Speaker: Warren Graff

Advent 2, Wednesday                                                 December 9, 2020

 

Isaiah 9:1-17

¹ But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. ² The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. ³ You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. ⁴ For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. ⁵ For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. ⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. ⁸ The Lord has sent a word against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel; ⁹ and all the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart: ¹⁰ “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.” ¹¹ But the LORD raises the adversaries of Rezin against him, and stirs up his enemies. ¹² The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. ¹³ The people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the LORD of hosts. ¹⁴ So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day—¹⁵ the elder and honored man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail; ¹⁶ for those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up. ¹⁷ Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men, and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

 

Matthew 4:12-17

¹² Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. ¹³ And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, ¹⁴ so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ¹⁵ “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—¹⁶ the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” ¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

 

Catechism Emphasis

What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?

These words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” show us

that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given us

through these words. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life

and salvation.

 

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

A child,

says the prophet Isaiah,

will be born to us. A son will be given to us.

[Isaiah 9:6]

 

What wonderful words of gift, those two words: to us. It signals direction; it gives purpose. What the Lord is doing here is not just something done because he’s almighty God, and it’s not random or accidental.

 

What God is doing is sending his Son from Heaven to Earth in the flesh, as a baby. In Isaiah 7 a promise was given: the virgin will bear a son. Now, in Isaiah 9, we are told more about who this child will be.  Isaiah 9:6:

The government will rest on His shoulders;

And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

 

The “government upon his shoulders”—this is the administration of the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s the dispensing of the forgiveness of sins so that every sinner is declared righteous before the Throne of God.

 

He will be called Wonderful—what he will accomplish upon the cross is what no sinner could accomplish for himself, it’s the full reconciliation with the Father in Heaven.

 

He will be called Counselor—he speaks the good counsel of the Gospel, inviting the sinner into salvation, building the sinner up in the encouragement of the cross.

 

He will be called Mighty God—for though he comes as a man—flesh and blood as every person—yet he’s God the Son himself, Mighty God, creator of all, here on Earth not to condemn, but justify, not to accuse, but to show mercy.

 

He will be called Eternal Father—he, God the Son, is the one who ransoms the sinner, it is he who cares for every person as a father cares for his children, it is he who brings forth the church, his people, bringing them from death into eternal life.

 

He will be called, Prince of Peace—the One who brings peace to overcome enmity, reconciliation to heal brokenness, who comforts the distressed, and who looks at the sinner and says, Peace to you, receive the Holy Spirit.

 

Isaiah the prophet tells us who this child will be. But the most comforting words of all are Isaiah’s words, to us, for us, on our behalf:

A child, will be born to us. A son will be given to us.

 

By those words, Jesus hands himself over to us, for our benefit and salvation.

 

 

In the Large Catechism, Luther describes Jesus the same way when he comes to us in his Sacrament. The wonderful words in the Sacrament of the Altar are, for you. The Sacrament of the Altar is, truly, what Jesus says it is, His Body, His Blood, for the forgiveness of our sins.

 

But how do we apprehend this? How do we make it our own? It is given into our hands, into our mouths, with those two little words: For you. To you, that is, for you, on your behalf, for your sake—for you.

 

This is the way,

the Large Catechism says,

that the treasure of the Sacrament is passed along and made our very own, [it] is in the words “Given and shed for you.” For in the words you have both truths, that it is Christ’s body and blood, and that it is yours as a treasure and gift. Now Christ’s body can never be an unfruitful, empty thing that does or profits nothing. Yet, no matter how great the treasure is in itself, it must be included in the Word and administered to us.

 

 

The comfort of Advent: that God the Son comes to us. He came as the Son of Mary into this world, to us, for us, fulfilling the words of Isaiah, A child, will be born to us. A son will be given to us.

 

He comes, making his Advent into our lives in our own generation, his Body and Blood given and shed for you.

 

We hold on to those words of promise: To you. He comes to us, for us, so that we may take him and hold onto him for the forgiveness of our sins.

 

Matthew 4:16:

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

 

Second Sunday in Advent [b]                     December 6, 2020

 

Mark 1:1-8

¹ The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ² As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, ³ the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'” ⁴ John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸ I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Comfort from God. Comfort for you and me, for our families, comfort to any in distress. God sends his prophets for just that, to bring comfort. Isaiah 40:1:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

 

What is this comfort? The prophet gives us that, too:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

[Isaiah 40:2]

 

 

There is comfort and then there is comfort.

 

We may start out of thinking of the comfort of a mom putting a band-aid on the scraped knee, a dad telling a child struggling with homework that it’ll all be okay, a friend visiting a sick one in the hospital, the comfort of words and acts of kindness.

 

These are gifts of comfort from one to another.

 

But Isaiah speaks of the most profound comfort of all—of a sinner standing at the face of God, waiting to hear the verdict for sin, and hearing this word from the mouth of God: I forgive you; I cleanse you; I cover you in the honor of my own Son; for all your sin, all your shame, all your fear, I hand to you abundant grace, an overflowing, double portion for all that is needed.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

[Isaiah 40:2]

 

 

Everything the Lord has been doing from the beginning when he gave to Adam and Eve the promise of a Savior; everything he’s been doing since giving the promise of a greater Son to Abraham and Sarah, a Son who would be a blessing to all peoples; everything he’s done since gathering Israel to the Tabernacle to be cleansed by the blood of the sacrifice; everything the Lord did by sending the prophets to call Israel back from sin and gather her again to his grace—he has done all of it to comfort the sinner, to pardon iniquity, and to give grace from the Lord’s hand double for all the sin.

 

So as the Lord comes in the flesh to be with sinners, as he starts his trek, which will take a couple years, to take his place on the cross at Calvary, he starts it by sending a prophet. Not Isaiah this time—Isaiah he sent 700 years before this. This time, it’s the prophet John.

