sermonguy

Ascension (obs) Acts 1.1-11

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:41:55 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

This is your word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by your truth. Your word is truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: These events are written by St. Luke, who interviewed many of the eyewitnesses. This account which begins the book of Acts is echoed by Luke as he ends his Gospel with the same story. We have also just heard the account of St. Mark in today’s Gospel reading. The author of the letter to the Hebrews also confirms that Jesus has “passed through the heavens”. This is no fiction, but an event to which many were eyewitnesses. Jesus, who had risen from the dead, who had proved that He is no ghost or figment, being seen over forty days, eating, cooking, praying, and physically interacting with the Twelve, and with many others, now ascends, rising from the earth, through the sky, to take His seat at the Right Hand of the Father.

Jesus’ body was raised to life on the third day, and Jesus’ body, the same one born of the blessed Virgin, the One whose lips spoke the Beatitudes and the Parables, the hands which took bread and the cup on the night He was betrayed, the whole man now ascends, completely, physically, totally; and they watched Jesus do so intently, those eyewitnesses, till after clouds hid Him from their sight. Jesus ascension is not a mystic thing, but a physical reality subject to the forensic testimony of many witnesses.

So what does this mean? It means that there was nothing that had to be left. The full human nature as well as the full divine nature, which two natures are the person Jesus were taken up. And Jesus was taken up to be seated at the Right Hand of the Father. He is fully acceptable and holy to God. The humanity of Jesus was not abandoned to the grave, and is now received upon the throne of the Most High. The nature of man is received and now dwells fully in Christ in the presence of the Godhead.

And not just any man’s nature, but the human nature of Jesus is acceptable in the sight of God. This is the One on whom the sin of the whole world once was laid. Jesus took on every sin, every offense, every pollution of every sinner from the Garden of Eden to the Last Day. Jesus was presented, the acceptable sacrifice for your every sin, and the sin of the entire human race, upon the cross to suffer and die. And to be buried. It is THIS flesh, which had soaked up all your wrong, and the sin of every sinner, every Hitler, Manson, bin Laden, and Stalin, of Nero, Caligula, and of every last bit of every secret, terrifying shame you bear within you, all of it without exception was taken into that flesh, that man, Jesus. And THAT ONE, God receives at His Right Hand.

Jesus’ death most certainly and most perfectly and without any exception whatsoever has fully paid the penalty of sin and eternal death for every sinner whatsoever, it was all on Jesus. And His suffering and death has accomplished a perfect justification for any sinner whatsoever now to stand also in the sight of God. The penalty is paid, the stain is nevermore, the sin is absolved, removed, undone perfectly, for the Man who took it all on Himself is Himself acceptable before the Father.

You are baptized into Christ. The One who ascended and now sits at that Right Hand is for you, and you are in Him. You therefore on the last day, and even here and now are brought before the holy altar of God Most High and with all boldness stand and face Him. You are just. You are innocent. There is no sin now whatsoever in you that He regards, sees, or censures, for you are in Christ Jesus. And if Jesus, who once has become your sin, is received at the Right Hand, then you are received also. And as you see the signs of the coming of the Lord our God, you may stand up, and lift up your head, and with boldness declare that any sin of yours is upon Jesus, and Jesus has so redeemed you from it that He Himself is acceptable, holy, and taken above all the world, and all of heaven too, high above the angels, archangels, and all the holy company of heaven, and has all authority over all that is, and if He who took your sin is holy, then you are holy in Him.

You are the child of the Living God in Jesus’ death for you. You have been born from above by water and the Word according to Jesus’ promise. Jesus’ human nature is at the Right Hand, and you too shall be raised to live in Him forevermore. Your sin is no more, for Jesus took it, paid for it, and has forever undone it. You are absolved, and now you stand forever before the Father in Christ as His dearly loved child and heir of paradise.

You have only ever had your own sin upon you, but Jesus has had all sin on Him. His redemption of it is perfect, and your own flesh, everything about you, your full human nature with His is presented acceptable and Holy to the Father. The curse of sin is no more. God, who for our sakes became man, has now purified mankind, and has taken His own humanity into the Holy Place, the very throne of heaven. Fully God, and fully man, Jesus stands for you, and you are acceptable forever in Him.

You shall see your Redeemer, your Creator, the forever God, and in your own flesh, and with your own eyes, you shall stand before Him and look upon Him, and His countenance, His face shall behold you fully. He has in His ascension prepared a place for you in His Father’s house, for you are in Jesus. With confidence and joy in this, live, and serve, and share this great good news with one another through love, and with those who yet would hear and be saved, let your kindness and gentleness be known to all men. There is no human being whose sin is not paid fully in Christ, there is none whom He would not now graciously receive. Love Jesus therefore, and love one another, and love your neighbor, the stranger whom you meet on the way, with the life-giving love so abundantly given and displayed for you in the death, resurrection, and ascension of God and man Jesus.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Easter 6 – St. John 16:23-30

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:40:44 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Grace to you and Peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

“In that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

This is your Word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by your truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: As He prepares His disciples for His death and resurrection, Jesus instructs them to begin doing something they’d never done before. He instructs them to ask whatever they’d ask of God in Jesus’ name. Remember, ‘pray’ is just an old fashioned word for ‘ask.’ So to put it in more religious sounding words, when you pray, pray in Jesus’ name.

Before this moment, all who would in faith ask anything, make any prayer, petition, or request of God, would do so only in an unnamed way. Even the Name given in the Old Testament, ‘Yahweh’ only means ‘He who Is.” It was oblique. Prayers until this moment were asked if you will, by addressing a title; ‘Lord,’ ‘Master,’ ‘God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ and the like. For there remained between God and mankind a terrible separation. The Creator and His created were not in direct communion one with another, for God is perfect, and through sin, we are not perfect. Perfection cannot tolerate the presence of the imperfect. To break anew into your life with His perfection would undo you entirely.

Sin is likened to deep darkness; holiness to light. Our heavenly Father dwells in the midst of unapproachable, uncreated light. You, in your sin are a creature of deep darkness. What would happen should He who is Light come near you who are darkness? The Light would drive out and undo you entirely. So when Moses was afforded the slightest glimpse of the passing backside of the Creator, his face had to be swathed in layers of cloth when he came down to the encampment of the tribes of Israel, for nobody could bear even that lingering, slight reflection of a fleeting glimpse. And that man of God’s hair was turned white from that moment on.

So in our darkness, insofar as we could speak to Him at all, it was only by title, and not directly approaching His Person. And we could only pray through the innocent blood of the sacrifices offered, and not on our own. Only filtered through the blood, the life of the innocent lamb could we approach at all.

Now God has done a New Thing. He has entered our sorrow, with no sin of His own, the Perfect One takes into Himself your sin. Having humbled Himself, and being born one of us, the uncreated Light of the Perfect God is veiled that we might behold Him through the innocent body and blood of the man He Is, our Lord Jesus. The Word of God by whom all things were made– and there is nothing in existence in all Creation that has not been made by this Word– which Word surely would undo us as surely as the sight of His Light, now The Word becomes incarnate, and speaks with the lungs and throat and tongue and mouth of our fellow man, Jesus.

Even so, the Holy One has throughout His incarnation to this point remained veiled in His Body and Blood, though His Body and Blood is fully Him, that we should not be undone. Teaching veiled in parable, and warning those eager to see the Day that His time had not yet come, Jesus spent years among us, gathering the Twelve, making all things ready for the reconciliation of creation to Creator. For as in Christ is united already man and God, so now in Him and through Him Jesus would make the sacrifice of the infinite Innocent on behalf of all sinners, that through His own blood mankind should at last be brought near and be received at last in the intimate presence of the God who loves you, and whom you now may name. So now, through the perfect sacrifice on your behalf of the God who loves you and for your sake has taken on your nature to reconcile you to Him, that the veil might at last and forevermore be torn down and removed, you may ask God by His own Name every request and petition and prayer. His Name, the only Name by which He may perfectly be approached, the only Name He gives you is ‘Jesus.’

The titles of His divinity of course remain, but now you are brought near, a child held close by the Father who loves you. For in Jesus you now also are named to your God. He sees you only through the reconciliation of the perfect Life given to take away the sin which formerly kept you far away. Jesus identifies God to you, and you to God, for He is very God, and true man, bringing us into His oneness and peace.

Whatever you would ask, ask in Jesus’ Name, in His person, through His blood, for His sake, and by His will, His good and perfect will. Stand upon this earth, ruined as you are in your sin and shame, and boldly defy that fallen nature and the death which attends you, praying as Jesus now bids you pray, and as He has taught you, in His Name you pray ‘Our Father.’ And with a mighty blow heaven-sent His Grace empowers you to defy sin, death, and the devil too, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ For in Jesus’ name, by His personal identity you are known, and you are loved, and His will is done in you too, in spite of your sin, against all temptation, and to your great and never-ending joy.

The Creator who could not be known has made Himself known to you, dear one, for He loves you. The Name which could not be spoken is put upon your lips, and it purifies you of your sin and death and shame, for your guilt has gone on Him, and Jesus, your God, is Himself your Champion, and His victory over death is your victory. His cross is your payment, His rising is your eternal life.

Now dear one, blood-bought in Jesus, pray your prayers, and live the Life delivered in defiance of all that would deny you, for your sin is removed from you, the accusation is hollow, for Jesus has paid the penalty, and death is dead, for He has undone it, the darkness, and deep darkness is undone entirely by His uncreated Light now joined into His creation, Jesus, true God and man stands for you, and you in Him. His identity is yours, and the prayer He has taught you to pray illustrates His will perfectly in your praying, and in your living. No longer is God your enemy whom in your sin you hate and from whom you cower, for He has undone the true enemy of your soul, the devil is cast down, and your flesh is redeemed, washed, filled with His Word of forgiveness and life, that lively and forgiving you are made, and you are feasted even here and now as you await the eternal Feast to come. Jesus has reconciled you, you are made His joy, and He is yours. You are forgiven, you are free, ask whatever you will in Jesus’ Name. He is hearing you even before you say it. You are loved.

The peace of God which passes all understanding is keeping your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Easter 4 – Lamentations 3.18-26

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:56:54 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

“And I said, ‘My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.’ Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.”

This is Your Word heavenly Father, sanctify us by Your Truth, Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: Does anybody really understand you? Your Lord understands. See how He has caused His prophet Jeremiah to describe your condition. “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.”

Where do you get your strength from, and your hope, if not from the God who made you in the first place? After He formed Adam from clay, God made him a living man by breathing into him. Breath and spirit are the same word in the languages of the Bible. In that breath God made Adam alive by placing His Spirit into him. But Adam sinned, and that holy breath, the Holy Spirit, departed from him. Ever since the children of Adam and Eve have been born not in the image of our Creator, but of our parents. You were born already dying, in other words, for the only source of your life– your strength and hope– have perished from the Lord in your sin. You come into the world like a car out of gas, coasting, and you know it’ll only last so long before it all grinds to a stop.

But while it lasts you do what you can, don’t you. No sense in crying all day long, so you put yourself together as best you can and you get on with it. But you feel the ache that’s new, suffer in some novel way, and there’s only so long you can convince yourself not to notice. And when you do notice, before you catch yourself and try to stop, you realize that you’ve been down so long it only looks like up to you, but it’s low, and going lower all the time. You try to be kind, but the cuts are many, and some go deep, and your heart is broken by a thousand little wounds.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have this hunch of something better. If this really was all there was, well then you’d just keep dancing and make of it what you could. But you glimpse something better, something so far out of reach, a memory of a dream of what ought to be, of the life you were created for. I’ll never forget going into a gas station in the midwest late one winter during a ground blizzard (where the snow bites you and blows itself into drifts that stop everything) and heard a couple of folks talking. The cashier was saying “It’s a hard day, but it’s the same everywhere.” They took comfort, but it broke my heart, because I knew that it’s not the same everywhere. No ground blizzards back home on the Oregon coast! It made it that much more bitter, going out after paying for the gas to drive through the storm.

Life is bitter because you see in yourself a place for strength and you see a place where hope should go, and you catch that spark out of the corner of your eye of something More. And still you go on, and you wonder where God is.

“And I said, ‘My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.’ Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me.” Wormwood and gall, or myrrh, are very bitter. Your life is very bitter, when you strip all the protective layers of good enough and nice enough away and get down to how you really are. And you wonder where your Lord is. Why are you abandoned, coasting sooner than later to a stop, to the stillness of your dying? Where is your God now? they jeered the prophets, they mocked the apostles, they insulted Jesus as He was dying. Where is your God now? they cry, insulting your suffering brothers and sisters in Christ as their church burns and they are trapped within. Where is my God now? And you dread the answer, for your faithless old flesh agrees, wants to just give up and curses your faith, even as you pray for more that you may endure. Your prayer is an old refrain “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”

Where is the Lord when you are brought so low and all is wormwood and gall, and you learn new levels of bitterness?

“Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘ therefore I hope in Him!’ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

You know your suffering, and the bitterness of the day, it’s true. And you wonder where the Lord is sometimes, don’t you? That is to say that you may know some things, but you don’t know everything. There are times you can’t say where God is, or what His purpose may be in every particularity of life. I dread those who seem always to come up with a too-quick and too-chipper answer. Where did they get that information; from the Word of the Lord or from their own vain imagining? It is a terrible thing to speak for God when God is silent! And that means that there are times when you honestly don’t know where the Lord is in your suffering, or what purpose He may have. And your pastor must join you in not knowing, for there is no answer revealed to us.

When that’s so, then hear the words the Lord gives through Jeremiah. They speak to your unknowing and your wondering in the midst of your suffering. The Word of the Lord acknowledges the depths of your woe, but then calls upon you to acknowledge first of all that you do not know always what the mind of the Lord may be regarding a particular moment or situation. You cannot know that unless He has revealed it to you in His Word. But then consider that He gives you His portion; and He has taken yours. God entered your woe, laying aside His glory to become man, and as one of us He suffered all that you suffer. Jesus knows the bitterness of the wormwood and the gall, doesn’t He. You do not know what His purpose may be in the moment, but you know His will toward you; it is good and gracious, that you are set free from sin and eternal death, it is that He loves you and brings you to the place He has prepared for you.

Acknowledge that we do not have the answer for everything all the time, but rest on the unchanging love of God for you. Rest quietly and await the moment when all things shall be made new, and you shall see how it is.

And in the midst of the bitterness, in the midst of the wormwood and the gall remember that even here, where you do not see Him, Jesus sees you, and may in fact be moving all Creation to bring you what you need to bear the moment.

In the midst of the bitterness, He may be relieving you, though you do not know it.

When I said that ‘Jesus knows the bitterness of the wormwood and the gall’ the thought occurred that there was one time He refused that bitterness. Do you remember that, as they were preparing His crucifixion, Jesus was offered wine mixed with gall, and He refused it? He did so because He knows that the gall, that is to say the bitter herb we know as myrrh is an analgesic. It deadens pain. Jesus refused the galled wine so that He would suffer fully for you. But how interesting to think that sometimes He will give you something to sustain you in the midst of the suffering you endure in this life, that in the bitterness of the wormwood and the gall He is right there, unannounced, unseen, unacknowledged, unknown to you, but holding you together, keeping you going, working even through the present evils of this fallen world– even from the very thing which you know to be the bitterness– to minister to you and bring you through this vale of tears, and into the eternal victory over sin and death which He has won for you.

