Psalm 51  +  Small Catechism: What is confession?

Again this year we see no ashes painted on our foreheads in the sign of a cross.  But we could use them as they have been used since Old Testament times, as a self-imposed mark of public humiliation, as an outward sign of inner repentance.  We could use them as a mark of sin and death, that these bodies will return to the dust from which our human race was first taken.  Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.  We could use ashes as a confession of the sin that still plagues us every single day, and of our faith in the One who died for our sins – past, present and future.  Ashes are a good outward symbol of confession, and confession is a God-pleasing activity.

But, ashes or no ashes, the fact is, you already wear the marks of death on your face, in every crease and wrinkle of your skin, in the glasses that help to correct your imperfect eyes, in the gray hair or the bald head, in all your frailties and infirmities, in your bent-over backs and your weak limbs.  And though your dying bodies will return to the dust because of your sin, they will not remain in the dust, because you have now been washed clean of the stain of sin and of the permanency of death.  To choose not to use ashes on this day is fine, as long as we wear them on the inside, as long as we believe, not only that we are sinners, but that God forgives us sinners and has washed us clean in the waters of Holy Baptism.  We believe in God’s absolution, God’s gift of forgiveness.

That theme – God’s Gift of Forgiveness – will be our focus during this Lenten season as we pray together and ponder the Penitential Psalms.

Our Psalm tonight, Psalm 51, embraces both aspects of “Ash” Wednesday – Confession and Absolution.  It is a Psalm of Confession – not just of sin, but of God’s goodness in forgiving sin, and those two aspects of confession have to be kept together in order for it to be Christian Confession.  That’s summarized beautifully for us, not just in Psalm 51, but also in our Small Catechism:

What is confession?

      Confession has two parts. First, that we confess our sins, and second, that we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.

First, that we confess our sins.

You can’t miss King David’s confession in Psalm 51, can you?  It permeates the Psalm, from beginning to end.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

What transgressions? What sin?  Well, the title of the Psalm gives us a hint.  WHEN NATHAN THE PROPHET WENT TO HIM, AFTER HE HAD GONE IN TO BATHSHEBA. Adultery, lies and deception, the murder, cover-up.  Real transgressions.  Real sins against real people.

Ah, but it goes deeper than that.  When Nathan, the prophet, confronted David, this is what he said, “Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight?” And so David confesses in this Psalm, Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

You get that?  For as horrible as David’s sins were against other people, his real sin, his major offense was idolatry, sin against God.  His major offense – his only real offense – was that he made his desires his god. What David wanted – Bathsheba! – that would be his, no matter who got in his way, no matter who would suffer because of it, no matter what God had to say about it.

Ah, but it goes even deeper than that.  It’s not just in these outward acts that David admits his sin.  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.  David’s confessing there what we call “original sin,” that inborn corruption of our very nature, that inherited twisted shape of our very self that God created to be turned outward in love toward him and our neighbor, but that is now thoroughly and permanently (in this life) twisted and turned inward, so that we are by nature self-centered, sinful and unclean.  Actual sins are only symptoms of this inborn corruption.

Your sins, my sins – they may be different than David’s sins, but they aren’t fewer and they aren’t any better, any less offensive to God, any less deadly.  The sin in which David’s mother conceived him is the same sin in which your mother conceived you.  Your sins, my sins – they’re real transgressions, too, real sins against real people, and especially, real sins against God.

Now, David confesses all this to God, but he doesn’t do it just to get it off his chest.  He doesn’t confess because he is being forced to confess. He doesn’t confess in order to coax God into feeling sorry for him, and he doesn’t confess in order to make a plea bargain with God or to offer God something in return for his forgiveness.  David confesses because David knows this one thing:  For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.  David confessed his sin because David believed that God would be merciful, that God would not despise or hate or turn away from a broken and contrite heart.  David confessed his sin because he believed in God’s gift of forgiveness.

Hear him give the reason for his pleas for mercy: Have mercy on me, O God,  - why? because I deserve it?  No, but according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.  David seeks mercy, cleansing, washing, the blotting out of transgression, the forgiveness of sins – where? – in God’s own attributes, in who God has revealed himself to be.  David seeks mercy from God because God is merciful.  He seeks forgiveness because God is forgiving.

But God is not up in heaven forgiving sins secretly.  God forgives sins through his humble servants.  God authorized Nathan to go to David, to accuse David in God’s name, and to forgive David’s sin in God’s name.  Before Nathan, David’s confession was very simple, “I have sinned against the Lord.”  And Nathan’s absolution was equally simple, “The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.”  And there it was.  David’s sin was taken away, absolved, forgiven.

That’s the second part of “Confession.” Confession consists of two parts.  Second, that we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.

God does not call us to confession in order to humiliate us, but in order to absolve us.  That’s where he does it.

And why he does it?  For the sake of the merits of Christ Jesus who bore the sins of the world and earned God’s gift of forgiveness for us.  Because he died for sin, sins are forgiven in the absolution.  Because he rose from the dead, our death won’t last.  Where Christ is, there is God’s favor, God’s life, God’s absolution. 

See what a treasure he has given us in the absolution!  This is where he takes us back to our baptism where he washed us clean and blotted out all our transgressions.  This is where Christ himself comes to you through his called servant and deals with you throughout your Christian life.  Through your pastor, Christ himself speaks and accuses you of sin, so that you may confess, and so that he may forgive you your sins. 

This is the really humbling part of the office of the holy ministry.  Because I, the pastor, am nobody special, and my words help no one.  But God has chosen to speak through nobody’s.  And you’re supposed to believe it.  You’re supposed to hear God’s voice in my preaching.  You’re supposed to hear God condemning your sin and you’re supposed to hear God announcing his forgiveness to you in my absolution.

That’s true in public, or corporate confession and absolution.  It’s particularly true – it’s intended especially for private confession and absolution, and I encourage all of you to take advantage of that opportunity, to come to me as individuals, not for my benefit but for your benefit, to confess, in private, the individual sins that trouble you, and to hear your own name as I absolve you, by name, for your particular sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Christ has commanded me to do.

The goal of repentance, the goal of confession – the goal of Ash Wednesday – is not death, but life, not sorrow in sin but joy in the forgiveness of sins.  It’s through confession that God wants you to receive God’s gift of forgiveness, for the sake of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Sermon for Quinquagesima

Luke 18:31-43  +  Isaiah 35:3-7  +  1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Our Gospel today is full of blind people.  Did you catch it?  Did you notice how all three groups of people mentioned in the Gospel were blind in one way or another –  the twelve disciples, the beggar at the city gates of Jericho, and the crowds that were accompanying Jesus on this final leg of his final journey to Jerusalem?  All were blind in their own way, and yet the blindness of all three was remedied by Jesus, not necessarily with sight, but most definitely with faith.  What about you?  Are you seeing or are you blind? Are you like the disciples or the beggar or the crowds, or like all three?  Hear the Word of God today, and if you think you’re not blind, think again.  We’re all blind in this life, and Jesus remedies blindness – not with sight, but with faith.

First, take the twelve, Jesus’ chosen apostles.  It’s almost Holy Week.  And Jesus takes them aside and privately explains in the simplest possible language the events that would take place during that awful and blessed week. Jesus gives his disciples a play by play of the six different ways he, the Son of Man would be abused and tortured and then killed, and then gives away the ending, too, with the prophecy of his resurrection.  All of this will happen, he tells them. All of this has been planned since before the world’s foundation was laid and predicted through the Old Testament prophets.  All of this must happen, Jesus says, and all of this I go to gladly and willingly, for you.

