Speaker: Aaron Richert

2025 Nov 02 DS

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen. The reason why the world does not know us is that the world did not know him.

 

Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now, to be blessed in this sense refers to a person who has received acceptance from God, approval from God. The poor in spirit refers to one who makes no claims on God for himself.

 

It’s just people who stand before God as nothing more than spiritual beggars, making no demands, expecting no rewards. Jesus said, God looks favorably on spiritual beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The world says you are not a spiritual beggar.

 

The world teaches you to tap the power within. The world gives you twelve steps to unlock your hidden spiritual capabilities. The world wants to help you find spiritual fulfillment by teaching you to be present, be intentional, find your authentic self.

 

But you do not listen to the world. The world does not understand you. And the reason it does not know you is that it did not know him first.

 

Jesus said, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And it’s more than just mourning the death of loved ones. Jesus said, Blessed are those whose knowledge of their own spiritual bankruptcy leads them to mourn their entire sinful condition.

 

God looks favorably on those who recognize their depraved state, who do not drum up a series of excuses or self-justifications, but who are simply saddened at their sin and what it does. Those who mourn in this way will be comforted with the comfort of the gospel, the joy of forgiveness, the promise of life eternal. The world says, Do not mourn your sin.

 

In fact, don’t even call it sin, says the world. After all, nothing is truly right or wrong. What matters most is whether it’s right for you.

 

The only thing we cannot tolerate, says the world, is intolerance. So do not convict anyone in their sin. Neither let anyone convict you in your sin.

 

You were born that way. You can’t help the way you feel. Nobody’s perfect.

 

Do not mourn, says the world, for the good you do far outweighs the bad. Don’t beat yourself up over sin. God wants you to be happy.

 

Any God who doesn’t want you to be happy isn’t a God worth having, says the world. But do not listen to the world. The world does not understand you, and the reason it does not know you is because it did not know him first.

 

Jesus said, Blessed are the meek, those who humble themselves before God in confession, for they shall inherit the new heavens, the new earth of eternal bliss. The world says, You have nothing to be humble for. Jesus said, Blessed are those who desire the righteousness of God, given through his Son, for God will satisfy that desire.

 

The world says, Your desire ought never be satisfied. You should always be pushing for a better job, a bigger house, a nicer car. Jesus said, Blessed are those who show mercy to others, for they will experience the joy of mercy.

 

The world says, Mercy is for the weak. Only the strong survive. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

 

But do not be surprised that the world does not understand you, for it did not understand him first. It does not understand how the pure in heart, how those who are committed to God without any ulterior motive, or how the peacemakers, who find peace through forgiveness, are bearing each other’s burdens, forgiving those who have wronged them. The world does not understand how these can be held in such high regard by Jesus.

 

The world does not understand relationships free from ulterior motives. The relationships of the world are always quid pro quo. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

 

Do not be surprised when the world does not understand. It doesn’t understand Jesus. How could it understand his followers? I mean, the world is certainly proud of what knowledge it thinks it has.

 

It puffs out its chest when it tells you that it has discovered the different chemicals in your brain that trigger the emotions that we call sadness, or happiness, or love, or loneliness. It tells you how the laws of physics make it possible to build bridges or fly airplanes. It tells you how different societies throughout recorded history have functioned, how they worshipped, what they considered moral.

 

It will tell you how the human brain develops, how the human body functions. Yes, the world is proud of its knowledge. The problem is, it has no clue about the gift of our Lord’s forgiveness, or the joy of new creation, or the life that we now live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself up for us.

 

The world understands none of this. And what’s worse, it considers us to be confused, deceived, even brainwashed for believing in such nonsense. The world has no idea what we are as the baptized children of God, because it has no idea about who God really is.

 

To the world, Christianity is, at best, just another set of moral or ethical guidelines. Guidelines that are essentially no different than those offered by any other religion. Guidelines that conscientious atheists can discover for themselves.

 

Things like don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t lie, be nice. At worst, the world sees Christianity as a system of oppression. The opiate of the masses, means by which the rich just grow richer.

 

But Christianity is not a system of oppression. And moral and ethical guidelines are not the heart and soul of our Lord’s church, because moral and ethical guidelines are not the heart and soul of our Lord. In a day like today, All Saints Day, it makes it abundantly clear.

