Shall We Look for Another?

Third Sunday in Advent
December 13, 2009
Luke 7:18-28

John sends his disciples to Jesus with a question. But he sends them to Jesus. The question he sends them with: “Are You the one or should we be looking for another?” But, he is sending them to Jesus. He’s sending them to the right one.

John was the one who came for this purpose. To send people to Jesus. To point them to Him as the One. Now he finds himself in prison, never to be out again. Never to be out there, paving the way, pointing people to Jesus. He is there, in fact, only to wait for the day when he will lose his head for being a prophet.

And yet, there in prison he continues to do the very thing he was sent to do. Doing the thing he had always done. Sending people to Jesus. Pointing the way to him.

There were plenty who wondered. Many who wondered if Jesus was the one, or if they should look for another. Not everyone believed in Jesus. Not everyone believed He was the one. Many were looking for another. John sent his disciples to the source. To the One. Jesus doesn’t immediately respond to the question of John’s disciples. At least, not with words. Rather, He acts. He accomplished those things in the Old Testament reading that had been promised that the Savior would do: “Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise.”

Then come the words: Tell John what you have seen. Tell him what you have heard. What you have seen and heard will tell you who I am. These things will tell you not to look for another.

John’s action here in prison tells us what we need to know for our own lives. For our own difficulties we find ourselves in. For our own struggles with sin. Our own questions; even doubts. He’s in prison, he can’t do much preaching there. He can’t do much of anything there. But he can do one thing. And that is send people to Jesus. What he does there in prison is what we ought to do in our lives, whether we find ourselves in prison or any situation we’re in.

When you look at Jesus what do you see? Do you see the one, or are you looking for another? When you’re lying sleepless at night after hearing the doctor tell you that you have a tumor, who are you looking to? Are you looking for God to come in between you and the doctor and remove that tumor before it gets a hold of you? When you’re with your spouse or your child or your parent and you feel alone because you’ve spoken hastily rather than patiently and lovingly, are you looking to Christ, or a way to change the other person so that you don’t have to repent yourself? When you’re looking in the mirror and wondering why it is you made a stand for Christ when all it has brought you is broken friendships and the dragging of your reputation through the mud are you looking to Christ or for an easier life as a follower of Christ?

John points others to Jesus. Jesus points to the things He has done. The things He has spoken. Then He says something that goes to the heart of our problem: “Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” Isn’t this our problem? Isn’t this why we continue to sin? Isn’t this why we hold on to our grudges, our lusts, our covetous desires, our doubts, our laziness? We’re offended by Jesus. We’re constantly looking elsewhere. We’re looking for another to bring us the peace we desire, the fulfillment we crave, the swift end to our problems we think we deserve.

We’re offended by the one who has come in such a way that He doesn’t appear to be much help at all in our struggles, our trials, our needs, certainly our wants. We appear weak when we’re holding out hope for God to help us in our fight against terminal illness, our financial struggles, our constant battle against temptation. When we’re struggling it doesn’t seem like Christ is the One and that there is no other. Too often our response is to look for another. We too often search for a more emotionally fulfilling spirituality. We can so easily give in to our temptations.

What would you have done if you were Mary or Joseph? Or the shepherds who came to the baby Jesus? What would you have done if you were told that this baby born in a stable was God? Oh, and not only that, the only one who could save everyone from their sins and eternal damnation.

Would you have believed it if someone told you that your neighbor down the street, you know, the teenager who was taking up the trade of his father Joseph as a carpenter, was God? What would you have said to the ridiculous claim that this teenager had never committed any sins; that He, in fact, would deliver people from their sins?

What would you have thought of those people, like, say, John, who in prison, was pointing people to this man, who, admittedly was doing some spectacular things, and yet was not delivering everyone from their illnesses, everyone from their blindness, everyone from their problems? Would you have looked to that one also, or would you have looked for another?

Would you have been where everyone else was when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane? In other words, not with Jesus. Getting as far away from Him as you could, leaving Him alone, to be delivered over to be crucified? What would you have thought of Him if you looked at Him as He hung on the cross like a common criminal, among common criminals? Would you have seen God, or a man who was a tragic figure? Would you have seen your Savior, or a man who meant well and indeed did many wonderful things, setting an example for us all?

How would you have handled it if you had seen Him as He had risen from the grave, taught once again, showed Himself this time in glory, and then suddenly ascended into heaven, no longer being present in that state, walking among you, talking with you, being with you? What do you really think of the one who says that He is present with you through a Baptismal washing you underwent at one point in your life and because of that you are united with Him fully? Is your real hunger for His very Body and His very Blood in His Holy Supper, or do you look elsewhere to satisfy your desires and meet your needs?

Maybe the best thing that could have happened to John was to be locked up in a cell. Because it was there that he still saw that something he could do was send people to the One. The one in whom is the answer to all of our struggles, our problems, our sins. Maybe the reason John found himself holed up in prison was not just for his sake, but for ours as well. So that Jesus could be the focus of our lives.

He said that “among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.” Maybe in all of the stuff going on in your life you feel like you’re the least. And not just in the eyes of the world or even yourself. But even in the eyes of God. Maybe it seems like He doesn’t care or isn’t doing much for you. Well, what Jesus is saying here is that you’re exactly in the right place. The least is the greatest of all. Your Lord lifts you up to the highest place. And how does He do this? He who is the greatest of all became the least. He came not to be served but to serve. He lifts you up because He comes down to you right where you are.

Should you look for another? No, there’s no need. He’s right where He said He would be, coming right to you to save you and keep you in His eternal care. The one who came at Bethlehem and worked alongside His dad, and healed the sick and raised the dead, and who Himself suffered, died and rose, has come to you in your Baptism and offers Himself to you in His Holy Supper. Hear what He has done. Receive what He does. What He gives you for your salvation. Amen.

SDG

Lucia, Martyr

Today is the Commemoration of Lucia. Here is the summary from the Commission on Worship of the LCMS (The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod) on Lucia:

One of the victims of the great persecution under the Roman emperor Diocletian, Lucia met her death at Syracuse on the island of Sicily in the year A.D. 304, because of her Christian faith. Known for her charity, “Santa Lucia” (as she is called in Italy) gave away her dowry and remained a virgin until her execution by the sword. The name Lucia means “light,” and, because of that, festivals of light commemorating her became popular throughout Europe, especially in the Scandinavian countries. There her feast day corresponds with the time of year when there is the least amount of daylight. In artistic expression she is often portrayed in a white baptismal gown, wearing a wreath of candles on her head.

Third Sunday in Advent

At this point in the season of Advent we’re expectant. The season of Advent as a season of preparation may not be long but it seems long, as the world is already celebrating Christmas and Christians are good and ready to. But we’re not there yet. But we’re expectant. It’s coming soon. Preparing and being expectant keep us mindful of our life-long need for repenting of our sins and expecting our Lord to come on the Last Day. As we await that day and are in a constant state of expectation we also rejoice that our celebration of the birth of our Savior is almost here.

Ambrose of Milan, Pastor and Hymn writer

Today is the Commemoration of Ambrose of Milan. Here is the summary from the Commission on Worship of the LCMS (The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod) on Ambrose:

Born in Trier in A.D. 340, Ambrose was one of the four great Latin Doctors of the Church (with Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great). He was a prolific author of hymns, the most common of which is Veni, Redemptor gentium (“Savior of the Nations, Come”). His name is also associated with Ambrosian Chant, the style of chanting the ancient liturgy that took hold in the province of Milan. While serving as a civil governor, Ambrose sought to bring peace among Christians in Milan who were divided into quarreling factions. When a new bishop was to be elected in 374, Ambrose addressed the crowd, and someone cried out, “Ambrose, bishop!” The entire gathering gave their support. This acclaim of Ambrose, a 34-year-old catechumen, led to his baptism on December 7, after which he was consecrated bishop of Milan. A strong defender of the faith, Ambrose convinced the Roman emperor Gratian in 379 to forbid the Arian heresy in the West. At Ambrose's urging, Gratian's successor, Theodosius, also publicly opposed Arianism. Ambrose died on Good Friday, April 4, 397. As a courageous doctor and musician he upheld the truth of God's Word.

Nicholas of Myra, Pastor

Today is the Commemoration of Nicholas of Myra. Here is the summary from the Commission on Worship of the LCMS (The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod) on Nicholas:

Of the many saints commemorated by the Christian Church, Nicholas (d. A.D. 342) is one of the best known. Very little is known historically of him, although there was a church of Saint Nicholas in Constantinople as early as the sixth century. Research has affirmed that there was a bishop by the name of Nicholas in the city of Myra in Lycia (part of Turkey today) in the fourth century. From that coastal location, legends about Nicholas have traveled throughout time and space. He is associated with charitable giving in many countries around the world and is portrayed as the rescuer of sailors, the protector of children, and the friend of people in distress or need. In commemoration of “Sinte Klaas” (Dutch for Saint Nicholas, in English “Santa Claus”), December 6 is a day for giving and receiving gifts in many parts of Europe.

Is the Preaching of Repentance Relevant for Today?