What Jesus was describing was, very simply, exactly how he would redeem sinners by his blood.  What he was describing was how he, the Son of Man, loved sinners with the love St. Paul described in the Epistle today, 1 Cor. 13, the selfless, sacrificial love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, the love that never, ever ends.

And Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand a thing he said.  They did not grasp it.  In that sense, they were blind. Why?  Did Jesus fail to use the right words? Did he fail to teach them correctly?  No.  They didn’t understand, because it was hidden from them.  The Word of God is clear as crystal, and the message of man’s sin and God’s salvation through the substitutionary love and the substitutionary suffering of Christ is presented plain as day, even in the Old Testament.  But human nature is dull and incapable of understanding it without the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment.

Nevertheless, what did the disciples do?  Did they go home?  Did they throw up their hands and say, “Bah! We give up! We don’t understand!” No, even in the face of some very scary sayings of Jesus, they just kept following him to Jerusalem. They stayed with him.  They kept listening to him and watching him, struggling all the while with their doubts and fears.  And eventually, after the events of Holy Week were over and done, Jesus himself opened their minds, Luke says in chapter 24, so that they could understand what the prophets had written and what Jesus had said.  Even though they didn’t understand yet at this point, they trusted Jesus enough to just keep following.

There’s a lesson for us here.  This blindness of Jesus’ disciples, this failure to understand Jesus’ words and works – that’s awfully familiar to you, isn’t it?  It is to me. I’ll cut the disciples some slack.  They followed Jesus for three years.  I’ve followed him for 38, some of you have followed him longer than that.  And I’m still confused by some of the things Jesus has said in the Holy Scriptures, by some of the things Jesus has done, and still does.  I don’t fully grasp his plans for his Church on earth – why things are as messed up as they are in the world and in the Church, this Christian life of bearing the blessed cross.  Much of the time, I simply don’t get it. It’s hidden from me.  And I still can’t fathom the depth of my sin or of Jesus’ perfect love, his total commitment to the welfare of sinners, like me and like you, that led him to the cross and still leads him to show us mercy every day of our lives.  And I don’t think I’m alone in my blindness, am I?

But see!  That’s nothing new.  You don’t always have to understand.  Sometimes things will be hidden from you.  So what do you do?  Give up?  Stop trying?  Grow indifferent toward doctrine – or toward Jesus, or toward your neighbor?  No.  You keep following Jesus.  You keep hearing and listening, because while you may not understand everything, you know from the Holy Scriptures that Jesus is the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.  You know that, by faith alone in him, you have forgiveness of your sins.  If you’re a Christian, then you know that much, and it’s enough, until the Holy Spirit chooses, little by little, to unhide the rest.

Next, take the blind beggar.  We know from Mark that his name was Bartimaeus.  The fact that we know his name probably means that he continued to be a follower of Jesus for many years after this event.  He was blind in that his eyes didn’t work.  But already before his eyes were fixed, before he even cried out for help, the word of Christ had reached him.  He had heard how kind and loving Jesus was, that he was a Savior, even the promised Messiah, the Son of David, and the Holy Spirit had given him the gift of faith.

How do we know that?  Because he did exactly what a believer does.  To have faith is to know that you have a great need, to know that Jesus is the one who can help, and to want to be helped by him.  That’s faith.  And so the one who has faith calls out to Jesus for help and clings to him and won’t let him go, even in the face of opposition and adversity.  That’s what Bartimaeus did.  He kept calling out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowds tried to stop him but he wouldn’t let them deter him.  His faith triumphed over their rebukes.  This was his chance!  Jesus was passing by! “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  So Jesus called for him to be brought over and asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”  “Lord, I want to see!”  And at once Jesus fixed his eyes and said, “See!  Your faith has saved you.”

As we’ve seen so often in the Gospels, faith is praised as a glorious thing, not because it’s such a worthy attribute, but because it seeks mercy where God wants to give mercy.  It seeks mercy where God has promised to have mercy – in Christ Jesus.  Faith clings to Christ.  Over and over the Scriptures teach us that faith alone saves, because faith despairs of oneself, despairs of everything and everyone else and lays hold of Christ, with his help, with his mercy, with his perfect righteousness and his atoning sacrifice for sin.  And faith always, always finds a Savior in Jesus.

There’s a lesson for us here, too.  Faith is not a meritorious thing, that is, it doesn’t earn anything from God.  But neither is faith an idle thing.  If you have a great need, and you believe that Jesus is merciful, that Jesus is a good Savior, then you go to him for help.  You call out to him in prayer, Kyrie, Eleison!  Lord, have mercy!  The world will try to silence you so that you despair of his help.  But faith won’t be silenced.  So whatever mercy you need from him – whether it’s the need for forgiveness which we all have every single day, or the need for daily bread, for protection, for deliverance from some danger, for patience or courage or love or wisdom, you pray to him in faith, “Lord, I want to see!”  And you trust that he’ll help you in the best possible way.  Why?  Because he shows you in today’s Gospel that he will, and that he wants you to seek his help in faith, just like blind Bartimaeus did.

Finally, take the crowds that were following Jesus to Jerusalem.  They were leading a battle march to Jerusalem, a triumphal parade in which Jesus was the guest of honor, but they – they were his loyal followers.  They would share with him in whatever glory he would have in Jerusalem.  They had no idea he was going there to die.  In that way, they were blind.

But they were also blind in another way.  They’re so caught up in their own glory-seeking, their own self-aggrandizing that, when they hear this blind beggar calling out after Jesus for mercy, trying to slow him down – trying to slow them down on their triumphal march!, they get angry with him.  They try to shut him up and silence him.

Why would they do that?  They do that because they are blind to mercy.  They don’t see the blind beggar as their neighbor who desperately needs Jesus’ mercy right here, right now.  They don’t see that Jesus has come for the sole purpose of having mercy on blind beggars, on people whose sin has made them poor and destitute, on people who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.  They don’t see their own need for Jesus’ mercy, and so they begrudge the beggar of Jesus’ mercy, too.  It’s like they want to get ahead of Jesus and leave him and his mercy behind.

But Jesus opens their eyes, too.  He forces them to stop their grand procession. He calls the blind man over and shows him mercy.  Then what?  Then Bartimaeus followed Jesus, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.  And so they all followed Jesus together to Jerusalem.

We can learn something from the blindness of the crowd, too.  Jesus did not come to this earth to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus did not call his Church into existence so that his Church should walk in glorious procession on this earth, but so that his Church might be characterized by acts of mercy and love.  The Church is to be a place of mercy all the time – a place for receiving mercy from Jesus in Word and Sacrament, and then giving out Jesus’ mercy to those who need it.  If we lose focus on Jesus mercy for us and for all sinners, if we fall into a Christian life that wants to leave mercy in the dust as we get on to “bigger and better” things, then we become blind like the crowds in their glorious procession.  So stop your glorious procession and watch Jesus heal the blind beggar.  Stop and see how good and merciful he is to all. Repent of your blindness to mercy and trust in Jesus to have mercy on you, too.  Then praise God with a joyful heart, that he has given you in Jesus such a merciful Savior.