 

For today, we celebrate that we are God’s children, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. See, for all the world’s so-called knowledge, it does not, and it cannot, understand death and resurrection.

 

The world thinks it understands death. After all, death is all around us. Each fall, creation dies to winter, only to be reborn in spring.

 

The food chain would not work without the death of the prey upon which the predators feed. From the world’s perspective, death, while it may be sometimes sad, is nonetheless natural. Just part of the great circle of life.

 

The world can tell you medical and scientific details about the death of a body or a plant, but as long as it considers death natural, the world will never understand it. Because death is not natural. Our Lord did not create a world to be filled with death.

 

He did not create a world where families would need to gather throughout the church to read the names of those who have died in the faith throughout the past year. Our Lord did not create a world where this sadness and this mourning are just natural. And so we wait in faith for the world to come.

 

We wait in hope for the coming life in paradise, a new creation free from the shackles of death. But the world will not understand this. It cannot understand this because it doesn’t understand Jesus.

 

When the world sees Jesus, it sees perhaps a teacher, someone who pontificated moral living. But we know different. We know the purpose of the Incarnation was not just to teach us how to live.

 

God could have done that from heaven. In fact, he already had through the words of the law and the prophets. Now the purpose of the Incarnation, the real purpose of Jesus, is death and resurrection.

 

Jesus took on human flesh so that that flesh could be beaten and bruised, nailed to the cross in our place, only to be raised to life three days later. This is who Jesus is. The lamb who was slain but who now stands very much alive on the throne of heaven, still bearing in his body the marks of our salvation.

 

And we know that when this Jesus appears again, we will be made like him, living, risen from the dead unto life eternal. We rejoice that when this gift has been delivered to those who have gone before us, to those whose names are read all across churches throughout the world today, we rejoice that they have been ushered into the life for which we continue to wait. The world cannot understand, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, and the truths of God are discerned through the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

The world does not understand our Lord’s plan of salvation, and so it laughs at the idea of a life to come. It tells us to live for this life only, to reject any notion of spiritual bankruptcy or mourning or humility, and instead to embrace this creation. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.

 

But we know the truth. We know that this world and this life are not all that there is. We have not yet reached our final destination.

 

God has not yet revealed what we will be. And until he does, our true identity remains hidden behind a veil of tears. Life in this world is difficult.

 

Our Lord himself called it the Great Tribulation. He has not yet revealed the perfect, the incorruptible, the unstained, the unfading, glorious robes that wait for us in heaven. But make no mistake, they do wait for us.

 

Your robe is waiting for you. For when you take your place among the great multitude that no one can number, from every people, from every language, from every tribe, from every nation, those who have gone before us, those who are standing before the throne of the land with palm branches in their hands, singing his praises, those who have come out of the Great Tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Because of what Jesus has done for us, this is our future.

 

This is our destiny as his children. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as Jesus is pure. So don’t lose heart when the world doesn’t understand you.

 

Don’t lose heart when the world insults you as ignorant, or persecutes you as if you are foolishly and childishly naive. Do not lose heart when they utter all manner of things falsely about you simply because you belong to Jesus. The world does not know you.

 

Because the world does not know him. Rather, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for you will be made like he is. And remember, that’s exactly how they persecuted the prophets who came before you.

 

And where are they now? They are before the throne of God. They serve him day and night in his temple. The Lamb of God who sits on the throne, he shelters them with his presence.

 

And they do not hunger anymore. They do not thirst anymore. The sun does not scorch them, because the Lamb of God is their shepherd.

 

He guides them along the streams of living water. He wipes away every tear from their eyes. And he will do the same for you.

 

In Jesus’ name, amen.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. And let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen. In December of 1525, Martin Luther published his famous book, The Bondage of the Will.

 

It’s usually considered one of his most important publications, and it’s quintessential Luther. His style is blunt and often abrasive, because for Luther, there’s no room for fancy rhetoric or word games when the gospel is at stake. One must be direct.

 

One must be clear. But, 500 years later, the bound will that he’s arguing for makes a lot of 21st century Christians uncomfortable. Even in Lutheran churches that bear his name, many are not sure they agree with Luther’s assertion.

