and righteous heart of His beats for you within His own Body of human flesh and blood.  So does He also live and die for you and your salvation.

All of God’s commandments, from the greatest to the least, from the first to the last, the Lord Jesus Christ has kept perfectly.  Not only that, but He is the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, accomplishing all things in faith toward His God Father, and in love for God and for all people.

He has kept and fulfilled the first and second table of the Law in both His heart and in His flesh.  He has done so on your behalf, in your place, and for your benefit.  In His perfect faith and faithfulness, in love for you and for His Father, He has gone even to His death upon the Cross.

That is where you behold the open heart of God the Father.  For it is there on the Cross that God has put all His enemies beneath the feet of Christ, His Son.  Sin, death, the devil, and hell are all crushed beneath the heel of the Woman’s Seed, who is bruised and dies that you might live.

But you are not His enemy, and He does not crush and destroy you.  You are the object of His love, the object of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy, the recipient of His peace and perfect rest.  You are Christ’s brother in the flesh, His neighbor, and, by His grace, a son of the Father in Him.  That is what His Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection, and your Holy Baptism openly declare.

In His Resurrection from the dead, the Life and Holiness of God are forever established for you, and for all who are in Christ Jesus.  For whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, having died and risen with the same Lord Jesus Christ, who is enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

In His bodily Resurrection from the dead you see the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, the Love of God enfleshed, and the forgiveness of all your sins and the sins of the whole world.  You behold the death of death in His dying, and the Life everlasting of body and soul in His rising.

In the Resurrection, you see God the Father’s open declaration that here is the Son of His heart, the beloved and well-pleasing One.  What is more, this only-begotten Son of the Father has also become the first-begotten from the dead, and the first-born of many brethren.  For in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood like your own, you see the Father’s gracious adoption of sons.

This is your faith and life, now and forever.  Not merely in theory, not simply as an ideal, and not only as some future “pie-in-the sky-by-and-by,” but as a sure and certain reality, a bodily Truth in the Person of Christ the Crucified, who is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.

It is to the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, great David’s greater Son, that the Ten Commandments and all the Law and the Prophets point you.  He is the one true God you are given to love and trust.  He is the neighbor you are to love, who has first loved you with His whole Self.

Whose Son is He?  Whose son are you?  By the grace of God, the answer is the same.  His God and Father is your God and Father.  For He gives Himself and His life to you, to have and to hold by faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.  And He gives Himself and His life into your flesh with His own holy Body and precious Blood.  With that, you are given everything, and so shall you live.

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

Rendering the Image and Likeness of God to Our Father

You have been created by the Holy Triune God — you are made in His Image and Likeness — to live in His Way, by His Word, according to His Will, in Spirit and in Truth.  You have been given life in order to live in harmony and peace with Him, by His grace, through faith in His Word.  And you are called to be like Him in relation to His creation — to live in love toward your neighbors, and to grant life to others, within the particular place where the Lord your God has stationed you.

As you thus live by His creative Word, by His divine grace and in His holy love, you are confident and content with who you are and what you have; you are compassionate and charitable toward those who live around you; and, because you are well cared for, you likewise care for others.

By such faith and love — for that is what your confidence and charity as a Christian are — you render your whole body and life as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  You glorify His Holy Name — the very Name which He has given to you in your Baptism, inscribed upon your forehead and your heart, your body and soul, along with the Cross of Christ.

In offering such a sacrifice — not of propitiation for your sins, but a sacrifice of thanksgiving for God’s grace — you do not lose your life, but you find your entire life in the Lord your God.

As your life is in Him, so do you fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.  You listen to His Word, and you call upon His Name in peace and hope and joy.  You love your neighbor as yourself — cherishing your own spouse, and not coveting your neighbor’s wife or husband — not hurting your neighbor, not robbing him or bad-mouthing him, but helping and protecting him, speaking well of him, and serving him as you are able.  And you honor your parents and other authorities, all the way up to governors, kings, and Caesar himself.  You obey the laws of the land, you pay your taxes, and you pray for the powers that be, who are God’s ministers appointed for your good.