Praise him also by following him to Jerusalem.  That’s what we do during the season of Lent that begins this Wednesday.  We follow Jesus.  Take the extra time this season to hear and to watch and to learn and to pray. And see Jesus’ mercy in action every step of the way.  Whatever blindness plagues you, just keep following Jesus, and he will remedy your blindness, not with sight, but with faith.  And what a great blessing that will be!  Because we are not saved by sight of Jesus Christ, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is far better than sight.  Amen.

Sermon for Sexagesima

Luke 8:4-15  +  Isaiah 55:10-13  +  2 Corinthians 11:19 – 12:9

You’ve heard today of the great power of God’s Word.  God’s Word – the Bible, the Holy Scriptures – is God’s perfect revelation of himself to man.  We might look around at the universe God has created, and we can certainly deduce some things about God from it, from that “natural knowledge of God.”  But nothing reveals God more clearly and more powerfully than his own words given to us through the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New, whose words all center in the message of God’s holiness, our sinfulness, and his mercy in giving his Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins and reconcile us to God. Through the words written down by the prophets and apostles, through the preaching of their words in our time, God has spoken to us and still speaks.

And when God speaks, it is always like rain and snow coming down from the heavens to water the earth and make it bring forth and sprout.  God’s Word is the seed that falls on the dead soil of human hearts and creates life where there was only death, creates faith in God’s gift of Christ’s righteousness where there was only faith in our own pitiful attempt at providing a righteousness of our own.

But here’s the thing about God’s Word.  It’s always powerful and effective, but the effects are not always the same, as Jesus reveals in the parable of the sower and the seed.

Since I’m not talking to a bunch of preachers today, I will speak to you from this Gospel in the two ways that apply directly to you: first, as the church that sends out the word to be preached – both here in this place and wherever else you send it, too; and second, as hearers yourselves of the Word, recipients of the seed, you who are the very soil in which God’s Word has been planted and is being planted right now at this very moment.  In both of these cases, know what to expect when the seed of God’s Word is sown.

As a church that sends out the Word, that has called a pastor to preach God’s Word, as Christians who go out from this place and speak the saving name of Jesus in your vocations and discuss God’s Word with the people around you, what should you expect when the seed of God’s Word is sown, when others hear the Word?

Listen to what Jesus tells you. You should expect that the seed will fall on different kinds of soil.

Some will fall on the walkway where it does not grow at all, where people trample it and birds come and steal it.  These, Jesus says, are those who hear the Word of God but don’t understand it.  Why don’t they understand it?  Because it wasn’t taught correctly?  No.  Because the devil is real, and he comes where the Word is preached and swoops in like a bird to steal the Word away wherever he can.  He does that through lies and deception, through false teaching and false teachers.  He makes God’s Word seem so difficult to understand that people stop trying.

So it should not surprise us when people hear but don’t hear, when they hear the Word of Christ and it goes in one ear and out the other.  They don’t believe it, even if they call themselves Christians.  Instead they may come to church just to socialize or to play around or to be entertained.  Or they may embrace all kinds of errors and lies and always be fighting against the simple truth of what God says.

Some of the seed will fall on rocky soil.  These, Jesus says, are people who hear the Word and are believing Christians for awhile.  They rejoice in the message of Christ for a time.  But then it gets hard. Persecution comes, and they have no roots and no moisture – no continual supply of the water of life to keep them alive.  The dear Christian cross gets too heavy.  It gets too hard to fight against the desires of the flesh, too hard to keep hearing about sin and our utter neediness before God.  It gets too hard to speak the truth in the face of opposition, too hard to keep trusting in God when bad things happen.  The Christian life just isn’t what they expected.

So it should not surprise us when Christians fall away in the face of persecution or hardship. They may stop going to church entirely. They may stop coming to our church and go out looking for a church that makes the Christian life seem easier, more fun, more enjoyable.  Or they may keep coming, but the heat of trial has withered them into bitter and disgruntled people, or into fearful cowards who will keep quiet, fly under the radar, avoid conflict, do just about anything  to keep the peace.  We can expect that to happen where the seed of God’s Word is sown.

Some of the seed will fall among the weeds.  These, Jesus says, are those who hear the Word and believe for a time, but then they don’t notice the thorns and thistles creeping up, growing right alongside them – innocently, it would seem, until the weeds choke the life out of the good plant.  The weeds are the cares, and riches and pleasures of life.

So it should not surprise us when Christians fall away on account of family problems or work schedules or other worldly concerns or pleasures.  And by “fall away,” I don’t just mean stop coming to church. They may or may not come to church once in awhile.  But once they leave the Divine Service, it’s like God stops existing until the following Sunday.  Faith becomes a mantel piece.  There’s no clinging to Christ and his Word anymore, and love for the neighbor is replaced by love for self.  We can expect that to happen where the seed of God’s Word is sown.

And some of the seed will fall on good soil. These, Jesus says, are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. They know their neediness and they look constantly to God’s Word to supply their need, to give them forgiveness of sins and comfort, to grow their faith and to sustain them through the heat of the day and the cold of the night.  They bear fruit “with patience,” Jesus says, because being a Christian isn’t about sudden and spectacular bursts of good deeds.  It’s about a lifetime of steadily putting faith into practice, each day, over and over, little by little, serving your neighbor humbly, selflessly, whether he thanks you for it or not, whether it’s pleasant or not.

So it should not surprise us when some hear the Word of Christ, and believe, and cling to the Word of God and can’t get enough of it.  It should not surprise us when some hear the Word of Christ and stand on it in the face of terrible trials and unjust treatment, when they say no to the career moves that might make them lots of money but would pull them away from God’s Word and would keep them from humbly serving their neighbor. We can expect that to happen where the seed of God’s Word is sown.

All of this is what you can expect when others hear the word.  So when you see all of these things happening right here in our midst, or out there in the world where the Word of God is preached, don’t be amazed. Don’t be surprised, as if something were wrong.  And don’t imagine that you can make it all better, that you should somehow remove the obstacles from the field where God’s Word is sown.  Our task isn’t to till the walkway in order to soften it, or to remove the rocks, or to weed the garden, or to go out looking for good soil.  Our task as a church – our only task! – is to scatter the seed of God’s Word.  Period.

Now, now, remember that you, too, are hearers of the Word.  Here you are, hearing it today.   As hearers, how are you to hear it? You’ve seen that the Word will face great opposition as it falls from the sower’s hand.  You’ve seen that the world will come and trample it, and the devil will pluck it away.  You’ve seen how a plant with no root stands no chance against the blazing sun of persecution.  You’ve seen the danger of the threatening thistles, and you’ve seen that there is nothing inherently good about the good soil – only that it receives the seed – it hears the Word of God and believes the Word and keeps growing in the Word.

So, as hearers of the Word, you are not to worry about what kind of soil you happen to be.  You’re not stuck being one kind of soil or the other.  There is nothing fatalistic about Jesus’ parable.

Instead, knowing that your heart is, by nature, hard like the walkway, and that men will try to trample God’s true Word with all sorts of lies and that the devil will constantly be trying to pluck God’s Word out of your ears, look to God for continual forgiveness and guidance into the truth.  Hold onto God’s Word.  Learn and study it, and pray earnestly for God to continually create a clean heart in you that will be softened by his Word and blessed.