Second Sunday in Advent
December 6, 2009
Luke 3:1-20

Before we get to Christ, we get John. That guy who was out there in the desert preaching a thing called repentance.

Before we celebrate the birth of Christ we observe a strange man who’s telling us about our sins.

Before we sing those beloved Christmas hymns and carols of peace on earth and goodwill toward men we are struck by the nature of John the Baptist’s preaching: loaded with Law and Judgment and Exhortation of how to live.

Is any of this relevant today? Can we just skip all that and think about how Jesus was born in a stable? The answer to the first question is that the Law and repentance are as relevant today as they were on the day John preached in today’s Gospel reading. The answer to the second is that we cannot just go straight to the manger and baby Jesus. Even though John is here preparing the way for Jesus in His three year ministry, before Jesus was born God was paving the way for it with the coming of John as a baby.

You can’t get to Jesus without going through John. Another way of saying it is that you can’t get to Jesus without going through the Law. That doesn’t mean, though, that John was all Law. He was very much a preacher of the Gospel, as Luke makes clear in the Gospel reading: at the beginning saying that he was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, in the middle when he quotes Isaiah that John would be preaching so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” and at the end where we’re told that “he preached good news to the people.”

We see from this that John was a preacher of the Gospel. What we see is that you can’t preach the Gospel without preaching repentance. The Gospel can only be received if the Law has done its work. John preached the Law because it was the only way people could be prepared for the one for whom he was preparing the way. If anyone thinks repentance is not relevant today then they’re saying that the Gospel is not relevant. While the unbelieving world may not see the Gospel as relevant, Christians know the truth: salvation from sin and hell is very relevant. So we have to have the Law. We must repent otherwise there is no Gospel that can save us.

We can’t just be happy about Jesus being born in a stable and bringing peace on earth. He was born in order to die for the sins of the world. The peace He brings is peace of the forgiveness of sins. He has a funny way of bringing it about though. At least, it seems odd to us. All this Law and judgment and talk of eternal punishment. Do people want to hear this: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Or this, John’s words about Jesus: “I baptize you with water, but He who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Maybe the reason people don’t think this preaching of repentance is relevant today is because they don’t want to hear it. They’ll hear the call to repentance as an ancient one that doesn’t speak to us today in our enlightened age. We can look all around us and see many well meaning people doing many humanitarian acts even though they aren’t Christians. Why would they need to repent?

And how about us Christians? We can easily rest on our laurels. When was the last time you asked what those baptized by John asked: “What shall we do?” When was the last time you admitted you have fallen short of God’s glory rather than patting yourself on the back for obeying His commandments? How often do you shrink in terror at what you rightfully deserve, eternal separation and punishment from God? What will it take for you to see that you keep falling into the same temptations and committing the same sins that you try so desperately to stop doing?

You don’t want to find out on Judgment Day that you are weighed in the balance and found wanting. You need to know now. That is why the Lord calls you to repentance. It’s as relevant as ever. He wants you in eternity with Him, not without. Here’s the way Paul describes it in the Epistle reading: “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” How is it that you can be found pure and blameless for the Day of Christ—Judgment Day? Because you have been called to repentance and have seen that your only hope is in Christ.

When someone tells you what to do, does it dig under your skin? Who are they to tell you what to do? When you are called to repentance are you wondering why anyone has the right to condemn you as a sinner? There are plenty of people in our lives who take it upon themselves to tell others how to live. They may genuinely be trying to help you, they may simply be convinced they know better than you. But when God tells us what to do it’s even harder to take to heart. Because it means repentance.

But don’t look at repentance as something that is bad. It is good for you. This changing of your mind and heart and life, this looking to Christ and His cross, is something He does require of you—but it’s also something He brings about in you through His holy and eternal and effective Word. Paul also says in the Epistle reading: “I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

There is hope because God is the one who makes it all possible. The repentance, the turning from sin, the being forgiven and being saved, and even the good works to which He has called you—they’re all from Him, of Him, by Him, and on account of Christ and His suffering, death, and resurrection. There is no Gospel without Law, no forgiveness without repentance. It may rub us the wrong way to be called to repentance, but God loves us too much to leave us in our sin.

So flee temptation, turn from sin, and know that He has Baptized you, given you salvation in that being born again. Come to His Table and partake of the salvation offered into your mouth and for your body and soul, His very Body, His very Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins, for your life, your hope, your help. That’s His gift to you. It’s relevant and it’s for you, forever. Amen.

SDG

Second Sunday in Advent

In the Second Sunday in Advent we move into the middle portion of Advent where the focus is on John the Baptist. And yet, the focus is not really on John the Baptist. The focus is really, as always, on Jesus Christ. In the Second and Third Sundays in Advent where we see John at the forefront of the Gospel reading, we should think of him as He is: the Forerunner. (Not at the forefront, but as the Forerunner of Christ.) He was always pointing people to Christ. As the last of the Old Testament prophets (even though he shows up in the New Testament) John followed along in what all the other Old Testament prophets did: point people to Christ.

No, the middle part of Advent is not really about John. It’s really about Christ. The Church Year is always about Christ—the entire thing and every portion of it. John the Baptist makes that clear. He himself said that he must decrease while Christ must increase.

May it be so among us.

John of Damascus

Today is the Commemoration of John of Damascus. Here is the summary from the Commission on Worship of the LCMS (The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod) on John:

John (ca. 675–749) is known as the great compiler and summarizer of the orthodox faith and the last great Greek theologian. Born in Damascus, John gave up an influential position in the Islamic court to devote himself to the Christian faith. Around 716 he entered a monastery outside of Jerusalem and was ordained a priest. When the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian in 726 issued a decree forbidding images (icons), John forcefully resisted. In his Apostolic Discourses he argued for the legitimacy of the veneration of images, which earned him the condemnation of the Iconoclast Council in 754. John also wrote defenses of the orthodox faith against contemporary heresies. In addition, he was a gifted hymn writer (“Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain”) and contributed to the liturgy of the Byzantine churches. His greatest work was the Fount of Wisdom which was a massive compendium of truth from previous Christian theologians, covering practically every conceivable doctrinal topic. John's summary of the orthodox faith left a lasting stamp on both the Eastern and Western churches.

Preparation: Part 1—Listening

Midweek Advent 1
December 2, 2009
Luke 1:1-25

The season of Advent is a season of preparation. Certain things need to be done with preparation. We expect a surgeon and his or her medical team to prepare rather than diving right into the surgery. Teachers need to prepare ahead of time what they will teach their students. While there are some things you can just dive into, many things, especially important things, need preparation. Too often we dive right into certain things without taking the time to prepare for them.

Advent is one of the times in the Church Year that helps us out in this area. When we think of the month of December as Christmastime we go right into the celebration of Christmas without taking the time to prepare for it. Most of December actually is the observance of Advent, with the celebration of Christmas toward the end.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas during all of December. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating it anytime! But there’s also nothing wrong with preparing for it. There’s value in it that you might not otherwise see if you skip the preparation and jump right into Christmas. The Scripture readings from Luke during these Midweek Advent worship services guide us in preparation for our celebration of the birth of Christ.

The first reading from Luke tells us about Zechariah. He is the father of John the Baptist. Although, if it had been left up to Zechariah, he wouldn’t have been John’s father at all. He wanted to listen to reason. It obviously was impossible for him and his wife Elizabeth to have a baby at their advanced age. Fortunately, God doesn’t always listen to us, in terms of doing what we want, and does what is best for us. So Zechariah, though he didn’t listen to the Word of God, still became the father of John the Baptist.

The first part of preparation, then, is listening. To be more specific, listening to the Word of God. Zechariah didn’t do that. His preparation for the birth of Christ would have been a whole lot better had he listened to the word of the angel Gabriel. As it was, he spent nine months of it not being able to speak. While his wife Elizabeth might have enjoyed this silence of her husband during her pregnancy, I imagine he wasn’t thrilled at being penalized in such a way.

It did drive home the point though: he was now in a better position to listen. Not being able to speak, all he could do was listen. I can imagine he spent many hours at nights going over that conversation he had had with Gabriel, the words the angel had spoken to him, his own refusal to take them for what they were—the very Word of God. If he hadn’t believed then, he surely did now, as he lay there night after night next to his elderly, but very pregnant, wife. He would be sure to listen from now on.

Do you and I have the same trouble today? We don’t need to receive the Word of God in a dramatic way as Zechariah did to hear it. We hear the Word of God just as he did back then. But do we listen? Do we believe the Word we are hearing? Or do we listen to reason? Do we go with that rather than the straightforward Word of God?

The problem with jumping straight into Christmas is that we miss all the stuff about John the Baptist. When God sent the Savior into the world He didn’t just up and do it. He prepared the world first. He sent John first. He sent the one who would “turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, [who would] go before [the Messiah] in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

God was preparing Zechariah, but Zechariah didn’t want to listen. We must listen. Preparing means first listening. God wants to prepare our hearts and minds for His Son to come into our lives. If we don’t listen how will we be prepared by Him? God came to Zechariah with Good News. “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.”