In this way, also — that is to say, in rendering to Caesar what God has given and assigned to Caesar — you render yourself, your body and life, to God the Lord, your Creator and Redeemer.  For all things are His, and it is by Him, and from Him, and for Him, and to Him, that you live.

There is no either-or between God and Caesar: You honor Caesar under God, until such a time when Caesar demands that you sin against God, and then you must obey God rather than Caesar at that point.  There is no dividing of your allegiance between God and man, but your obedience belongs entirely to God — also in submitting to those authorities whom He has placed over you.

Likewise, where He has given you authority over others, you are to use that authority in the fear, love, and trust of Him who is the Author of all things.  Therefore, children, obey your parents in the Lord.  And, parents, love and serve and care for your children, as the Lord so loves and serves and cares for you.  Feed and clothe and shelter them, sure, but, above all, teach them His Word.

Truth be told, all of this requires the crucifixion of the old Adam in you, who would rather have you live as a god unto yourself, not receiving all things and living by the grace of the one true God, but grasping and taking and striving and contesting for whatever you would call your own.

The Lord shows no partiality, but, speaking the truth in love, He puts to death all that sin and selfishness in your heart, mind, body, and soul.  He does so, not with any malice or hypocrisy, nor to trap and destroy you, but that you might know the Way of God, the way of life instead of death.

He brings you under His authority — instead of leaving you to your own self-governing autonomy — not to boss you around, but to bestow His Life upon you, and to glorify His Name in you.

You resent and rebel against this Word and Work and Authority of the Lord, the one true God, because you fear that you are being robbed.  It seems as though you are losing yourself, and your freedom, and everything that you consider yours and hold so dear and precious.  In the Cross you perceive only punishment and death, instead of forgiveness and life.  In repentance you feel only humility and grief, embarrassment and shame, instead of rescue, redemption, and righteousness.

It is not possible for you to see or understand the Cross and the authority of God, the Lord, until He has put you to death by that Cross and raised you to newness of life by the authority of Christ Jesus.  That is precisely what He has done for you in Holy Baptism; and that is what He continues to do for you, so faithfully and patiently throughout your life on earth, by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, and by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins in His Name.

He crucifies you, puts you to death, and buries you with Christ, in order to give you new birth and make you His own dear child.  He calls for your allegiance in all things, that you should live under Him in His Kingdom, and that He Himself and all that He has should be yours by His grace.

Thus, you have and you live your life before God as a little child.  And “becoming an adult” is not about getting an independent life for yourself, but it is properly an exercise of wisdom, reason, and strength for others — to love and serve and give life to your neighbor in the Name of the Lord.

You have been — and you are — brought into this Way of Life with God, in Spirit and Truth, by the Way of Christ, by His Incarnation, by His Body and Life, His Flesh and Blood, His Faith and Love, His Cross and Resurrection.  For He is the Image and Likeness of God: True God and true Man, united in His one Person; the Son of the Father from all eternity, now conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the Word of God made Flesh; the Bearer of the Spirit in His Body.

And as God the Father has glorified this incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, at His Baptism in the Jordan River, so has this same Son glorified His Father’s Name by His voluntary suffering — even unto death upon His Cross, whereon was written the Inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

He there submitted Himself to the authority of Caesar — and to Caesar’s governor, Pontius Pilate — in order to render Himself, in holy faith and holy love, unto His God and Father in heaven.

In this way, by His sacrifice on the Cross, the one true God is perfectly revealed in this true Man, and harmony and peace between God and man are perfectly realized.  Faith and love are perfectly united, and real life is accomplished and established, for you and all people, in the midst of death.

Indeed, as Christ Jesus your Savior rendered Himself to God for you, so did God the Father raise this same Jesus from the dead for your justification, and reconcile the world to Himself in Him.

Therefore, not only Pontius Pilate, but God the Father Almighty has named this Jesus of Nazareth to be the King, not only of the Jews, but of the heavens and the earth and all of Creation.