Knowing that the heat of persecution and hardship will attack your faith and is attacking it even now, and that the only way to resist withering is to have deep roots and a constant supply of moisture, hold onto God’s Word and Sacraments.  There you will find all the sustenance your faith needs to keep bearing up under the heat.

Knowing that thorns and thistles will come, that the cares and riches and pleasures of this world will seek to distract you away from God’s Word and choke your faith to death, be watchful for these things.  How many times have I heard Christians say that this or that problem came up in their lives, this or that opportunity arose, and it required their time and attention, and they fully intended to get back to God’s Word after they dealt with the problem, after they made a bit more money, after they had a bit more “fun” – then it would be time for hearing God’s Word again.  Thistles and weeds.  When they come, don’t pretend that you can fight them off apart from God’s Word.  On the contrary, when they come, cling to God’s Word all the more.

You see, as hearers of God’s Word, you are, right now, being tended by the farmer.  Right now he is scattering the seed of his Word and calling you to repentance and faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, who loved you and gave himself for you, and rose from the dead that he might give you repentance and life.  Right now God is giving you forgiveness of sins and his promise to care for that which he has planted.  While the soils that receive the Word are different, the Word is the same, no matter where it falls, just as powerful, just as real, just as true.  Know what to expect when the seed of God’s Word is sown – in others, and in yourself.

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  He who has ears to hear – let him hear!  Amen.

Sermon for Septuagesima

Matthew 20:1-16  +  Exodus 17:1-7  +  1 Corinthians 9:24 – 10:5

Everything is upside down in the kingdom of God.  God does things differently in his kingdom, differently than our human reason would expect; differently than our sinful nature would like.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus paints a picture of God’s kingdom in which God calls jobless men to work for him in his kingdom.  But when it comes time to pay them their wages, he does it based, not on their work, but only on his charity.  And so highly is God’s charity, or “grace,” exalted, that those who wish to be paid instead on the basis of their work – are fired and dismissed from his service.  In God’s kingdom, it’s not about wages for workers.  It’s about charity for the chosen.

Look first at the charity of the landowner in Jesus’ parable.  He goes out looking for workers in his vineyard.  They don’t come beating down his door.  He goes out to the city streets and finds them and offers them a job in his vineyard.  The ones he finds right away at 6 AM are the ones who are ready to work, ready to put in a full day’s labor – 12 hours of hard, grueling work.  OK.  He calls them, he makes a contract, a covenant with them, as it were, and promises to pay them a certain wage, to which they agree.

But then he keeps going out throughout the day – 9 AM, Noon, 3 PM, even as late at 5 PM, knowing that the workday ends at 6.  All day long he goes out and finds jobless men in the city square, men who have no work, who have no means of income, and no unemployment check to cash.  “Come and work for me in my vineyard, and I’ll give you whatever is right.”

And what would that be?  What is the “right” wage for those who have only put in one hour of work?  Why, it’s a full day’s wage!  And for those who only worked three hours?  A full day’s wage!  For those who worked six hours, and nine hours, and twelve hours in the vineyard – the “right” wage, as decided by landowner, was a full day’s wage.  What grace!  What charity!  What generosity!

And you remember who was happy about that?  Everybody – except for the first ones hired.  The landowner saw to it that the last ones hired would be paid first, so that the ones hired first had to wait till last, had to wait and watch as their fellow workers in the vineyard got paid a full day’s wage – each one – no matter how long or how hard each one had worked.  “Oh. This is good!” they thought.  “If they’re getting a full day’s wage for only 9 or 6 or 3 or 1 hour of work – we’ll get paid even more.  Surely the landowner means to give us more than he said he would, because we worked harder and longer than all of these.

But no.  A full day’s wage for the full-day workers, just as he had promised them at the beginning of the day.  No more.  No less.  And they were angry about it.  How dare he make them equal to the ones who only worked one hour?  “Either he should pay us more or he should pay them less! But equal?  That’s so wrong!”

But the landowner had an answer for them. ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’

The end of this parable is both happy and sad – happy for all those workers who knew they were receiving so much more than they deserved from the landowner; but so sad for those first ones who hated the landowner for the generosity he showed to the others.  So sad, because all they cared about was getting reimbursed for their work, and so they missed out on the grace, on the charity of their employer.  It never occurred to them how privileged they were to work for such a good and generous man.  And since they despised his grace, he now says to them, “Take what is yours and go your way.”  “Get outta here,” he tells them.  There’s no room in his vineyard for those who despise his grace.

That’s the bitter-sweet lesson Jesus was teaching with this parable, that those who look to God for charity will receive it in spades.  But those who look to God for reimbursement for their labor – they will be dismissed from God’s kingdom, because God’s kingdom is not about wages for the workers.  It’s about charity for the chosen.

The landowner is God.  The vineyard is his kingdom, that is, his church on earth.  The workers are those whom God has called into his kingdom through his Gospel invitation.  That call went out first to the Old Testament Jews and brought them in through the covenant of circumcision.  And God promised them everything.  He promised to be their God, and that they would be his people.  He promised them that they would inherit the world.  Grace upon grace upon grace.  As a nation, they had been in God’s vineyard the longest.  They had borne the heat of the day, the weight of Law of Moses with all of its commandments and laws and restrictions.

But as time went by, God sent out his Word to others, too, to Jews who had abandoned God’s law entirely and were leading lives of sin, lives of theft and adultery – tax collectors and prostitutes.  John the Baptist and Jesus called them to repentance and to faith in Christ, and brought them into God’s vineyard through the preaching of the Gospel and through baptism.  Then, later in the day, God sent out his word to Gentiles, too, to the non-Jews of the world who hadn’t worked for God a day in their lives.  He called them into his vineyard, too.

But when the Jews who had worked so tirelessly to keep the Law of Moses saw Jesus calling tax collectors and prostitutes into his kingdom, and even Gentiles, and giving them the same love and forgiveness and promise of eternal life that they, the Jews, had been given, so many of the Jews were angry and bitter about it.  They despised God’s grace.  This is the very thing that prompted them to plot Jesus’ murder.  Because he had come in the name of God, not to reward the Jews for all their hard work, as they thought he should, but to give charity to those who didn’t deserve it – not the charity of money or clothes or social improvement, but the charity of Himself, Jesus, and all that he is and all that he has – Jesus, the charity of God.

Now, very, very late in the day, God has also called you to work in his vineyard.  He has called you into his kingdom, his church, through the preaching of the Gospel. He found you jobless, with nothing in your hand but your sin.  And the Father delivered up his Son into death in order to pay the price for your sins.  You’ve entered into Christ through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, and so God has made you a laborer in his vineyard, a member of his Church, his body, a servant of the living God.  He won’t reward you according to your sins or according to your works.  It doesn’t work that way in the church of God.  He gives you charity!  He gives you Jesus.

But what happened to the Jews can just as easily happen to you. The longer you spend in the Christian church, the easier it will be for Satan to point you to all the hard work you’ve done as a Christian, to all the things you’ve suffered for being a Christian, to all the prayers you’ve prayed and all the sacrifices you’ve made.  And he will try to convince you that God now owes you something extra because of it.  “Jesus” is no longer enough.

The longer you spend in the Christian church, the harder it will be for you to see sinners who have “gotten to” live it up in sin and “have lots of fun” living according to the flesh, coming to repentance later in life and receiving the same promises of forgiveness and salvation that you have received – you, who have spent so many years denying yourself those sinful pleasures and following Jesus.  How dare God make them equal to you!