If Zechariah had simply listened to this word from God he would have been prepared for what God was bringing about for him. God comes to us with Good News also. Will we listen to it? Will we trust Him as Zechariah should have done that He can bring things about in ways that we can’t understand but that are exactly what we need? In preparing to celebrate Christmas, we spend a period of time somewhat like a mini-Lenten season of repentance and meditating on what brought about God to send His only-begotten Son into the world.

It was, of course, His eternal love and mercy toward the people He created. It was love that moved Him to forgive our sins and restore us to eternal fellowship with Him. We need to acknowledge that we are in need of salvation. That apart from the Savior who came to earth at Bethlehem we stand condemned and will be judged so on Judgment Day when Christ returns again in glory.

But if we take some time to be silent before God and listen to Him we will hear His gracious word to us: we have full salvation in His Son through His life and suffering for the sins of the world. Amen.

SDG

Thy Kingdom Come

“Thy Kingdom come” stands at the center of the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer—Our Father, who art in heaven, [1] hallowed by Thy name, [2] Thy Kingdom come, [3] Thy will be done.

What are we praying for when we pray this petition? The Catechism reminds us that “the Kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer.” God is the King of Kings whether people believe Him to be or not. He reigns whether we pray for Him to or not.

The Catechism goes on to teach that “we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.” In praying the second petition we pray that we may recognize that God comes to us with His blessings.

The natural question then would be, as the Catechism poses it: “How does God’s Kingdom come?” Its answer is: “God’s Kingdom comes when our Heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit.”

The Heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit in the Gospel and the Sacraments. This really is what Advent is all about. This ultimately is what God coming to us is all about.

“Advent” means coming. Christ will return again on the Last Day in glory to raise all the dead and take His people home to heaven with Him. His first Advent was His birth. He came then in humility, He will return again in glory. He came first to suffer on behalf of the world, He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

But Advent isn’t just about waiting around for Him to come again, knowing that He has already come the first time. Advent is about preparation. Advent is about the in between time of His First and Second Comings. What happens while we await Christ’s Return in glory?

We prepare. We receive. We rejoice in “our Heavenly Father giving us His Holy Spirit.” He comes to us in the Gospel and in the Sacraments. He does this, as the Catechism goes on to say, “so that by His grace we believe His Holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.

So when you pray the Lord’s Prayer and you come to the second petition “Thy Kingdom come” think Advent. Think Christ coming to you in His Word and Sacraments for the forgiveness of your sins, for your salvation. Think His birth, His suffering and death, His resurrection, His Return in glory—all for you, His Kingdom, coming to you.

Andrew, Apostle

The first minor festival in this new Church Year is the commemoration of Andrew, one of the Apostles of our Lord. This is the Collect for the day: “Almighty God, by Your grace the apostle Andrew obeyed the call of Your Son to be a disciple. Grant us also to follow the same Lord Jesus Christ in heart and life, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.” This collect sets the tone for our commemorations of the saints who have gone before us. It’s not about them, per se, it’s about Christ. It’s about Christ for them and also Christ for us. We remember the saints so that we can rejoice in the blessings He accomplished through them. And we pray that He will do the same through us. God is rich in mercy, we see that in His calling of Andrew. Andrew was an ordinary man like most of us are, and yet God called him to be one of the apostles. God calls us to serve where we are as well because of His great mercy for us.

Why We Start Here

First Sunday in Advent
November 29, 2009
Luke 19:28–40

Today is not Palm Sunday. Today is quite a ways away from Palm Sunday. Lent is even a bit away; we haven’t even gotten into Christmas yet. Today we begin the Church Year and the Church Year always begins with Advent. So why do we start here, with the account of Palm Sunday?

Because we always start in the same way. Your focus is always on the cross. Today’s Gospel reading is pointing us to the cross. Each portion of the Church Year will be preparing us for Palm Sunday, which begins Holy Week and the Passion of our Lord. That week is at the center of the Church Year and the center of history and the center of our lives. From Easter on through the rest of the Church Year, there is nothing that is different from our focus. It remains on Christ and Him crucified. The one who is risen from the grave is the one who suffered on the cross for the sins of the world. The Lamb who was slain is the one who reigns forever in glory.

Throughout the Church Year our focus will be on Christ and Him crucified. As we move through the Church Year we will be centered in Him and His cross. Everything we hear in the seasons and Sundays of the Church Year will flow from that singular event of history, the crucifixion of our Lord.

That is why we start here. Throughout Advent we will be preparing for our celebration of the birth of our Lord. We will have an eye also toward that Coming of our Lord that is yet to be, the glorious Return on the Last Day. Because of that, our eye will also be on the coming of our Lord here in time and nature in our Baptism and His Holy Supper; in the proclamation of the Gospel and the pronouncement of the Absolution.

Why we start here with the account of Palm Sunday is to help us see that the birth of Christ is not so much a beginning but a prelude. What Luke tells us in the Gospel reading is more of a beginning: “When He had said these things, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” He was beginning His trek toward the cross. That’s what we need to be focusing on here at the beginning of the Church Year.

As He entered Jerusalem, He did so in a way that seems odd to us. He came in on a donkey. He came in with pomp and circumstance, but that was because of the crowd. They were singing His praises. But the donkey is what really tells us what our Lord is about. He is about coming in humble means. As we prepare for our celebration of Christ’s birth we ought to prepare now that His coming as Savior was not in glory but in humility. He didn’t come in a castle but a stable. Not much changed thirty years later when He entered into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Not much has changed even two thousand years later. He still loves to come to us. And He still comes in humility. He comes to us in the water and the Word. He comes to us in the bread and the wine. In the lowly words spoken by a preacher. In the simple words on the pages of the Bible. Why we start here is because that entrance into Jerusalem by Jesus really says it all. He came in a lowly way to die a lowly death.

He did this to raise us to the highest heaven. To the heights of His eternal glory. And if we are tempted to seek glory apart from the humble coming of our Lord in a manger, a donkey, and a cross, then we ought to be reminded that our Lord can cause even the stones to cry out His praises. If we can be replaced with stones we shouldn’t think too highly of ourselves. What we ought to do is simply see ourselves in light of the cross. Our lives are bound up in the cross. That’s why we start here and why we continue through the Church Year and our lives in looking to the cross and living because of the cross.

The Lord who had need of a donkey to usher Him to the cross has need of water that washes away your sins in Baptism, ushering you into the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord who had need of a donkey to carry Him to the place where He would sacrifice His body and shed His blood for the sins of the world has need of bread and wine that carries Him into your mouth for you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of your sins. The King who came in the name of the Lord on Palm Sunday is the King who comes in your Baptism and His Holy Supper to bring you peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

Why we start here is because it’s where our focus always is and where we always end up. Look to the cross and there you will see your salvation. He brings it to you in His Word and Sacraments and will bring you into it in glory when He returns in glory on the Last Day. Now is a prelude, then will be the beginning for you of eternity. Amen.

SDG

First Sunday in Advent

The Church Year begins ahead of the calendar year. It’s out of sync with the rest of the world, much like the Church itself is out of sync with the rest of the world. That’s what I love about the Church Year. That’s what I love about the Church. It’s counter-cultural in that respect. The Church Year doesn’t seek to conform to what is being observed or celebrated in society. It seeks to focus on Christ and Him crucified. The Church Year follows the life of our Lord. It is only in His life that we have life. At least eternal life. Ultimately, that is what matters.

Not that this life is not important. It is vitally important. Otherwise, why has God placed us here on this earth to live? He has given us all things and we live our lives in light of the place He has prepared for us from eternity. As Christians we don’t live with our head in the clouds. We live with an eye toward eternity but our existence is very real, very here and now. God doesn’t expect us to reach up toward Him, He comes down to us.

Advent begins the Church Year with this focus. “Advent” is from the Latin for “coming.” Advent is all about our Lord coming to us. The Church Year is all about His coming to us. This is the very heart of Christianity. Our Lord came at Bethlehem, He will come again in glory on the Last Day. In Advent we meditate on our waiting for that Day. We are reminded that each day of our lives is lived knowing that we cannot reach up to Him but He comes to us in His Gospel. He comes to us in Baptism. He comes to us in the proclamation of His Word and the pronouncement of His Absolution. And He comes to us in His Holy Supper.

I can’t think of a better way to begin the new year.

Where Thanksgiving Fits In

Day of Thanksgiving [Observed]
November 25, 2009
1 Timothy 2:1-4

Where does thanksgiving fit into your life?

Every year we celebrate national holidays. On the Fourth of July we commemorate the freedom we have in this country. That doesn’t mean it’s the only time we recognize or are grateful for our freedom. The other holidays we celebrate also are not the only time we recognize what we’re celebrating. That should certainly be the case with Thanksgiving. If that’s the only day we actually gave thanks, we would be truly ungrateful people.

As a church we have more to celebrate than a national holiday of Thanksgiving. Having been inspired by the Holy Spirit Paul spells out where thanksgiving fits into our lives as Christians. It fits in in everything. Our prayers are to consist of “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings.” These supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings are to be made for all people. We are to pray on behalf of others, for their needs.