As the true Man of God, the Lord Jesus uses His authority to love and to serve, to care for you, and to give you life.  As He has already paid the poll-tax for you and all people with His own Body and Life, the “denarius” He grants to you, the coin of His realm, is forgiveness.  Such forgiveness you receive freely from Him, and with such forgiveness you love and serve each other in peace.

That’s an economic policy that you and everyone can live with!

Do not be amazed by this great Salvation of your Lord, and do not turn away and leave Him.  For this dear Lord Jesus Christ speaks the Truth to you in Love.  He shows no favoritism; He has given Himself for all people, and so has the whole world been redeemed and reconciled to God in Him.

He is your Life, your Light, and your Salvation.  In Him you are safe and sound in body and soul.  In Him you are rendered to God in peace; not for death, but for life, both now and forevermore.

It is in that confidence and certainty that He tells you to give Caesar his due, that is, to honor your father and mother and other authorities, to serve and obey them, to love and cherish them.

And it is in the same confidence and certainty of Christ and His Gospel that the Lord your God calls you to live by faith — which is really to entrust your whole body and life unto God, your own dear Father in Christ Jesus — to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.

So is it also by the sure compassion and certain charity of His own Cross — in the accomplished fact of His Resurrection from the dead — that He grants you this very faith and life, this love and trust in Him, by way of His free forgiveness of all your sins, and with His own Body and Blood.

Come here and see.  Consider whose likeness and inscription this bread and wine shall bear — not outwardly, but inwardly, hidden from your sight but not from your ears.  Listen to His Voice, as He has given me to speak in His Name, and so let me show you.  For the Son of God declares, and His Word makes it so:  “This is My Body, given for you.  This is My Blood, poured out for you.  Take, eat.  Drink of it, all of you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.”

These good Gifts Christ freely gives for you, because you are indeed God’s own dear child in Him.

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

Sharing the Marriage Feast of Christ Jesus by His Grace

On this Mountain — in the midst of this City, His new Jerusalem — the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth, has prepared a Wedding Banquet, a great Feast to the glory of His Son and for His Bride.  Not with the flesh and blood of bulls or goats, oxen or sheep, but by the sacrifice of the same beloved and only-begotten Son, who loved His Bride and gave Himself for her, even unto death.

By His death He has swallowed up death forever.  And in His bodily Resurrection from the dead He has been glorified, so that His beloved Bride should also be saved and glorified in Him.

This is the glory of the Bridegroom, indeed, that He lays down His Body and Life for His Wife, and that He also feeds and nourishes her and glorifies her with His own sacred Flesh and Blood.

Whereas earthly husbands often hesitate and fail to give themselves so completely to and for their wives, for fear of losing themselves and being lost, the Son of God has spent Himself entirely for His Church, and He gives Himself to her without fail — trusting His God and Father at all times, who raises Him from the dead, and glorifies Him, and gives life both to Him and to His Bride.

This “love story” — this divine and holy Matrimony — is the Holy Gospel.  And by this Gospel the Lord calls and invites people from all nations to be His disciples, to be united with Him and joined to His Bride, the Church — to join the wedding party — and so to eat His Feast.  For it is to His disciples that our Lord Jesus Christ gives His Body to eat and pours out His Blood to drink.

So has He called you by His Word and Holy Spirit to be His disciple — and thus to feast both with Him and on Him in this Supper.  He calls you by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, the Law and the Gospel, unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of your sins.  Just as He called you to Himself — and wed you to Himself — by the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism.  For your Baptism is the fount and source, the heart and center, of your daily and lifelong repentance and the forgiveness of your sins, whereby you are crucified with Christ Jesus, raised up with Him to newness of life each day, and clothed in Him and His beautiful Righteousness.

These are your wedding clothes, by which alone you are worthily attired to enter the Wedding Hall and to eat the Wedding Feast.  Not by any goodness of your own, but entirely by the grace of God.