 

Because the idea of a bound will flies in the face of what most of us value above all else, autonomy. We live in a world that unquestioningly believes that we have freedom of self-determination, that you can be whatever you want to be, as long as you work hard enough. Now, on the one hand, it is true that we have freedom in our lives, freedom to desire and to pursue certain goals, certain aspirations.

 

I can commit myself to losing a few pounds, and that includes choosing whether or not to pack a salad for lunch or hit the drive-thru. I can choose what clothes I put on in the morning. I can choose what radio station I listen to, things like that.

 

Luther didn’t argue against that in The Bondage of the Will, although he does make a passing point that even in those areas of our lives where we can exercise our will, we still aren’t as free as we like to think we are. There’s far too many variables outside of our control. Even healthy people still get sick and die young.

 

But for Luther, the amount of ability that we have in making choices in our earthly lives is kind of an irrelevant question. The passenger on the Titanic has a choice about whether they put on their blue or black socks while the water pours in. But does it really matter if they’re still stuck on the ship and can’t get themselves off as the ship goes down? So also for us.

 

What does it matter that I can choose what I eat for breakfast? The real question is, can I choose God? And for Luther, the answer to that question is a resounding no. No, sinful humans have the power to choose whether or not to wear boots or flip-flops, but we do not have the power to choose God. The language that we just heard Jesus use a few moments ago reiterates this point.

 

Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. We hear this verse every year at the Reformation. The language of slave in those words is clear.

 

It is obviously language of bondage. It’s the language that Luther used. Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

 

But what about that language of committing? If the one who commits sin is a slave to it, then what does it mean to commit sin? Some translations put it like this. Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. Others just simply say, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

 

The verb they’re all trying to translate is the Greek word poieo. Its literal definition is to produce something, like a tree produces its fruit. Whoever produces sin is a slave to that sin.

 

Think of the Apostle Paul’s struggle described in Romans. The good that I want to do, I don’t do that. The evil that I don’t want to do, well, that’s what I find myself doing.

 

I’m trapped. My existence is internal warfare. I’m enslaved.

 

Who will save me from this body of death? When I look at my life, I find myself producing sin. And as hard as I try, I can’t seem to set myself free from it. So Jesus’ words prove true.

 

I am a slave to sin. But for Luther, the very hope of salvation is found in the simple reality that Jesus’ words hold true. And not only his words that the one producing sin is a slave to it, but more importantly, the words that if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

 

You see, for Luther, this was the key. If our salvation depended in any way on us completing something, anything at all, the comfort of the gospel is lost. How could I ever be certain that I’ve done enough? I’d be tempted to pride, to despair.

 

I’d be left to wallow in uncertainty. But thanks be to God that our salvation rests entirely on the work of Christ. It’s His death in our place.

 

His declaration of forgiveness. His making us alive in Him. As the famous preacher Jonathan Edwards once put it, we contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary.

 

But don’t hear this as disappointing or deflating news. It’s the opposite of that. Because we contribute nothing to our salvation, we can be confident in it.

 

Because the Son has set us free, we know we are free indeed. Now, there’s certainly more that can be said about the far-reaching implications of this reality, so I invite you to stick around for Bible class. We’re going to be discussing a lot of those things today.

 

But for now, for here, I think the important question before us is, where in my life am I still trying to contribute to my own salvation? Where am I blurring the line between living a life pleasing to God or seeing myself as living a life that somehow obligates God to grant me salvation? Do I live as if God can be bought by my political affiliations? Do I live as if God can be won over by my acts of charity, kindness? Do I live as if God has moved to forgive me because I’ve got all my doctrinal ducks in a row? Is my posture to stand before God and say, thank you, Lord, that I’m not like those other sinners? Because none of that, none of that is going to save me. None of that will bring forgiveness or comfort or hope. That’s just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

Now, true freedom comes when the Son sets you free. And the gift of the Reformation is the return to the certainty of that promise. For the Son has set you free.

 

He was born for you. He lived for you. He died for you.

 

He rose for you. He ascended for you. And He is now seated at the right hand of the Father for you.

 

And He did all this without any merit or worthiness in us. We could not by our own reason or strength or our will believe in Jesus Christ as Lord or come to Him. So He came to us.

 

The Holy Spirit has called us through the proclamation of the Gospel. He has made us alive with the gifts of His Word and Sacrament. He sanctifies us for lives pleasing to God.