The first three words Paul uses are along the lines of what we usually think of when we think of prayer: asking God to help us and others in their needs. We have a lot of them, maybe that’s why Paul is emphasizing the point. We have a lot of needs, so Paul uses three different words for this kind of praying.

But there’s another kind, and that’s what he gets at in his fourth word: thanksgivings. Thanking God is to go right along with praying for the needs of others. We are to pray for all people, including our leaders, and we are to give thanks in all things for others, including our leaders.

Why? So “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” There is a method to the madness, so to speak. In other words, there’s a reason we pray. God knows what we need. He knows what we need better than we know what we need. And God blesses us and all people abundantly even without our prayers. But we pray for others so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

I don’t know about you, but if I don’t pray, I tend to get pretty ungrateful. It’s amazing how saying a simple “Thank you” to someone can help you recognize how grateful you are that others help you out. When you don’t say “Thank you” to others you easily take others and their help for granted. It’s the same with God. When we give thanks to Him we realize more and more what a blessing it is that He helps us in our needs and that without His provisions through our leaders there is a far greater chance of us not having a peaceful and quiet life.

I love the way Paul goes on to speak about this: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.” Paul can’t help but speak of the salvation of God. It is always in light of God saving us that Paul exhorts his brothers and sisters in Christ to live in the way God desires them to live. This goes for prayer, too. When we pray, it is in the light of the salvation of God in His Son Jesus Christ that we pray—that we offer up supplications on behalf of others, that we offer our thanks to God for, well, everything.

This is indeed good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. And if we’re still not convinced of why we ought to be thankful, Paul has an answer for that: our God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Why do we pray for all people? Why do we give thanks in all things? Because God desires that all people be saved. Because He desires that all come to the knowledge of truth. We give thanks in all things because our minds and hearts and desires begin to reflect the heart of God. His salvation. His love. His grace. His mercy. His passion for the people He created. The people His Son Jesus Christ died for. The people He offers His full and free salvation to. The salvation we have received in Baptism. That we partake of often in the Holy Supper of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is where thanksgiving fits in. In the love of Christ for the world. In Him giving to us in a personal real tangible way in His Supper where He breaks bread and gives thanks, where He pours out for us His lifeblood, given for us to drink, His body for us to eat.

We know what our needs are, do we see that we need to give thanks in all things? There is so much to be thankful for! We can’t quite see it all now, but in heaven we will see in the fullness of glory all God has given to us. Then there will be no question of thanksgiving. It will be as natural as it is now for us to pray for our needs. We give thanks that He helps us in our needs until that day He brings us to heaven where we will have none. Amen.

SDG

The Vigil at the End of Time

Last Sunday of the Church Year
November 22, 2009
Mark 13:24-37

The Vigil begins now. There is no waiting to begin it. There is waiting involved, that’s what a vigil involves. But there’s no putting it off. Vigilance is called for not at some point in the future. Our Lord calls us to be vigilant now. What He says to us He says to all: Stay awake. The vigil is the people of God being vigilant. We know what will happen we just don’t know when. Our Lord lays it all out for us, He just doesn’t tell us when it will all come about. That’s why we’re in the Vigil. The Holy Christian Church is the Church of the End Time Vigil. It is the Church of Vigilance.

This is in direct contrast to most people’s day to day existence. Most people are too caught up in the things of the world to be vigilant. They’re just trying to make it through the day. They’re not necessarily even caught up in evil things; much of the time it’s ordinary things they need to concern themselves with to live. It’s hard to take fifteen minutes out of your day to be vigilant, reading and meditating on the Word of God. Or to wake up fifteen minutes earlier to begin the day in the Word of God and prayer when there are so many pressing things that need to be done. Or to spend the last fifteen minutes of your day in quietness with God’s Word when you’re so exhausted you can barely stay awake any longer. Or you can’t fall asleep because your mind is racing with all the things left undone and all the worries about tomorrow.

I think that by nature we are not only sinful and unclean, we are not vigilant. We hear the words of Christ in the Gospel reading and have a hard time relating that stuff to what’s going on in our lives. While there’s much here that’s difficult to understand He boils it down to one simple thing: Stay awake. Be alert. Be vigilant. Be on your guard. We don’t know when the end of time will be but we know we are at the end of time. We don’t know when our Lord will return in glory but we know He will. And we must be ready.

So often we don’t even think of the end of time. Jesus’ description of His return in glory is strange to our ears. All the talk about tribulation, the sun being darkened, the moon not giving its light, the stars falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens shaken. I don’t know if there are any scenes in the new end-of-the-world movie 2012 that are on the scale of what Jesus describes here, but what He describes is disaster of epic proportions. But in the midst of that disaster of the fallen world is glory. The “Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” Every eye will see Him. All will know. If they don’t know now, or refuse to listen now, they will know without a doubt then. And our Lord will be coming in glory for the purpose of sending out the angels and gathering “His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”

You don’t know when this will happen. But you know it will. Mark Twain can joke all he wants about death and taxes being the certainties of life, but there is only seriousness here on the part of Jesus of what is certain. This life will come to an end as we know it. Your life on this earth will come to an end either through your death or Christ returning in glory to take you to heaven. When you know that you are armed and you can be vigilant. If you choose to ignore it you do so at your eternal peril.

Most everyone can look around themselves and see from the trees the changes of the seasons. Even in Southern California we get a sense of that. Jesus uses a fig tree as an example: “as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.” The point is simple: “So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that He is near, at the very gates.” Since the signs are taking place, since we’re at the end of time, we must be vigilant, we must be on guard.

The way Jesus talks it seems as if everything He is saying is imminent. When we hear it all two thousand years later it doesn’t come across with the same force as it did when Jesus spoke it back then. When Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place,” it seems that He meant that it would all come about in their lifetime. The most natural reading of Jesus’ statement would appear to be that He’s referring to those people He was talking to, that it would all come about in their lifetime. A sensible reading would appear to be that Jesus is referring to that generation in the future, the one who will witness all of these things, will not pass away until they all take place.

But the fact is those people listening to Jesus at that time were every bit as much in the End Times as we are today. They were to be as vigilant as we are. The natural reading of the generation Jesus was speaking to may not seem to make sense, it may even seem flat out wrong since the end of the world did not come in their lifetime. Unless—one looks at the cross and views everything else through it as the lens through which to see and understand everything else. The things Jesus has described have taken place in the Great Day of the Lord of Good Friday. The apocalyptic signs described by Jesus and elsewhere in Scripture were present on that day Jesus suffered on the cross. The glory of the Lord was revealed in that suffering and death of the Savior of the world. Salvation was secured for the world on that day and there is no greater glory than that. Christ’s return in glory, while beyond compare, will be more along the lines of icing on the cake in light of the incomparable glory of God’s salvation for the world in His Son on the cross. The generation Jesus was speaking to witnessed that.

It is through this event of history that we should understand what Jesus means when He says: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” The world did not come to an end the day Christ died, but when it does, we know His Word will remain because He remains our Savior who will have come again to take us home to heaven.

He is the Lord Almighty, but we must always remember that He is the Lord who suffered in our place. He is the Lord and yet did not consider it below Himself to become a man as you and I are humans. How else could He say what He says that “concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Jesus is true God. He does know all things. And yet He is also true man and chose to not make full use of His divine glory and power as a man. He is perfectly at ease in His manhood that He doesn’t have a clue when He will return in glory. He truly became one with us in our humanity, and we do not need to worry about what we don’t know, when our Lord Himself is content in His humanity of not knowing when. What we know is what He knows, that it will happen. Our Heavenly Father knows when and we’ll leave it up to Him.

What do we need to concern ourselves with? The Vigil at the end of time. The Vigil that begins now. The vigil that is what we keep until our Lord calls us home through death or His glorious Return on the Last Day. His words to us are as pertinent now as they were two thousand years ago. They are as relevant to our lives now as they will be throughout the rest of our days:

Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the cock crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.

The time is now, the vigil has begun and we are called upon to keep it. Live every day in the remembrance of your Baptism. Receive the Lord’s Supper often as the very food you need to for your body and soul to survive. Hear the Word of the Lord and rejoice in it for the refreshing of your soul. You don’t know when the end of time will come but you know that you are at the end of time. Your Lord has called you to eternal salvation and wants you to be with Him for all eternity. Amen.

SDG

The Greatest Stewardship Sermon Ever Preached

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
November 15, 2009
Mark 13:1-13

The words Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel reading may seem to have nothing to do with stewardship. But they have everything to do with stewardship. What He speaks here isn’t the greatest stewardship sermon ever preached, but there is a greatest stewardship sermon ever preached. I’m sure you will agree with me that it’s not this one you’re hearing.

Jesus’ sermon here puts things into perspective for us. That’s what a good stewardship sermon does. That’s what every sermon should do. The disciples look at the temple and are focused on the building. Jesus’ focus is on the Church. He’s telling them that all they see will be no more at some point in time. When they want to know when this will be He re-focuses them on what’s important. See that you’re not led astray. There are so many things that can capture our attention. Many of them good things. But if those things are our focus then we miss Christ.