You are a guest of the King.  Do not despise or reject His hospitality.  Rather, just as the Father of the Bride adorns His daughter to be given to her Groom, and just as the Husband adorns His Wife with His own honor and glory, so are you attired and adorned by the Father and the Son.  You do not adorn yourself, but as you are dressed by and with Christ Jesus in your Holy Baptism, so are you truly worthy and well-prepared to eat and drink His Supper, His Body and His Blood, by His Word of forgiveness and by His gracious gift of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.

To wear these wedding clothes — which you have received in Holy Baptism — is to live by this grace of God through faith in His Gospel, instead of relying on yourself and your own resources.

It is to pray in faith and confidence, to trust your own dear God and Father in Christ Jesus, and to receive from His hand whatever He provides, be it much or little — living under the Cross in the hope of the Resurrection — and thus to be content and satisfied in any and all circumstances.

To wear the wedding clothes provided for the Feast is then also to do good works of love within your vocation — to glorify the Bridegroom and the King through your behavior — and to serve His other guests, your neighbors, with your words and actions — as a kind of outward vesture.

Compare it to the way a woman honors her husband and glorifies his name — which he has given her and shares with her — by receiving and using whatever he provides to care for their home and family and to share hospitality with others.  For a woman who knows herself to be loved by her husband, is able to love her family, friends, and neighbors generously and well.  And a woman who is fed and clothed and sheltered by her husband, is likewise able to feed and clothe and shelter her own children and many others, also.  A woman who is thus adorned by her husband, need not adorn herself, but she is eager and able to adorn others with mercy and kindness and tender care.

So do you also honor and glorify your Royal Bridegroom with reverent humility, and with artistic beauty, with gracious conduct, gentle words, and godly piety.  As your God-given abilities permit, according to His all-sufficient providence, you praise and give thanks to Him, you confess His faithfulness and magnify His loving-kindness, and you declare yourself to be His very own.

None of this as though to clothe yourself; nor to justify yourself; nor to make a name for yourself; nor to make yourself worthy.  You live in the strength of Christ, your Savior, in the abundant love of your heavenly Bridegroom — in the peace of His Gospel of forgiveness — in the confidence that death has been defeated by His death, and that heaven is open to you in His Resurrection from the dead — in the sure and certain hope that you have Life freely and forever within His Body.

Those who live by faith in this Gospel are fully covered by the perfect Righteousness of Christ.  From head to toe they are beautiful with His royal beauty and glorious with His divine glory.

By striking contrast, as you have heard from His striking Parable this morning, those who reject His Wedding Banquet will be condemned; their homes and their cities, their businesses, their fields and cattle, all of it will be utterly destroyed, and they will be left with nothing but punishment.

And in a similar fashion, those who attempt to enter and to eat the Feast by their own merits and worthiness — that is to say, those who refuse to wear the wedding clothes provided by the royal Host, but presume to wear their own attire, whether it be a tux or a t-shirt and jeans — they will be cast out of the Kingdom forever into the darkness of eternal death and neverending despair.

These are sobering words and a serious warning against all unbelief, false belief, and self-idolatry.

Fear God, therefore.  But do not be afraid.  Rather, fear, love, and trust in Him as your Lord.

Where you have despised and rejected His Gospel, Repent.  Return to the significance of your Holy Baptism, and to the life of discipleship, and so receive the Word and Sacrament of Christ Jesus by way of His mercy and His promise.  Or, if you are not already baptized into Christ, submit to the catechesis of His Word, become His disciple by repentance and faith and by the New Birth of water and His Word, and so follow Him into His Feast by way of His Cross and Resurrection.

In either case, wherever you have relied upon your own righteousness, Repent.  Humble yourself before the Lord your God, in order to be stripped of your old wardrobe, and to be clothed instead with Christ and His Righteousness — by His grace through faith in His Gospel.  Hear and heed His gracious Word of Life, and rest yourself in His free and full forgiveness of all your sins.

Rest assured that you are not here by mistake.  The Lord your God, the King of heaven and earth and all that is in them, has called you by the Gospel of His Son, the Royal Bridegroom.  Indeed, He has called you and invited you, not only to join the party, but to be a member of the Bride.