 

John is out by the Jordan preparing the way for Jesus. He’s gathering sinners—people who need profound comfort from God, who need to know that God has come in the flesh to pardon iniquity and give grace from the Lord’s hand, double for all the sin. And gathering these sinners, John is giving gifts. Mark 1:4:

John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

 

That word repentance may not at first hit us with the sound of gift. It’s harsh, demanding. Only sinners need to repent. If you’re not a sinner, there’s no need of repentance.

 

So repentance is a word which first hits with the Law’s sting of accusation. But from the Lord, repentance is a word of life, a word of gift. John is proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

 

Repentance doesn’t just hang out there on its own as something the sinner must do. It’s repentance into something—into the forgiveness of sins. If you have no sins, then you get no forgiveness. You can’t forgive what is not there to be forgiven.

 

So repentance is pure gift from the Lord. Not something we do by the Law’s demand, but something we are given for the purpose of forgiveness.

 

The prophet speaks the Law, and by that Law we know our sin.

 

But to know that we are sinner is gift from the Lord; for it is reality, and now we can stand before the Lord not deceiving ourselves as to who we are, but as exactly what we are: sinner.

 

Standing before the Lord as sinner, we may now hear him for the one gift he most wants to give us: Comfort. The word of comfort that our iniquity is pardoned, that we receive from the Lord’s hand double for all our sins.

 

That is comfort—to hear God’s word of Law telling us what we really are, and then, in this gift of repentance, to be forgiven, double for all our sin.

 

 

That’s how John prepared the way for the Lord. By gathering sinners to the Jordan and cleansing them in this baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of all sin.

 

Now, John is not for us. He did his job back at the Jordan. His appointed task is over. By his martyrdom at the hands of King Herod, John the prophet has gone to be with the Lord in eternity.

 

John’s job is over, but he brought us up to Jesus. And Jesus is the comfort for every sinner.

 

To Jesus, we confess our sin, knowing that this sin we confess is the sin he took upon himself when he was publicly baptized by John in the Jordan, and is the sin he then bore on our behalf to his death on the cross. To Jesus, we confess our sin, knowing that this repentance is his gift to us, for it is always repentance into forgiveness.

 

And then we hear his Word of comfort: his Word that his cross was for us, his Word that he brings the gift of his cross to us in his Word, and that in hearing the Word of Christ Jesus crucified for us, we are given comfort—more than the comfort of a mother’s tender care for a child, of a father’s encouragement, of a friend’s consolation, but the profound comfort of knowing that even as we stand at the face of the Father in our sinful flesh, we stand as those who bear the Name of his Son.

 

We stand as those whose warfare is ended, for the Lord has pardoned our iniquity and from his hand we have received abundant grace, double measure for all our sin.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

 

Advent 1, Wednesday                                                 December 2, 2020

 

Isaiah 7:3-14

³ And the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field. ⁴ And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. ⁵ Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, ⁶ “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” ⁷ thus says the Lord GOD: “‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass. ⁸ For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. And within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people. ⁹ And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.'” ¹⁰ Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, ¹¹ “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as Heaven.” ¹² But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.” ¹³ And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? ¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

 

Matthew 1:18-25

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. ²⁰ But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. ²¹ “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” ²² So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ²³ “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” ²⁴ Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, ²⁵ and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS.

 

THE FIRST PETITION

Hallowed be thy name. What does this mean?

God’s name is certainly holy in itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also.

How is God’s name kept holy?

God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!

 

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

What do you do when the Lord gives you a promise? A promise which saves you from trouble and gives you life?

 

King Ahaz was in some trouble. The threat against his kingdom was great.

 

He reigned as king in Jerusalem some 700 years before Jesus’ birth. Ahaz saw threating foreign powers at every side. And he doesn’t have the army to stop it. But the Lord sends his prophet Isaiah to Ahaz to tell him that the enemies would not destroy Jerusalem but that they themselves would be destroyed.

 

That’s good news, of course, but it’s also not easily believed. These foreign kings are much stronger. So to give Ahaz the comfort and confidence that Jerusalem would be kept safe, the Lord said to him,

“Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as Heaven.”

[Isaiah 7:11]

 

We might think Ahaz would jump on this. Why not tell God to change the weather as a sign or to move the stars in the sky—take God up on his offer and have him do something to show that his promise is good? Isaiah 7:12:

But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.”

 

 

That sounds pious, to not put the Lord to the test. But the problem is, it’s not putting the Lord to the test to do what the Lord tells you to do, and the Lord had told Ahaz to ask for himself a sign.

 

The Lord is giving a promise. He’s giving a gift to Ahaz, and the gift included doing something to confirm the gift, to give Ahaz and Jerusalem the confidence that the Lord was with them even when events were dire.

 

If Ahaz asks the Lord to do a sign as the Lord had told him to do, that would mean that the Lord is right there in the mix of things with Jerusalem, that the Lord is close and has included himself in Israel’s daily life. It seems better, Ahaz must think, to keep the Lord distant. That’s safer. Israel has sinned and the Lord is holy—maybe we don’t want the Lord too close to us, Ahaz must’ve thought. Isaiah 7:12:

Ahaz said [to the Lord], “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.”

 

But the Lord will not be kept a long way off. He will not stay distant from the people he loves. The Lord said to Ahaz,

“Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

[Isaiah 7:14]

 

And there it is, the promise of a Savior. It’s a strange sign to give to King Ahaz, who lived 700 years before the birth of Jesus. But there it is, the promise of a Savior.

 

The promise had already been given to Adam and Eve back in the Garden, and to Abraham and others, but here it is given anew, given again as we are approaching the generation of when the Savior will actually be born.

 

This Savior will be given by the Lord himself; this Savior will be brought forth in a miraculous birth given a Virgin. And this Savior will be known as Immanuel, which means, God-with-us.

 

 

The prophet Isaiah first had us looking at Ahaz, a scared king waiting for the destruction of his city. But Isaiah moves us from that to the promise of God coming in the flesh. The salvation is bigger than just Ahaz and his Jerusalem.

 

This salvation is God himself coming in the flesh to be God-with-us. God-with-us to save us, to take our sin upon himself—God-with-us to die for us.