We have a beautiful building ourselves, even if somewhat modest. We’re grateful to have the sanctuary we have and the facilities we have at our church. But if our focus in our little congregation is not on Christ then it doesn’t really matter if we have a shack or a cathedral. This building will one day be destroyed but the Church will remain forever. It’s natural for us to focus on the building. The upkeep of it. The costs associated with it. Where the money will come from to keep the building and facilities maintained and the salaries paid.

Jesus’ perspective is much broader than that. That doesn’t mean He doesn’t concern Himself with money. After all, He gives us money, just as He gives us everything else. He gives us our minds, our abilities, resources, possessions. His perspective concerns all these things. He is concerned with our lives. How we spend our time. How we use our abilities. How use our possessions. And, as everyone expects to hear in a stewardship sermon, how we use our money.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus paints a bleak picture of what will happen. This is one reason this is such a good message for stewardship. With our concern for balancing the congregational budget and wondering where the money is going to come from, a pretty bleak picture can seem to be before us. If we even casually look at the picture Jesus paints in the Gospel reading we will readily see that His is a much bleaker situation than what we see before us in our congregation. And yet, the picture He paints in the Gospel reading is exactly that of our congregation, because we are part of the Body of Christ; we are members of the Holy Christian Church. What He describes is what is ahead for us as Christians and as a congregation that is part of the Holy Christian Church. Our small congregational budget is a drop in the bucket in light of the realities of the End Time tribulation we will face.

That’s all good and well, of course, but we still have a budget to balance and approve. On Saturday reality hits in what we will vote on in our Voters’ Meeting for the coming year in how our congregation will spend the money we have for the furthering of our congregation and its mission.

Since we’re going to get very specific at our meeting on Saturday, let’s get very specific here. Treat your money the way you ought to treat everything else in your life as a Christian. It’s all God’s. He owns everything, He’s given you what you have so that you may glorify Him with it and serve others with it. You do this with your time. All the time you have is God’s, you don’t get to keep some of it for yourself. Use it all to His glory. And even though some people think it’s not very spiritual or godly, yes, this means that when you’re watching the Charger game you are glorifying God. He has given you all things in His creation for you to enjoy. The problem isn’t with us enjoying His gifts, it’s with our sinful flesh wanting to use them in ways that are sinful. So if you put your sports, or whatever you enjoy doing, above your responsibilities as a father or child or employer, then you’re not using what God has given you to His glory.

This also is the case with your abilities. He’s given you talents. If you use them simply to gratify your sinful desires then you are taking what God gives you and treating them as if they’re purely for you and not in gratitude toward His love for you. There are many ways you can use your time and abilities to serve others. One of the things we do as a congregation is do things that we otherwise could not do on our own. Can you imagine what the Holy Christian Church would be like if every Christian tried to go it alone? In a Christian congregation you receive the help you need in hearing the Word of God, receiving the Lord’s Supper, and encouraging one another to live as God would have us live. Use a portion of your time in reading and studying the Word of God by yourself daily and weekly with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Be here in God’s House to receive the Gospel and the strength you need in the Lord’s Supper.

This puts perspective on the one that’s often hard to talk about—money. Look at your money in the same way you look at your time and your talents. You don’t give some of it to God and the rest is all for you. It’s all His. The really weird thing about it is that He doesn’t need it. He owns everything. But then again, He doesn’t need your time and talents either. He gives us all of these things for our benefit. We use them for that and recognize also that we have it all from Him to serve others.

Maybe the reason we often have trouble as Christians when it comes to money is because time and our abilities are intangible. If a friend calls you up in the middle of the Charger game it might be easier to pull yourself away to help him than it would be to write a check off the top of your paycheck to the Church, because that hits you where it counts. In this age of DVRs it’s easy enough to record the game, but if I give a certain amount of money off the top to God, what will happen if I don’t have enough to pay the bills at the end of the month? What happens if there’s an unexpected emergency?

Perhaps the reason the Bible gives tithing as a guide for giving to God is because the pocketbook is what hits us the most. It’s the one we worry about. It’s the one we want to hold on to the most. We often readily give of our time and abilities, but want to use our money for our own enjoyment. But the beauty of God’s guide in tithing is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, greedy or content, good with money or don’t have a clue about finances. Tithing isn’t based on how much you have, how much you think you need, or what you know. It’s based simply on a percentage. That percentage, ten, is a guide in order to help you understand whose money it is you’re dealing with. Since it’s all God’s and He has all things and therefore doesn’t need anything from you, the percentage you give to God is to help you see that everything you have and everything you do is from Him and for Him.

If you’re not giving ten percent there’s no better time to work toward that than now. Making the jump from two percent to ten may be a shock. But God is patient. Working toward it over a period of years is far better than giving a paltry sum to God and thinking that all the rest is yours. If you’re giving ten percent you’re in a great position to realize that God gives you what you truly need, that you have nothing without Him. That, as Paul quotes Jesus as saying, “It is more blessed to give than receive,” moving beyond ten percent will bring you to the realization that God is in the business of blessing us and blessing us abundantly.

When it comes to our congregation and we ask the question, Where is the money going to come from? well, the answer is, of course, God. And the way He gives that money is by giving it to us and we giving a portion back to Him. Being a congregation is tough. Being a Christian is tough—giving of your time, your abilities, your money. It may be tough for you to add some time to your schedule to serve those who are in need. Percentage giving may not be easy for you—working toward ten percent if you’re not there and working beyond it if you’re already there. But in the midst of the bleak picture Jesus paints He gives hope: the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Jesus’ sermon in the Gospel reading is not a stewardship sermon, per se. But it is the same thing He always does, and that is preach the Gospel. And when Jesus preaches the Gospel, He preaches Himself. When all else fails, you still have Jesus. When everything around you crumbles, the cross of Christ remains. When the world is going to hell, and for that matter, hating you because you cling to Christ, you still have Christ and His salvation. That’s why He preaches Himself in this sermon as He always preaches Himself. The sermon Jesus preaches in today’s Gospel reading is not the greatest stewardship sermon ever preached. Historians could search every sermon ever preached by anyone, including Jesus, and wouldn’t be able to say, “There it is, the greatest stewardship sermon ever preached!”

But the greatest stewardship sermon ever preached exists. It is, in fact, alive and well. It is, in fact, constantly being preached. It is nothing other than the Gospel. It is Jesus Christ Himself, who He is and what He has done for the salvation of the world. It is His life, suffering, death, and resurrection for the sin of the world. It is our Lord and Savior working actively in His Holy Christian Church and in our lives in and through Baptism, preaching and Absolution, and His Holy Supper.

In a few moments we’ll be coming to the altar to give our commitment forms and offerings. Even a few moments later we’ll be coming to the altar again, this time to receive. It is only by the mercy of Christ, His life and death and resurrection, His giving of His body and blood for our forgiveness that we have anything and can do anything and give anything. Stewardship is really that simple: Christ living and working in your life to bring you eternal life so that you may rejoice in Him and serve Him. Amen.

SDG

Who Are the Saints?

All Saints’ Day
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
November 1, 2009
Matthew 5:1-12

In the 1960s Roger Moore played the secret agent style character Simon Templar in the TV show, The Saint. The introductory scenes would often end with someone referring to the Saint as “the famous Simon Templar,” at which point an animated halo would appear above his head at which point he would look at the camera or directly at the halo.

Wouldn’t it be great if it were that easy to spot the saints of the world? Often in Christian artwork of the past certain people would be pictured with a halo over their head, as a visual way to say, Here’s a saint, give the honor that’s due him or her.

But we all know it’s not that easy. Some people you can tell easily that they’re no saint; look no further than infamous tyrants like Hitler or Hussein. Some people in your life may seem just as evil to you because you know their hideous actions or their dark secrets.

But if you look around at your fellow Christians you will see a lot of nice people. A lot of people that may as well have halos over their heads. But you don’t know their deep dark secrets, do you? You don’t see the way they treat their family members at home, do you? You don’t see them sneaking supplies from their work, do you? You don’t know what they’re really looking at when they’re on the internet, do you? You don’t see inside their minds and hear the thoughts they’re thinking as they talk to their neighbors and look down on them, do you?

If people did have halos over their head so that you could tell they were a saint, what would happen when you discovered their dark secrets, when you ended up on the receiving end of their unconscionable behavior? You would not see a saint but a hypocrite. You would think the halo needs to be replaced with horns. There’s a difference between the way we see people in real life and they way we see them in artwork.

Who are the saints anyway? Can we know who is a saint and who is not? God knows what is in everyone’s heart, we cannot. What we do know about everyone is that they are sinners. Every person born in history except Christ is a sinner. This makes it all the more dramatic that we have a festival in the Church Year called All Saints’ Day. Were these saints of old somehow more religious than the rest of us ordinary Christians? Were they more saintly? We know they didn’t go around with halos on their heads, but there are a lot of Christians throughout history we don’t honor as great saints of the faith because they were simply ordinary Christians like you and me. Most of them we don’t know because their lives weren’t recorded in history.