To know that your Lord is with you, though you do not see Him, nor do you understand always what He is up to, is a cause for joy in the midst of suffering. It is a cause for joy because you do know this: He loves you, and Jesus has given Himself into your sorrow and death without reservation. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Time and again you’ve turned away from your Lord, back to the sin and death you were born into, but He has not turned from you, but has called you by His Word and Spirit back to Him. Jesus has not denied this sorrow, but has fulfilled it for you. Follow Him, though the way be narrow, and tears be your companion, follow Him, and rejoice. You know that when you do not know where He is, He knows where you are, and loves and keeps you, comforting you even when you do not know it, meeting you even in the bitterest moments of crisis and defeat, and lifting you up again to follow.

Rejoice, for while your Lord has not told you everything, He has given you the one thing needful, your forgiveness, life, and salvation. And He locates Himself where He may be found according to His promise: in His Word and the Means of Grace, in the gathering of the Church around Him. Call upon Him then, while He may be found, and rejoice, for His Good Spirit has called you to Him, gathered you with His Church, and keeps you, now, and forevermore.

The peace of God which passes all understanding now guard over your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

2nd Sunday of Easter – St. John 20.19–31

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:21:08 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

The same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst,

This is Your Word Heavenly Father, sanctify us by Your Truth; Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: Today’s Gospel reading can be difficult to teach, for we have something of an embarrassment of riches, and a number of distinct themes within just a few sentences. We see Jesus coming into the closed room to encounter the Twelve. There’s enough right there for a sermon. But then Jesus shows that He still bears the wounds of His passion and death. Then He makes the Disciples into Apostles – sent ones– and then He breathes on them and tells them ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ Wow! But wait, there’s more! Jesus tells those He sends that they can forgive or not forgive the sins of anyone!

Now we hear about the guy who wasn’t in the room at the time. Thomas didn’t believe the news when he heard it, but Jesus showed himself again a week later and Thomas believed. Jesus responds by blessing those who haven’t seen, but having heard the word do believe.

And we aren’t done yet! John tells us why he has written his Gospel, and it serves as a purpose statement for all the Scriptures. Jesus did other things too. There’s lots of history that isn’t written in the Bible. But what is written is there that we believe Jesus and have life in His name.

Looking at all the particulars in this thirteen verse Gospel reading could take hours. I’m tempted to just pick one thing, and that’s not bad. But today I am determined to address the whole text. There is something ‘meta’, a overriding theme that brings all of these particulars together.

What is it that makes all these parts into something wonderful; something that changes your life? All of this shows us Jesus revealing Himself in His glory.

Nearly everything we know from the Gospels is about Jesus humbled. He is true God, and One with the Father. For our sake He emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and made Himself the servant of mankind. So we see Jesus an infant in a manger. We see the carpenter’s Son. We are shocked with Peter, James, and John when we get a brief glimpse of glory on the Mount of the Transfiguration, but within moments we see only Jesus again; trudging down the mountain along with the three. Finally we see Jesus placed under arrest, falsely accused and condemned, we see Him scourged, spit on. We see a broken body stumbling under the weight of a cross. We see a gracious, suffering, dying man on that cross. We see Jesus dead, buried by Nicodemus and Joseph.

Last Sunday, remarkably, we didn’t see Jesus at all. The Gospel for Easter Sunday highlights the women encountering angels at the empty tomb. For all the joy of the Resurrection, Easter Sunday is peculiar because the Gospel reading doesn’t actually have Jesus in it at all! Just talk about him by the angel.

Of course that only heightens our joy, for He is not in the tomb, Christ is risen, and the Church re-echoes “He is risen indeed, alleluiah!” And this is because something new has taken place. Something fundamental has shifted in the person of Jesus. Thus far the Gospels have shown us Jesus’ humility. Though He is fully God, Jesus has humbled Himself in not exercising His divine nature, only allowing the tiniest pinpoints to shine through in His miracles and at the Transfiguration. But now Jesus is risen. That is not an act of humiliation. It is Jesus in His exaltation. He is now always, fully on display as the Divine One, as the Creator, as the Eternal, Infinite, True God. And what’s more, now Jesus’ humanity also and fully participates in His divinity. The locked doors do not bar the man/God. He does not stand at the door and knock, but passes through those doors as though they were made of mist. His human nature, make no mistake about it, is fully present, for Jesus displays his wounds to the twelve and to Thomas, commanding him to thrust his fingers into them.

Jesus breathes on the twelve, empowering them with the abiding presence of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, His spirit, to speak His word with authority and power. When you hear your sin forgiven to this day, your sin is forgiven. When the unrepentant hear God’s Law spoken against their unrepentance they too must reckon with the fact that their sin is retained against them and is not forgiven. Reckon with that now, and repent, or reckon with it on the Last Day and receive eternal judgment– this is a dreadful thing for the unrepentant, and a glory and grace for the repentant!

But see that in doing this, Jesus’ humanity is fully joined and participating in His glorious divine nature. He bestows the Gift of the Spirit by physically speaking the words, physically breathing on the twelve. And so too, Jesus in His exaltation makes His followers participants in His divinity too, insofar as they receive His authority to speak His Word and do so with divine efficacy to the whole world. Consider this when you hear God’s Word spoken and applied to you, when you receive the Means of Grace administered for your sake by servants rightly called into the ongoing apostolic office of the Holy Ministry. And consider too that you, as baptized disciples of Christ also participate in Christ’s divinity in your own body, as you hear with your ears, receive in your body, and then speak and do the Word of God, doing good works toward your neighbor in love, and speaking such hopeful and joyous answers when they ask how it is you are so hopeful and gracious to them and you testify to the grace of our Lord Jesus. You too, your flesh and your humanity are thereby joined into His exalted humanity, participating in His divinity.

Indeed, you have heard God’s Word. You have been washed by it with water. You have received Jesus’ human body and blood under the bread and wine. And in so receiving His humanity, you have received Jesus’ divine Grace, for His humanity now and forevermore participates fully in His divine nature. And you are being incorporated into Jesus. You are being made His Bride, His Body, and you shall forevermore live in His exaltation, in His glory, in His Life forevermore.

Something has changed. Jesus has fully satisfied the penalty of your sin. Jesus has undone the power of sin and death over you. Your sin is forgiven. Jesus is for you. Now you, remain in Jesus, even as Jesus remains in the Father and the Spirit. Receive His Gifts, let His grace flow through your life in joy and grace. You are in Christ, renewed, who once were dead in sin, and forevermore His beloved living one.

The peace of God which passes all understanding now guard over your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Palm Sunday – St. Matthew 21.1-9

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:42:47 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘ Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna in the highest!”

This is your word, heavenly Father. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: It all sounds so festive, doesn’t it; the multitude crying out “Hosanna to the Son of David!”? But listen more closely, look now, in your mind’s eye as you consider the scene and see the rictus of the jaw, gaping like so many tumbled skulls, the wildness of the eyes, lids pulled back from their sockets, the urgent keening in those clamoring cries.

That Spirit-driven multitude, prophetic in their greeting as Jesus fulfills ancient prophecies that day, what are they saying; really? What manner of greeting must this be? What’s going on here? What is this?

We all know Palm Sunday, the Triumphal Entry, but for a moment, defamiliarize yourself, come to it as an alien thing. What is this?

Is it joyous? Yes. Why? Why the festivity over Jesus’ approach?

Jesus has just raised His three-day-gone friend Lazarus. Dead and buried, Jesus waited till he was as dead as dead can be; ’Till the worms had taken up their customary residence in the dirt over him; ’Till there was no hope. And when there wasn’t any hope, when loving sisters Mary and Martha had begun to come to grips with the loss, had steeled themselves to move on in the daisy-chain of heartache you know as your lifetime, Jesus came, declaring “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” He said this to Martha. Sister Mary had already prepared her Lord for burial, pouring out the fragrant oil, wiping His feet with her hair. A burial for a burial. Jesus must go where He fetched Lazarus, calling to the friend “Come forth!” The dead man rose, dead no more.

Why the fervent keening call of the crowd, “Hosanna!” “Hosanna to the Son of David!” It’s not the first time, you know. Before though, the crowd was annoyed when the son of Timeaus you know as the blind man of Jericho heralded the approaching Jesus “Son of David, have mercy on me!” For all the crowd’s shushing, he kept at it. Jesus heard the blind man, and gave him sight.

In the silence of the hopeless graveyard, along the pitiless Jericho way, Jesus was making His way. Healing Bartimeaus, raising Lazarus, till at last He comes to the City of God, the Temple’s home, Jerusalem– where prophets were sent. Jerusalem– where prophets were murdered. Cruel Jerusalem, where the lambs were sent to die. Even now, the first working day of Passover, the vast herds were being led in, as Jesus, the Lamb, is led in along a palm-strewn way. And they cry to the Son of David their ‘Hosannas’ and we sing with them, but do you know what they are saying? Do you know what you are saying?

When you cry ‘Hosanna’ you are pleading to be saved. When you cry ‘Hosanna’ you are praying for rescue beyond all hope. When you cry ‘Hosanna’ you are saying an Hebrew word “Save us!” is what it means. “Save us!” you pray, for with the multitude who had heard of Him who gave sight to the blind, and now life to poor dead and buried Lazarus, you begin to realize that Jesus is the One who can do what your works cannot gain for you.

You cannot make yourself not die. The day is coming when you shall go to ground, and there is no device or strategy to be found whereby you may long avoid it. The gifts of nutrition and medicine are wonders. But they are like dogs on a leash. They have their limit beyond which they cannot reach. And death comes. No matter how eager you may be to be young again and new again and to live, this is beyond anybody’s doing. Death may take a little while, and you may claim a century or a little more. Or death may come with an infant’s borning breath; pitiless as it is. But it comes.

Now comes Jesus, and Jesus has healed the blind man, healed the paralytic, the deaf, the fevered, the possessed, the young girl, and the servant from death, and now the long-dead Lazarus He has raised from the grave. Now comes the only One who takes upon Himself the sin of the world, takes death too, and defeats it that they all were raised, healed, healthy.

So we cry out ‘Hosanna!’ ‘Save us!’

And you know your own dying. As the thief you come to yourself and recognize that you are dying because of your sin. You are dying because frankly that’s what you’ve got coming, along with the whole dying human race entire. But here comes the One who doesn’t have it coming, but sees your condition, sees your sin, sees your dying, and interjects. He comes to frankly get in your way. Jesus, uninvited comes, and you begin to realize what He’s up to. He’s up to saving you from your own death, and you cry out “Save us!” “Hosanna!” you cry it out in Jesus’ native tongue, and in your own. Own it. That’s what all the hosanna-ing is about. That’s all that it’s about. The cry of desperate, dying men crying to the Son of David for rescue. Rising from your dusty place in the ditch you cry out “Son of David, have mercy on me!” and you annoy the crowd.

It’s an unbelieving crowd around you these days. Most just want you to shut up and go to hell.

The want you to go to hell.

Why not? That’s where they’re going.

But you keep on crying “Have mercy!” “Save me!” “Hosanna!” and as your Savior nears, nothing, nothing, nothing will shut you up. Why shut up just because an unbelieving, dead world doesn’t want to be disturbed? Why hide your light because the blind are annoyed you can see? Why surrender any hope because the hopeless tell you to? “Have mercy!” the blind man cries, and the thief on the cross joins in, and then more and a multitude begin to shout it with you “Save us!” “Hosanna!” “Save us!” “Hosanna!”

If Jesus can save you from eternal death and hell, why shouldn’t you want His three-fold gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation? He rides now into the City to make a great exchange.

His life, for yours. His life, for the life of the multitude. His life, for the life of the world entire. He rides into Jerusalem you see, to take your death, to die your death, and to undo the power of it, of the devil, to overthrow the place of man in hell itself forevermore.

And to rise.

He raised Lazarus on the third day. Jesus rose triumphant from that loaner-tomb on the third day. And in the fulness of time, on the Last Day, your grave shall blow open wide and He shall raise you too.

Your sin and eternal death have been taken by Jesus. You have none left. He took them, and blew them all to hell. Like a fist through a paper wall, Jesus has destroyed the power of sin and death forever. What once trapped and imprisoned you forever now has a big hole in it. That’s where Jesus went. Death itself is now but a doorway, a portal, the big rip where Jesus blasted it through for you to eternal life.

That’s why Jesus is coming into Jerusalem to die on the cross.

That’s why you sing your hosannas now, without any desperation. The Savior has saved you. Your death is but a moment. Your grave, packed well under all that dirt though it may be, is but a rental. You won’t be staying. Life in Christ is sure.

He has already blown through the power of sin and death.

The world still doesn’t want to hear it. But you have the power of life in your voice and hands dear one. Don’t let the world shut you up. Don’t settle for hell. Be prepared, loving, and kind, and always give an answer to the hope that is in you. And let them wonder, those dying hellbound. Let’em all wonder; at the hope they see in you. The Light of Christ is dawning, the Daystar arising. Lift up your heads and join the joyous cry, He’s coming! Let them all wonder, and gather them in with you, those who would hear it, and let them join in the hopeful cry “Hosanna!”

The peace of God which passes all understanding is guarding over your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

DAILY PRAYER at NOON

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:06:10 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

March 28, 2012 • DAILY PRAYER at NOON

The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear my prayer and answer me.

Evening, morning, and noon I cry out in distress and He hears my voice.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 55:1, 16-17, 22

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

John 19.17–18 And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center.
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Jesus is crucified in the center. That’s where He put Himself– in the middle. Between the sinners, Jesus dies their death. In the midst of this fallen and sinful human race, Jesus joins into the death of sinners– your death. Jesus is in the middle.

Jesus is in the middle because that’s where He put Himself. Because He loves you, and would not lose you to death and hell for your sin forever, Jesus took off His glory, was born a man, lived in perfect obedience to His Law, all the while in the middle of humanity, at just the right time, in just the right place. For you.

Jesus came in order to keep you, to rescue you from the penalty of your sin, which is eternal death. Jesus didn’t come to do magic, perform miracles, to impress anyone. He came in the middle, nobody would look at Him twice because of His appearance. He was one of us. He made Himself that way, for you. And He was crucified in the middle, at the center of sin and death itself.

In His dying, Jesus truly died. He had been born a man, and in this fallen world, men die. In His dying, Jesus truly fulfilled and destroyed the power of the penalty of eternal death for all mankind. Because He is God, Jesus is infinite. His work is infinite. His death in your place is infinite. Nothing more can ever be demanded. Jesus paid an infinite price for you in dying. Now death is dead. Because Jesus is in the middle, there is no more death. Even death itself is made a portal to His eternal life for you.

Jesus is in the middle. He is there for you. His death is your life. His death destroyed death. You are rescued from your death because, when you get there, Jesus is already there. Living. Jesus is in the center. You are forgiven. Live and rejoice. Jesus is for you.
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Hymn 339 The Lord into His Father’s Hands

• Our Father…

• Almighty and most merciful God, who gave Your Son to die for our sins, and to obtain forgiveness and redemption for us through His own blood, we humbly ask You, let the merit of this spotless sacrifice purge our consciences from dead works, that we may serve You, the living God, and receive the promise of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus, our Lord, to whom, with You and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

• Blessed Savior, at this hour You hung upon the cross, stretching out Your loving arms. Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for Your mercy’s sake. Amen.

The grace of our Lord + Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
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Holy Week Services

Palm Sunday: Bible Study at 9.15.a.m.
             Divine Service at 10.30 a.m.
           Service in Bandon at 2.00 p.m.
Maundy Thursday: Divine Service at 6.30 p.m.
Good Friday: Service a few minutes after Noon
Holy Saturday: The Great Vigil Service at 9.00 p.m.
Easter Sunday: Divine Service at 10.30 a.m.
             Divine Service in Bandon at 2.00 p.m.