 

So in Advent, the Church hears our Lord’s word preparing us for the Christ-child. This is the Savior foretold in all the generations of Israel. He’s the one to release the guilt, to take away the sin, to cover the shame—he God-with-us. His Father is the Father in Heaven, he mother, a virgin here on Earth.

 

Along with Ahaz, we are tempted to see him as far off, to keep him at arm’s length, untouched by our day-to-day struggles. But his name is Immanuel—God-with-us. He became God-with-us by birth from the Virgin Mary. He became God-with-us to each of us by joining us to himself in Baptism.

 

It’s all by promise. He is with us in our sin, to forgive. With us in shame, to give us his honor. With us in our fear, to give us the promise of life.

 

Good to his promise, he is with us in our lives, in our families, restoring us, reconciling us to one another, always our God. It’s his Name, Immanuel.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

First Sunday in Advent [b]                          November 29, 2020

 

Mark 11:1-10

¹ Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples ² and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. ³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'” ⁴ And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. ⁵ And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. ⁷ And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. ⁸ And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. ⁹ And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

We’re at the First Sunday in Advent, the first week of the new church year.

 

The Church year begins, of course, with Advent, then it’s on to Christmas and the Incarnation, then on to Epiphany, which brings us up to Lent and the week of Good Friday and our Lord’s death on the cross.

 

So Advent is pointing everything in the Church toward Calvary.

 

This King will take his throne on Calvary’s cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem, and everything is toward that. Everything Jesus does, everything he allows to be done to him, it all takes him to the sacrifice he will give for all sinners.

 

 

So, as he enters Jerusalem, it’s on a colt of a donkey.

 

Jerusalem is packed. The city is crowded for the Passover Feast. With all the excitement and clamor of the crowds, Jesus enters in a way no one can miss.

 

All have heard of Jesus at this point—he’s been going around Galilee and Capernaum and the districts outside Jerusalem for about three years. They would’ve heard the stories of how the prophet John had baptized Jesus out at the Jordan, of how Jesus had then gone about healing diseases, touching leprous skin, eating and drinking with tax-collectors and drunks, of him casting out demons, even raising dead people—they had surely heard the stories, and now he enters Jerusalem at the year’s busiest week, Passover.

 

And he enters on the colt of a donkey.

 

No political parade ushering in a new government, no military equipment, showing off swords and warhorses, but a single man riding on the back of a simple animal that had never been ridden before.

 

If he had been setting up a new government—and that’s what kings do, or if he had been riding into town to throw the Romans out, then coming in with a political movement or with warhorses would’ve made sense.

 

But they saw a solitary man on the back of a donkey.

 

Because, he’s on his way to Calvary. And to go to the cross, you need nothing of power or strength or effectiveness. You need only to come into town lowly and meek on the back of a donkey.

 

 

If there’s one thing we can’t do, it’s to confuse Jesus with a political leader or the organizer of a movement. He’s here to make no big changes in our world.

 

He’s here to go to Calvary and give himself on the cross. What political leader has ever set out to do something life that?

 

He’s here for the cross. How does that organize a movement?

 

No one is being intimidated or put to death by his actions, no political powers are being overthrown, no communities are being organized.

 

When he’s done with what he is riding into town to do on Calvary, all the world powers remain in place, all the communities go about their daily business as before, the world has not been brought into a new political reality.

 

He’s here to go to Calvary for one simple reason. To save the sinner. To shed blood to cleanse the unclean. To forgive you and me of all sin, and thereby, to make us his own. The solitary man riding on the back of a donkey doesn’t let us get away from it—everything he does is toward Calvary and toward you and me for the forgiveness of our sin.

 

 

So how shall we receive this King?

 

We know how to receive kings and princes of our world. We know how to join up with political organizers and movements.

 

But how do we receive this King, the one riding on the back of the donkey?

 

The crowd received him with the shout,

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

[Mark 11:9]

 

Hosanna comes from the Hebrew. It means “save us, we pray.”

 

They shout “Hosanna” to him who comes in the Name of the Lord. Which is to say, as you see this lone man entering town in such a shocking way on the back of a lowly donkey, you wonder who he is, by what name does he come?

 

He comes by the Name of the Lord. The Lord’s Name is Yahweh. The Name Jesus means, literally, “Yahweh who saves”—that’s the Name by which he enters to go to Calvary.

 

So who is this riding into town in such a shocking way? It is Yahweh, true God, on the back of a donkey, coming into Jerusalem to save us.

 

“Hosanna,” shout the people to this man on the donkey. That is, “Save us, we pray, for you are Yahweh who saves the sinner.”

 

And then, it’s Calvary. It’s the humiliation of the trial before Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, it’s the shame of being publicly crucified, it’s the torment of dying so that you are forsaken by your Father.

 

For Jesus, everything is toward Calvary. That is, everything is toward giving himself unto death on the cross for you and me. Everything he does is toward redeeming the sinner and ransoming his people.

 

 

And now, everything in the Church is toward bringing the gifts of Calvary to those whom Jesus gathers to his Name.

 

He is the Lord, Yahweh in the flesh, answering the prayer of Hosanna, “Lord Save us.”

 

He is doing what he rode into Jerusalem to do.

 

He is saving you and me and our children, as he brings the Body and Blood of Calvary, the same Body and Blood that rode on the back of that donkey, that stood before Pontius Pilate, that was nailed to the wood of the cross, that was put, dead, into the tomb, and that was then raised up as living Body and Blood—he is saving you and me and our families as he has his Name proclaimed in our midst and brings that Body and Blood to us for the forgiveness of our sins.

 

Everything Jesus did as he rode into Jerusalem was toward Calvary.

 

Now, everything he is doing in the Church is toward bringing those gifts of Calvary to us.

 

And our prayer is joined to the prayer of those at the side of that rode as they watched him ride in on that donkey. “Hosanna,” we say along with them. That is, “Save us, we pray. For you are most blessed, you who comes in the Name of the Lord, that is, who comes by the Name Jesus to save us.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

THANKSGIVING EVE                                                    November 25, 2020

 

DEUTERONOMY 8:1-10

¹ “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. ² And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.³ And [the Lord] humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. ⁴ Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. ⁵ Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. ⁶ So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. ⁷ For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, ⁸ a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, ⁹ a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. ¹⁰ And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.