 

He keeps us in the true faith. It all depends on our Lord. And for Luther, and for Jesus, and for us, all means all.

 

If it all depends on Him, there’s nothing left for me. None of it depends on me. Apart from Jesus, we are dead in our trespasses and sins.

 

Our wills are in bondage to the devil. But we are not apart from Jesus. He has kicked down the door of our hearts.

 

He has bound the devil. The Son has set us free. And even though the sinful flesh will continue to rear its ugly head, and even though Satan will continue to scratch and to claw, because the Son has set us free, we are free indeed.

 

Free to live under Him and His Kingdom. Free to serve our neighbor in love, not worried about how many points it’s earning me in the eyes of the Father. Free to meet the challenges, the obstacles of this life, with the sure and certain hope that there is still a rest waiting for the people of God.

 

There is still the hope, and the promise, and the certainty of resurrection. So we live in that hope. We cling to that hope.

 

We no longer belong to sin. We no longer belong to death. We no longer belong to the devil, because the Son has set us free.

 

And so now, we belong to Jesus, and He will never let us go. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. And let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Now, I find the historical narrative of God wrestling with Jacob to be one of the more fascinating stories in the entire Bible.

 

Luther compared it to the event of a father teasing his son. Luther writes, God plays with Jacob, doesn’t sound like playing in the text. Luther says, God plays with Jacob to discipline him, to strengthen his faith just like a godly parent takes from his son an apple with which the boy was delighted.

 

Not that the boy should flee from the father or turn away from him, but rather that he should be incited to embrace his father all the more, and to beg him, saying, Father, give me back what you have taken away. Then the father is delighted with the test, and the son, when he recovers the apple, loves his father all the more ardently on seeing such love and such child’s play gives pleasure to his father. So according to Luther, then, the example of Jacob demonstrates to us that God is at times accustomed to play with his saints.

 

And as far as God himself is concerned, it’s quite childish playing. But to us whom he tempts in this way, it appears far different. Really, Luther? Far different? To us whom are afflicted and tempted and tried in this way, it appears far different? Of course it does.

 

No toddler likes it when you hold the sippy cup or the stuffed animal just out of their reach, taunting them just a little bit. It makes them feel frustrated. It makes them feel helpless.

 

They scream at you. They cry to get it back because there’s nothing else they can do. They are helpless.

 

And whether you’re two or 52, helplessness is one of the worst feelings. Just like a child doesn’t like to feel helpless by hands of an older, a taller, a stronger brother or sister, we Christians don’t like to feel helpless. Not in our lives, not before our God.

 

And so we want something. We want anything to give us a bit of control. We try to take credit for the strength of our own faith.

 

We try to take credit for the genuineness of our repentance, for the intensity of our praise. We’ll try anything not to feel helpless. But we are helpless.

 

So Luther draws a jarring parallel, comparing God assaulting Jacob in the middle of the night to God assaulting us, his children, with the various trials and afflictions in our lives. Language like this feels out of place among many Christians today. It’s a thought that makes us uncomfortable.

 

We so naturally jump to the assumption that anytime something is difficult in my life, it must automatically be coming from the work of the devil. We scarcely even give it a moment’s thought. Our instinct is to blame God whenever we’re uncomfortable, as if he’s being negligent, as if the only way a God should ever act is by making us healthy and wealthy and generally comfortable, prospering us in whatever life choices we’ve already made for ourselves.

 

And then when things don’t go the way that we think they should, well then, like a toddler, we threaten to turn our back on him, tempted to issue the ultimatum that if God doesn’t start to answer my prayers when and how I want him to, well God, then I’m going to be done with you. Tempted to try to incite a response from God through threats, through manipulation. Luther says God’s wrestling with Jacob gives us a different way to look at it.

 

Rather than growing weary or angry with God in the face of hardship, or when you think he’s taking too long to answer, conquer him. Rather than giving up on him when times are tough, beat him at his own game, for nothing gives God more delight than to be conquered by his children. Yes, there are times in our lives where we feel helpless before God, but that’s not failure on God’s part, as if he’s just arbitrarily toying with us like some capricious bully.

 

We feel helpless before God because we are helpless before God. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, and sometimes because we’re so blind to that reality by ourselves, he needs to make it abundantly clear to us. He doesn’t want us to throw in the towel, he wants us to fight back, he wants us to wrestle with him, for we are his Israel.