Lent 4 Midweek

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:03:37 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

March 21, 2012 • DAILY PRAYER at NOON
The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear my prayer and answer me.
Evening, morning, and noon I cry out in distress and He hears my voice.
Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 55:1, 16-17, 22

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

John 19.23–24 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,” that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: “They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.” Therefore the soldiers did these things.
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Sinning, the man and the woman knew death for the first time, and felt the the danger of being exposed in a world created for them, which now they could not fit, leaving them naked, cold, and needing such covering as they might be given (their own leaf-tailoring not having been any good at all). Grieving their loss in the death of sin, God reveals His graciousness and sacrificed animals for their skins to clothe Adam and Eve Himself.

Sinners following sinful orders, the squad deployed to crucify our Lord first stripped Him. He who clothed us, we made naked. As our first parents they too, obtained the clothing of God, His gift to them. For neither the priests, nor the governor, nor they could have done these things except He lay down His life for us all. But what does this clothing mean? It is an image of what Jesus has done. God emptied Himself of His glory, humbling Himself for our sake, for our salvation. Even allowing rough hands to tug His last garments away to crucify in deepest humiliation.

So now, by His grace, seeing us naked in our sin, our Lord clothes us all in Holy Baptism, in which we are clothed in Christ’s own righteousness– this is the wedding garment He speaks of in the parable of the wedding feast.

God has found us all exposed and undone in our sin. We were without recourse, and naked still, for all our work and striving. But He has been gracious to us, clothing us in Himself, enrobing us by His Word at the Baptismal font; and at the Last Day, calling us to Him from our graves, we are made new, and restored to His Paradise forevermore– a white-robed throng which no man can count, our song haling the Lamb who was slain for us all, in Whom we are clothed righteous forever.
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Hymn 308 When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

• Our Father…

• Lord God, heavenly Father, by Your Son You fed five thousand men in the wilderness with five loaves and two fish: We beseech You graciously to abide also with us in the fullness of Your blessing. Preserve us from greed and the cares of this life, that we may seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness, and in all things perceive Your fatherly goodness; through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.

• Blessed Savior, at this hour You hung upon the cross, stretching out Your loving arms. Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for Your mercy’s sake. Amen.

The grace of our Lord + Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Lent 4 – St. John 6:1-15

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:31:47 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.”

This is Your Word heavenly Father, sanctify us by Your Truth; Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: We’re halfway from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, and have arrived at an oasis in this hungry lenten wilderness. Today is ‘Rejoicing Sunday.’ Lætare means ‘rejoice!’ And Jesus gives His disciple a perfect set up to realize anew how wonderful it is to be in the Lord’s presence and rejoice.

He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Philip answered Him with great rejoicing “We are in your presence, Lord, and whatever comes to hand you may bless that we receive good things anew from your hand and be filled!” Andrew found a kid with a couple of sandwiches in his lunch bag and presented it saying ‘Here Jesus, in your hands this is more than enough’ and distributing the bounty of God’s blessing they all were filled.

No, that’s not what happened, is it? Philip was addressed by the incarnate God, but he proved himself more impressed by the thousands following, and was reduced to doing top-of-the-head accounting (you can see him standing there, muttering an equation to himself) and replying that two hundred denarii worth of bread wouldn’t even meet a minimum of a bite each. Philip saw how vast the problem was, and assumed scarcity based on need.

The thing to do, following Philip’s logic, was to do the maths, repress any generous impulse, and find some way for Jesus and the Twelve to high-tail it out of there.

Can you blame him? Faced by the opportunities and crisis all around you, do you fare any better? No, you are a Philip too, aren’t you. You see the problem, and you count the costs, and it’s too big for you. In the end you make an excuse, or scoot away from life’s crisis du jour, and avoid it. Otherwise it’s just too much for you.

Well, you’re right. It is too much for you. Philip was right. He didn’t have nearly enough to provide for the multitude. I mean, what else could he do? What more can be asked of you?

Just one thing: Repent.

Repent. Jesus asked Philip a question and he answered focusing on the multitude. You have opportunities to serve and be a bold Christian, and you get overwhelmed by the problems and opportunities which are so big. Repent. It’s not about the multitude. It’s not about two hundred denarii of bread. It’s not about the best solution you can come up with. It’s not about meeting a minimum standard. It’s not about the ways and means of it. It’s not about the crisis, the multitude, the problem at all.

It’s about Jesus. Repent. Turn to Him. He’s talking to you. Jesus is talking to Philip. Why is Philip obsessing over the size of the crowd and the price of bread? Jesus has given you His Word, why are you all wrapped up and overwhelmed by the issue of the day? Jesus is talking. Jesus is talking! PAY ATTENTION TO HIM. Repent (that means turn around), turn to Jesus. He has the answer. He is the answer.

It’s not about understanding the solution. It’s about Jesus. He can do it. Stop doing the math, turn to Jesus. He’s the answer. He’s the solution. Repent. Turn.

And rejoice.

Rejoice, because Jesus can do what Philip can’t. Jesus can do what you can’t. Jesus can do what none of our works can ever do. And He isn’t interested in giving everybody a mouthful of the kid’s lunch. Jesus doesn’t work from scarcity. He works from abundance. By His speaking the whole universe was created. And by His will the finite space of the womb of the Virgin contained the infinite God. By Jesus’ will jars of water became the finest wine. By Jesus’ will today millions of our fellow Christians the world round will feast on His body and blood.

Think about that a moment: Right now, in the span of the day, millions of people are approaching the altar and joining in the Lord’s Supper. How shall they be fed? Stop doing the maths. Little scraps of bread, little drops of wine are all we can see. But one after another, till a vast multitude are all fed, all who commune today receive Jesus’ body and blood. How? He promised, that’s how. How much? All of them, worthy and unworthy too are feasting on Jesus’ body and blood. How much body? How much blood? All of His body. All of His blood. All who commune get all of Jesus. Wait, what? Yes, that’s right. He cannot be divided. All who commune receive all of Jesus.

Do you want to even begin to try to explain that one? You simply can’t. You can only confess that this is what Jesus promises, and hearing the Word of that promise, believe it. The feeding of the five thousand was pretty good, but does it hold a candle to what happens in the Lord’s Supper on any given Sunday? Stop trying to figure it out, look to Jesus. Believe in Him. Hear and cling to His promise, and rejoice!

Jesus is an oasis in a desert. He not only feeds the multitude, He fills them. So much so that there are big baskets left over for the Twelve to lug away. He brings the abundance of the Creator. Only His Word matters in the end. Or did He not make light in the beginning simply by saying ‘Light’? And in that single word, the abundance is astonishing. Astronomers continue to find new light of distant galaxies nobody knew was there. It’s a lot.

Rejoice. The problems are big. You know the problems you face. You’ve done the Philip thing, tried to work out solutions. Turn to Jesus. He’s been here all the time. And He loves you. The world lost in sin and death causes you despair, till you cling to crumbs like a claw. Cling to Jesus, who has never let you go, and hearing His Word, marvel at His loving presence in the midst of so much desperation. I can’t tell you always how He will care for you. But Jesus cares for you, and will always care for you. Look to Him, He feeds you not with crumbs that fall from the children’s table, but abundantly, and fully, and brings you great joy in the wilderness. Rejoice, Jesus is here. And He forgives you, and will never leave you nor forsake you, forevermore.

The peace of God which passes all understanding now guards your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Lent 3 Midweek

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:23:11 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

DAILY PRAYER at NOON
The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.

Psalm 55:1, 16-17, 22

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Luke 23.27-31 And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!’ Then they will begin ‘to say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?”

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Bearing the full weight of the sin of man, having endured the scourging whip, you could understand if Jesus would have gone inside Himself, and become insensible to those around. But it is for your sake He is going through these things, and He turns ever toward you and all humanity. Hearing the lamentation and mourning He redirects your sorrow in pitying Him to the hideous condition you and your children are in. Jesus endures the cross for this very reason. Sin renders you more hideous than scourging and and crucifying. You are to be pitied. And Jesus pities you. He prophecies of the immediate sorrow of the women of Jerusalem, in their generation the City would fall in dreadful fashion. But Jesus speaks also of the condition of every mother’s child of the wretchedness of eternal death in sin we presently suffer. It is for this reason that He bears the scourging and cross.

Perhaps the women that day thought to merit some favor of God by mourning Jesus. Many today approach Lent in this way, as though by tears you would placate the Holy One. Repent. Your works cannot avert your doom. Your tears cannot wash your sin away. It is the work of Jesus, and His innocent suffering and death in which you are saved.

God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. You are saved not by your works, merit, and mourning, but by the grace of Jesus through faith, and this not of yourself, it is the gift of God.
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Hymn 307 I Know Thee, Savior

• Our Father…

• Lord God, heavenly Father, You have sent Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself our flesh, that He might overcome the devil, and defend us poor sinners against the adversary: We give thanks to You for Your merciful help, and we beseech You to attend us with Your grace in all temptations, to preserve us from carnal security, and by Your Holy Spirit to keep us in Your Word in Your fear, that we may be delivered from the enemy, and obtain eternal salvation; through the same, Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.

• Blessed Savior, at this hour You hung upon the cross, stretching out Your loving arms. Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for Your mercy’s sake. Amen.

The grace of our Lord + Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Lent 2 Midweek

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:19:04 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

DAILY PRAYER at NOON

The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear my prayer and answer me.

Evening, morning, and noon I cry out in distress and He hears my voice.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 55:1, 16-17, 22

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Mark 15.20b–21 And they led Him out to crucify Him. Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear His cross.

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Ann just sent off our tax stuff. Legal obligations like this irritate me. Taxes remind me I’m a sinner. Jesus has taught us concerning such things. In those days the Roman empire obliged its provincial subjects to carry the burdens soldiers would lay on them for a mile. Sinners like me, being pulled from their own affairs for this taxation of their labor doubtless irritated them. Jesus says, “whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.”

Simon had nearly made it all the way in from the place he was camping to the Temple that Friday, when soldiers obliged him to bear the weight of Jesus’ cross out to the place where they would crucify our Lord. It was only perhaps half a mile, but who would want to carry such a dreadful burden even an inch? Nevertheless, Simon bore the burden and followed.

Jesus teaches us concerning such unwanted burdens, the inconvenience and pain they bring. He says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

Simon hadn’t chosen the cross, but he bore it. He likely didn’t know Jesus, but soon was well acquainted. He didn’t meet God in the Temple, but under this burden God was suffering with Him. His forced association with the gruesome instrument of death made Simon ineligible to celebrate the feast of the Passover lamb, yet the blood of Him whose cross Simon bore made him, and us sinners too, guests at the unending feast of the Lamb.

Repent of your unwillingness. Bear the burden laid upon you, and understand that in this world Jesus does not remove such hardships from you, but meets you in them. Jesus blessed Simon, he is included afterward among the believers, and his sons mentioned here, Alexander and Rufus, are counted among the first pastors. The blessing given goes ever on and on. Jesus meets you in the rejected place, under the burden the world disdains, and He blesses you.
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Hymn 330 Beneath the Cross of Jesus

• Our Father…

• O Lord, mercifully hear our prayer, and stretch forth the right hand of Your majesty to defend us from all that rise up against us; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.

• Blessed Savior, at this hour You hung upon the cross, stretching out Your loving arms. Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for Your mercy’s sake. Amen.

The grace of our Lord + Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Reminiscere, Lent 2 – St. Matthew 15.21-28

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:43:11 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”

This is Your Word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: The woman came to Jesus. She had no claim on Him– but that of a beggar. Jesus preached first His Law. It was a sermon with no words, for he answered her not a word. And that is just what she deserved. And you also deserve the silence of God. Great as her sorrow was, the sorrow of Jesus is greater, for He knows her fault better than she knew it. Would you present yourself to the Holy One, the God who has made and given so much to you, whom you have dishonored in your thoughts, your words, the deeds you have done, insensible of His seeing and hearing and knowing? Is there any reason Jesus should ever acknowledge the likes of you when you so seldom have been mindful of your Creator?

Men pretend outrage, crying ‘What sort of God would allow this?’ at every sorrow suffered. But our own conscience accuses truthfully that if we suffer we surely have earned even worse than our present sorrow. A God who is holy would have no place among the likes of you and me, and the Canaanite woman. We are unholy, and well deserve every evil, every tear, death and hell too. Jesus answered her not a word. And the woman had no claim on Him– but that of a beggar. You are that Canaanite woman, and so too were the Twelve following Jesus that day. All of us are hopeless in finding any reason for the favor of God in our degradation and sin. And there’s no two ways about it, seeking the favor of Jesus is seeking the favor of God, for Jesus is God Himself, and there is no other way of it, for He alone is fully God and fully man. He is perfect and without sin, the fulfiller of His will and law.

And Jesus preached the Law to all who would hear it in His sermon of silence answering the plea of the woman. None deserves a word, only condemnation and death and hell. That God has even caused His Law which condemns to be written and proclaimed is an undeserved favor to sinners. Ponder His silence well, fellow sinner. It is all the warning you deserve.

But the woman continued on, would not let it go, would not go away. In the darkness of your darkest night of the soul, when your shame weighs you down and you are crushed and damned without excuse, the woman shows how a miserable and hopeless beggar may be, claiming without any claim, clinging without hope of finding handhold or purchase even in the hem of the garment of the Lord and God made man. Well, and why not? What have you to lose in your misery and hopeless condition? Why not wail and plead and cling, hopeless though you are to Jesus? At worst His silence will only continue. At worst you’ll be no worse off than you already are, as you consider your condition honestly (for once). She follows after and does not relent.

And the Lord preaches words of Law. What is she but a worthless dog? And she takes those words not as the world might regard them– as a slap in her face– but as they truly are, the word of God coming even in condemnation, but still, the word of God! A conversation with the Creator of all! Yes, a dog! One of Your own dogs! Like a dog a beggar! That is me! Join with her, you who follow, your claim is no better than the Canaanite woman’s. And without any claim but the claim of a beggar!

A beggar has no claim on any– but the gracious. And would God, the Lord Jesus, be gracious to her? Is He gracious? Indeed! For He came into this world, took on flesh, was made man, and WALKED into her neighborhood! Though He was silent, answering her not a word, He made Himself manifest to her, sinful and unworthy– like us all– though the woman was. In His incarnation Jesus shows Himself the God of mercy! And then He spoke His Word to her! A word likening her to some stray mutt, but a stray mutt may beg of one who is merciful and hope in that mercy.

Even the dogs sometimes are tossed a scrap from the children’s table, eh? There is no claim we bring to Jesus. In our sin we have no standing before an holy God and Lord. We are forfeit by nature. But our poor condition does not change the will, the nature, or the heart of God. By nature He creates. By nature He sustains, and gives His gifts to the righteous and unrighteous alike, for does it not rain and shine on the good and the evil without distinction? Even so, the God who creates and sustains is also the God who is gracious and giving. And He came into the world not to condemn, but to save. It is the will and eternal nature of God to be gracious, and claiming nothing but His grace; making only the claim of a beggar on a gracious Creator, the woman makes her plea of mercy.

And Jesus is merciful. And He grants her need, healing of her dire condition in sin and death, the healing of her daughter too. “Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.” Jesus is merciful, and He grants your need, He heals your dire condition, forgives you the dread penalty of sin, and delivers you from eternal death.

If He seems at times silent (Jesus is still present in His Word and Sacrament–the way you feel doesn’t change this, He always keeps His promise), He is only driving you closer to Him, driving any thought that may arise in you that you have any merit or claim– but that of a beggar on Him. If Jesus allows you at times only to hear and feel the knife edge of His Law, rejoice that He has come to you and speaks to you in His Word at all, and know that what is being cleaved from your heart and mind are things which only hurt you more. And know that like the Canaanite woman, you will soon, so very soon, be returned to your God and Savior’s grace and hear anew the refreshing, healing word of His Grace and favor, abundant beyond all expectation, measure, or reason.