 

IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

 

Can we give thanks to God, even in the midst of a pandemic? We hear of doctors and nurses and working under great pressure, of ICU beds in some cities reaching limit—are we able to give thanks?

 

We give thanks that we are people of the First Article. The First Article of the Creed: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

 

We are creatures, he is our Creator. So first, we give thanks as creatures thanking him who created them.

 

He made us and all creatures. He gives us our body and soul, eyes, ears, and all our members, our reason and our senses, and still takes care of them. He gives us all things of creation, including our clothing and shoes, house and home, wife and children, land, home, farm, business, and all else we can list in these things of the world our Lord has created and daily sustains for us.

 

Moses spoke to the Israelites of some of these gifts of creation the Lord provides his people, Deuteronomy 8:7:

The LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.

 

We give thanks that all things of this creation, of our bodies and life, of our food and drink, of our home and property and wealth, are gifts generously given us by God the Father.

 

And in this thanksgiving, we pray to our God and Creator for his blessing upon those who are suffering and upon those who serve us for our health and medical care, and we pray for all families suffering any want of food or employment.

 

 

We are able to be a people giving thanks to our Father and Creator for all gifts of the First Article because we have been ransomed by the Son. That’s what we are given in the Creed’s Second Article:

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into Hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty …

 

God the Son has purchased us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death, for us to be his own and live under him in his kingdom.

 

Especially in this time of uncertainty of the pandemic, some of the effects of our sin are painfully clear as we see the sickness and fear and death that original sin brought upon all creation.

 

So especially in time of a pandemic, we give thanks in knowing that all things of Jesus, all which he accomplished at the cross, and the victory he won at his resurrection—all these gifts of life are freely and abundantly given us by God the Son.

 

 

Moses, in bringing the Israelites to the Promised Land, reminded them of the gift of the Word. Deuteronomy 8:3:

[The Lord gives you] to know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

 

The Word is God the Son who redeemed the world, including you and me. And now the gifts of the Word are brought to us by the Holy Spirit. So we give thanks that we are people of the Third Article. The Third Article of the Creed:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

 

The Holy Spirit is our advocate, our comforter, our encourager. He brings us the Word of Christ Jesus crucified. By this Gospel, he gathers us into the church.

 

In the church, he is constantly forgiving sins by the cleansing of Baptism, the proclamation of the cross, and the distribution of the Body and Blood of Christ to all his people.

 

So we give thanks that we are people of the Third Article, always being given the Word of life by the Holy Spirit, who bestows upon us all the gifts of our Lord Jesus, and brings us to the faith that lets us acknowledge God the Father as the maker of Heaven and Earth and the giver of every good gift.

 

 

We give thanks to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

To this Name in which we are baptized, we are gathered each week to receive his gifts.

 

To this Name we commend ourselves, body and soul and all things, giving thanks for all our Lord’s gifts.

 

IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

Last Sunday in the Church Year [Proper 29, a]     November 22, 2020

 

Matthew 25:31-46

 

1 Corinthians 15:20-28

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

The Lord sees the timeline of the world differently than we do.

 

Our world sees history as a timeline which started out low and then keeps going up, progressing.

 

As our world looks at it, we started out as brutes, as illiterate, underdeveloped beasts, and then the history of mankind is a line of upward progress. Each generation, through the centuries, we improve, we become more developed, until we arrive at today, and we are more developed and sophisticated than all generations before us. Everything is progressive.

 

And we all know that that’s nonsense. We have no progression. We gain improved techniques—better farming, better building processes; we accumulate knowledge and research—better chemicals and medicines; we live with more technology and production; our lives are certainly more convenient than our forebears.

 

But can anyone actually say we humans are progressing? Have we progressed ourselves out of hatred in the heart for neighbor? Or progressed ourselves out of covetousness or lustfulness or vanity or arrogance or deceitfulness or anything else that plagued our forefathers?

 

As soon as we look in the mirror, and as soon as we look in the streets, we know, there is no progression for mankind.

 

Our Lord sees our timeline of history differently than we do. Our Lord sees, we might say, two days.

 

He sees a beginning. Man and woman created in the Image of God. Man and woman joined as one-flesh to bring forth life—”be fruitful and multiply,” said our Creator. Then the man and the woman bringing it all into death by sin.

 

That’s the beginning of the time line, the first day, we might say.

 

Then our Lord sees the Last Day, when he comes again to judge the living and the dead.

 

So, it’s a day of beginning at one end of the timeline; a day of finality at the other end. Between these two ends of the time-line? That’s what we are in now as we wait for the Last Day.

 

But this time between, this middle of the timeline, these are no days of progress. They are days lived in sinful flesh; days awaiting the final judgment. They are days, then, of sinners being called on by God not to claim some imagined progress, but to repent.

 

For Scripture gives us no view of progressive man, but a realistic view of fallen man. We are sinners living among sinful people.

 

And all these days would be time lived in an arrogance of human progress and in the despair of knowing that that progress is lie, except that, between the beginning day and the last day, there was one particular day, one historical fact that redeemed the entire timeline.

 

On a certain day, under Pontius Pilate, as the Apostles’’ Creed puts it, the Son of Man, Christ Jesus stood in for every sinful man and woman from the first day until the last. And standing in for us, he took the sin of the world upon himself and put it all to death in his body on the cross.

 

By his blood he redeemed every sinner. He redeemed every day lived between the first day and the last. The death that came by the sin of the first Adam in the Garden, he took upon himself and suffered its punishment in fulness.

 

 

So he now stands as the new Adam for us. 1 Corinthians 15:22:

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

 

As our father Adam brought us into death by sin, so the new Adam, the Son of Man Christ Jesus, has made us alive by his resurrection.