 

After the night of wrestling, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which literally means wrestles with God. And not only Jacob that one night, but generations of his descendants would be called Israel, those who wrestle with God. We are Israel today, those who continue to wrestle with God.

 

But we don’t wrestle by means of physical strength, we wrestle by means of a relentless faith, a trust that never gives up. That’s the widow in today’s gospel reading. Jesus emphasizes in the parable that God actually wants to be conquered by the faith of his people.

 

That’s why he named them Israel, the people who wrestle with God. Jesus told this parable, and we’re told explicitly, he told this parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. And then he tells a parable about a woman who pestered the judge into fulfilling his vocation and giving her justice.

 

She wrestled with him until he relented, and he was an unrighteous judge. How much more will God, your heavenly father, who unlike the unrighteous judge actually delights in you coming to him, how much more will he respond to you when you cry out? We are called to be Israel today, called to struggle with and to wrestle with God, called to cling to him and to not let him go until he blesses us like Jacob did that night so long ago. But we don’t wrestle with God as if we could ever bend him to our will, as if we could ever conquer him in such a way that he becomes subject to our whims.

 

Rather, whatever opposes us, Luther says, is conquered when we simply turn it over to him in prayer. He might not respond as quickly as we would like, but like the judge in today’s parable, he will ultimately respond. He will ultimately meet our needs.

 

And so Luther described this time of waiting to God’s response as a time of wrestling, clinging to our Lord in faith until he answers our prayer. He even described it as a time of exercise. He wrote about the comfort that we have that God does exercise us in such a way, that he exhorts us to fight back.

 

He shows that such fighting is a most pleasing sacrifice to him. He wants us to conquer him, because ultimately, we’re not the ones doing the conquering. This is not up to our strength.

 

This is the work of God in us. The God who took on human flesh to sacrifice that flesh, to allow the forces of evil to conquer that flesh in order that he might defeat death and win for himself our place in his eternal kingdom. The God who rejoices in victory through what always looks like defeat.

 

That is the God who is at work in us. He is the one who is the strength of our faith. He is the one who enlivens our hearts and our hands to cling to his promises, to trust his goodness and his mercy, even when our eyes and our experience tell us something different.

 

Luther rejoices that God exercises the faith of his children. Just like eating an exercise of how an earthly child grows into a healthy adult, so also our Lord feeds us and then exercises the new creation in us, so that our souls can grow healthy and strong. So be fed and nourished by God’s word, through the promises he makes to you there.

 

Be fed and nourished here at God’s altar, where you get more than just the scraps that fall from the master’s table, you have a seat at the feast itself. Here you receive pardon and peace in the body and blood of Jesus. Here you get the food to sustain you throughout all your days of pilgrimage.

 

And then having been fed, don’t expect to get lazy and fat, prepare for exercise. And exercise isn’t always pleasant. The act of lifting weights strains your muscles to the point where they tear.

 

The microscopic holes all over your muscles that are there after a workout regenerate, fill with new muscle. The gaps bring in new tissue. And after it’s all said and done, you have more muscle at the end than you had at the beginning.

 

That’s why nutrition is important to working out. Your body needs the nutrients and the hydration to rebuild the muscle. So also when God exercises you, be fed and nourished by God’s word and sacraments because they provide us with the nutrients necessary to strengthen our faith.

 

And when difficult circumstances and challenges come our way, embrace them as God’s exercise for your faith. And even more than that, as strange as it sounds and as hard as it might be, rejoice in the exercise. Like an athlete who relishes being challenged physically, who knows that pushing the body and its muscles to their limit will ultimately strengthen them, rejoice when God wrestles with you.

 

For there you learn to trust him. There you are shown your own inability and weakness. There you learn to rely on the strength of Christ alone.

 

Consider it pure joy when you face many trials because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. And rejoice in hardship, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

 

So when life is challenging, and it will be, and when you feel reasons to doubt God’s love for you, when you wonder if God is listening to your prayers, remember your name, O Israel. Wrestle with your God. Cry out to him.

 

And if Satan tries to convince you that God isn’t listening, remember the persistent widow. Remember that you have been encouraged, no, you’ve been commanded to pray, and God has promised that he will hear you and answer you. And if it seems like he’s taking too long, cling to him in faith like Jacob.