God is good, and He is gracious to sinners. Cling to Him through no claim of your own, but by His mercy and favor. He forgives you now every sin. He heals you of death and hell. You are dogs no more, but beloved children, and He places you at His table, and feasts you on the Word and Bread and Water of Life, now and forevermore.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Daily Prayer at Noon

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:01:16 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

February 29, 2012 – DAILY PRAYER at NOON

The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear my prayer and answer me.

Evening, morning, and noon I cry out in distress and He hears my voice.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 55:1, 16-17, 22

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Matthew 27.27–31 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.
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The Roman soldiers sought to humiliate, disgrace, and pollute Jesus. And so they heaped their insults, spit, and blows upon Him as they took Him to be crucified. These are your representatives, for you have done the same. You have heaped your own degradations upon this Man, your Creator, in your thoughts, words, and deeds. In all that you have spoken unkindly to and of your neighbor, gossiping, lying; in all that you have done to harm his reputation, his person, his things; and in all that you have left undone where a kind word, or even a cool drink may have helped him, as you have done so to the least of His brethren, so you have done to Jesus. But our Lord receives the blows, insults, spittle of the army detail, as He receives your sin too. For these He came to bear upon Himself, as He took up the Cross to pay the penalty of eternal death for mankind entire, and for you.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes upon Himself your sin, and the sin of the world, for our salvation!
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Hymn 70 I See Thee Standing, Lamb of God

• Our Father…
• O Lord, mercifully hear our prayer, and stretch forth the right hand of Your majesty to defend us from all that rise up against us; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
• Blessed Savior, at this hour You hung upon the cross, stretching out Your loving arms. Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for Your mercy’s sake. Amen.

The grace of our Lord + Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Ash Wednesday – John 19.14–16

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:32:48 GMT

for more information go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” But they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!” Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away.

Pontius Pilate knew it was wrong to condemn an innocent man. He knew that Jesus had done nothing deserving death by crucifixion. But the crowd demanded he act against what he knew was right, and Pontius Pilate sinned, betraying the Law written upon his own heart, doing what he knew was very wrong. He sinned against his own soul, and he sinned against Jesus. Condemning Jesus, Pilate condemned himself too.

You have known when it was wrong, the things you went ahead and did in order to get along with those who demand things of you. The blood Pilate could not wash from his hands is on your hands too. Your virtue, your good works, like Pilate’s benefaction to the people over whom he had charge can never blot out the stain of sin which has spread over your hands, your heart. In a thousand ways you have betrayed your Lord Jesus; and you cannot make it better.

Turn from your despair. Repent your sin in dust and ashes, and then come confessing and hear Him whom Pilate, whom you have betrayed, as He lifts His countenance upon you and bespeaks you clean anew in the holy absolution from your guilt and sin, and restores you to His good favor. All things are ready, come and take the ashes, that you may receive the oil of gladness which heals your soul, the forgiveness of Jesus for you.

Quinquagesima – 1 Corinthians 13.8

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:29:28 GMT

for more information go to resurrectionlutheran.us

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

Fellow redeemed: Our Lord is saying something important to you today in Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth. And let’s get this straight: your life depends on it. A bunch of messages bombard us about spiritual matters. Who, and what are you supposed to believe? Whom do you follow, and what do you ignore? Following the wrong message may mean your eternal death.

So what source do you trust? In the church Paul was writing to, people were confused. Some listened to one thing, some to another. People were following messages that would lead them to wander away from the Good News of Jesus and their eternal rescue. Learn from our Lord through Paul how to know who and what to pay attention to here and now.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

Let’s take this apart. Paul tells you about love, prophecy, tongues, and knowledge.

Knowledge seems like a pretty reliable voice to listen to. But there’s knowledge and there’s knowledge. A lot of nonsense is peddled as ‘knowledge’ that’s anything but. In the early Church, some folks got the idea that there were codes, secrets, and hidden wisdom that you could only get at by reading in-between the lines of God’s Word. These folks were called the ‘gnostics,’ from the Greek word ‘gnosis.’ We get the English word ‘to know’ from ‘gnosis.’ But is such ‘gnosis’ real knowledge? Is it true and reliable? I’ve heard college professors who dismiss the trust of their students in God’s Word about such things as creation, marriage, and Jesus’ physical resurrection as ‘Sunday school religion’. The plague of high-sounding but false knowledge, of ignoring the simple Gospel in favor of something so subtle that only a few claim to know it, is still with us. Don’t trust such high and mighty fellows who claim to know hidden messages within God’s Word. There is no truth in them. Don’t follow such puffed-up know-it-alls. They may know all the knowledge in the whole world, but they don’t know the truth that even a five year old can understand. Don’t follow them, pray for them that they will learn to hear and follow the Voice of the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus, in simplicity, and the enduring Truth He brings.

Knowledge isn’t all it may seem to be. If it’s coming from arrogance, you can be sure that it isn’t the true Word of your salvation. It isn’t ‘in the know’ so much as ‘in the ain’t.’ God would have you to be saved, He has already done everything to save you. God hasn’t done anything to lose you. He has made it as simple as possible. Salvation is all gift. He’s done the work. Do you think that in humbling Himself to be a man, and to reveal Himself to you in our common human language that He would then try to lead you through difficult codes and hidden meanings? Don’t believe it! God is so smart He knows how to use plain speaking that any child can receive, while the most intelligent and truly wisest of scholars may have endless stuff to learn and rejoice in those same words. If God speaks to man, He uses words we can understand. Otherwise, why would He bother?

What about prophecies and tongues? See for yourself how well those today who claim to be prophets are doing. A year ago some radio preacher claimed the whole world was going to end in a fiery judgment while his faithful listeners would be swept away in a secret rapture. As I drove in today, I happened to notice that the world isn’t quite on fire. That guy is a false prophet. Don’t listen to false prophets. They want you to listen to their message, and not the true Word of God. There are a bunch of so-called prophecies about the end of the world this year too. The Mayans knew something, right? Yeah, but where are the Mayans now? Their civilization died centuries ago. Mystics and psychics are fools and conmen. How do I know? When you go in for a reading, they have to ask you a lot of questions. Would a real mystic, a true psychic have to do that? And what they do say, if they ever get around to anything specific, is often wrong. I read in the World Newspaper this week that the so-called psychic who is going to do a show at the Mill Casino had to reschedule her appearance. Why didn’t she see that one coming? A cons a con, no matter how you dress it up in turbans or fancy suits and haircuts.

Paul says such stuff would come to an end. On the last day the false prophecies and prophets will surely end where all lies do, with the father of lies in hell. But Paul’s talking about the true prophecy of God. When did that come to an end? Isaiah’s prophetic work ended as he committed God’s Word to writing. Paul’s prophetic and apostolic work ended as he penned his last letter. God’s Word has been given us through His prophets and apostles in the common tongues of men. Now we have it. We call these writings the Holy Scriptures, or The Bible. Anybody who claims to have another word from God today apart from the Bible is a liar. Martin Luther had to deal with such characters, a bunch of self-proclaimed ‘prophets’ from the town of Zwickau. The Zwickau prophets may have swallowed the Holy Spirit ‘feathers and all’ Luther remarked, but they were still wrong. If you would hear true prophecy, look for nothing apart from God’s Word rightly and fully proclaimed.

God speaks to you clearly, in plain language you can understand. He has allowed the Scriptures to be translated into nearly every language spoken in the world today. Some false teachers make a big deal about speaking in unknown tongues. They claim that this is a blessing from heaven. It isn’t . Paul was talking about the fact that by His fulfillment of the Law and atoning death, Jesus had restored mankind entire to God’s grace and forgiveness. All our prayers would be heard, and as He sent His Spirit, we would all be able to hear God’s Word in our own language. This was demonstrated when the apostles on the day of Pentecost were given the gift of speaking in languages they had never learned before. They weren’t unknown tongues, they were the tongues of the folks who were right outside that room, as visitors from all over the Roman world heard the Good News for the first time in their own languages. Now we study and learn language, and we translate God’s Word. God uses our language to deliver His Word.

Some do not want to believe it. They claim nevertheless that tongues is a great blessing. Well, unknown tongues do happen one time in the Bible. Because the people would not hear God’s word of grace in their own tongue, in the twenty eighth chapter of his book, the prophet Isaiah warns the people that they would hear the unknown tongue of foreign invaders. It was not a blessing, but a curse, and a stern warning.

So then we have seen that the things that excite people in every generation, hidden knowledge, exotic and unknown tongues, and new prophecies are all dead ends. God does not deliver your salvation by such means. What’s left? What endures? Ah, at last we come to the first thing: we come to love. And not just any old kind of love, but God’s own, unconditional, fatherly, abiding, undeniable love.

God’s love is not some airy-fairy concept left floating in the ether. God’s love is as solid as a sledge hammer, as focused as a laser, and effective toward His purpose. Paul speaks to the wondrousness of the Father for us in this chapter, and we see God’s love throughout His Word. So we must ask, what is this love? What has God done because of His love? And, how is God’s doing on account of love obtained today?

What is this love? God’s love is His unyielding will for your good. God is love in essence, thus His entire being is focused on its ends and means. Love will endure so long as God endures, and by His nature, God is infinite. God so loved the world that He has given His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus, that whoever believes in Him does not die, but lives. God has not sent His son into this world to condemn but to save you. So we read in John 3.16 and 17. Here is God for your good, and for your eternal life. God loves you. That is how He is. God loves you so much that He has emptied Himself of every glory, of every treasure naturally His, in order to become as you are, and was born a man, like you in every way, but without sin. He came in order to take your sin, your shame, your woe, and your death from you onto Himself, and to give you His grace, His glory, His life, and His love. Your salvation and life are God’s delight, and His proper will. And if God would even die in your place, if God would abandon Himself into your sin and hell, He will not forsake you. This is His love for you: Jesus makes you His own, and in Him, covered by Him, filled by Him, the Father sees only the one He loves when He beholds you and identifies you only through the righteousness of Jesus for you.

This is what love is, and this is what God has done in love for you. Now how do you obtain His love and grace and life today? He has written you His Word. Hear and rejoice in it. He breathes His Spirit into every letter of the Holy Scriptures and they are given for you. Read and hear God’s Word as intensely as any lover reads a love letter, for it is the perfect love letter of a perfect love for you. And He washes and feeds you through His Sacraments, these are His means of conveying Grace and every blessing to you. And live now, as the beloved one you are. And return His wondrous, inexhaustible grace as you radiate out in your daily living such a hope as the world has never beheld. God loves you, love one another, and give a glad answer to those who wonder at the hope and grace and love they see radiating from you in your words, in your deeds, for you live as loved, as loved forever, as one who is alive in Christ forevermore.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Transfiguration – 2 Peter 1.16-21

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:50:19 GMT

for more, go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Grace to you and Peace, From God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

This is Your Word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: One day a man named Simon was working when Jesus came to him and said ‘Follow me.’ The Simon who followed Jesus was a different man from then on, and Jesus named him Peter. One day as Simon Peter was following Jesus, along with James and John, they went up on a mountain, and wondrous things happened there. The Peter who came down that mountain was a different man than the one who went up. This pattern would be repeated as we read about Peter, and here as we read what Peter himself has written. You’ve heard in today’s Gospel the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. It’s a marvelous story, worth repeating. But now let’s take a look at Peter, the only one of the three disciples whose words in that story are recorded and consider today in light of the transfiguration of Jesus, the transformation of Simon Peter.

Peter was a man Jesus called to follow him; and so are you. Jesus has intercepted you while you were not looking for him and called you to follow. Jesus calls you as he called Peter, by his Word. The difference is that Jesus walked up to Peter and used his own mouth to call him by his Word, but since then, Jesus comes to you, calling you by his Word through the mouths of those sent, and where he has promised to be found to be gracious to you, as his word of promise is combined with water, and wine and bread. But it really is the same Jesus, coming to you, for you, his Word, and all of Jesus is with you, here, washing, feeding, forgiving, restoring, lifting you up. You get the same Jesus as Peter.

Because Jesus called him, Peter followed. And Jesus led him, and James and John too, up a mountain one day. Jesus there was transfigured, joined by our fathers in the Faith, Moses and Elijah, in the midst of his brilliant, uncreated light. Peter and the others were there because Jesus called them and led them there. They weren’t there because in themselves they were holy. To prove the point, Peter’s words are recorded in that holy tableau, and what do we hear? Some weird babbling about how the fellows could maybe build a lean-to or pup tent or something for them all to stay in.

Jesus didn’t call Peter because he was so good. He didn’t call him to follow because Jesus thought Peter was so brilliant. Jesus didn’t call you through His Word and the Means of Grace because you were already so good, or bright, or because you had something that he needs in heaven, or any other nonsense. The world wants you to think that’s why, though. Because if you buy the notion that those saints of old got to be saints on account of their excellent personal qualities or gifts, and that you get to be a follower of Jesus because of how awesome you are, then you are being set up for failure. Peter’s words on the mountain show that it wasn’t all about him. Jesus called him to follow because of how good, how gracious, how generous Jesus is. There is nothing in Peter, James, John, Moses, Elijah, me, or you that Jesus needs. He calls us all to follow him because he loves us even when we hated him. He is giving us his gifts purely, without anything we can ever return to him. And when we want to do something good, he points us to our neighbor and says ‘serve that one.’

Peter wasn’t looking for Jesus, but Jesus found him. Peter’s words on the mountaintop were goofy, but they didn’t matter. God’s Word matters. And when the disciples looked up and saw Jesus only, that’s what matters. It’s all gift.

Peter would mess things up repeatedly. He got mad when Jesus said he was going to Jerusalem to be crucified. As Jesus was giving himself in the garden over to those who had come to arrest him, Peter was the one who managed to interrupt by cutting off the ear of a guy named Malchus. Peter denied Jesus because some girl recognized his accent. Later, Peter forgot that gift means gift when Jesus gives it, and refused to have anything to do with non-Jews, until Jesus came to him in the vision of kosher and unkosher animals and commanded him not to call unclean what he had made clean by his death for us all. Even after that, years later, when Paul saw him in Antioch, he had to call Peter on the carpet for withdrawing from the non-Jewish Christians when some scary guys from Jerusalem showed up.

Peter messed up repeatedly. I like that, because here is a saint, a holy one of God that you can look at and understand that it wasn’t Peter’s perfect perfection and awesome awesomeness that merited God’s favor. It was all gift. God’s favor changed Peter not that he didn’t mess up any more, but that he lived as a forgiven, beloved son of God in the unmerited grace of Jesus. It is all gift. We all are reckoned as holy before the Father through the gift of Jesus’ blood and merit which he brings to us without regard for any quality in us.

And let the Church say ‘Phew!’ Our standing before the Lord is in Christ, and He comes to us freely, loving us unlovely, and covering over our faults and sins and shames. It’s all gift.

But how do we know that for sure? Back to the text!

Peter says plainly of himself, and his fellow apostle-authors of the New Testament that “we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter isn’t speaking only for himself here, for he doesn’t say “I didn’t” but “we didn’t follow fables.” He is making a claim not just on his own, but on behalf of all who wrote the books and letters of the New Testament.

Ok, but what proof does he give that this stuff isn’t just made up– that we have a sure base for our trust? Peter gives three distinct proofs:

They were first-hand witnesses– “we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.”

That includes Peter, James, and John for the events on the mount of the Transfiguration, but you must also include the rest of the holy Apostles in all the other teachings and doings of our Lord. They saw these things, and they heard the confirmation of Jesus in the voice of God the Father from heaven. Peter writes as a personal witness, and not one relying on hearsay only.