But we can easily name off many of the great saints of old because we know their stories well, Abraham, David, Elijah, Hannah, Peter, John, Mary, Paul, Augustine, Luther. Men and women God used to do mighty things for His great plan of salvation. We rightfully honor them because God has called upon us to honor those in authority over us and they were great leaders in the faith. We give thanks to God for them because He used them to give us examples of living in the faith.

There’s another reason we can also be grateful for and give glory to God. And that is that He used them. Specifically, He used people like us. Most of these people weren’t great people. Most of them weren’t already powerful or well-known people. Many of them were ordinary people like you and me. But even more to the point, every one of them were like you and me in that they were sinners. There were no halos over their heads by any worthiness of themselves.

All Saints’ Day isn’t a celebration only of the saints of the past. It is a celebration of all the saints. Those of the past and those of the present and those of the future. This is a celebration not of people who are really good people but of sinners who have been declared holy by God Almighty because of the righteousness of Christ. Jesus alone you can look at and see no hypocrisy or unworthiness or sin. Every saint, from the greatest to the least is blessed purely by God’s grace and mercy. That’s why each Beatitude starts off the way it does: “Blessed are those…” You are a saint not because you’re good or worthy, but because you are blessed. You are made a saint by God because He pours out His blessing upon you.

The word saint means “holy one.” There is one who is holy and that is God. How we are made holy is that God makes us holy, accounting the righteousness, the holiness, of Christ to us so that we actually stand before Him as ones who are holy, saints. This is the way it has always been done by God, with Abraham and David, Mary and Peter, and Augustine and Luther. And you and me.

Who are the saints? They are the ones who waited for the blessings of God and even now rejoice in them in their fullness in eternal glory. They are the ones who even now are waiting for the blessings of God in their fullness and trust that they will rejoice in them in eternal glory with all the saints of heaven. When Jesus says to us, “Blessed are you,” He is speaking that blessing as a fact. You are blessed. Even now you have the Kingdom. And even now you wait in this lifetime. You trust in your Savior for the comfort you will receive. You wait for the inheritance given you of the eternal Promised Land. You know you will receive righteousness in all its fullness even as you hunger and thirst for it in this lifetime. You humbly await that Judgment Day when you will deserve nothing but damnation from God but will receive mercy. You will see God face to face in eternity. You are called a son, a daughter of God by your Heavenly Father. You may rejoice and be glad even when you are trampled on for walking in the way of Christ.

Jesus speaks His Beatitudes to His holy people, His saints. Lutherans like to refer to Christians as saints and sinners simultaneously. In Christ there is not any sin or unrighteousness in us. We are saints in every sense of that word, we are holy. At the same time, we are wrapped up in this sinful flesh while we remain on this earth and so are completely sinful—there is not anything good within us in God’s holy sight. How is it that we are saints and sinners simultaneously? That we don’t fluctuate back and forth between the one and the other, that we’re not half saint, half sinner? That the eternal condemnation we deserve is exactly that, what we deserve and the salvation we have received is exactly that, purely what we have received?

The answer must always go back to Christ. He is man and God simultaneously. Fully God and fully man. God became flesh for sinners. Jesus was condemned in our place so that we may receive salvation. The sinless for the sinner. The eternal righteousness given to the unrighteous. The eternal Lamb of God slain so that sinners may be saints.

This is who you are. This is what Jesus is saying in the Beatitudes. Blessed are you. And it is so. In need of comfort? Come to His Table where He gives you the Kingdom. Hunger and thirst for righteousness? Partake of His Holy Meal, which is nothing less than His holy Body and Blood, given and shed for you, for you to eat and drink, for you to be satisfied, sustained; blessed in Him forever. Amen.

SDG

An Eternal Gospel

Reformation Day [Observed]
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
October 25, 2009
John 8:31-36

A historian once said that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. We all need to be historians. Because it’s true. If you do not know history you are a slave. You have no freedom. If you’re behind bars, it’s clear to you that you aren’t free. But if you go through life ignoring reality and truth you think you are free when in fact you more of a prisoner than one who is behind bars. We are shortsighted. We often see what we want to see. Jesus has an everlasting perspective.

He proclaims an eternal Gospel. That’s what the First reading from Revelation says, an eternal Gospel is proclaimed. But doesn’t that sound odd to us? Why should there need to be an eternal Gospel? Doesn’t the Gospel only come into play when Adam and Eve fall into sin? Why would the Gospel need to be in existence from eternity? And isn’t there no longer a need for the Gospel when Christ returns in glory and puts an end to this world and we reign in heaven forever without sin and condemnation? Why does the Gospel need to remain for eternity?

Jesus answers that question in the Gospel reading. It’s something along the lines of, those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. The people Jesus was speaking to had short memories. Never had been enslaved to anyone? Had they forgotten the Egyptians? And the Babylonians? And what about the Roman occupiers in their own day? But even all of this misses the point, which is why Jesus doesn’t bring it up, as obvious as it is. Their refusal to learn from history is to not acknowledge their slavery to sin.

Paul is forced to make this clear in his letter to the Christians in Rome in our Epistle reading. The Law of God breaks through in this life so that every mouth may be stopped. That doesn’t keep us from talking though, does it? Me, a sinner? Well, yes, but I’m not really that bad. I don’t sin all the time. And the sins I commit don’t really hurt people that much. I could be a lot worse.

By this way of thinking we have shown ourselves to be slaves to sin. We’re so convinced we’re not that bad of sinners we forget the root problem: Original Sin. Yes, you don’t always do really bad things. And some of the really bad things you do don’t come close to comparing to the heinous acts that some, even many, people commit. But you are bound up in your sinful flesh—you are a sinner not just because you sin, but because you are born in sin and are enslaved to it. Those who ignore this are condemned.

Since our memories are so short, God has a way of dealing with this that is outside of our realm of dealing with time and figuring out which sins are really bad and which ones aren’t as big of a deal—it’s His eternal Gospel. It’s the truth that will set you free. If His Gospel is from eternity and lasts for eternity there’s no way you can wonder if your being bound up in your sinful flesh is not covered by His grace, His mercy, His love. It is. It’s eternal. He always had in view, from eternity, loving you and being in relationship with you.

You are free by what God has done in His eternal action of the Gospel. Believing in Christ is abiding in this eternal Gospel, something that is outside of yourself, from before you were ever around and that will last forever. When the people talking to Jesus wanted to place the ground of their faith in themselves He insisted that it must be grounded in Him and His eternal Gospel.

Jesus says those who commit sin are slaves to sin. He doesn’t go down a list to help them sort out whether they’re really bad sinners or sinners who just do some bad things now and then. Those who commit sin are slaves to sin because they are born in sin and are wrapped up in their sinful flesh. To be freed from this you must be freed from it. You cannot free yourself from it. You must be freed from it by something outside of you. By someone who is not bound by sin. You are set free by the Son who from eternity is your Savior.

It’s not easy to abide in Jesus’ Word. It means doing what we do when we confess our sins. That we are by nature sinful. That there is nothing good within us and nothing good we can do in the sight of God. That we deserve His temporal and eternal punishment. There’s nothing easy about this.

But there is something freeing about it. There’s something amazingly revolutionary about it. Standing before God and not making a case for yourself. Not justifying your sinful actions or rationalizing them away. Simply confessing them. Simply saying, God, what you say is true, I am a sinner, condemn me because it’s all that I deserve. There’s something freeing about this, because as we stand before God in this condition—sinful, unworthy, condemned—we are standing before a God who tells us to lift up our head. To turn our gaze to a hill that stood just outside of a small city. A hill upon which was another sinner. A sinner who was crucified on that hill. A sinner who is God the Father’s very own Son.

But this is all wrong! He’s not the sinner, I am. How is it that God points us to the one on the cross as the sinner when we are the ones? How it is is the eternal Gospel. Jesus becomes the sinner so that we may be set free. Free from sin. Free from the condemnation of the Law. Free from any notions that we’re not that bad and only need to keep trying a little harder. And even more, freed from the Law that is constantly beating us down that we haven’t loved enough, shared the Gospel with enough people, haven’t been in the Word of God as much as we should be. Freeing us up from this condemnation to simply live in His grace. To be freed to serve in our simple, humble, often awkward ways. Even our sometimes faltering ways.

That’s what the eternal Gospel always does. When you are freed you are not then put under a new Law in which you must now do stuff for God. When the Son sets you free, you are free indeed! He has had this in view from eternity! Jesus is your Lord eternally. He is your Savior eternally. You are free eternally. You are not condemned. You are not bound. You are Baptized. You are fed by Your Savior Himself. His very Body, His very Blood, placed in your mouth for you to eat and drink and be filled and refreshed and forgiven and freed.

This is not of anything you do. Thank God! It’s everything of God and by God, eternally, for you. Amen.

SDG

An Alternative Way

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke, Evangelist
October 18, 2009
Mark 10:23-31

The man who came to Jesus in last week’s Gospel reading asking how he could gain heaven walked away from it all because He didn’t want the way Jesus offered him. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus fleshes out what it means to follow Him.