 

And don’t let go until he listens, for he has promised that he will hear you, he promises to answer. Capture him with his own words. He himself is the one who said, whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

 

So take him captive in his own promises. Cling to his word in the face of every obstacle, for he delights to be conquered by his children. You are Israel.

 

So wrestle with your God. Do not lose heart. Do not give up.

 

The promise is already yours. Hold him to it. The one who spoke this word is faithful.

 

He will keep his word. For our God does not wrestle with you because he wants to overcome you, but so that you might prevail against him and thus receive your reward. In Jesus’ name, amen

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.

 

O Lord, send forth your word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen. So what do you consider to be the official start of fall? Are you a literalist? Is it September 22nd, the autumnal equinox, the astronomical beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere? Or are you, like most people, more symbolic in your answer? Maybe it’s Labor Day, the start of the school year, the arrival of football season.

 

Maybe, here in Albuquerque, it’s the arrival of all the balloons, the fiesta that kicks off the start of fall for you. Maybe it’s when you turn off your swamp cooler, if you still have one. Regardless of when you think fall begins, one of the clear signs that it’s in full swing is the Halloween decorations popping up in front yards all across the city.

 

And in a few short weeks, boys and girls, and teenagers, and adults, will dress up in costumes for parties or for trick-or-treating. And a lot of those costumes will include masks. Goblin masks, president masks, werewolves, maybe even a celebrity or two.

 

Because Halloween is a time when people revel in hiding behind masks for fun. But fun is not the only reason people wear masks. Far more common are the metaphorical masks that we wear, the ones that each of us put on from time to time.

 

False appearance that we display before strangers, maybe before people we’re trying to impress. That mask of professionalism that we wear when we know the boss or the supervisor is watching. The mask of innocence that the devious students like to wear when they know the teacher or the administrators are in the room.

 

The mask we wear when we’re trying to make a good first impression, maybe trying to look smart. Trying to look adequately impressed, or unimpressed as the case may be. Or just trying to look like we have it all together.

 

We all occasionally wear these masks, but the thing about them is, none of them ever passes the test of time. In any lasting relationship, like a marriage, eventually the mask is going to fall off. Your true colors will be revealed.

 

All it takes is time. Which is why it’s so strange that we try to wear these masks before God. As if he doesn’t really know who we are underneath.

 

I mean, he is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the almighty. He’s the one who knit us together in our mother’s wombs.

 

He searches us, he knows our inmost desires, and yet we put on masks before him. Do we really think we can hide our sin from God? As if he can’t see right through the silly facade? That’s like the toddler, who thinks that you can’t see them because they put their hands over their own eyes. And yet, for some reason, we quickly and easily give in to that temptation.

 

To put on the masks of self-justification. Yes, Lord, we say, I know that you said hatred in my heart is a form of murder, but my boss just gets under my skin like no one else can. What I feel for him isn’t hatred, Lord, it’s righteous anger.

 

Well, yes, Lord, I know that you call me to defend my neighbor, to speak well of them, and to explain everything in the kindest way, but that one co-worker is the worst. She flies all the wrong flags, her car is full of all the wrong bumper stickers, she’s so smug and she’s so condescending, she doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s not pride, Lord, I just really am better at my job than my incompetent co-workers, and I get frustrated putting up with their mistakes all day.

 

They deserve the way that I talk to them. It’s not gossip, Lord, everything I said was true. You know your life better than I do, so you can fill in your own blanks.

 

Where does Satan tempt you to self-justification? Where does he tempt you to put on a mask when you address our Lord? But here’s the truth. Self-justification is a bottomless pit. It is a vicious and never-ending cycle.

 

And the reason that Satan loves to tempt us to self-justification is that he knows our attempts to explain away any particular sin doesn’t remove that sin. Attempts to justify sin leave sin unforgiven, festering in our conscience, weighing us down with guilt and shame, spreading like a disease that corrupts our soul. And ignoring a disease will not cure it, neither will ignoring sin.

 

Now this disease must be cured, the mask must be removed. It must come to our Lord saying, not, oh, it’s just that, or, yeah, but. Like the lepers in today’s gospel reading, our cry to the Lord can only be, Lord, have mercy on us.