Secondly, “We also have the prophetic word made more sure, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” Now, who writes a prophetic word but prophets? Who did the apostles see and hear speaking with Jesus but Moses and Elijah, the great prophets of old, who along with other men form a mighty choir for our sakes, their various voices all combining over the centuries to sing the single, wondrous song of God’s Word in perfect unity and harmony, the Scriptures of the Old Testament. You can know that the Good News of our forgiveness, life, and salvation through Jesus’ life and death for us is so by reference to the Old Testament Scriptures, which all point to Him and tell us in great detail what God was about to do in the fulness of time.

Peter and the Apostles of the New Testament write as eyewitnesses. Their testimony is entirely in agreement with Moses and the Prophets through whom we have received the Old Testament. They all tell us the same story, from many different perspectives, that God loves and redeems us in the Christ, our Lord Jesus.

Finally Peter lifts any remaining doubt, for if he were to claim any virtue of his own we would have reason to be concerned, for the Scriptures are brutally honest about him, showing how he was corrected by our Lord and even by Paul over the years. But this isn’t about Peter, but about God’s Word for he writes “knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” It is God’s Work, the inerrant and infallible word of the Holy Spirit that we receive in the Scriptures, and not Peter’s or Paul’s or Moses’ or Elijah’s or anybody else’s notion of a bright idea that is written for our comfort, life, and salvation. This is why the Scriptures, alone of ancient writings show us the sin and weaknesses of its human authors. We do not have to rely on Peter, but on God alone. You are not required to believe for a moment that any man is infallible in his statements, save Jesus alone. And we do not receive the Scripture on any single man’s authority, for they were not written alone, but are the product of many men, through whom the Spirit has given us the Word, and not something fetched from an Arabian cave, an American wilderness, or pulled from the too-tightly-wound-turban of some self-aggrandizing swami, saffron robed guru, or highly polished TV evangelist, but the perfect product of God, given through admittedly and openly fallible, sinful men called into His Service.

We can know God’s Word, and we can be sure of it. And this Word tells us that He loves us, brings us from death to life, pays the penalty for our sin, and makes us God’s own children through His only-begotten Son, Jesus. This is the ground of Peter’s faith, and not his own virtue or merit. And this is the ground and base of the faith you may rely on and find peace in both now and forever. This is Peter’s and all the prophet’s and apostle’s, and saint’s and your transformation: the grave of Jesus, the One transfigured before him and revealed once and for all the beloved Son of God in whom the Father is well-pleased. We all are in Jesus by His Word and Sacrament, and the Father’s pleasure in His Son is now by grace His pleasure in you too. Jesus is for you. You are in Him. There is your peace and life forever.

The peace of God which passes all understanding now keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Epiphany 3 – Matthew 8:1-13

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:56:27 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

“Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”’

This is Your Word heavenly Father, sanctify us by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: In my office as preacher of Christ, in His stead and with the authority Jesus grants me to speak the whole counsel of His holy Word to the Church and the world, I call on all people, particularly to all Christians who may hear me, and especially you who are citizens with the right to vote in the elections and to participate in civil society of the State of Oregon, and of these United States, and I charge you in Christ’s Name to heed these words:

All decent Americans are against child abuse. We have all heard of infants and young children abused, beaten, and killed by parents, or the live-in friends of their unwed parents. You can think of unfortunate examples yourself. And as you think about it, what do you conclude of such evil and wrong? Do you think to yourself something like “I believe that was unfortunate" or "I think it was a poor choice" or, "To each his own. Surely, the adult was disturbed and probably didn't meant it and only took things a bit too far in hindsight. Of course how can I put my own moral choices on that little family?” NO! Of course you wouldn’t ever imagine to think such a thing. What do you think? It was demonic, disgusting, despicable! Of that we must be quite dogmatic. There are no circumstances, no excuses for such wicked behavior.

We should be no less clear about the violent murder of babies that has been legalized by our own government since this very day in January in 1973 some thirty nine years ago, and is carried out upon our nation’s babies in their hundreds of thousands every year, now numbering in the tens of millions, with cold, Nazi-like efficiency in clinics and hospitals in our very own communities. The mothers may receive pain killers, but there is no mercy for the babies. It is far more painful and traumatic than cigarette burns, punching, or kicking. It is evil. It is wrong. It is disgusting and disturbing. The devil is not chased away by philosophy but by dogma, by calling things what they are, by the Truth. All decent human beings are against murder, whether that be of babies, the mentally handicapped, or the elderly. All decent Americans, and especially we Christians must oppose this bloody murder called abortion, pregnancy reduction, family planning, euthanasia, or death with dignity, wherever we are able.

My fellow redeemed: We live in a cruel, violent world. We do not make the laws. We are not in control. Neither was the Centurion. He served his government faithfully, even though it was a purveyor of abortion and murder, of ethnic cleansing and corruption, and of persecution of the Church. Rome was a terrible place. America is a far superior country not just in government and structure, but also in morality. You do what you can, what you have the authority to do. The Christian policeman can not arrest an abortionist for murder even though he is killing babies. Shamefully, it is not illegal. In fact, the policeman actually has to protect that man. But the policeman can vote. He can lobby. He can bring his influence to bear where he is able. He can exercise his constitutional rights as a citizen. No Christian, whether he be a policeman, a doctor, or a farmer, has the right to strike out with violence and hatred. That is not the way of Christ. Only the government, the Law, can wield the sword. You have heard it said: "You shall not abort." But I say to you that anyone who has tired of his children, of the mess, the noise, the expense, anyone who has ever wished them away, is guilty of abortion in his heart. Repent. Evil is not overcome with evil, but with good, specifically the good of Good Friday. Jesus died also for abortionists and weak-willed politicians, for scared girls told it was okay by a seemingly knowledgeable nurse. The solution for all of our ills, social and otherwise, is the satisfaction of Justice in the cross of Jesus where He took the sins of all men upon Himself.

That is how the Centurion, that consummate man of violence, was overcome. I don't know when or where. I just know that it is the way it always is. For we are not converted by the Law, by beauty, or by reason. Political rallies against something don't make Christians. We are converted by forgiveness, by the loving intervention of God in our lives to cleanse and heal our fallen hearts. We are converted by being welcomed into the Father's House for the sake of the Son in the gift of the Spirit. And in our conversion, the devil is defeated. His prize is snatched away.

Thus the Centurion came to Jesus in faith. He pleaded with our Lord, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." And the compassionate Christ volunteered to come and heal him. Imagine such an offer! But centurions are ever rank-conscious. This centurion recognized the power of God's grace for healing and forgiveness. He was not worthy. He only desired a Word - a Word is all it will take! For in the Word of Christ is power and authority. He only desired the same Word of power and authority which had cleansed his own heart and brought him into the kingdom. Thus the Centurion's servant was healed, and he himself received a word of praise without equal for his faith. For his faith submitted to the authority and power of Jesus Christ.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In itself faith is really nothing. It is the paper where the words are written, the mp3 file, or cd where the music is recorded. Christianity is not about faith. It is, rather, about that which faith lays hold of, Christ our Lord. Faith is the means whereby Christ dwells in us. He is what we hope for, what we do not see, but whom we believe. Faith saves us by delivering to us Christ our Savior. Faith saves is an equivalent statement to the book reads. Thus: Abraham believed the LORD and it was counted unto him as righteousness. A verse so significant that it is directly quoted three times in the New Testament and alluded to at least once. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It hopes in Christ.

Christ saves.

Thus Faith is the indwelling of Christ and saves. It is ever the state of the baptized. It recognizes, preeminently, as did the Centurion, that Jesus of Nazareth is God in our Flesh come to save us. When that is known nothing else matters. Or, more precisely, everything falls into place. For if God has come in our Flesh to save us how can He fail to give us all good things? Is He not wiser than our earthly fathers who know enough not to give us vipers or scorpions when we ask for bread? If God has come in our Flesh to save us then how can His Word ever lead us astray? If God has come in our Flesh to save us then we are safe. Our pride and ambition lose their momentum. We are satisfied in His death and resurrection. We forget ourselves. We are fully His and perfectly innocent of all sins.

He chooses in His grace to come under our roof. Not just into our homes, or into our souls, but into our bodies. He enters our mouths to dwell in our hearts, to purify our souls, by means of the Holy Communion. The bread which we break is His Holy Body. The wine which we bless is His Holy Blood. It is given and shed for you for the remission of sins, for the strengthening of faith, for encouragement, for healing, for the sake of love. Thus he overcomes our violence, hatred, and cowardice. He speaks the Word and it is so. He says "Go" to the devil and he goes. He says "Come" to the Holy Spirit, and He comes. He says, "Let it be done for you as you have believed." And it is! You are righteous before God. You will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

The Peace of God which passes all understanding post guard to watch and protect your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Epiphany 2 – January 15, 2012 – St. John 2.1-11

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:28:17 GMT

for more, go to <resurrectionlutheran.us>

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. Jesus said to them, “fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it.

This is your word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your truth. Your word is truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: What lesson may we take away from the wedding at Cana? We actually have an embarrassment of riches:

It is a wedding feast which Jesus first blesses. The estate of marriage, the lifelong union of a man and woman is God’s gift for our good and our blessing, the foundation of the family, and the core of all good government. Marriage is a blessing from God, and Jesus gives quite a wedding gift to the newlyweds of Cana. Marriage is God’s creation for our blessing, and not therefore subject to redefinition or dilution. It is a sin to regard it as inferior to any manmade system of devotion or religious rigor, or to deride it as profane in comparison to a life of solitude set apart for prayer or some other work. The true God we serve has not only called us to spiritual things, but has also created all the stuff of life for our good and blessing. And He has given us our daily vocation, calling us to every form of wholesome human interaction, companionship, and relation. The vocation of husband, wife, mother, father, son and daughter are blessed and to despise these is to despise the Giver of such good gifts. The Christian religion may not rightly therefore insist on such things as lifelong vows of celibacy by which marriage is forbidden. To the contrary we follow Jesus in blessing marriage, and celebrating such occasions in life as a wedding feast.

And as the Christian religion must regard, uphold, and honor marriage, and every family vocation as right and blessed, so too we must speak a clear warning to civil society, especially when common sentiment is set against the clear gift of marriage and family that this is not an institution defined, established, or created by man, that our human governments might tinker with and change it. To do such a thing would be to assume authority over God himself, who has given us marriage, and is a perversion of governmental powers. We may not call good that which God has called evil, and we may not obey any law of man which contradicts the law of God.

The virgin Mary is blessed among women; and we owe the maiden respect, who alone of all humanity contained within her body the fullness of the Church, and is an example of the Church, within which Christ may be found with His good gifts, and must hear her carefully who speaks to all who would follow in Christ as she instructs the servants at the feast “Whatever He says to you, do it.” If you would honor the blessed virgin Mother of our Lord, obey the only explicit instruction she provides in God’s Word, and pay attention to the Word of our Lord and follow it faithfully. This instruction from Saint Mary is a blessing to all who hear and heed her; for she ever and only points us to the One she bore, the Lord Jesus our Savior and our God.

We may also speak to those who regard that wine is sinful from this text and have them see that their zeal is misplaced when it sets its demands against what Jesus is plainly and graciously giving. Again we must insist that it is an error and a sin to call evil what God has provided for our good. The Scripture says that wine gladdens the heart, and we are not to rewrite or redefine what God here gives in practical terms, for that would be to pervert God’s Word, and a sin. It is true that drunkenness is a sin. But misuse does not invalidate proper use, and those who would deny the joy of God’s blessing in joyous celebration must be called upon to repent and turn from their dour, sour-faced insistence that nobody else ought to have fun either. Turning your misery into a god in this way is no less a form of wicked idolatry than those who worship statues of false gods. Your God is not a prune-faced biddy, so lighten up and enjoy the gracious gifts He provides!

There are many lessons to learn at the wedding feast in Cana. But I would especially focus finally on the instruments Jesus used to bless those who were there on that day.

Jesus spoke to the servants who were there. Ordinary folks whom He used according to their vocation. Through their vocation of being what we would call waiters, cooks, janitors, and so on, as might be found in a banquet facility or restaurant, Jesus did something holy. Your daily labor may not seem to be much of a big deal, but God Himself is using you to serve your neighbor and to bless them. Your work is holy. Even your companionship at a meal is God’s gift to lighten the loneliness of the one you have joined.

Jesus instructed them to take the stuff already there: stone waterpots and water. God blesses us through the things He already has given us. He is our Creator and He is the author of all that we have, and He uses these common things for our good and our blessing. When God seeks to provide His blessing to us, He uses the stuff He has already given as His conduit to bless. God works through means.

Too often we are tempted to believe the fanatics who encourage us to insist on direct acts from God, direct messages beamed supernaturally into our hearts and minds, miracles out of the blue. I warn you that you should nether expect God to work in this way, nor should you look for it. God blesses you through means. He speaks to your heart here and now through His Word which He already has given by means of His prophets and apostles who faithfully recorded it. How shall they hear God’s Word, the Scripture asks, without a preacher? And so God provides and sets men apart and charges them to speak His Word as He has given it in the Bible fully and faithfully.

And as God blesses us by His Word and speaks through it effectively now, He also employs the common stuff He has designated for our good to be His means of grace for our blessing. At the wedding Jesus used water in waterpots to provide the earthly blessing of very good wine. Today Jesus uses wine, bread, water, and word, the hands and mouths of the men He sets into His preaching office, through which He brings us forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus imbues and transforms what is at hand, the common things of His creation with His blessing and grace. We see this in the Means of Grace. It is common water, except that His gracious word and promise are attached. Common bread and wine convey His most holy Body and Blood. And our common language He takes and forms into His holy Word, in which God Himself breathes into us forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus has no need to convey His word in a special heavenly tongue, nor to come to us by some otherworldly confected stuff. He uses what He already has given, and transforms it to His good purpose for our good. He also uses as I previously mentioned, the common vocations of us all through which He provides the things we need to live each day, and by which His faithful children are also blessed to bless their neighbors, causing them to wonder at the hope that is given us so that His Word of life may be spoken to them and His Church embrace and give them life everlasting, a wine which gladdens forevermore, and a spring of living water by which the soul of man may never thirst again.

This is enough for us today. Jesus here blesses marriage, and through it all society. His mother instructs us clearly and simply to hear her Son and heed what He says. God works through means to bless and keep us all, both now and forever. And through all of these we hear God’s grace, our forgiveness, and our blessing. What more is there to say but Amen?

So the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.

The Epiphany of our Lord – Matthew 2.1–12

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:50:58 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

This is your word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: We know the story. The wise men saw the star in the east and came to Jerusalem. I want you to see the picture in your mind’s eye, of the magi and Herod, there in the throne room of the palace in Jerusalem. Now I want you to understand what the Scripture is telling you. None of those men had a right to be there. The magi, these were no followers of the one true God. They were scholars of many things, but they did not know God’s Word. They were not sons of Israel. No promise had been given them. And Herod, to whom the magi had come seeking the one who has been born King of the Jews? He did not qualify, for he had not been born to the throne he occupied. Over two thousand years before, God had promised Abraham that the world would be blessed through His line. A thousand years before Herod, the Lord God had sworn to David the son of Jesse that the king of the people of God would always be of his house and royal line. For a thousand years, through good times and through the many bad times too, it had been so; until now. Herod was not of the house of David. Herod wasn’t even a son of father Abraham. He occupied the throne because he had usurped it by gaining the favor of the pagan emperors of far pagan Rome far away.

Herod was king over the Jews, but no king of the Jews, no son of Abraham, no descendent of the royal line and house of David. Though he lived in the house, and sat on the throne, Herod had no right. God had promised father Abraham. God had promised his shepherd-king David. Herod was sitting in a seat which belonged to Another. And God always keeps His promise.