In one word it is humility. Jesus doesn’t tell us how to be humble. He doesn’t even tell us to be humble. But that’s what He’s preaching. The way Jesus gives us is a different way than the world offers us.

What does the world offer you? Why not get the most out of life you can rather than submitting to the demands or wishes of others? Even so, there are many people in the world who are not Christians who are very kind and generous. They help others and even put others before themselves. But what happens? The world points to those people and says, See how humble they are! They’re enamored with the person, which kind of takes away from the humility. The world offers in the form of many religions a system in which you attain reward because of who you are or what you do. This way is no more possible than passing through the eye of a needle, something you no more can do than can a camel. What is demanded in all these religions is not humility but perfection. There is no point in even attempting to meet the demands of these religions because you’re sunk before you even begin.

Jesus offers an alternative way. It’s getting out of the way. He embodies this Himself. He is the embodiment of God. God doesn’t sit on His throne and command us to be humble. He humbles Himself to come to us. We entered the House of God this morning in His Name, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Moments ago we confessed our faith of who He is in the Nicene Creed: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the true God, the only God. And the thing about the true God… He gets out of the way. He humbles Himself by passing, so to speak, through the eye of a needle knowing that we cannot. In other words, what is impossible for us, but demanded of us in order to be saved, He accomplishes, because all things are possible with Him.

The Holy Spirit is fully God, the Lord and Giver of Life, and yet gets out of the way. He points to Jesus, delivers Him to us. Jesus is true God—God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God—and yet points us to the Father. Jesus’ concern is glorifying His Heavenly Father. The Father is God—Almighty, maker of heaven and earth—and yet points us to His Son, Jesus Christ. This is My beloved Son, listen to Him.

In a sea of people boasting of their humility, looking for ways to humble themselves, attempting to be more humble, God offers an alternative: Himself. The Lord above all humbles Himself and gives Himself to us. In our attempts to gain recognition for what we do either by others lauding our efforts, or our listing our accomplishments to God, He simply shows us one thing that has been accomplished. And it has been accomplished by Him. It is truly the greatest accomplishment and yet done in the humblest of circumstances. Our Lord suffering in our place, taking upon Himself our sin.

It’s really hard to talk as Christians about humility. Once you point it out it becomes the focus, and that kind of takes out the point. The way to be humble is to get out of the way. What is our tendency? The disciples don’t want to take Jesus’ way as the way, so they exclaim: “Then who can be saved?” Humility would simply accept Jesus’ word for what it is. Peter doesn’t want to get out of the way and focus solely on Christ so he mentions a fact his Lord apparently wasn’t aware of: “We have left everything and followed You.”

The amazing thing about God is that He really gets out of the way. He knows that we’re constantly wanting to go back to our own notions of how we’re in the good favor of God, and He still uses us for His eternal will of accomplishing salvation for the world.

I like to give the Confirmation kids quizzes. And I think they like them, but you can ask them. So here’s a quiz, but don’t answer them out loud, just answer in your head these two questions, true or false:

1. You don’t do the works God has called you to do in your life.
2. You do the works God has called you to do in your life.

In a humorous vein, you can test out your humility by seeing your reaction if you get both answers right whether you congratulate yourself or not. Or, conversely, if you get one or both wrong, if you congratulate yourself on your humility because you failed the test.

But to the serious point of the answers to the two questions, the answer to the first question—you don’t do the works God has called you to do in your life—that’s true, you don’t. The answer to the second question—you do the works God has called you to do in your life—that’s true also, you do.

This is God offering an alternative way of humility, some would say nonsensical. And they would be right. Jesus doesn’t spend His time explaining that His way is logical, He just says it. The truth is, we don’t do the works God has called us to do. We fail miserably. We try. Sometimes we don’t even try. But try or not, we don’t accomplish what God demands. If trying were all that were needed the Bible wouldn’t have been nearly as long as it is. But in the manifold pages of Scripture it becomes abundantly clear that what God demands is perfection, and that is where you come up short. Convince yourself all you want to the contrary, but the answer to number 1 is No, you don’t do what God has called you to do.

But there’s another truth. And that is the truth of statement 2. You do what God has called you to do. You do the works He commands of you. And this is not some sort of trying thing either. You do them perfectly. Exactly as the Law of God demands. God the Father is as pleased with your works as He is with His own Son, Jesus Christ. And this is the key to it all. Jesus is the one who brings about humility in us, not our attempts at it.

Jesus is the reason we can say without doubt that we don’t do what God demands of us. Otherwise, why did Jesus suffer eternal condemnation in our place? Jesus is also the reason we can say in full confidence that we do what God has commanded us. Otherwise, why did Jesus accomplish the perfect fulfillment of the Law in our place? The way Jesus talks in the Gospel reading shows us how both of these things are possible at the same time. “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time.” On the one hand, when you stand before the altar of God to confess your sins, can you honestly say that you have done what Jesus demands, what Peter was convinced of that he did? Instead, haven’t you put all of these things before God in your life? At the same time, as you stand before the altar of God and hear His proclamation of the Absolution of your sins, can you not but thank Him for the amazing opportunities He gives you in your life to serve Him right where you’re at? In your home, loving and taking care of your family. Helping out your neighbors when they’re in need.

There is no one who has not left “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” who has not done so by Jesus Christ Himself accomplishing it. It is indeed no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you. No wonder you’re able to live as God has called you to live! He accomplishes even this. He frees you up to serve Him. He frees you from the constraints of the Law to practice the Law of love, humbly, joyfully serving those God has placed in your life. When you get out of the way the Holy Spirit has a field day working through you to serve others.

But if you wonder at the many ways the world offers; the appeals of your sinful flesh; the temptations of the devil; know that there is an alternative to all of that. It’s not just another way. It’s the way. The way of humility is not trying to be humble, it’s simply the way of Christ. It’s Christ being humble on your account. “Many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Christ is first of all and became last for all. Christ is Lord of Creation and yet humbly offers you His body and blood in a simple meal at this altar. The Holy Spirit fills you up with the righteousness of Christ so that the Heavenly Father may look upon you and be pleased and pour out upon you all His eternal blessings. Amen.

SDG

What Must I NOT Do to Be Saved?

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 11, 2009
Mark 10:17-22

You do a lot of things. Conversely, there’s a lot of things you don’t do. A lot of what you do you do purposefully, a lot you simply do with no thought to it. At the same time, there are things you don’t do because you choose not to do them, just as there are things you don’t do because it never comes to mind.

Today’s Gospel reading is all about doing and not doing. In other words, it’s just like life. There are two people here, Jesus and a man who comes up to Him, both of whom are doing distinct things and not doing distinct things.

Jesus is as He always is. He is doing something but not just anything. He is going about His specific work of salvation. Mark says Jesus is setting out on His journey. We know where that journey led Him, to the cross. Nobody else around had a clue that that’s what Jesus was doing.

Certainly not the man who showed up who likewise was doing something very specific. Accomplishing a lifetime of obeying God’s Law, he found in his life there was still something missing. Jesus, what must I do to be saved? There’s got to be something more than what I’ve already done.

His focus was on what he must do. Jesus answers that it is not what he must do but what he must NOT do. What He is getting at is the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods.

Interesting, then, that He doesn’t mention that commandment at all. He lists seven commandments. The first three of the Ten Commandments He doesn’t state. The ones He does all deal with the second table of the Law, the ones dealing with our relationship with others. The first three commandments, the first table of the Law, deal with our relationship with God. The first table is the one Jesus is concerned with with the man who seeks to gain eternal life. The whole Law is summed up in the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods.

What must you do to be saved? It’s what you must NOT do. You must have no other gods. This was this man’s problem. This is our basic problem. We have other gods. We put all kinds of things in place of God. Actually, that we place many things in place of the true God is the way we place ourselves in front of God.

If we search for what we must do we will not find it. Rather, God says, You shall have no other gods. Jesus was the one rightly doing something in this episode. He was on His way. He was heading to the cross. That’s where salvation takes place. Not in your heart where you are proud of yourself for obeying the second table of the Law. You take care of your ailing parents and patiently put up with their eccentricities and demands. You bite your tongue when your co-worker makes backhanded insults to you. You obey copyright laws even when no one would ever know if you didn’t. These are all good things. And we should do them. God’s Law is clear on that. But do these things end up becoming our gods? The apostle Paul even said of himself that before he became a Christian “as to righteousness under the Law, I was blameless” (Philippians 3:6).

The man who was seeking salvation from Jesus went to the right person. But he had it all wrong. Jesus, what must I do? No, it’s rather what you must not do. Why did Jesus go to the cross if you could gain salvation from obeying the Law? Why was Jesus so intent on getting to that cross if it came down to you doing something in order to be saved?

It’s what you must not do to be saved that Jesus drives home in His directive to the man, to sell all he has and follow Him. The man was convinced he had kept all the commandments. Jesus doesn’t dispute that. His reply is simple: “You lack one thing.” The one thing is the only thing. It is the main thing and the thing without which you have you have nothing. It is having no other gods. It is fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things.