 

These lepers don’t cry out to Jesus in self-justification because they know all too well the seriousness of their disease. They felt the pain in their own flesh as the leprosy ate away their skin. They felt the emotional pain of isolation, separation from their family and friends.

 

Leprosy is contagious, and in order to keep it from spreading, those who were infected were quarantined in the colonies outside of cities and villages. They were not allowed to see their family for fear the disease might spread. So there were no holiday dinners with loved ones, no Sunday afternoon visitors.

 

For all intents and purposes, they were dead to their family, dead to the life they knew before. And in their death, in their helplessness, they cry out to Jesus, and they do not do so in anger. These lepers didn’t challenge Jesus, ask him why they were sick.

 

Neither did they offer a string of reasons why Jesus ought to heal them. There’s no sad story about a wife and three kids left at home trying to make ends meet. None of them tell Jesus about the family farm that’s in danger of foreclosure.

 

Their cry is simple. It’s vulnerable, it’s honest. There is no mask.

 

It’s just a cry for help. Lord, have mercy. But such is the cry of faith.

 

Because faith looks not to itself, it looks only to the gifts of the Savior. Such is our cry of faith as we kneel in confession before our Lord, admitting that we are, by nature, sinful and unclean. There is nowhere to hide.

 

We have sinned against him in thought, word, and deed. We have sinned against him by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. There are no excuses.

 

We have not loved him with our whole hearts. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. There is no mask.

 

Just confession. Telling the truth. Repeating back to our Lord the reality that he has revealed to us in his word.

 

Simple repentance. Faithful pleading that for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of his beloved son, Jesus Christ, that our Lord would be merciful to us poor sinful beings. Lord, have mercy on us.

 

And merciful he is. As Jesus spoke healing to the lepers, so he speaks healing to you. He does not offer you a list of rationalizations for why you shouldn’t feel bad, why your actions weren’t actually sinful.

 

He doesn’t shrug his shoulders and tell us, well, that’s just the way you are. You were born that way. You’re just working through the trauma of your childhood.

 

He doesn’t pat us on the back and tell us it’s all okay. Our sin is never okay. But it is paid for.

 

We are redeemed. We are forgiven. Jesus has paid the price for our salvation.

 

And now he delivers that gift to us every time we gather in this place. In the stead and by the command of Jesus himself, here our sins are forgiven. As sure and certain as if Jesus himself was standing among us, speaking those words with his own mouth.

 

And faith believes this. His healing is delivered as he feeds us with the medicine of immortality, the body and blood of our Savior, in, with, and under simple means of bread and wine. But in this meal, he forgives our sins.

 

And he sends us home with a heart cleansed from the leprosy of sin. Luke tells us that when the lepers went their way, they weren’t quite healed yet. They didn’t see any difference in their flesh.

 

And that when they noticed healing, one of them returned. The point is that the faith of the lepers believed that even though their disease was not immediately healed, that Jesus would be true to his word. They believed that Jesus would heal him, as they said.

 

So even though they still had leprosy, when they left his presence, they were healed on the way. They were cleansed. So also for us.

 

The gift of faith that we have been given in the water of baptism, believes our Lord’s words. They believe his promise of forgiveness. They believe his promise about his sacrament.

 

And even though we may not always feel different when we leave this room, faith believes. Faith clings to the promise of Jesus. And faith knows we have been cleansed.

 

Remember that Satan hates forgiveness. So he tempts us to wear masks before God. He wants us to hide our sin.

 

Rationalize it. Justify it. Make up excuses for it.

 

But his goal is that it goes unrepented. Because his goal is that it goes unforgiven. But trust your Lord.

 

He knows who we are under the mask. There is no use hiding from him. He sees our sin.

 

But he comes to us in forgiveness. Leave the masks for Halloween. We don’t need them.

 

We are the baptized. We need not wear a mask before our Lord. He has seen our sin already.

 

And paid for it in full. Now the joy of redemption is ours. Our cry is the honest cry of the lepers.

 

Lord, have mercy on us. And like the lepers, our Savior has made us clean. So let us rise and go our way.

 

Trusting the word that Jesus has spoken to us. Living this new life that he has bestowed. And forever trusting in his mercy.

 

In Jesus’ name. Amen.