Oh, do not despise the grace of God!  It is through God’s charity alone that you entered his kingdom in the first place.  It is God’s charity alone that keeps you here.  And it is God’s charity alone that you will receive at the end of the day – Jesus, the crucified, Jesus the risen One, Jesus, the charity of God.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  “Well,” some will say, “I don’t want anyone’s charity!  I want to earn my place in God’s kingdom!”  Well, you can’t, and  you’ll never see his kingdom if you try.

It’s true, God has called you to work in his kingdom, to keep his commandments and to love your neighbor according to them, to live in your vocation as an imitator of Christ.  But you will not be paid wages according to your works, because your works are still sin, and the wages of sin is death.  Instead you will be given charity, credit for Jesus’ works and forgiveness through Jesus’ death, if you continue to trust in him as your Reconciler with God.

What, then?  Is it better to be a latecomer to the vineyard, since you get the same reward in the end, after all, the same salvation, the same charity?  How can you even ask that question? (Well, you didn’t ask it.  I did, didn’t I?) Is it better to live outside of God’s grace?  Is it better to live without his Fatherly love, without his comfort, without his promises?  Is it better not to know Christ Jesus for most of your life?  If you think so, then, friend, you still don’t know him.

The last will be first and the first will be last.  Many are called, but few are chosen.  All of you here who have been baptized have been called as workers in God’s kingdom and God has promised his charity to all of you.  Some will despise his charity; some will never be satisfied with the “wages” God pays out at the end of the day, and that will be their fault, because he offers it to all in Christ.  But some will find great comfort and joy in the charity of God and in the wages of grace that he pays, and that is God’s doing, because God has chosen you to be included in his Son and to receive grace from him.  It’s not about wages for workers.  It’s about charity for the chosen. It’s about receiving Jesus.  And if you know Jesus, you’ll never be so foolish as to grumble against God, “Jesus isn’t enough!”  He’s more than enough!  Amen.

Matthew 17:1-9  +  Exodus 34:29-35  +  2 Peter 1:16-21

Last week we learned about faith and the pattern it follows.  The Word of Christ awakens faith, the kind of faith that keeps seeking and clinging to the Word of Christ.  The Christian life isn’t about seeing.  It’s about a continual pattern of hearing and believing.

But one day it will be about seeing.  One day faith will come to an end and be replaced by sight –the sight of Christ, the Son of God in all his glory, the seeing of God face to face.

Now you heard in the First Lesson today how Moses did see some of the glory of God while he was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the Law from God. Moses had asked to see God’s glory, and God gave him a partial view.  Even that left Moses’ face glowing for a little while afterwards.  But the Lord told him plainly, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”

1500 years later, long after Moses had died, he did see God’s face.  He was there on the Mt. of Transfiguration, together with the Prophet Elijah who had been taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, accompanied by a flaming chariot. Moses and Elijah, together with Peter, James and John, beheld the glory of God in the face of Christ – not just metaphorically, but literally! And so will you!  The Transfiguration of our Lord is God’s promise to you, the promise of seeing God’s glory at the end.

Now let’s back up a little bit, about a week before the transfiguration.  You remember what happened?  Peter confessed about Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”  And Jesus said, “Yes, Peter.  And you are blessed, for this was revealed to you by my Father in heaven.”  How was it revealed?  Through the Word of Christ.  Through the Word of Christ, Peter was enabled to know Jesus by faith as the Son of God, even though by sight, he appeared to be nothing more than a man.  That faith made Peter and the other disciples ready to follow Jesus wherever he might lead, ready to march into battle with Jesus and fight with him against the devil and all his dark forces.  They were ready to follow him anywhere – except to the cross, which is exactly where Jesus needed to go. This is when Jesus first began to explain to his disciples that the Son of Man had to be betrayed, and suffer, and die.  And then, on the third day, he had to rise from the dead.

Peter refused to believe it – that the Christ had to suffer and die.  He rebuked Jesus, and then Jesus rebuked him and explained that anyone who wanted to follow him had to walk the road of the cross, too.

It was just a week later that Jesus took three of his confused disciples aside – Peter, James and John – and took them up that mountain with him.  There, for just a moment, they got to see with their eyes what their faith had already told them was true, but was now struggling to hold on to: the face of God in a Jesus who had to suffer and die.  And they did see it – Jesus’ face, shining like the sun, his clothes changed to dazzling white like the light itself.  They got to hear him conversing with the saints – Moses and Elijah, safe from all harm and danger, a little slice of heaven on earth.

But, what was he talking about with Moses and Elijah?  Luke tells us.  He was talking about his departure at Jerusalem.  He was talking about going back down the mountain, back to Jerusalem, back to his enemies so that they could kill him.  Moses and Elijah started walking away.  It looked like this taste of heaven was coming to an end.

No, Lord! It’s good for us to be here!  Let me put up some tents for you and Moses and Elijah!  You can understand Peter’s desire to stay, can’t you?  Who would ever want to leave?  Who would ever want to go back down the mountain to face suffering and to return to the way of the cross and death?

But Jesus didn’t have to say a word.  It was the God the Father himself who interrupted Peter and spoke from the cloud of glory that enveloped them and overshadowed them.  This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.

And then, like a light switch being turned off, it was all over.  The prophets were gone.  The cloud of glory was gone.  The voice of the Father, the bright shining light – it was all gone. And they were afraid – afraid of the glory and afraid to lose the glory and return to the way of the cross.

But Jesus touched them and said, “Rise and have no fear.”  And when they looked up, they saw no one but Jesus only.

And that was the point all along.

OK, so you don’t understand how the Son of God has to suffer and die and rise from the dead?  That’s fine.  You don’t have to understand it.  Just keep your eyes on Jesus only.

You can’t fathom why God would want a wretch like you in his kingdom?  That’s OK.  Just keep your eyes on Jesus only.

You can’t imagine how you can actually keep following Jesus to the cross, how you can deny yourself and take up your own cross daily and follow him?  You can’t imagine how you can face another day on this sin-filled planet, much less many more years of it? That’s OK.  You don’t have to imagine it, or even find the strength to do it.  Just keep your eyes on Jesus only.

Or, more accurately, don’t keep your eyes on Jesus.  Keep your ears on him only. What did the Father say? “Listen to him!”  Whether you see him shining with divine glory, or whether you see him hanging on a cross, even if you don’t see him at all, listen to him!

You see, Jesus explains it all in his Word, if we’re listening, if we’re paying attention.  He explains why he, the Son of God, had to suffer and go to the cross – to make payment for your sins.  And he explains how this payment is applied to your account – by hearing the Gospel and believing in Him who bore the cross for you.  And he even explains – a little bit – why the Christian life is so hard here on earth – because you have been made like Jesus through Baptism.  You are even now considered by God to be Jesus through your Baptism, and you’re also being molded into Jesus by the Holy Spirit, which includes a heart that’s being renewed in love like his, and which also includes suffering like his.

Do you know how much this beautiful vision on the Mt. of Transfiguration helped Jesus’ disciples, Peter, James and John as Jesus walked slowly toward Jerusalem to be crucified?  Not a lick.  At the time, they didn’t understand it at all, nor did they think too much about it.  For that matter, Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it until after he rose from the dead.  But then, then it became clear to them.  The transfiguration was God’s promise to them, that it would all turn out perfectly, that they and the rest of Christ’s Church would be victorious in the end, that no matter how much suffering there would be, no matter how much the Church seemed to be falling to pieces around them, behind it all was Jesus, the beloved Son of God, the glorious King, the victorious Savior.