 

In purchasing us out of sin and death with his own blood, he has redeemed all our days.

 

These days, as we live in sin, in which it all can seem so mundane, it is all redeemed by his blood.

 

So now we live in faith. We live as those belonging to him, as those having no false hope in the progress of man, but having the true hope of the redeemed, forgiven life and the resurrection of the body.

 

For he who died in our stead, has been raised from the dead. But his resurrection was not without consequence for our lives, our bodies. His resurrection impacts us every day. 1 Corinthians 15:20:

In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

 

Which means, our lives are now lived in him.

 

And that means, even as we live in our sinful flesh, awaiting the day of judgment, we live in faith knowing that he has made us his own and we are his servants.

 

Which means, that these little mundane works we do every day, these tasks we are given to take care of family and care for neighbor, they are not mundane at all. They are holy works given us by God.

 

The changing of the baby’s diaper, the washing of clothes, the going to work in the morning, the welcome given a stranger, the help given to a neighbor in need of food, the clothing provided to one in need, the visit made to the one in the hospital, the note sent to one in prison, these seem like small, inconsequential works. They certainly don’t look like works to add to the progress of man. They are mundane, daily, common. And they are holy.

 

Because they are works of love toward neighbor being done by one who’s life has been redeemed by Christ Jesus.

 

They are works being done by people who live in sinful flesh, and yet who daily live in repentance of sin and in faith toward Christ Jesus.

 

And in this life of faith, despite everything we see around us, despite all the falsity of living in a world which preaches the progress of man—in this life of faith, we look at Christ Jesus, and in him we see the One who has redeemed us from sin, and having redeemed us has now been raised up from the dead, so that, as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, he is the One by whom the resurrection has come also to us who belong to him.

 

He now reigns at the Throne in Heaven.

 

From the Throne in Heaven, he sends forth to us the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Word.

 

The Holy Spirit keeps us in the Word, cleansing our lives by the Sacraments, so that we wait in faith for the Last Day, when Christ Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead.

 

For that Last Day is the day of the resurrection of our own bodies.

 

We now hear him in his word of Gospel, seeing him by faith. We will then see him as we stand up in our flesh; with our own eyes we will see him.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

24^th Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 28,a]                           November 15, 2020

 

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

¹ Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. ² For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³ While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. ⁴ But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. ⁵ For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. ⁶ So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. ⁷ For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. ⁸ But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. ⁹ For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Two men approach a house. The first man has a tape rule, a level, a book of building regulations, a legal pad—all the other tools of an inspector. The second man has a hammer, a saw, nails, and supplies.

 

The house is weathered and worn.

 

The first man is an inspector. He’s never built a house. He couldn’t if he wanted to. He only knows how to speak about what is wrong. He puts his tape rule to all the open cracks around the window frames. He says the windows must be torn out.

 

The second man is a builder. He sees the same windows and makes plans for new framing wood and caulk; he will get to work building.

 

The first man, the inspector, takes out his level and finds the doors all crooked. He assesses them to be junk, they will be torn out—you can’t have broken doors.

 

The second man, the builder, starts buying door jambs and new hinges, he can’t wait to start building.

 

The first man counts the number of missing shingles; he assesses the roof hopeless; it must be torn down.

 

The second man can’t wait to start hauling new shingles up and replacing with a brand-new roof. He loves building.

 

Two men. The first measures and counts and assesses, and the measuring of an old house never brings any good news; he can only assess to tear down.

 

The second sees a house to which he can bring his gifts, which he can build-up and strengthen, and he can’t wait for the work to begin.

 

 

In writing to the Church, Paul uses the word “build-up.” 1 Thess.:

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

 

The Greek word used for “build-up” actually has the word “house” in it. It’s to build a house. As a noun, it’s the word for a house-builder. Paul gives us an image of who we are to one another. It’s as if we stand in front of a house—a house with cracks and weaknesses and rotten wood.

 

We can approach to measure the problems and the damage.

 

That’s what the Law does. The Law makes assessments, it weighs and quantifies, finding what measures up, what doesn’t. In the Catechism, we speak of the chief use of the Law as a mirror—a mirror before which the sinner stands to see every flaw. The Law measures and quantifies. It finds problems and focuses on weaknesses. The Law turns us all into inspectors and auditors, always ready to assess the weakness of another, ready to tell what’s wrong, what is just not being done right.

 

By the Law, nothing is built-up, nothing is given life.

 

The Gospel does not measure and quantify. We might even say, the Gospel is terrible at math and is worthless for giving assessments. Because, the Gospel is the giving of gifts—gifts in abundance, gifts without measure. As Paul says at Ephesians 4:7, to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

 

But what is the measure of Christ’s gift? Christ gave of himself fully. Nothing left out. He gave the fulness of his body and blood. He measured nothing out—he gave it all on the cross in fulness, he gives it all to us in his Body and Blood, giving it abundantly and without measure.

 

The Law inspects and measures and audits, and though it is right, it never builds-up. The Gospel gives gifts: grace given abundantly and without measure, sins forgiven seven-times-seventy and even beyond counting—the Gospel builds-up.

 

By the Law, it’s accusation, tearing-down, and death. By the Gospel, it’s sins-forgiven, it’s mercy spoken from one to one another, it’s building-up and giving life.

 

So from Paul we get the word to encourage and build-up one another.

 

For Paul knows the times the Church is in. We are in the age between the cross and the last day; between Christ’s ascension and the day of his coming again to judge the living in the dead.

 

In this time of waiting for our Lord’s return, we live in world seeing its demise. We are waiting in world going toward death, and becoming more aggravated as it tries to hang on to life. We are waiting in world see-sawing between false confidence in the abilities of human progress, and despair.

 

But we wait as those, Paul says, who belong not to the darkness but to the light; not to the night of gloom, but to the daylight of hope; not to the drunkenness of a despairing man with no answers, but to those living in the light of day, having put on the breastplate of faith and the helmet of the hope of salvation.

 

 

So in a world of despair and tearing down, we build-up, we speak hope.