Herod had no right to the throne of David. The magi had no right to seek the true King. They had no right– but they had been invited. And beckoned by a star, by that angelic messenger shining before them, who had appeared to them two years before, they, unworthy though even the great men of the world are, they followed. They could not have known, they could not have come, but for the invitation. How could they have known, how could they have come, but for the bright, shining herald of the Lord?

Great men though the magi were, in the eyes of other men, before the God who is, they were lowlier even than the shepherds who at His birth had also been beckoned by a bright shining host in their night sky, made invited witnesses to come and worship the virgin-born Son of Mary, God’s only-begotten One, full of grace and truth, as He lay in a manger. So it had been that in the fulness of time the Good News of Jesus had first come to the humble shepherd Jews, and now in turn the nations from afar were beckoned, and the magi of the east, gentiles without any other right or claim were also gladdened by the beckoning herald shining and leading in their eastern sky. First to the Jew, then the Gentile, first to those through whom the Promise of salvation had been given, then to all mankind. Here in the early days of the Incarnation, Jesus is revealed to the nations of the east. And near the time when in the fulness of time Jesus would be lifted up in redemption for us on the cross, men would come from the west too.

They had no right but for the gracious invitation of the heralds of the Good News. The bright shining star the magi followed, what was it? I cannot say, for the Scripture only calls it by the name given to all bright things in the heavens, the word is ‘astare’ from which we get ‘star’, but our understanding of stars is too narrow a definition. What is this, but what the shepherds, earlier had beheld in their own heavens, the angelic herald of God. And what is an angel but a messenger? And what message is heralded here in the story of Christmas, and now of the shining, magi leading herald of Epiphany, but the great good news that there is now, at just the right moment, born to you in King David’s home city, the Savior, the One truly born King of the Jews, for He is by His human nature David’s royal son, and of all creation, for by His divinity He is the eternal King, Lord God, Creator of us all, Jesus!

And these heralds were by no means the last, for Jesus would call men, set them apart, and send them out, heralds of His Good News. There is born to us dying the Living One, God Himself who has reconciled us to Himself by His own perfect obedience to His Law which condemns us sinners, and by His death in our place, perfectly and forevermore fulfilling the penalty of our sin, and destroying the power of death over us, that we live in Him now and forever. What good news!

But how should the nations hear this good news unless one is sent? So it is that like sparks from a campfire the heralds have gushed forth, to Jerusalem and Judea and even to the ends of the earth. Till we too have been made a part of this story. As the shepherds watching their flocks in the field by night once saw a great sight, as magi far in the east beheld a star to lead them to Jesus, so now to every tribe and nation, to every tongue and ethnicity of mankind the angelic good news is heralded and we too are made glad by it.

Hearing it, the shepherds said one to another, let us go up to Bethlehem to see this great thing. Seeing it, the magi followed till with great joy they saw how in Bethlehem the star stood at last over the house where Mary and the Child were. Hearing the herald’s glad cry, what now shall you do?

Here a choice is given. For many follow Herod’s leading. He knew he was a fraud and without true right to the house of David. So he sought only to destroy and tear down and murder the Christ, and any who might ever bring such news. He sent to Bethlehem men who would present to the City of David’s sons gifts of sharp-edged steel, to murder and silence them. Many today hear the Good News of Jesus, but fearing that they are found out in their sin, do whatever they may to silence, to strike down, to choke off, the slightest whisper of the Gospel of Jesus. If not by destroying the pulpits and preachers, then by silencing the voice to their own ears.

But for every Herod, afraid to be revealed in his sin and fraud, there is a shepherd, who knows he has nothing to lose but his filth; and there is a wise man, who knows for all his silken robes and wondrous possessions he is a beggar still before the Creator, and they come, for the beckoning brings them, the words of the invitation of the Good News of Jesus quicken them to rise and follow and behold the Savior and receive the Good Things He gives, for Jesus comes with healing in His wings, bringing His own perfect obedience, His own perfect, all-atoning death, His own eternal Life, forgiving us, and where there is forgiveness there is also life and salvation. And broken hearts made new, and sadness given over to joy, and tears at last and for all, wiped away.

The shepherds, beholding Jesus, as the heralds had told them, went out proclaiming the Good News with great joy. The magi, coming in before the great Savior King of us all, worshipped and adored Jesus, and beggars though they knew themselves to be, they presented whatever had been placed in their hands, and they opened their treasures to Jesus, giving kingly gold, priestly frankincense, and prophetic myrrh. So do we, having received the herald borne invitation, having come into His house with singing and gladness, have met our Savior through His Word and Sacrament, and beggars though we are, we too open our treasures and bring such gifts as we have been given.

And with the magi, ’til the time we as they are beckoned on to our heavenly home, we abide in His presence. With the shepherds, having spread the Good News to all who would in our daily lives hear it, we return, again, and again. We open our little treasures as we are made able, but moreso, infinitely moreso we receive great Gifts from our Lord and Savior, the true Son of David, the fulfillment of the promise of Abraham, the blessing of all the nations, and our blessing too, even Jesus, our Savior-King. He meets us, and we are forgiven, and ever made new, and ever loved.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Christmas Day – Luke 2

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:42:54 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

“And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

This is your word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by your truth. Your word is truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: What a thing to happen; the Creator sees His creatures are ruined in hopeless condition and unfit for life, but so loving them, leaves aside His native glory and stoops down further and further till at the right moment He becomes one of us and the Creator is a fellow creature, entering into the world He has made, so lowly that there is no room for Him to be. He is born a man in a stable, laid in the trough designed to hold grain for livestock.

God Himself became man. In fact He did so nine months earlier, entering into the Virgin’s womb so that Mary miraculously became pregnant. But it was now, in His being delivered that our fellow man were able to behold Him. And so she did, His mother see her Lord and behold her Son, and Joseph too. Though they had not come together in their betrothal, he had lovingly treated his bride, protecting her and the Child growing heavy within her. So we may truly regard him as Jesus’ father in all but the biological sense. A loving protecting, daddy, hands accustomed to mallet and plank and the rough use of a builder, he gently used his calloused hands to hold and wash the infant’s tender skin. Wrapped snugly, and laid to rest after an infant’s borning labors, Mary and Joseph beheld their Son, God made man to be and dwell among us, making funny newborn snuffles as He slept.

Soon the Holy Family were joined by other rough fellows, nighttime shepherds fresh in from the flock-filled meadow, who angel directed had come to behold how the Creator had entered creation in the tender flesh of a child, till rejoicing and triumphing the glad news they went to tell and rouse the slumbering villagers of the wondrous birth.

What a glory, to behold the Child, to see Jesus before you and know that here, veiled in flesh is God Himself. Who among us wouldn’t want to have had the opportunity to be there, that first Christmas, to see God come to man? Our sentiment and story of longing is to be brought before the Creator, we broken creatures, and to see Him before us kindly, caring, curing our fallen condition, to forever reunite us to Himself.

You know that such a thing could never be done by our doing, it has to be His. Only God can come to us, we cannot go to Him. And if He comes unveiled, in His glory, would you be able to stand it, or would you in your imperfection and sin be undone entirely? No, He must come in such a way as we would be healed and not forever condemned, for our sin has left us dead before Him, woeful and unfit. If God would come, He must come gently for our sakes.

And so at Christmas the sentiment of many is given over to a futile longing, to be among those shepherds, to stand at Protector Joseph’s side, to see God With Us a child, meek and lowly. And so many, many, many will come away from this holy Feasting Day hearts weighed down that we all have missed that day of Jesus’ birth. We have missed His coming to the Temple, we have missed His ministry, His teaching, His healing of many, we have missed His final passion, His dying as the Sinless One bearing the sin of the world upon the cross. We missed it all for we were all born centuries afterward. And hearts are downcast, for we can not gather with shepherds in the stable to see Him. And the sentiment of the Season soon is past, burnt off like the morning fog into nothing, and the Christmastime feeling is gone like a dream.

Well, awake from your dreaming, you lost and dying, for this is no dream. The world is fitful, filled with unobtainable fantasy, too willing to deny what is, and long for what is no more. The world pretends this time of year to rejoice in Jesus’ birth, but makes it a fantasy fairy tale forever out of reach and continues to go to hell. The sentiment and dreaming are false, and you should know it. For what the world says can never be, is. The world insists on a dream which is not real, and regards what is real as a dream. Wake, awake, and slumber no longer! The telling of the Story of the Savior’s birth, and the shepherd’s beholding Him is not without a purpose: Would you see Jesus? Would you gather before Him and behold Him, receive Him, be blessed by the God who lifts His countenance, His kindly face full of grace upon you? Then rejoice that He was born once among us, and rejoice that Jesus lived and ministered in our midst. Then rejoice that the God who made Himself a man this day came in order to bear the terrible load of our sin and took once and for all the penalty of death, which you owe in your sin upon Himself and made complete satisfaction and payment of it, living in perfect willing obedience to His Law which would crush us sinners, and dying to forever fulfill its demand. Rejoice that Jesus has broken the terrible chains of death, and has stormed the very gates of hell, declaring His victory and life forever. Rejoice that He is risen from the dead, death being destroyed no longer may hold him. And rejoice that this same Jesus whom the world fervently believes to be no longer with mankind, no longer in this world, in fact now comes to us, is with us.

Emmanuel, God With Us, is true to His name, Jesus is with us. He comes before you and is with you fully here and now. Listen to Jesus’ promise. He is God and cannot lie. His promise is certain and sure, and He keeps His Word: Jesus tells you, oh man that wherever two or three are gathered together in His Name, He is in our midst also. Jesus tells you that whatever is forgiven you on earth is forgiven you also in heaven, before the Face of the ever living God and Father of us all. Jesus tells you that you are made His by His Word and Spirit and water of holy Baptism and lo, He is with you forevermore. Jesus tells you that He is with you, all of Him, in His body and blood born of Mary, His body and blood suffered once and for all in your stead upon the cross into death, in His body and blood which is risen from the dead on the third day, in His body and blood which goes to prepare a place for you in His Father’s house of many mansions and if He goes, He returns to you, Jesus, the baby born in Bethlehem, the man who fed thousands with a little bread and fish, He is with you, Body and Blood, before you, fed into in the bread and wine. Here is your communion, here is the wonder of the ages. What the shepherds once beheld, speaks word of Good News of your forgiveness and blessing to you, washes you and makes you clean and cloaks you in His own righteousness in the sight of the Father, feeds Himself into your mouth to eat and drink. Here is Jesus; behold your Savior God!

God has clothed Himself in your flesh, spoken in your tongue, washed you under the flood of water and feeds into you Himself fully, His glorified humanity and His gracious divinity.

As shepherds once rushed to behold their Savior, you come too, rush in, and behold Him who is for you, and in whom you have forgiveness, life, and salvation, as He comes to you now and you behold His Word proclaimed, His washing of Holy Baptism, His Holy Communion. Here is Jesus for you, here and now. The miracle of miracles, the Life of your life, and your salvation from forever death is here. Behold your Savior and know the blessing.

Now join the shepherds that night, and go and tell. Join with the women at the tomb on the day of His rising and go and tell. Great good news, Jesus is for you, God and man are reconciled together in Him. Your sin is forgiven, you are made at peace with the God who loves you now and forevermore.

The peace of God which passes all understanding guard over your heart and mind through Christ Jesus forevermore. Amen.

Advent 3 – St. Matthew 11.2–10

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:35:11 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

This is Your word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by the Truth. Your word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: John is locked in prison, in today’s Gospel reading, but he is bound by something more serious than the stone walls and iron bars of his physical captivity. He is bound by his fear and doubting which grew so great as to impel him to send two of his disciples to Jesus to ask: “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

John’s dark doubting, so desperate for hope, is recorded in the Holy Gospel for your benefit. You have also endured dark doubtings, desperate for hope. What is one to do when the easy glory days seem all gone? The crowds of disciples no longer surround the Baptizer as they had years before. The babbling flow of the Jordan, the dust of the shuffling feet, the drenching cool waters, the open air excitement that had drawn all Jerusalem down to the river: all were gone now. The void of a sealed dungeon cell enveloped the forerunner of the Christ. He had only a pair of disciples still nearby to dispatch on his mission of hope to Jesus. He was, but for the soft-garmented murderous enemy above in the throne-room, all alone. What is one to do when the easy glory days are all gone, and life’s parade has passed you by? Your confidence (you still may be able to put on a good show; but it’s only that), is all gone. That virtue, beauty, talent, genius upon which you once relied has proven fragile and fleeting. You are too alone too often with too many of your darkest heartfelt doubting thoughts. And there you dwell in the dungeon cell of your despairing heart. Is this all there is? Or, is there something else; something more, to fill the weary emptiness of your sin-sick soul?

Come to think of it, your despair has always been there, hasn’t it? But oh, it was so much easier to ignore in those brighter days. Now there’s no avoiding it; not much longer anyway. What shall you do? “Jesus, are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?

In those days there were no shortage of things to throw into the pit of man’s despair. Tired of the mainstream, cults too numerous even for the historians to remember had sprouted. For a price they offered you an shiny new cardboard god (exciting at first flush, till you realized there wasn’t anything to him; just a flashy promise without anything to back it up). You could tailor your own mystery cult if you dared. Lots of stuff like that was going on. Or, you could throw yourself headlong into the business of business, devoting your life to the acquisition of wealth and earthly power (the money would devalue, and the power would soon enough be all dust). Or, you could fill the hours with whatever pleasures and distractions you might find in things that for a while could distract, numb, and occupy the flesh. The dominant Greco-Roman culture offered all sorts of consumer creature comforts. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Nothing satisfied then. And nothing satisfies the despairing heart of man today. John the Baptizer wasn’t immune; neither are we. The lights and decorations of Christmas aren’t quite so magical any more are they? The anticipation and dreaming... it’s not so captivating as it once seemed to be. The children sing their hopeful Christmas songs, but it’s too much like a desert in your heart. The words may be on your lips, but the sweetness has gone all to dust for you. You are captive in the prison of the heart, with John.

And so, now what?

“Oh, come, O Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery!”

John desperately needed the Key of David to unchain his heart; how about you?

The disciples go looking for a locksmith for their captive teacher and find the Key Himself. The people in Jesus’ crowd that day must have been astonished to hear such doubting from the abandoned, but still well-known John the Baptist. But Jesus knows how it is in the dark hour of the heart. Jesus knows how it is with you, and He loves you. See how He unlocks John. “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind receive their sight and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” It’s nothing new, is it? Jesus simply relies on the-already-in-those-days-ancient text of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus confidently employs God’s Word to release John from his prison-house of doubting. And that is sufficient. For the Word of the Lord is certain and true. Where gimmicks and flash, distractions and novelties all prove empty, the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking is certain, strong, unchanging, and able to fill the empty heart that nothing else can.

Too long and too often have too many of us run after such solutions to our yearning as the world affords. But too great and too powerful is the desperation that remains at day’s end. God help us that we not come to life’s end so empty, so chained, so dry. But thanks be to God! He does help us, unbind us, un-despair us! And it is just as with John; with the sturdy, unchanging Word. The Word made flesh speaks and restores to us the joy of our salvation, creates in us clean hearts, and renews His right Spirit within us.