Money may not be your thing, like it was for that man. It may be your charisma, or your unwavering service to others, or your comfortable habit of being here in God’s House when it’s convenient, or your consistency in being here in God’s House. There are a lot of things we do. So often in our lives what we do reflects our natural penchant toward ourselves rather than having no other gods.

The man walked away from Jesus and what he had been seeking, eternal life, not because his wealth was his god, but because he himself was his god. If what you do gains for yourself eternal life you don’t need Jesus. The man didn’t want Jesus, he wanted Jesus to clue him in on what he was still lacking. Or perhaps he just wanted Jesus to confirm the man’s worthiness. You’re good to go, pal. Keep up the good work. Wish there were more guys like you.

But Jesus gives us the one thing we lack, and that is, well, it’s Him. Jesus gives us Himself. He is the heart of the First Commandment. Having no other gods means nothing other than Jesus is your hope of salvation. Jesus didn’t go to the cross for nothing. He went to the cross for the world. Nobody was doing anything that accomplished their salvation while Jesus was hanging on the cross. Jesus was doing it all. Salvation is in Him: His suffering, His death, His resurrection.

What you must not do to be saved is have other gods. What you must do is nothing. You’re very good at doing all the things you do and very good at not doing all the things you don’t do. Don’t continue down that road. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s also the road of a lot of people doing a lot of things; many of them good, wonderful things—loving people, being kind to them, obeying God’s Law.

The road to salvation is the road Jesus walked. It’s the road that led to the cross and continues on from the empty tomb. This is the road you follow. You’ll still be tempted to think of this road you’re on, the one of following Jesus, as one in which you’re doing good things for Jesus. I’m following Jesus, it’s a good thing I’m doing this! I serve Jesus, it’s a good thing I’m doing what He wants!

But on this road Jesus will keep bringing you back down to earth: There is one thing you lack, and that is Me. What I accomplished on Calvary. What I give to you in My Holy Supper, My very Body and Blood, given and shed for you. In this way He raises you up to heaven. Amen.

SDG

A Messy Affair

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 4, 2009
Mark 10:2-16

This came in the email just in time for today’s Gospel reading which is about marriage and family. Questions about marriage are asked of children:

“How do you decide who to marry?”

Alan, age 10, says: You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.

Kirsten, age 10, says: No person really decides before they grow up who they’re going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you’re stuck with.

“What is the right age to get married?”

Camille, age 10, says: Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.

And you have to wonder what kind of home Freddie, age 6, grew up in to say: No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married.

“How can a stranger tell if two people are married?”

Derrick, age 8, opines: You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.

Out of the mouths of babes often comes the harsh reality of how sin has impacted God’s instituting of marriage. One of my favorite comic strips, the Wizard of Id, shows us exactly the problem here. A woman in a funeral home standing next to the coffin of her deceased husband says to another woman: An operation might have saved him, but our insurance denied it. Apparently he had a pre-existing condition. To which the other woman asked, What was it? This met with the response: He was alive.

Jesus shows us that this is our problem in the Gospel reading today. Whether you are married or single, divorced or have never been married or are widowed, have children or not able to, grew up in a big family or are an only child, adopted or orphaned, there is something you all have in common: you are all part of a family. In families genes are passed along. We carry on certain traits. One thing that has been passed along from Adam and Eve was alluded to in the comic strip and evidenced by the children who were asked how they view marriage: we are all born in sin. This is called original sin and we can no more escape that genetic trait than we can our eye color or a congenital disease.

God’s creation is perfect, our sin has damaged it. How we approach the good things God has created is even tainted with sin. Today’s Gospel reading gives us some good examples of this. How the Pharisees approach God’s gift of marriage betrays their approach to it. They ask a question consistent with the Law. But this begs the question, doesn’t it? After all, who is the author of the Law? It is God. Jesus even affirms that the Law in the Old Testament permitted divorce. Here Jesus is speaking against it and then admits that God allowed divorce. Oh, He gives a reason. But He allowed it. I hate it when God gets things wrong. How are you supposed to teach that divorce is against God’s will when He gave people an out because of the hardness of their hearts? Wouldn’t that just give people an out today?

Actually, what Jesus is doing is what He always does. He responds according to what is in our hearts. He responds according to what He knows we need. If you seek what you want according to the Law what you will get is the Law. If you are given the Gospel it will be Law to you. On the other hand, if you seek the Gospel that is exactly what you will get. If you get Law you will think it is Gospel, only, it won’t be. God always gives you exactly what you need. Sometimes you need Law. Sometimes you need Gospel.

It all gets to be a very messy affair, this business of Law and Gospel. It’s kind of like a family. Having a family is a messy affair. There’s all kinds of people running around the house complaining about how so and so isn’t doing enough work and so and so messed up my homework and so and so won’t leave me alone and so and so said she’d play with me but now is playing with so and so and some people in the family are just wondering if there will be any peace and quiet at some point in this day or if the yelling and the TV and other annoying sounds will continue on into eternity.

Families do not always seem to be a place of refuge of love and peace and quiet. Maybe that’s why the Pharisees come at the whole situation to Jesus from a Law perspective. If it gets to be where being in this family is bringing me down, can I just get out? I notice Mark yet again doesn’t tell us what the disciples asked Jesus but he does give us Jesus’ response, and if we can judge from that we can see that the disciples still weren’t getting it. Though not testing Jesus as the Pharisees were, they were approaching marriage and family from the same Law perspective as the Pharisees were.

There’s not a whole lot of difference between the Pharisees and the disciples. Conversely, there’s a universe of difference between them and Jesus. They approach marital and family matters the way they approach life. What do I need to do to make this better? How can I make this work? What can I do to get out of it what will be best for me? We are heirs of an astonishingly pathetic tradition. It can be summed up in the cartoon. It’s a condition we all suffer from. We’re alive. Which means, we’re dead. Living for us means what can we do to satisfy ourselves in this life. What that means for us is death. It means if we approach these matters, and life itself, from a Law perspective we’ll get a Law answer. And the Law always condemns. It doesn’t only condemn, but it always condemns. It guides and instructs and shows us the best way, but it never leaves you where you need to be. It always leaves you coming up short. It always ends up condemning you.

On the other hand is the Gospel. But this too is a messy affair. Because the Gospel only comes in when you’re in the mess of sin and need. The Gospel comes in for you, a sinner. Those cute little kids that were being brought to Jesus were cute little sinners. We can smile all we want at the cute little baby in her little white Baptismal outfit. But the true joy that comes from that baby’s life is not in being cute but in being drowned in the waters of Baptism and raised to eternal life.

There will come a point where God will leave you to your own desires. Your ways are the ways of the Law. He will not force the Gospel upon you. He will always offer it to you, but never beat you down with it. If you want to get out of marriage or life only what you want to get out of it He will let you go your own way. But He will always be there for you, offering you the blessing you need. That’s why He blessed those children, because they needed it. They weren’t just cute. They were sinners. They needed to be forgiven. That’s why they were brought to Jesus. That’s why we bring babies and children and adults to the font to be Baptized. To be blessed. To receive the blessing of Christ. To receive salvation. To receive eternal life. To be forgiven of all their sins. To go from that font a child of God.

No matter, our sinful flesh will sit there and step into the role of Pharisee or ignorant disciple. But the Kingdom of God belongs to children! Why do they need Baptism if Jesus says to such belongs His Kingdom?! Yes, our Old Adam loves to approach things from the Law. That’s what got us into the mess we’re in and the need for the Gospel in the first place. We’re shackled by the Law. It’s like being in a marriage you feel like you’re suffocating in. Your consuming thought is How can I get out of this? It’s like longing for the day you can get out from under the demands of your parents so that you can have the freedom that will make your life so much better. The Law will always get you to a place that will leave you coming up short.

Jesus does not say the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. You don’t get into heaven simply because you’re a child. You get into it when you are such as they are. And how is that? Well, they certainly didn’t do anything. They didn’t come to Jesus. They didn’t ask Him for anything. They were brought. They were brought to Jesus by their parents. And that is how we must be. We must be brought to Jesus. We can’t come to Him on our own. They didn’t do anything; neither can we.

We get in not because of what we do but because of what has been done to us. We are brought into the eternal Family of God through Baptism. Our Lord is our Savior. Our Master is not ashamed to be called our brother. He has brought us into His family in which there is no longer any genetic strain of sin. We are born of God and inherit the righteousness of Christ. We are brought into a relationship that is of unconditional love. Our Lord is our Husband. We are His Bride. We are joined to Him in Baptism. He invites us to celebrate the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

We await that day. We await it by celebrating a foretaste of it in His Holy Supper. It was a messy affair what Jesus did in instituting His Holy Supper. About to die. To put His life in place of ours. To be the sacrifice, the one slain, the one whose blood was shed. There was no messier affair, the sins of fallen humanity shouldered by the sinless Lamb of God, and yet no more beautiful thing in all of history, no greater love shown. The risen Lord and Christ now comes to you in His very same Body and Blood to grant you His life, His forgiveness, His salvation. Amen.

SDG