 

In a world of the fear of death, we build-up, we speak life.

 

In a world living in shame, we announce the forgiveness of all sin and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ who comes bringing grace.

 

We know the conversation of our world. It is, especially in these days, filled with hopelessness and despair, with people taking sides and striking out.

 

This world, it includes the statistics we hear of young people despairing of life so much that they just want release, and suicides skyrocket. To this world, and to any person despairing of life, we speak of the Lord of life, the Lord who loves us so much that when he saw our sin and the death we bought upon ourselves, he entered our world to take that sin upon himself and to suffer that death … on our behalf.

 

He entered our world not to tear down, not to measure and find lacking, but to build-up, to forgive guilt, to cleanse sinners, to bring life.

 

Now, having taken all sins upon himself, having purified us with his own blood, he builds us up. He brings his Gospel, he forgives our sins, and like a master-builder always about the business of building, he joins us together, piece by piece, brothers and sisters, as his Church.

 

We then build-up one another, not because the Law tells us too—for the Law does not build-up; it measures the sinner and finds lacking. We build-up one another because we are members of Christ, we are his building, the Church, and he, the master-builder, is doing his work not just to us in his Gospel, but through us, which is his gift to our brothers and sisters, even as he is using us as his instruments.

 

But it is all because Jesus has called us into the Church and has bound us together as one communion.

 

That’s Baptism, where he placed his Name on us and called us his own.

 

Baptism, where he cleansed us of all sin and joined us to himself, and therefore, to one another.

 

Baptism, where we are rescued from the death of this world, from the judgment of the Law, and brought into the life of Christ, into the abundant gifts of the Gospel.

 

This morning, in witnessing the Baptism of little Kinley, we are given to see more than our eyes see.

 

We are given to see Jesus building up his Church.

 

We are given to see another one given the Holy Name, brought into the Church, that she is now one we are given to encourage and build-up. Build-up by speaking the proclamation of Christ crucified, by speaking the forgiveness of sins, by teaching all the things of the Gospel which Jesus has authorized unto his Church.

 

And we are given to see one who, though now she is so small, as she grows up is given to speak the comfort of this Gospel to us, building us up also with Christ’s word of grace.

 

And for all of us here, as we live in this world of doubt, of false confidence in the progress of man, of despair, of anger and striking out—all of us here are given to rejoice in the gift of Christ, in bearing his Name, so that, as Paul says, we are given to build-up one another in the Gospel.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

23^rd Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 27                 November 8, 2020

 

Matthew 25:1-13

¹ [Jesus said,] Then the kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. ³ For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, ⁴ but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. ⁵ As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. ⁶ But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ ⁷ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ ⁹ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ ¹⁰ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. ¹¹ Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ ¹² But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ ¹³ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

When Jesus gives a parable, we can hear it in one of two ways. We can hear it in the way of the Law, or in the way of the Gospel.

 

The Law way is the easiest; it’s the first way we will hear it.

 

As Paul says, the Law is written on our hearts (Romans 2:15). Because the Law is written on our hearts, the Law is the way we naturally think. It’s the instinct of our flesh.

 

If you wrong me, the first thought my sinful flesh has is not, What can I do to bring to this person the gifts of Christ’s forgiveness?, but the first thought of my sinful flesh is, Payback!, Justice!, Get even!, The one who wronged me should have to pay!

 

The voice of the Law. It makes sense; it’s written on our hearts; it’s our first instinct.

 

So, with a parable, the first way we will hear it is the way of the Law.

 

So, if Jesus gives a parable of five virgins with enough oil for their lamps to wait for the bridegroom, and five who fail to bring enough oil, the first way we hear it is the Law way.

 

The five with enough oil, they have done a good work, they deserve credit. The five not bringing enough oil, they did badly, they deserve the justice they get.

 

And this all makes sense according to the Law.

 

So the sermon can simply be, Have enough oil, have enough faith, and you will be rewarded. Or, Don’t have enough oil, don’t have enough faith, and it’s bad news for you. With a sermon like that, everyone can go home happy, living under the Law.

 

 

But Jesus doesn’t give parables for the Law. He doesn’t give parables to teach how to do good works or how you must have a bunch of faith.

 

If Jesus did that, then he’s just a teacher of the Law, and they already had plenty of those.

 

And, the Law is written on the heart anyway.

 

We already had the Law. Moses gave it. The Ten Commandments spelled it out. Adam and Eve knew it, or else how would they have known how to feel guilty when they transgressed the Law?

 

We had the Law. Jesus didn’t need to come for that.

 

But he did need to come for the Gospel. So that, if we don’t hear a parable for the Gospel, then we are not yet hearing the parable rightly. We’re not yet hearing it for the purpose Jesus gives it.

 

The parable of the ten virgins, how is this Gospel?

 

If we’re looking at the virgins and their works, it’s not. Five virgins who do good, five who do bad. Now the parable is reduced to teaching us to do good and be rewarded, do bad and be punished. But there’s no Jesus in that, no Christ crucified, no grace, no mercy, no gift for the sinner.

 

But what if we don’t look at the virgins? What if we look at the one thing in the parable making no sense?

 

The bridegroom makes no sense. Matthew 25:6:

 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

 

The bridegroom is delayed? What does that even mean? He’s delayed five minutes to finish combing his hair? He’s delayed ten minutes by a cow in the road? No, it’s all day he’s was delayed. But what bridegroom gets delayed? Not for five or ten minutes. He doesn’t come around all day. He doesn’t show up until midnight.

 

What kind of bridegroom is this? The parable makes no sense until we figure out the bridegroom.

 

The five virgins with oil, the five with not enough oil, that makes sense. As a matter of fact, we might even say that the five virgins without enough oil were the good virgins. After all, they were expecting the bridegroom to show up on time. They trusted him. They had faith.

 

The five with spare oil to burn not until the wedding’s appointed time, but actually all day, even until midnight, was that faith? Or was it to have no confidence in the bridegroom that he would show up when expected?