I wonder how it will turn out for you… Oh, wait.  I don’t have to wonder.  Because God has shown it to me, and to you.  It turns out like the Mountain of Transfiguration.  It turns out in glory on the heavenly mountain, in life and light, in peace and safety for all who trust in Jesus.  It turns out in the Father’s voice of full approval of you, His son (whether you’re a man or woman, boy or girl), because by faith you have been covered with the image of Christ, God’s beloved Son.  It turns out in seeing God face to face, just like Peter, James and John.

But if you think about it, Peter, James and John didn’t just see God’s face up on the mountain.  They saw God’s face all the time, because they had Jesus with them all the time. His face was always God’s face.  The only difference was that on the Mt. of Transfiguration, their eyes told them it was God’s face.  The rest of the time, it was Jesus’ Word showing them the glory of God in the face of Christ.

That’s the same Word that reveals Jesus to you.  Peter makes that connection in today’s Epistle, from the glory he saw in Jesus as an eyewitness up on the mountain, to the glory of Christ that is revealed by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Word of Christ.  In the Word, God has given you all you need for a lifetime of faith and of cross-bearing right here in His Word and Sacrament. Here, in Word and Sacrament, you see your Lord face to face by faith.

You have the Word of all the prophets who spoke about the Christ who was coming to make atonement for the world’s sin and you have the Word of the apostles announcing that the kingdom of Christ has now come, even upon us who believe in His name.  You have the body and blood of Jesus hidden in bread and wine.  The forgiveness of sins is announced to you here. Heaven is opened to you now.  Here is the light of Christ shining on you today, revealing his glory on the Mt. of Transfiguration, God’s own guarantee of the glory that awaits you who remain believing until death, the promise of seeing God’s glory at the end.  You will stand in God’s presence on the heavenly mountain, and you will never have to go back down the mountain again. 

Here on earth, the Christian life is not about seeing, but about hearing and believing.  But there on the heavenly mountain, you will see God’s face unhidden, and faith will be forever transfigured into sight.  Amen.

Sermon for Epiphany 3

Matthew 8:1-13  +  2 Kings 5:1-15  +  Romans 12:17-21

“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean!” “Lord, just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”  We have before us today in the Gospel those two spectacular prayers of faith – the leper and the centurion.

Should I stand up here in the pulpit and tell you to “be just like them!”? Or to “have a faith just like theirs!”?  – confident and submissive, humble and content to believe without having to see.   I could command you to have that kind of faith, but that would be foolish.  Because you don’t form your faith. You don’t make your faith more humble, more submissive, more “faith”ful.  God himself does that.  God molds your faith and makes it into a tested lump of gold.  He does it, not by telling you what to do, but by simply telling you who Jesus is, what Jesus is like.  He does it all by himself, by means of his powerful Word, the very Gospel that we are considering today.  Faith does not come by doing, but by hearing.  So listen again to God’s word in the Gospel. The Word establishes the pattern for us: The Word creates faith that clings to the Word.

Jesus had just finished his sermon on the mount and was coming down from the mount when that man with leprosy came running up to him and knelt on the ground at Jesus’ feet.  “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  What was it that brought him to Jesus’ feet?  First, it was the very obvious fact that he was unclean with the skin disease of leprosy, that he was sick, and that no one in the world could help him – except for Jesus.

What was it that made him so confident that Jesus could help him, that Jesus could do whatever Jesus wanted to do, even the healing of leprosy which was impossible for any other man?  He had heard the word about Jesus.  He had heard that Jesus was kind and good, that he welcomed sinners and all the downcast and the downtrodden, that he healed with the power of God, and that he preached a message about a God who both condemns sin and offers a way of forgiveness, through faith in Jesus.  The leper had heard that word about Jesus, and the Word created faith.

Then faith clings to the Word.  Faith brought the leper to Jesus’ feet, trusting that Jesus wouldn’t be offended or repulsed by his leprous uncleanness, knowing by faith that Jesus could do whatever Jesus wanted to do.  “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  And then faith waits.  It waits for a word from Jesus to reveal what his will is and how he will help.  It makes no demands.  It offers nothing to Jesus.  It doesn’t go looking for signs of what Jesus’ will might be; it doesn’t presume to know what Jesus’ will is unless Jesus says what his will is.  Faith clings to Jesus’ Word.

And rightly so.  In the case of the leper, faith was not disappointed.  “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  “I am willing,” Jesus said.  “Be clean!”  And just as Jesus’ word had already created faith in that leper, now Jesus’ word created clean skin where only diseased skin had been.  His word accomplished everything, including the faith of the leper that clung to his word.

The same is true for you.  Your sin is just as destructive as leprosy and you’re just as unclean by nature as the leper.  How do you know you’re a sinner?  You know it from the Ten Commandments, which you and I have failed to keep.  And Jesus is the very same good and kind Jesus who loves sinful lepers and who promises to help them by making them clean from their sin, that is, by forgiving their sin, by taking the punishment for the whole world’s sin upon himself and pouring out his blood to make atonement for all.  If that word about Jesus has reached you and has brought you to a constant posture of kneeling before Jesus, looking up to him for help every day in every need, then faith is yours and you are right where you need to be. 

The Word creates faith that clings to the Word. So the question isn’t, when do you find yourself on your knees begging for Jesus’ help.  The question is, when don’t you? When is the pattern broken? When do you think you can handle it on your own?  When do you think you’re not so unclean after all and don’t really have such need of constant cleansing?  When do you wish to go on living in your uncleanness rather than have Jesus take it away?  That’s when faith disappears and you return to sin; you return to the law.

It’s true, your flesh never wishes to have you down on your knees looking up to Jesus for help.  Your flesh is not satisfied, not willing to submit to what Jesus wants, because submitting to what Jesus wants is to acknowledge him as God and Lord, and a good one at that! – and your flesh rebels against that. The devil will not tolerate that.

But even as your flesh rebels against the will of Jesus, faith holds on. It may hold on feebly at times, it may hold on in tears and through great pain as the cross presses down and the world around you asks, “Where is your God?”  But even under the cross, especially under the cross, the cry of faith is still, “Jesus, if you will, you can make me clean,” or as the Psalm says, “Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

In the midst of every hardship and need, faith cries out – or sometimes just whimpers, “I know he died for me! In spite of everything, I know he did.  And I know he is good and kind, even when I don’t feel it, because he came and lived and died for me.”  Why can faith say such a thing?  How can you know that, when things are falling apart all around you and he doesn’t seem to be giving you what you think you need?  Because God’s Word creates faith, and faith clings to Jesus’ word, and not to anything else.

Then we have the example of the centurion, who came to Jesus – or actually, according to Luke’s Gospel, sent some friends to Jesus, to ask for healing for his servant.  We see a man who loved his servant and cared for him.  We see a man who had heard the word about Jesus – that he was kind to everyone, even well-known sinners, even Gentiles.  He had heard the word that Jesus was powerful and taught and healed with authority.  That simple word created faith in the centurion.

And it was a faith that, in turn, went looking for a word from Jesus to heal his servant.  Just a word, nothing more.   “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.  But I have heard that you have authority, and I know authority.  Just say the word and my servant will be healed.” The centurion’s faith had nothing to do with what he could touch or taste or see.  Faith clings to the word of Jesus.