He has removed the shadow and stink of death from your body and life by the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, by the shedding of His Blood for you, and by His glorious Resurrection from the dead.

He has cleansed and refreshed your body and soul, your flesh and blood, your heart, mind, and spirit, with the washing of the water with His Word and Holy Spirit in your Baptism.

And as you are His own dear child by virtue of that Sacrament of Holy Baptism, your dear God and Father in heaven pours out His Holy Spirit generously upon you through the Gospel, and thereby adorns you with all the Glory of Christ Himself, as a royal Bride made beautiful for her Husband.

Indeed, the Lord Himself who is your Bridegroom has forgiven all your sins — as He daily and richly forgives you still.  As often as you fall, He raises you back up.  He beholds no flaw or fault or failing in you, but He rejoices over you in His love, and He delights in you with all His heart.

Now in this Feast of His Life and Salvation, which He has prepared and made ready for you here — in this Wedding Hall and on this Mountain, which is His Church on earth as it is in heaven — He gives Himself to you most intimately.  He feeds you with His own Body of Flesh and Blood.  He nourishes and cares for you.  He provides for you, as a Husband for His Wife.  And He guards  and keeps your body and soul in Himself, in His Word and faith.  He gives you all good things here in His Supper, here within His own Royal House, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

Behold, this is your God, your Savior and your Lord, your Husband and your Head — who with the Father and His Life-giving Holy Spirit is one God forever.  And you are His dearly beloved.  Let us rejoice in Him, and rejoice in His Salvation, today, tomorrow, and always.

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

The Life of the Vineyard in Christ Jesus

This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.  In love He has planted a Vineyard, and in love He does everything for it.  He has planted and nourished His Church on earth, providing all that is needed and tending her with loving care.  He has established the strong tower of His Word in her midst; He waters her from His Font; and He sustains her in the true Vine, Jesus Christ.

What is more, in Holy Baptism the Lord has also planted you within His Vineyard; He has grafted you as a branch into that living and Life-giving true Vine.  He has made you a member of His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.  And in the beloved Son He freely gives you all good things.

You are part of His Vineyard.  That is what it means for you to be a Christian, to be a disciple of Christ Jesus.  And as we have been hearing from Him in recent weeks, you also have been given responsibility for some portion of the Vineyard, to care for it and keep it by and with His Word.

Within your own place in life, according to your God-given calling and station, wherever the Lord your God has planted you, there you are to bring forth good grapes to the glory of His Holy Name.

The chief priests and the pharisees understood that Jesus was telling this Parable concerning them.  Understand that He has spoken this Parable and caused it to be written by His holy Apostle and Evangelist, in order to admonish and catechize you, also, and call you to repentance, faith, and life.

The Vinegrowers are the farmers to whom He has entrusted the stewardship of His Vineyard.  They are especially those who are to serve as the pastors and teachers of His Church, who are called and ordained to tend and keep it by the preaching and teaching of His Holy Word and the faithful administration of His Holy Sacraments.  So, there are such offices and stations in the Church.

But you also have your own analogous responsibilities in your own place.  Parents, for example, you are responsible for tending and keeping your children with the Word of God, both by bringing them to church (for Baptism and catechesis, for preaching and the Sacrament) and by praying and confessing the Word with them at home.  If you are a father or mother, caring for your children in this way is fundamental to your stewardship of the Lord’s Vineyard.

Similarly, wherever God has put you, whether you are married or not, whether you have children or not, whether you are working or retired, a student or a child at home, you have a responsibility to care for whatever portion of His Vineyard the Lord has entrusted to your stewardship.

Bear in mind at all times and in all places that it is ever and always His Vineyard.  Even your own body and life are not your own.  You are God’s creature.  You are His disciple.  You are His child.  So, then, listen to what He says to you.  That is always the first and foremost thing.  Listen to what He says to you.  Hear and heed His Word.  Believe what He promises and do what He commands.