 

So, back to the bridegroom. That’s who Jesus is showing us. He’s the bridegroom. He is the groom who came to take as his bride the Church. As Paul says in Ephesians 5, Christ loves his Church. He gave his life for her. He makes her holy by the washing of water with the word. He presents his bride in all her splendor, forgiven, cleansed, and sanctified.

 

He is the Groom. We are his bride, the Church.

 

So now, take a quick look at the groom. He shows up when he wants. He shows up not according to our expectations, not according to what we can predict, not according to what makes sense to our sinful flesh, but he shows up when he chooses.

 

When is the Last Day when he comes again to judge the living and the dead? He is delayed. How long? We who wait don’t know.

 

Now we can see the Gospel of the parable.

 

A groom showing up as expected, predictably and how we would say he should, if he’s going to be a good groom, that’s all according to the Law. The Law is predictable, the Law is according to what makes sense. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth—you don’t get more predictable than that.

 

But a groom showing up as he chooses, regardless of when we think he should? A groom who doesn’t watch the clock, doesn’t check the days off the calendar, that groom will have us saying, But it’s just not right! It doesn’t make sense. It is against the rules and contrary to the Law.

 

But this groom is Jesus.

 

He shows up how he chooses.

 

This is Gospel.

 

Because this groom is the one who comes always to bring mercy over-against the Law, always to bring his bride into grace, always to give gifts in abundance, beyond expectation and without measure, with no rhyme or reason that would make sense except that he is the groom who loves his bride and bestows all the gifts of his Name on her, as he wills.

 

So, he shows up how he chooses.

 

When is the Last Day, when he comes to judge the living and dead? No one is given to know. But he will show up.

 

As we suffer in life, as we undergo temptation, and we ask, Where is our salvation, when are we delivered?, this parable has us looking at the groom and knowing, he will show up, though he seems delayed, but as we wait, we wait knowing that we belong to him, and his blood cleanses us from all sin.

 

As we endure affliction, and pray for relief, wondering how long is the pain, this parable has us looking at the groom and knowing he will show up, though for now he tarries, but as we wait, he is with us in his Word, and in his Word he is bestowing gifts upon us in abundance, without measure, beyond anything we could’ve expected.

 

 

Jesus is our groom. We do have that promise.

 

We are his bride, the Church—that designation was given us in Baptism. And this groom, though he tarries, though we cannot get control of his schedule, though sometimes the way he gives his gifts just doesn’t seem right to us as we live in our flesh which is under the Law, this Groom is the Groom of the Gospel, the Groom who cleanses and sanctifies his bride, the Church, with all generosity, without measure, beyond making sense.

 

Our eyes look to him. Our faith clings to his Word. Our lives are sanctified by blood. For him, we wait.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

All Saints’ Day                                                                              November 1, 2020

 

Revelation 7:2-17

² Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, ³ saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” ⁴ And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: ⁵ 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, ⁶ 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, ⁷ 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, ⁸ 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. ⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” ¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” ¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” ¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. ¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. ¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Two scenes. One scene in Heaven, the other on Earth.

 

The scene in Heaven: A great throne, upon which sits the Living God. Taking his position before the throne, the Lamb who is God the Son—he is extolled as the Lamb because he gave himself on Earth as the sacrifice to atone for every sinner.

 

Before the throne and before the Lamb, a multitude, to great to be counted. They are clothed in white robes. White, because the clothing is the righteousness of the Lamb, the holiness of Christ Jesus. This is the garment put upon them when they were on Earth, when they received the Name of God and his seal of salvation. The Name given in Baptism, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is the seal, the promise, that all those ransomed by the Lamb belong to life, eternal life, and not to death.

 

But they are on Earth no longer; they are in Heaven, at the Throne.

 

The things of the Earth, the sin, the distress, the doubt, the shame, the guilt, the sickness, the death, the fear, the affliction by Satan and the demons—the things of the Earth, this tribulation, it belongs to them no longer. They are at the throne. And at the throne, there is only life.

 

They stand before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and they cry out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

[Revelation 7:10]

 

That’s the one scene, the scene in Heaven.

 

All the saints who have preceded; the saints of the Old Testament church, those who bore the holy Name, who were clothed in righteousness, Moses and Elijah, Ruth and Naomi, David and Bathsheba and all the rest; the saints of the New Tew Testament church, those bearing the holy Name, clothed in Baptism’s white robes, Matthew and Mark, Elizabeth and Mary, Paul and Timothy and all the rest; those who came after, Augustine and Ambrose, those martyred under Nero and those under Domitian, those martyred in our own generation by the Muslims on the shoreline of Libya, those who have died in our own generation of sickness, of the weakening of age—all the saints who have preceded on Earth, they stand at the throne in Heaven, where there is no more tear, no more pain, only life.

 

The other scene, the scene on Earth. This is the 144,000, the number of overflowing fulness, the 12 times 12 times 10 times 10 times 10, the number symbolically so big it leaves out no one belonging to the Lamb.

 

Belonging to the Lamb on Earth, it’s all those clothed in the Lamb’s righteousness, all those sealed with the holy Name in Baptism, all those who live not according to what they see around them on Earth, not according to what they see in their own flesh, but who live according to faith in the Lamb.

 

These sealed on Earth, that’s the church on Earth, us and our families.

 

We are on Earth, we are in this life of sin, but we do not belong to it. We belong to it by our life of flesh, our life of temptation, our life of living pressed down by the accusation of the Law. And this life of flesh is what we see with our eyes, this life of tribulation.

 

The tribulation of our own sin, our aggravation of never being able to keep up with the holy Law, our failure of being able to justify ourselves before God by anything we do, this tribulation of the fear around us, of the desperation of a society seeing itself crumble but not knowing what to do about it—but out of this tribulation, we are coming. Revelation 7:14:

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

 

 

Tribulation—that’s life here on Earth. The Earth has been given over to the sentence of death, and so it is also with the life of our sinful flesh.