Do we judge the heart of the Baptizer? Do we judge one another as being weaker than we ought to be in the Faith? Do we cast shadows over our fellow christian for not seeing the ‘big picture’ which we seem so easily to see? Then dear ones, see it clearly, you are judging the very Creator and Giver of the Faith, our Lord and God! Would we even go so far as to doubt how His Gifts are effective? And know that the days of ease in the meadows of the Good Shepherd may also be followed for each of us by hard and dry travel over the rocky and desert places of life. Those in the meadow today, take care not to judge those who hurt because they are traveling in the desert -- they may well be ahead of you on this journey! This warning Jesus gently spoke to those who may have had such thoughts concerning John : “As [John’s disciples] departed, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’ Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

The warning is well-meant, and well-spoken. Do not hold up your brother’s failings to shame him. God already knows them, and forgives; and loves; and calls you to love him too. And understand that the journey which may show the weakness of your fellow christian, this is a journey which you will travel too. And know that the helpless heart which too soon is revealed by the desperate cry of the hurting believer is met not with God’s angry accusation, but with that which is able to fill the need– the Word of the Lord. For the Word came and dwelt among us weak and desperate ones. He became man. And Jesus took all our shame, all our sin, all our heartache, and died in our place, under our penalty, for John, for every sinner, for you too. And now christian, Jesus calls you to this: to hear the Word of the Gospel, and believe it; to believe that His death is for you, the payment for your sin which sets you ever free. You are in Jesus the children of the living God, the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand. He is the Key of David that unlocks heaven to you even in the midst of your trouble. His Word is for you, to set you free, to be the oil of gladness, the joy which passes all understanding. Jesus forgives you.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Advent 2 – St. Luke 21:25-36

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:24:23 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

This is Your Word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by the Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: This is what you should know– Jesus tells you that His words will by no means pass away. God’s Word is sure and eternal. That’s what you should know. And based on this eternal truth, you should receive a warning, and a comfort.

Jesus tells you today that His words will by no means pass away. That means that if you are not in keeping with His words, you are in crisis now, and if you remain apart from Jesus words, you are throwing away your place in His eternal kingdom, and choosing eternal death for yourself. That’s a warning. Pay attention to it. The anxiety and perplexity you feel and hear in the voices around you are based on the fact that we are all dying, and the world around us is in trouble, as the Scripture says, groaning under the weight of our sin. The calamity and disaster, disease, war, and horror of every kind all point to the terrible damage sin does to us. The ultimate reign of man in sin is death. As the hymn puts it, there’s ‘change and decay on every hand I see.’ To be apart from Jesus by being apart from what He has said is give yourself over into this change and decay, it is to be dying in a dying world, waiting only to enter into eternal death.

Jesus is telling you that He is providing your life and salvation, and He wants you to live in that eternal joy, and is warning you not to depart from it, neglecting His Word, hearing it, gathering together around it, and taking the comfort He gives for today and forevermore. Remember what importance Jesus gives His words. He is the Word made flesh, and His Word is truth and life. His word makes for your peace. His word is your forgiveness. His Word calls you from death to life. Jesus provided for His Word to be recorded and according to His promise has located the Holy Spirit in His Word to be active in those who hear it. That’s what ‘inspiration’ means: that the Word of the Lord is living because the Holy Spirit is abiding in it for your sake. And Jesus today tells you that His word is enduring. His words will never pass away. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus is the Word. And so His words share His eternal validity, truth, authority, and power. To neglect His Word is to neglect the things that make for your life. Pay attention, see the world dying around you, and cling to Jesus’ words.

Jesus tells you that His words will by no means pass away. God’s Word is sure and eternal. That’s what you should know. And based on this eternal truth, you should receive a warning, and a comfort. You have heard His warning, and you see it validated in the signs all around you in your fellow man, in your own mirror every morning, and in the disaster befalling us on every hand both in the natural world, and in society too. Take the warning and heed it.

But do not be cowed by all the change and decay, disaster and calamity. Understand these things as the warning signs they are for those whom Jesus loves, and take comfort from the fact that Jesus’ words will by no means pass away. Pay attention to what Jesus says to you in His Word. He makes you promises; Wondrous promises! Behold, He makes everything new! He tells us that He goes up to Jerusalem to suffer and die on the cross, and to be buried, and on the third day to rise in triumph over your death, the sacrifice once for all of the Innocent One in your place. Jesus tells you that you are forgiven your sin, that it is removed farther from you than the depths of the ocean. Jesus comforts you in your dying, telling you that you shall be with Him in Paradise. Jesus tells you that if He goes, He returns, for in His Father’s house are many mansions and one for you. Jesus speaks peace to you, breathes His Spirit into you by His Word, delivers forgiveness, life, and salvation to you just exactly where He says: in His Word proclaimed, in the washing of Holy Baptism, in the bread He gives to you saying ‘This is My Body,’ in the cup He shares with you ‘This is My Blood, shed for you for the remission of your sin.’

Jesus speaks to your fear and self-doubting, not quenching out a smoking wick, not breaking off a bent reed, speaking healing, life, and peace to him who blurts ‘I believe, help my unbelief!’

Jesus’ words will never pass away. And as you see all the things He sets before you as signs of the coming end, take them no longer as dreadful ends in themselves to seal your doom, but as markers along the way, and cling to Him through His Word, through His Sacraments, through His Church, through His every promise, confidence gained not in your own quality or person, but in His Words, which never fail, and always uphold you by His Spirit and Grace. And live in such hope in things to come based on Jesus’ Words that it causes those yet in darkness to see His shining light through you and wonder to hear of it, that your neighbor, your loved one, may yet cling to Jesus’ unchanging, eternal Words, and not die, but with you in great joy live forevermore.

The peace of God which passes all understanding is keeping you, guarding over your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Amen.

The Last Sunday of the Church Year – St. Matthew 25.1-13

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:43:10 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”

This is Your word heavenly Father, sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: Who gets to go to heaven? Do you go to heaven because you are better than those who don’t? What does Jesus say to you in today’s text? What is the single quality He mentions in the parable which speaks of whether a person is pure or not?

“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins…”

Now you know that half of the group were shut out of the wedding, by which Jesus is saying that many shall be shut out of the Kingdom of heaven. But look at who Jesus divides, between those who get in and those who don’t. They are likened to “ten virgins.” Ok, so what can you do with that? Without anything to modify it, ‘virgin’ is simply untouched, and pure. Nothing about the moral character of the ten decided whether or not they would be included in the marriage.

Now think, is there a word which describes our moral condition before God? There are: ‘Fallen.’ ‘Sinner.’ and how about ‘Dead!’ In the sight of God these are the words which describe every son and daughter of Adam and Eve. Born into a fallen condition, you have continually added fault and sin to the list of reasons why you could never approach a holy God or enter into His Kingdom of Life. If you look to yourself there is nothing to give you any comfort, and much indeed to terrify your honest self-examination. And your neighbor is like you. We all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. According to the quality of your person and work, you may not come near God, and you have no good reason to hope for anything but eternal separation from Him. And that means that you are dead already, and may only anticipate the endless horror of eternal death and hell.

No, I don’t want to go on about it. Rather I commend to you your own darkest fear regarding your true moral condition, and your own memory of the sin you know yourself to be guilty of. The Law of God has been inscribed upon your heart, and it preaches your damnation to you more loudly and eloquently by half than any pulpit-thumping accusation from me could manage. Indeed, it would perhaps be easier on you if I just listed sins which you may have done, for then you could sit there and suppose I’m talking about the fellow over there. But your own heart stings you with your very own failings and evil thoughts and words and doings. Consider that sermon well.

…

But remember what I said earlier about the characters in Jesus’ parable? Nothing about the moral character of the ten decided whether or not they would be included in the marriage. And Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven may be likened to what He here describes. If nothing about the moral character of the ten makes the difference (they were all virgins, after all) in the parable, then we must conclude that nothing about your moral character makes the difference as to whether or not you will be included in the Kingdom of Heaven (all of humanity, every one of us is a sinner, after all). So the common wisdom that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell isn’t true. If it were true, all of us would go to hell, for all have sinned and fall short of the Kingdom of God!

So how then may you be brought into the Kingdom of Heaven, if it isn’t how good you are?

“Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.”

Jesus is telling us this parable, likening the ten virgins to the Kingdom of Heaven. He is telling us that some are going to be ready when the moment comes for the Groom to arrive. Those who aren’t ready ahead of time will not gain access into that Kingdom. Jesus has chosen imagery that we must take note of. The setting of the parable is a marriage. The virgins are in waiting for the coming of the Groom. Elsewhere in Scripture the Church is named the Bride of Christ, and He, her Groom. The virgins in this parable would be those outwardly associated with the Bride, that is, with the Church. No man may judge the heart of another. We only can judge by appearances. As you know, looks can be deceiving! We see those who appear to be in the Church in the world today. And we should have no doubt that where the Word of God is proclaimed, and the Sacraments are rightly administered, that there are people who are in the Church truly, but so long as we remain in this world, the fact is that there are others who only, for whatever reason, have chosen to associate themselves with it for appearance’ sake while remaining apart from it.

I want to stress here that none of us has the ability to judge the heart, and so it is not given to any of us to say that this one is a believer, but the other one isn’t. That declaration is only to be made reluctantly, where the sin is blatant, and in the face of stubborn unrepentance. In fact most of the time the false brethren cannot be seen for what they are in the Church Militant. In fact it may well be that those who appear least good, least holy, only minimally Christian among us may be very close to our Lord indeed! and fighting such a struggle, carrying such a cross against temptation, that none of us may ever understand. When you consider such folk, remember that you do not know what you cannot see, and pray the more for them, that the armies of the heavenly host may rally to their cause and uplift them in their trouble!

Saying that the Bride is the Church and the Groom our Lord Jesus, the Virgins are those identified as being in the Church visible, both true and false, I could go on to note that the oil for their lamps is oftentime seen as a reference to the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, who enlightens our hearts and minds through God’s Word and enables us to receive and hold it in saving faith. And here you would be right in saying that the analogy breaks down because the foolish virgins who didn’t have any spare oil went to get some from the merchants, albeit too late (although it is interesting to see that in the text it doesn’t actually say that the foolish virgins were successful in getting any when they went shopping). But that’s how it is with parables or any kind of illustration, really. At a certain point, if you push it too hard, it breaks down. We need to remember what Jesus’ point is in the parable of the virgins and only take it so far. His point is plain: the wise virgins enter into the joy of the wedding, for they already had the oil needed to wait for the arrival of the Bridegroom.

Jesus is true God. Seeing your lost condition in sin, He loved you so that He entered into your condition, taking on your flesh and being born of the blessed Virgin to live and suffer under the Law perfectly in your place, and though He had no sin of His own, He became sin for your sake, and was cursed, for cursed is every man that hangs upon a tree. So He obeyed the loving will of the Father and was crucified, dying in your place, so that you might live in His, a royal and eternal heir of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus provided for this gracious deliverance from eternal death in sin to eternal life in holiness and grace to be delivered to you through His Word, where He has promised the Holy Spirit, that is to say the fullness of God through His Third Person should abide to fill you with the Gifts won for you by Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. And the Holy Spirit washes you into this Faith and Life, cleansing you from filth and death in Holy Baptism, and here it is right to speak of you, dear Christian, as in Christ a Virgin, in the sense that you are pure and cleansed without spot or wrinkle in His sight.
Jesus appeals to you by means of the parable of the Virgins that the moment to be ready for this glad eternity in Him is right now. He, our wondrous Groom shall return at a moment of His own choosing, and without warning beyond what you hear in His Word. Now is the day of your salvation, now the day His redemption, Grace, and Spirit are available in abundance to be obtained in His Word and Sacrament for you. When the Last Day comes, or when death suddenly comes calling, there shall be no more time. Now is the time. Be wise, therefore, and a keeper of the Word and Gift of the grace of Jesus in sincerity and truth. Do not be like the foolish, who think it enough for the moment just to tag along and be in the company of the Church as it is seen here in the world. Cast off your pretensions and stop lying to yourself for there is no time but this time, and there is no moment in the future you may be assured of, but the coming of Jesus, and the Judgment of all mankind. That will be no time to be scurrying about, trying to at last obtain what no longer is present for you, and so be lost forever!

Here it is: you are my fellow redeemed, for Jesus has given Himself for your sake. You have life in Him. His Word has been given to you, and you have heard it. You have been baptized into Christ, and His Spirit has met you there. Abandon all if needs be, but cling to the Faith given you. Here is your safe harbor, your full and unending supply of oil, your new heart of flesh to replace the burnt out stony heart of sin. Your sin is forgiven in Christ. You are undone and made new. And soon you shall see Him as He is, and Jesus shall wipe every tear from your eyes, and you shall abide in His presence, in the joy of His eternal wedding feast, forevermore a beloved Child of the Living God. Jesus is coming soon, and the Bride rejoices, and the virgins with her, ‘even so Lord, come quickly!’

The Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Second-Last Sunday in the Church Year St. Matthew 25.31–46

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:57:42 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

“And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

This is your word heavenly Father. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” One of Jesus’ important titles in Scripture is ‘Emmanuel’ which means ‘God with us.’ This is the next-to-last Sunday in the Church year. Advent is coming, and one of our favorite hymns we can look forward to singing is ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.’ God with us comes. Our question today is, how shall He come? At His holy birth in that stable in Bethlehem, Jesus came to us lowly and humble. So He lived His life among us for more than thirty years, perfectly innocent and obedient under the Law in our place to the Father’s will, and so too Jesus humbly submitted Himself to suffering and death on the cross.

Jesus came in humility at Christmas. And He came to die on our cross humbly, that first Good Friday. These things happened. They are historic events. Along with those events Jesus promised us this concerning the future: that at the Last Day He would return. We are near the end of the Church Year, which symbolizes our nearing the end of time. Jesus is returning, and we are engaged by Him to lift up our heads as He comes. But let’s consider: Emmanuel– God With Us is returning– but; how shall Jesus be, in what manner, in what attitude shall Jesus come again? “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” Jesus comes again, but not in the manner He first came, an infant to be swaddled and laid in a manger, a man to be scourged and crucified in deepest obedient humility. Jesus comes in His glory.

When Moses asked to see God face to face, our Lord warned him that His glory would undo and destroy him. Moses only was allowed the slightest glance of the Lord as He passed by, and even that was so much that his hair was turned white and his face glowed so intensely that he had to wrap his head up afterward lest he blind those who saw the man who had caught a glance of the backside of the Lord! Man cannot withstand the presence of the unveiled Holy One. When Jesus returns He is returning in His glory. God With Us shall come upon us and be seated in the midst of us, His creation, attended by the angelic heavenly host. The sight and the glory of it will surely be terrible beyond words!

And Jesus will gather us, the entire species of man from the whole world without exception or escape to Him, and having drawn us all near to Him as He dwells in the uncreated light of His glory, who of you imagine that you will not be undone? In that light of His glory every secret, every defect and fault will be shown, as clearly as a scratch or stain in crystal!

And Jesus shall look upon you, and upon every person, every newborn, every girl and boy, every teenager, every man and woman, every bed-bound, every hospitalized, every elderly, every one shall be subject to His all-penetrating light, and His all-seeing eye. When Jesus returns, there shall be no exception to His judgment. And from it there shall be no appeal or relief. And as a shepherd divides his stock, sheep into one pen, goats into another, there shall be no possibility of evasion or escaping His glorious return to judge you.

You know the word picture Jesus presents of this judging, of the sheep He orders to His right, and the goats He consigns to His left. And you know the good works He has demanded of you in His Law– the Law which He has perfectly kept in His first coming. Jesus is not only the creator of that Law, but in your place, having been made man, Jesus has perfectly obeyed it, and so He is fully in every respect qualified to legitimately demand it of you in judgment. And you know that you have not kept His Law. Your good works are filled with error, with evil, with death. You know that by His Law you are a goat to be consigned to the fire of hell for eternity. And you know that this judgment is right, even as you imagine the unimaginable experience of being in the presence of Jesus in His glory as He judges you.