He has not left you clueless as to what you should be doing.  Nor has He left you to determine for yourself what the good grapes of His Vineyard shall be.  He is the One who gives the growth, and He does so by His Word.  So does He guide and direct you by His holy and righteous Law, and by His Ten Commandments, in particular, as the Catechism has taught you to consider carefully.

The Lord has told you, first of all, to hold Him in your heart above all other gods, to fear, love, and trust in Him alone, no matter what comes your way.  To pray, praise, and give thanks to Him at all times and in all places, and to call upon His Name in every circumstance.  To rely on Him, look to Him, and expect good things from Him.  But how shall you ever do any of this, except by the preaching of His Word?  You are to hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.  And all of this the Lord commands, not for His benefit, but for yours, that you should have life in and with Him.

He does also command you concerning your neighbors in the world, that you should bear good fruits to the glory of His Holy Name by loving and serving and caring for those people whom the Lord your God has set alongside of you and all around you in this body and life.  You need not save the world, nor could you, but the Lord Himself does that.  Rather, love and serve those right next to you and under your care, by the ways and means the Lord has provided for this purpose.

Love your neighbor.  The whole Law is summed up in that one word.  For love does no harm to the neighbor, but helps and supports, protects, and provides for the neighbor where and when and as it is able.  So, do that.  Do what is good and right.  Live as the Lord Jesus Christ has lived and still lives for you.  Love your neighbor, look to his well-being, and forgive his sins against you.  Use your words, your resources, and your abilities to care for your neighbor and defend him.

It is through His Law that God directs you to bear good fruits within His Vineyard.  Do not do violence to His Law by disobeying it, or by refusing to listen to it.  Do not do violence to His Law by keeping it outwardly, with a grudging heart, only to avoid punishment or to earn some reward.  It is not for such a purpose that God has spoken His Law.  He would have your heart, your body and soul, and your love.  And He would have you love and serve your neighbor gladly.

Incredibly, marvelously, the Lord has done more than speak His Law to you.  He does more than guide and direct you in the way that you should go with His commands and prohibitions.  And not only is He patient and persistent with you, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for you.  He also speaks to you by His own dear Son in the Flesh, not to condemn you, but to save you.

The Lord Jesus comes, the incarnate Son of God, not only to affirm but to fulfill the Law of God and all His promises.  He comes to accomplish and establish — once-and-for-all, in His own Body of Flesh and Blood, in holy faith and perfect love — all that His God and Father has commanded.

Christ Jesus comes to manifest the Kingdom of His God and Father on earth as it is in heaven, to enliven the Vineyard in Himself.  And all that He has done and accomplished by His own Life and Ministry, by His own Cross and Resurrection, He now obtains and accomplishes in you by His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins — unto righteousness and life in His Name.

It is by and with His forgiveness of your sins that He obtains the fruits of righteousness in your body and life.  He does not come to lay a whip across your back.  He does not come to throw you out of His Vineyard and destroy you.  He comes in love, that He might bring forth fruits in you by His work, by His Word.  And, behold, He makes all things new.  In Him everything is possible.

Honor Him, serve and obey Him, love and cherish Him.  Respect Christ Jesus with the reverence that is due the very Son of God, the Lord of the Vineyard.  Do not do violence to Him by refusing to hear and heed His Word.  Do not harden your heart to His preaching and teaching, but open your ears to listen, and take to heart what He says and does and gives.  Do not do violence to the Son of God by taking His gifts of the Gospel for granted and all the while continuing in your sins.

Do not take His gifts for granted, but, rejoicing in those gifts, live as Christ Jesus lives in faith and love.  Do not do violence to Him by presuming upon Him, as though He were yours to seize and take for yourself — as though He were your servant and your slave to command and order about.

What madness it is to suppose that by seizing the Son of God and bending Him to your will you would somehow inherit the Kingdom of God.  What madness it is to covet what God has not given, as though He were holding out on you.  What madness to lay hands upon the Son of God, not in faith, but in greedy selfishness, in hostility and violence, in order to hurt and to kill Him — to throw Him out of His own Vineyard, even though it depends on Him for everything.