You remember how Jesus reacted to the centurion’s request?  He marveled at it.  He was amazed by it.  He hadn’t found that kind of faith even in Israel.  In Israel, Jesus would speak and the people would argue.  In Israel, Jesus would invite and few would come. He would speak of forgiveness and life and most in Israel doubted.  But in the most unlikely place, in a commander of the Roman army, Jesus found a man who was simply convinced that, no matter how impossible the request, if Jesus said the word, then nothing in heaven or on earth could stand in the way.

And Jesus once again proved that faith in his Word is well-placed.  He granted the centurion’s request.  “Let it be done for you as you have believed.”

What amazed Jesus about the faith of the centurion also amazes me about the faith of so many of you.  You look, and what you see is weakness in yourself, and sin, and physical hardships, and family hardships, and one affliction after another.  You see opposition to the Christian faith, you see Christians falling away from the Church and not acting like Christians.  You look, and what you see is a Christian nature in yourself that wants to do good, but that’s always opposed by your sinful self, a sinful self that screams at you, “You’re not good enough for God,” or even, “God is not good enough for you!”

But the word of Jesus overcomes your doubts and fears and weaknesses.  The word of Jesus shows you a loving Father behind the cross.  It shows you the full atonement Jesus made for sin on the cross, and it speaks of the glory that is to be revealed in us, who now appear so weak and frail.  You have no earthly reason to believe it, and yet you do.  The word has created faith.

And then faith seeks a word from Jesus and clings to his word.  Just his word, nothing else, which is why you’re Lutherans.  You don’t go looking for a foundation for your faith within yourself, or out there in nature or in the stars.  You don’t turn to your feelings to see if you’re really close to God today or not.  You don’t rely at all on what you can see, and you don’t wait for Jesus to come over to your house to help you. You simply go to Jesus for a word.  The Word creates faith that clings to the Word.

So again, the question is, when do you see this pattern broken?  The Word has brought you to baptism and faith.  But if you turn away now from the Word of Jesus, if you have no desire to grow in it, to live in it, to pass it on to your children; if you have no desire for the Sacrament of Jesus’ body and blood, for the gifts that he showers on you here in the Divine Service – then you will shipwreck your faith, and you will have no one to blame but yourself.

What’s the answer, if you find your faith flailing like this?  The answer is to acknowledge it and repent of it.  The answer is right here in the Church, in the ministry of the Word, where Jesus has placed his Word on earth.  It’s right here in our worship, in our divine service, where Jesus speaks through this ministry of the Word and says the word, “Listen to me! I forgive you.  Here is grace and peace and mercy and life. Take, eat, drink, the body given for you, the blood of the New Testament shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”  Where faith has been created by the word, there faith will always continue to cling to Jesus’ word and Sacraments.  Where there is no faith, there people find “better” things to do on Sunday morning.

 “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean!” “Lord, just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”  I don’t need to stand here and order you to be like the leper or be like the centurion.  I just want you to know the word of Jesus, that word that draws you to him and to his family of believers, that word that makes you willing to submit to his will and ready to latch onto his Word.  And I trust that he will help you through his Word, and that his Word will transform you into the people God intends for you to be, people who are being renewed each day in the image of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  In Jesus’ name. Amen.

John 2:1-11  +  Amos 9:11-15  +  Romans 12:6-16

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Sermon for Baptism of Our Lord

Matthew 3:13-17  +  Isaiah 42:1-7  +  1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Every year, every Sunday, we spend our time here in church following the life of Jesus through the church year.  So far this church year, we’ve celebrated two key events in our salvation history.  Jesus, our Savior was born. Jesus, our Savior, was circumcised. The Law of Moses required that Jesus be circumcised in order to bring him into the covenant God made with Abraham and receive the inheritance promised to Abraham. But in today’s Gospel we come across another one of those key events in our salvation history, and this one – this one the Law didn’t require.  The Law didn’t require Jesus to be baptized, and yet your salvation demands it; your very life depends on it, and here’s why:  baptism is where your life intersects with Jesus’ life.

What I mean is this:  picture your life along a vertical timeline.  You were born.  You will die.  You will rise from the dead – you and everyone else, believer and unbeliever alike.  And you will face judgment for the things you did, the things you said, the things you thought, even the very person that you were, between your birth (your conception!) and your death.

Your timeline is your death sentence, because from the time your mother conceived you, you were not the person God’s Law required you to be.  God’s law requires obedience, but not a forced and compelled obedience.  God’s law requires obedience that flows from a willing heart, a glad heart.  What God’s law requires is love, love that is defined by the Word of God, not by some inner feeling in yourself, a down-to-the-bottom-of-your-heart king of love that shows itself in unquestioning submission to God’s will, pure selflessness, sacrificial devotion to God and to your neighbor.  What God’s law requires is good.

But you’re not.  Your timeline started out in sin and your thoughts, words and actions demonstrate that sin along the way.  It’s not love for God to put your family before God and the hearing of his Word.  It’s not love for God to dishonor his name in the world through filthy language and dirty deeds.  It’s not love for your neighbor to ignore him or neglect him, to abandon him in his need, to cheat him or cheat on him, to grow angry and bitter toward him, or to refuse to forgive him when he repents. Your timeline, the story of your life has the thread of sin running all the way through it, and it ends in condemnation and eternal death.

So God, in his mercy created another timeline, the story of someone else’s life, the life of God’s Son, born as the Son of Man.  His timeline is what man’s timeline was meant to be.  It runs parallel to yours and is like yours in many ways.  He’s every bit as human as you are.  He was born as a man.  He died man’s death.  He rose from the dead.

But in between his birth and his death, the story of Jesus is so unlike your story.  His was a sinless life, a life of love, and willing obedience to his Father in heaven, even willingly submitting to that pain and suffering and death that he didn’t deserve.  But it was God’s will.  And so he suffered it.  Gladly.

So, whereas your timeline ends in condemnation, his ends in justification – in victory, salvation, and life. Your salvation is not in your timeline, but in his.

Here’s the problem:  Your timeline runs parallel to his.  Your life is yours; Jesus’ life is his.  Your birth is yours; Jesus’ birth is his. Your works are yours; his works are his.  Your unrighteousness is yours; his righteousness is his. Your death is yours; his death is his. Your condemnation is yours; Jesus’ eternal life is his.  And that’s how it remains.

Unless…the two lives intersect at some point in between birth and death.  Baptism is that God-appointed point of intersection, the point at which the life of the sinner and life of the sinless One meet, and don’t just meet, but trade places in the sight of God.

Matthew tells us that Jesus intentionally went from his home in Galilee to theJordan Riverfor the purpose of being baptized by John.  But why?

Baptism was a very public confession to the world that the person being baptized was a wretched sinner. It had a stigma attached to it.  The “good” people ofJerusalemwouldn’t be caught dead being baptized by John.  I would compare it, maybe, to enrolling in a modern-day drug or alcohol rehab program.  Who does that?  Drug and alcohol addicts.  Why?  To get the help they desperately need, because their lives are being ruined by their addiction.  To enroll in a drug rehab program is to admit publicly, “I have a problem.”