 

When we look around us to see hatred stoked between different peoples, when we see the disregard for life, even for the most vulnerable life of the child still in the womb, when we see the despising of those who are our elders, when we see the fear, the lashing out, when we see all of this even in our own sinful hearts, we must know we are in the great tribulation—the tribulation gripping the Earth until our Lord Jesus comes again.

 

But we are being delivered out of it.

 

Two scenes, John shows us in his great Revelation. One, the scene in Heaven: it is only life—peace and holiness, standing in eternal life at the throne in Heaven, rejoicing with all the saints who have gone before us and all those who will follow. The other scene, on Earth. It’s tribulation. It’s everything belonging to the sinful flesh. It is a life of an empty struggling for justification before God by works of the Law.

 

The scene on Earth, we are coming out of that. Out of the great tribulation, we are being brought into the scene at the throne, the life of no pain or death, no fear of the Law, the life into which our Lord has sealed us, giving us the pledge and promise of his own Name.

 

 

In the Church, it is All Saints day, the day upon which the Church remembers those sealed by the Lamb who have died in the past years. We rejoice.

 

We are given to rejoice not because we find in joy in death. We do not. Death is evil. It is not natural; it is not part of being human. Death is the strike of the most evil, most unnatural, most inhuman attack against the Lord’s gift of life.

 

It belongs not to our life as humans, but to our life as sinners.

 

We do not rejoice in death, we do not try to excuse it as if it is natural, but we are given to not fear it. For we do not belong it.

 

We are coming out of the great tribulation, being brought to stand before the throne. And on the throne is the living God, the Father who created us, who, when he saw our sin, did not abandon us, but sent the One to save us, the Lamb who bears the sin of the world.

 

Around the throne, it is only the living ones. Those who belong to life are those bearing the holy Name, sealed in Baptism’s white robes—they are forgiven of all sin and they cry out along with the angels,

“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

REFORMATION DAY                      October 25, 2015

 

JOHN 8:31-36

³¹ So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ³³ They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” ³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵ The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

 

IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

 

This morning, we hear our Lord speaking of those who are “in the house.”

 

The problem is, of course, there are two different ways to be in the house. One, the way of the servant. The other, the way of the child, the son or daughter.

 

Both are in the house, the servant and the son. But one is there provisionally—it’s contingent on how long you can be of service. That’s the slave. The other is there permanently, by virtue of being in the family. That, of course is the son. John 8:35:

The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.

 

 

Jesus places you in the house. No contingency upon your ability to serve, but really in the house—permanently, never to be moved, as son or daughter.

 

You are in the house, in it forever by virtue of Jesus clothing you in his righteousness in Baptism. You’re there in such a way that for you to be excluded would be for Jesus to be excluded, for you bear his Name.

 

To be “in the house” is to be in the care of the Father of the household, living every day in the certainty that you are not your own, but you belong to him, and everything the he does is for your benefit.

 

The Son makes you free. That’s life under the Gospel—life as gift of Jesus, and his giving of gifts is unshakable.

 

So you can no more go up to one who has been baptized by Jesus and tell them they don’t belong in the house than in our world you could go up to a child down the street and tell them they don’t belong in their own family.

 

It is a matter of birthright. No birthright is earned. You are in the house by Baptism’s birthright. Or else, the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit put on you in Baptism would be meaningless.

 

 

But here we find the danger. For while being a member of the house gives you the full rights and honor of the family name, there is that other way of being in the house.

 

It’s to be in the house according to our flesh.

 

So this is the problem: to be in the house not as a family member, but as a hireling with no share of the family birthright.

 

Jesus names you as a full family member, naming us his brothers and sisters by adoption. It’s pure gift, pure grace—a Lord who so wants to be our brother that he took on our own flesh, then took on our own sin, and redeemed us with his own blood.

 

But our sinful flesh exerts itself—we want to be in the house because we earn it. Romans 3:19:

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

 

We want to be under the Law. This is the strange reality of our life of the sinful flesh. On the one hand, we are in rebellion against God’s Law, that’s our sin. On the other hand, we want to use God’s Law so that by following it we can justify ourselves—and this self-justification is our greater sin.

 

“By works of the Law,” Paul says, “no flesh is justified in God’s sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” So our problem with the Law is, first, it accuses us before God. Then, we try to rescue ourselves by doing works of the Law. But that’s worse, for no flesh is justified by the Law.

 

So we are in the house, placed there by Jesus as his brothers and sisters—his grace, his gift. At the same time, in our sinful flesh, we want to prove our worthiness to be in the house by our keeping of the Law. We find ourselves, then, living in the house not as free persons belonging to the family Name, but as hirelings, those having placed themselves under the Law’s slavery.

 

 

The church, until Jesus comes again, will always have this problem.

 

In the church’s early generations, some teachers even had people changing their diet in order to live cleaner lives as Christians, as if cutting out this food or that somehow cleansed you. Some would even pledge themselves to never get married, as if rejecting God’s institution of the marriage of man and woman and living in a monastery could give you a more pure life.

 

Sometimes, people would be so far under the Law they would set up rules for how many prayers you must say, for what you must do in life, for how much money you must fork over—there will never be any shortage of rules or systems a teacher can invent in order to keep a Christian under control.

 

This is the Day of the Reformation of the Church. We hear the Gospel which frees from the Law, of the righteousness given purely as gift, and of living in the house not as slave, but as full member of the family.

 

The church is always being reformed. As long as we live in our sinful flesh, as long as we are tempted to return to the Law as the way to justify ourselves before God, as long as we try to control fellow Christians by the Law, as long as the church is preaching anything other than Christ crucified for the justification of the sinner, the church will always be being reformed.

 

The Gospel—that is the Word reforming the church and cleansing to the sinner.

 

What is the ongoing reformation of the church? It is simply to hear this Gospel:

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no person will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

[Romans 3]

 

Our Lord brings this reformation to us every day, as long as we live in our sinful flesh. Jesus places you alongside himself in his household. He frees with his word of forgiveness. By this Word we live our life of faith, living as free persons before God by the Gospel, members of his household. John 8:36:

The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

 

IN THE NAME OF JESUS.