When the Lord God Almighty comes to His Vineyard, what do you suppose He should do to such spiteful and wretched creatures?  For do not imagine that He is powerless to intervene and to act.

It is utter madness.  Your sin is madness.  What you think is true is false.  What you think is wise is foolish.  What you call good is bad.  And yet, for all that, there is a greater “madness” at work: That God the Father should send His Son and hand Him over to the violence of sinful man, and that God the Son should take it on Himself, that He should voluntarily lay down His life in death on the Cross — that is the holy “madness” of God, the divine foolishness that is wiser than man.

It appears as though everything were lost, as though everything were coming to a tragic end.  As though the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts were a disaster.  As though the Owner of the Vineyard has lost, not only His mind, but His honor and His reputation, His Vineyard, and His only Son.

But nothing is as it appears.  The very Stone rejected has become the Head of the corner.  The One who is slain, He is the One who is worthy to fulfill the Scriptures and to achieve the purposes of God.  He is not defeated by His death.  By it He has accomplished the very thing He came to do.

It is by His Cross that His Church is established and upheld.  He is the choice and fruitful Vine whom the Lord has planted — the “Bright Red Grape,” as the Prophet Isaiah puts it in the Hebrew.  He’s planted in the ground by His death, so that in His Resurrection the Vineyard should live and bear abundant fruit.  He has not come simply to instruct or admonish.  He has not come to punish, but to suffer punishment in your stead.  And in allowing Himself to be killed, He has done it all.

So it is that, in His Resurrection from the dead, the Vineyard is enlivened and abundantly fruitful.  And it shall certainly not be taken from Him.  But He gives it freely to disciples of all nations, to as many as He calls to Himself, who bear the good fruits of His Cross in their own lives by faith.

Christ the Crucified is the Cornerstone of His Church.  And His Cross is the life of the Vineyard.  So, if you would live, it is only by the Cross.  And you will not escape the Cross in any case.  By it you will be broken, says the Lord.  Indeed, you must be broken.  Your will, your pride, the lust in your heart, your sinful intentions, all of it must be broken.  You must be broken.  But what then?

Shall you be scattered like the dust — or gathered unto God in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus?

Take heart, dear child of God, disciple of Christ Jesus.  It is not you but the devil who is crushed beneath the heal of the Crucified One.  He has not come to get vengeance against you.  Remember that He has come in love to take you as His very own.  He has broken you in order to bind you up and to heal you within His own wounds, to give you His own Life in both your body and your soul.  You are united with Him in His Cross and suffering, that you should also share in the power of His Resurrection — that you should live in Him.  The Cross is not your defeat any more than it was His.  The Cross is your Life and your Salvation in His crucified and risen Body of flesh and blood.

By your Baptism into His Cross and Resurrection you have been grafted into this one true Vine.  Live and abide in Him by continuing to hear and receive His good gifts in the Divine Liturgy of His Gospel, in the Ministry of His Word and Sacraments.  Thus does He live and abide in you.

And it is by His Fruits that He bears good fruits in you after His own kind.  Fruits of repentance in the shape of His Cross and Resurrection.  Fruits of repentance in the shape of Holy Baptism, the dying and rising of the Font.  Fruits of faith and love — faith toward God and fervent love toward one another.  Fruits of righteousness and justice.  Fruits of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

Only hear and heed His Word to you.  Instead of striving to seize what has not been given to you, open your hands and receive the abundant good gifts of His grace.  He’s not holding out on you.  Indeed, He has a cornucopia of gifts, which He lavishly pours out into your ears, your hands, and your mouth.  He has more to give than you can receive — but even in the receiving He helps you.

There is nothing lacking in Christ Jesus.  Everything else is rubbish, and all of it comes to an end.  But there is nothing lacking in Him.  And you lack nothing if you are His, as He is yours forever.

Eat the good Fruits of this true and holy Vine.  The Vineyard Owner gives it to you freely.  Drink the Blood of this Bright Red Grape.  As He pours Himself out for you — as He pours Himself out into you — so does He also bear and bring forth good fruits in you at the proper times and seasons.

This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

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