There is no escaping. You cannot hide. You cannot lose yourself in the crowd. Jesus is coming, and you shall be made to stand before Him. So here is the only question that matters, really: how shall you fare?

On the last day; the Last Day of all Creation, or your personal Last Day when you shall die and await that judgment, there is nothing to be done. You shall not be afforded any second chance, any period of working additional merit by which you might escape the prisonhouse of hell and eternal death. But leave this now, and return to your senses. This is not the Last Day, Jesus has not yet returned in His glory to judge. There remains a time. What is to be done?

Of yourself there is nothing to be done, for as we hear the sheep and the goats, both the saved and the eternally damned of mankind say, you are unable to recognize even in the slightest manner what service you may bring to your Lord. But Jesus in His returning in His glorious judgment is doing just that– returning. He’s been here before, the historical events we celebrate from Christmas through Ascension, and He is even now in our midst according to His promise, in His flesh, fully. Your salvation, and the rescue of your loved one and neighbor, if they will have it, is in Christ’s presence now, the Mystery of His presence among His own between the history of that first advent of Jesus, and the future of His returning on the Last Day.

Therefore it is given to set before you the Mystery Gift of God. Here is Life in Christ, and He is for you, rampant in triumph over your sin, Gracious in loosing your well-earned bonds of death forever. Hear the Word given to be spoken, Christ Jesus lived and died for you, and in Him choose Life, or turn to your own work to your own sin, yes, even to your own virtues, and die. Life and death are here, and you are on the precipice of eternity. Choose Life, your Salvation, your Savior, Who in dying in your place has stretched out His arms to you in His crucifixion and taken you to be His own, He for your sake a sinner, and you for His sake a saint. Isn’t that a wonder! Live in the One who gives you life.

You cannot effect your salvation. But the day of doom is not yet upon you. And Jesus has come to bring you salvation. Emmanuel, God With Us has come to us, and now comes to you with healing, forgiveness, salvation! He once came in humility both to actively fulfill the Law and to offer Himself passively into suffering and death, making the perfect payment of the eternal penalty of your sin. Jesus entrusts this gracious work to you for your salvation in Him precisely where He promises it: in His Word, in which the Holy Spirit continues to breath life and salvation to all who hear and believe. Jesus comes to you by to His promise, chasing the devil and his demons from you in the watery word of holy Baptism, and creating in you faith to hear and believe His Word. Jesus feeds His body and blood, borne of Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, into your mouth to eat and drink, delivering to you fresh and new and unending His redeeming sacrifice made once and for you and for all. Jesus breathes forgiveness into your heart and mind and makes you His own. You are covered in His righteousness by His promise in His Word and these means of His grace.

Oh, insofar as you can see, you are a sinner, and woefully so! But you are in Christ Jesus, and you believe His promise, and His Spirit enables you to hold God Himself to His Word. And when the day at last arrives, and you are made to stand before Him in judgment, and all the world around you is cowering in unworldly fear, you, lift up your head! Lift up your eyes and behold! Your Savior has come, and in His most unrelenting and eternal judgment you have your salvation, life, joy, and peace! Your sin is forgiven. You see your sin, He does not. You see your flaws, God With Us sees none at all, for you are entirely wrapped up into His Glory, His Word fills you, and leaves no place for the word of condemnation. The water has washed you and you are clean. He has fed Himself entirely to you and you are filled up with Him. You are become the very Glory of the Lord which an unbelieving world cannot even see. You are transfixed here, between history and future, and are met by Jesus, and you are saved, redeemed, restored, forgiven, graced to be His holiness, wrapped up altogether in His righteousness, made a participator in His uncreated light and Life forever. And here you may abide, at Peace in Christ.

Jesus has already won your salvation. Worry about it no more. You are forgiven every sin. You are made spotless in the Blood of the Lamb. You are free. So serve one another, and serve those whom you may. Don’t bother whom you serve, just do so in the gladness borne of an heart set free in the grace of Jesus. And with glad surprise hear on the Day to come, just Whom you are credited with serving. Your life is gift. Your salvation is gift. Your sin is no more, by gift you are holy made. You shall not die, but live. God With Us in His Glory gives You His Glory, covers you over and fills you up in His Glory. Lift up your heads, your Redeemer comes nigh!

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus your Lord. Amen.

Reformation Sunday – Psalm 46

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:14:25 GMT

Grace to you and peace, from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ:

Our text this morning is the forty-sixth Psalm, which is the inspiration for the great Reformation hymn by Martin Luther “A Mighty Fortress” The Psalm begins this way:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
Though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its swelling.

This is your word heavenly Father, sanctify us by your truth, your word is truth. Amen.

Beloved in Christ: People are scared. It’s all about to come crashing down you know. Everybody knows that things are bad. The Mayans predicted it, right? 2012 the calendar runs out! That guy Camping prophesied the end of the world was going to happen a couple of weeks ago, again. Ok, so he was wrong, again. Superbugs, super-weapons, 500 foot tall tsunami, magnitude 10 earthquakes, choose your poison. I’ve found myself in weird, unexpected conversations as I was breathlessly informed–how there are mylar strips embedded in our paper money and how these strips can read the numbers off of your credit cards when you put them together in your wallet and then the computer codes on the back of traffic signs then read the information transmitted from your money as you drive by! Conspiracies and the unlikeliest catastrophe somehow makes more sense than the chaotic emotion of undefinable dread.

What is the ultimate source and foundation of the fear that haunts us? While bad things may most certainly be going on out there in the world, I would challenge you to consider something that I think is commonly overlooked: the true source of your darkest fear is within yourself. All the evil which we see happening around us, the conspiracy theories which continually present themselves as truth, and the real conspiracy of wickedness which so harms the common affairs of our action and behavior and word spoken and done out of evil motivations–all these are the outward evidence of the inward existence of sin– the sin which has been your constant companion since you were woven together in your mother’s womb. You know fear, because you are a sinner. This is common to all of us, for we are the offspring of a race fallen since the Garden. And because we are sinners, because we fall short of the Glory of God and His perfect Law, we have good reason to fear. In our sinfulness we see the ever present threat of punishment and eternal death before us. Sin makes us spiritually blind because death fills our spiritual field of view. No matter where the sinful man looks he sees the result of his sin which is death, and so he is fearful and filled with the vision of evil and conspiracy permeating the whole world.

Because of sin, we see disaster on every side, and, to use Luther’s words “devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us...” Nevertheless, the message our Lord sends us through this forty-sixth Psalm is one which is ultimately reassuring. Each of us, in our own heart has felt the dreadful fear which is the message of the Law. God’s Word delivers a new message:

God is for us. And more than lending us moral support, He is our refuge, our strength, to use Luther’s paraphrase, “A mighty fortress is our God, a trusty shield and weapon.” No matter what happens, as you remain in Him, you shall be kept safe from the root of the threats you know too well, revealed through the fear which fills each sinful heart. We know the message of God’s Holy Word, that we were lost and helpless in sin and the fear which filled our hearts was wholly justified for we faced eternal death. But God loves and saves us. He was born among us and fulfilled the Law in our place, He suffered willingly for you and died that you should live. Through His life, death, and resurrection Jesus has made Himself your hiding place. He has weathered the full attack of sin and death and in Him, covered in His blood, you no longer need fear. He has saved you.

But what form has this salvation taken? What is the entrance into this mighty fortress which Jesus for your sake has become? The Psalm continues:

There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God,
The holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;
God shall help her, just at the break of dawn.
The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved;
He uttered His voice, the earth melted.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.

What is this river whose streams make glad the city of God? This is a description of Holy Baptism, which is the foundation of the city of God. The glad city of God is the Church– the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. And this holy place, this Church is not merely an institution, this is not merely a sanctimonious club meeting that we've gathered for, for as the Psalm says "God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;" You have received the life of Christ in the washing of your rebirth in holy Baptism, and you all together are now made the Bride of Christ, and in this hope, this reality, and this blessing we shall not be moved. We shall be like a tree, planted by the water, for God is with us, He has rooted us in the banks of this holy river, and here He feeds us with all good things even as the storm of sin and death rages all around. Come what may, even if the earth itself should melt away, the Church of Christ shall remain, for we are kept safe for eternity in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus our Lord.

This is no mere wish or dream. The Church–the assembly of the believers around the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus, delivered through the Holy Mysteries of Grace, the Keys, which open heaven's gate, the water, which washes us and clothes us in the Son of God, the bread and wine which feed us on the body and blood of Jesus– this is the breaking through of heaven on earth. What happens in the Church is the perfection of the saints, the cleansing of sinners, the renewing of hearts and minds, the strengthening of human spirits by the Power of the Holy Spirit and the formation of the people of God as the Bride of Jesus Christ our Lord. In this place, this time, this reality which transcends this world and brings to us God Himself with all His gifts and all His love we take refuge from the world and are revealed as the children of the King. God’s children for Jesus’ sake. Christ’s bride by the power of the Spirit. Living sacrifices set apart and made holy unto God by the blood of Jesus that we die to this world and live to eternity.

But in the world, people still fear. In the world, sin still thrashes and destroys and murders. It all seems so out of control. In the world it would seem that God is losing everything, even the life of His beloved Son, and that we too shall lose everything. But in the face of the world, sin, death, evil, in the face of the devil himself, we remember that God truly is in control of His creation and will not surrender even the least of those whom He has called. As the Psalm continues:

Come, behold the works of the LORD,
Who has made desolations in the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Jesus Christ has eternally defeated the evil one, and we live in Him. He shall not fail us for He has already defeated death itself and gives us life. No matter how bad or fearsome things may seem, no matter what may be taken, we lose nothing for we have Jesus, and He has us. As Luther wrote:

The Word they still shall let remain
Nor any thanks have for it;
He’s by our side upon the plain
With his good gifts and Spirit.

And take they our life,
Goods, fame, child, and wife,
Though these all be gone,
Our vict’ry has been won;
The Kingdom ours remaineth.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Trinity 21 – St. John 4.46-54

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:27:37 GMT

Grace to you and Peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”

This is Your word heavenly Father, sanctify us by Your truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.

Fellow redeemed: Jesus had started His ministry for our sakes right there, where He had come again now in our text, in Cana. He began His work by blessing the joining together of a man and a woman in holy marriage by the sign of turning a great deal of water into a great deal of fine wine.

Jesus did many wonders in serving us during His ministry in the Galilee and Judea. And of course that got a lot of notice. But the signs Jesus did were never primarily ends in themselves. Did Jesus want the marriage at Cana celebrated? Yes, of course! Does He want this nobleman’s son to be better and to live? You know He does. But these are secondary goals, for as important as they are, Jesus dwelt among us full of grace and truth for something even more vital, more lasting. For that nobleman’s son you know, though he would be healed that day, would in time become sick again. And whether by misfortune or the weight of years passing, the child would die. That newly married couple in Cana, as wondrous and lovely as their marriage was, Jesus gifting them with wine to compliment the greater gift He gives to us all in His creation at the beginning of marriage itself, but such gifts are admittedly fleeting. For the wine sooner or later would all be drunk down, and even the holy bonds of marriage only endure so long as they both should live, and then that too passes away. And of course we know these things. And we receive the signs of wine and healing gladly, for they are blessings and good in themselves, but Jesus was ever and always about the greater thing He came into the world to give to man. Such a Gift as never would be spent, or pass away, or be all used up, but endure through all the ages of the world, and still be, lasting for eternity beyond time itself. Jesus came to heal us all from everlasting death itself, the wound of sin which otherwise eternally kills, and to restore mankind to His Father, making us holy by His work, by His life, by His obedience, by His death-destroying-death, and His rising too.

But the unbelieving Jews among whom Jesus spent His earthly life were insistently mesmerized by the signs He performed, turning water into wine, healing the sick children, and so on. They rejoiced at these good things, but could not see the greater thing Jesus was accomplishing among them for their sake and for the sake of mankind entire; our redemption and salvation. Like children more impressed with the box than the toy it contains, they did not realize the greater gift here given.

Now, I do not want to sound like a bigot, and so I’m tempted to say that this would have happened regardless of who the people were, but the Scripture makes a point of specifying that it was the Jews who were missing the point, putting their attention and desire on the signs and the secondary gifts. The thing is, the Jews had had God’s Word for a long time. The generation Jesus is speaking to had been steeped in it since birth, and many could quote word for word at least all the better known stories and prophecies and laws given through Moses and the prophets. They attended their synagogues (literally, their schools) regularly and heard the lessons year in and year out. I wonder if they had forgotten the miracle of God’s Word? Do you suppose perhaps they had become immune, somehow, to the wonder that through the letters of ink on vellum, by the voice of man, the very Word of the eternal and only true God was being spoken to them? Yes, strangely so, I think this must be. For they now preferred the sizzle to the sausage, the wrappings to the gift, the signs given to fulfill the ancient prophesies that here before them at last stood the holy Anointed One of the Living God. God Himself had become incarnate, put on our flesh and nature and become man living in the midst of mankind! The signs were good in themselves. The healing of the child, the celebrating of the wedding feast were good things. But the Jews would by no means believe the Word, which is what Jesus is all about, for John begins this Gospel identifying Jesus as the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us. Is this too hard to believe, that the Jews of old were so diverted by the flash and wow that they would not believe the Word, wouldn’t even really pay attention to it; or, or are we also like the Jews among whom Jesus once dwelt? We too, in our time have long heard the Word of God. And yet isn’t it true that we are also liable to be distracted away from the Gift of God’s Word of grace and love by stuff that looks flashy and new? Are you a little too like the Jews around Jesus, more impressed by the temporary stuff– the water made into a bunch of wine that would eventually all be drunk, instead of the Body and Blood which are never-ending, laid before us to eat and drink – the healing of a momentary sickness rather than that healing Jesus affords you from eternal death and damnation in your sin? Simply because the Word of God has been so graciously given that it may seem familiar is no argument for it to be overthrown in favor of something new and shiny. See the signs and wonders, then run back to the Word and see what they indicate according to God’s promise through the prophets, and know that before you is given His Holy and eternal Anointed One who brings you eternal life itself!

It’s the Word, you see, and not the miracle which heralds Jesus. And having spoken His Word of grace ‘your son lives’ the nobleman ‘believed the word Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.’ And when the man’s servants came to him preaching the truth (though they did not know that’s what they were doing, they only thought they were bringing him news from home) that the child was well, the father knew that it was Jesus’ word, and again John writes ‘And he himself believed, and his whole household.’ which is to say that the boy who was made well, and the man’s wife and other children, and the servants too, who delivered the good news believed. They believed not on the basis of the sign, for one day the child would grow sick and would die from something else. But they believed God’s Word.

This, dear friend, is what matters. God’s Word is working faith and delivering the grace of Jesus in our midst. Though you may have heard the Word for a long time, maybe even your entire life, it is ever new, ever green, living and able to deliver what it promises. And the Word of God delivers you this: Jesus Himself. For the Holy Spirit abides in those familiar old words you have heard so often, and He is the one creating faith to believe the promise, and through this Word, by His name, Jesus is in our midst, delivering His Gifts which are greater than the temporary blessings which we also benefit from, healing, food, drink, and the like; but the Gift of the forgiveness of all your sin through Christ’s perfect obedience in your place, and deliverance from the pain of eternal death by Jesus’ substituting Himself in your place into that death, and destroying its power once and for all, bursting those dreadful bonds, and rising to life everlasting. Jesus has restored you to the company of God the Father Almighty, and made you no longer afraid, but His beloved child, His heir, and one for whom a place is prepared forevermore.

Hear the Word of the Lord: in Jesus you are forgiven, and have peace forever.

The peace of God which passes all understanding now keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.