That’s the kind of stigma that was attached to John’s baptism.  Sometimes I wish there were still such a stigma attached to baptism instead of the glamorized notion people have of baptism today in our country.  It’s just the thing to do for some families.  It’s a tradition, a family ritual.  It’s nice. It’s pleasant.  Safe and sanitized. People have gotten this idea in their heads that baptism is “cute.”  It’s not cute.  It’s dirty, or at least, it’s a confession that this baby – or this adult! – is dirty, filthy dirty with sin, one of the damned who needs rescuing from damnation and who is about to be rescued by Jesus by means of water and Word. Because that’s the reality of baptism.

Why did Jesus go to be baptized? He had no sins to repent of, and no need of forgiveness.  Jesus knew that.  So did John.  It’s why John objected at first to Jesus’ request to be baptized by John, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”

Why did Jesus go to be stigmatized as a sinner, to be “with sinners numbered,” to be counted among sinners in those baptismal waters?  Because this is where the life of Jesus and the life of sinners meet.

“Let it be so now,” Jesus told John, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

If we unpack that phrase a little bit, “to fulfill all righteousness,” we’ll see that Jesus already had a timeline – a story full of righteousness.  The law didn’t require that Jesus be baptized at all.  Rather, it’s the bridge that moves his righteousness from his timeline to yours and mine and fulfills all righteousness for us who lack righteousness. This is where Jesus, in his baptism, trades places with the sinner in his or her baptism.  And isn’t that pure grace! That it’s not in death where we meet Jesus, but before death – but in the cleansing waters of baptism.  What’s yours becomes his; what’s his becomes yours.  Your sin gets laid on him and he pays for it.  His righteousness gets laid on you and you’re praised by God for it.  Your death sentence is transferred to him and his life-sentence is transferred to you who believe in him, who have been baptized in his name.  Now, in this baptismal intersection Jesus becomes the sinner he was not so that you could become the child of God that you were not.  Now, all that belongs to him becomes yours, just as all that belonged to you became his.  It all hinges on baptism and faith in Jesus who instituted the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

The climax of today’s Gospel is at the end, when Jesus steps out of the water and the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove, and God the Father’s voice is heard from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”  When you grasp the fact that baptism is where your life meets Jesus’ life, those words have a whole new meaning.  Because God the Father, the Father of all grace and mercy and compassion, the Father of love and forgiveness and glory and might – that Father doesn’t just claim Jesus as his beloved Son.  He claims you who are baptized in his name.  And he isn’t just well-pleased with Jesus.  By faith in Jesus, through your baptismal connection to him, God the Father is now perfectly well-pleased with you, not because of your timelines, not because of your story, but all because of Jesus’ timeline and Jesus’ story and baptism, which has pulled you into Jesus’ story and Jesus’ life.

The Bible calls that “baptismal regeneration,” being born again, that God now reckons you to be his child, by faith in Jesus.  You see what that means for you – for you, and for your baptized children, and for your baptized parents?  It means that you stand justified before God, welcomed into eternal life.  What can the devil or the world do to you, if that is true?  No sickness, no cancer, no crisis at all can change the fact that you were baptized. And that goes for your baptized children and your baptized parents as well.  They have a Father who loves them and is committed to their care, to see them safely through this vale of tears to their heavenly home.  You have a Father who loves you.  All things must work together for your good, because you are God’s child, with whom he is well-pleased – because your sinful story is covered by the sinless story of Jesus.

All this is by faith in Jesus.  Baptism is of no value to anyone if he or she walks away from the faith that comes from baptism.  But for those who believe, God the Father not only accepts you as his child, but he also sends his Holy Spirit, who spends the rest of your life making your life look like Jesus’ life.  Here something wonderful takes place and Jesus gives much more than he receives.  When you cross timelines with Jesus, your sin doesn’t cause him to sin.  But his righteousness does have an effect on you; his righteousness does rub off on your life.  So you don’t live for yourself, but for him who died for you and was raised again.  You don’t fight temptation by yourself. You fight temptation together with Jesus.  You remember what he did right after he was baptized?  He went out into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil, and not just to be tempted, but to fight against temptation and come out victorious.

That’s what your baptism means for you, too.  It means a life of fighting temptation, of saying no to sin and yes to righteousness.  It means a life of suffering, too, of bearing the cross, a life of humility, a life of daily and painful self-denial, a life that looks ever more like the life of Jesus.  The Bible calls that “renewal,” being renewed in the image of Christ.  It’s a life-long process that will only be finished in the perfection of heaven.  But baptism is where that life-long process begins.

Nothing can summarize all this any better than Paul’s words to the Corinthians today: And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  Jesus has always been all those things, but he became all those things “to us” when our timelines intersected, when baptism brought us together. Baptism is where Jesus’ life meets your life, where all that is bad moves from you to him, where all that is good moves from him to you.  That’s why you’ll never have any reason to boast, because all the good came from outside of you, from your Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s why it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” Amen.

Sermon for the Circumcision and Name of Jesus

Luke 2:21  +  Genesis 17:1-14  +  Galatians 3:23-29

Consider this question for a moment: What are the absolutely essential events in the life of Christ, revealed in Scripture, that had to happen in order for him to be our Savior from sin – in order for us to have peace and hope and comfort and a future in heaven instead of hell?  There aren’t that many, actually, only a couple hands full.  The Christ had to be born of a virgin.  We celebrated that last Sunday on Christmas.  He had to be baptized – we’ll cover that next Sunday.  He had to institute a new covenant in his blood. He had to suffer and die on a cross.  He had to rise from the dead on the third day, ascend into heaven, and send his Holy Spirit from the right hand of God so that his Gospel could go out and save sinners.

For all those key events in the life of Christ, the Church has set aside a day of celebration each year in its calendar.  Which one did we miss? We missed that one event that we don’t talk about or think about very often, but the Church Fathers wisely built it into the Church calendar to be celebrated every year, on the eighth day of Christmas, January 1^st.  Without this event, we are lost in sin and doomed to eternal death.  Without it, we have no Christ, no Jesus, no Savior.  So today on the eighth day of Christmas, we remember with joy that Our Savior Had to Be Circumcised.

You heard about the origin of Hebrew circumcision in the Old Testament Lesson today.  It all started with Abraham when he was 99 years old and still childless.  For a quarter century God had been promising him a son, an “offspring,” and God made a covenant between himself and Abraham and Abraham’s yet-to-be-conceived offspring: “To your offspring I will give this land… And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

Now, finally, when Abraham was 99 years old the promise would be fulfilled.  A son would be born to him within a year, but first, a sign – a sign commanded by God to seal the covenant in Abraham’s flesh and in the flesh of every male descendant of his, a sacred but painful sign for every man and every boy, a sign that every Israelite family would be reminded of whenever a child was conceived, and whenever a male child was born:  Circumcision, to be performed on the eighth day of a baby boy’s birth.

That’s the brief history behind circumcision.  What’s the meaning behind it?  Why would God subject his chosen people to such a mutilation of the flesh?

Circumcision served several purposes for Old Testament Israel.  This sign of circumcision set the Jewish nation apart from every other nation on earth.  No one else had such a practice; only Abraham’s offspring.  That’s important, because God had made a special covenant with Abraham’s offspring – they had to be kept separate.

Circumcision was also a minor form of punishment from God, marking a man as a sinner who needed to have sin cut away from him.  And notice when!  Not after a long life of sinning, but after only eight days of being alive outside the womb.  And here we see another Scriptural teaching highlighted – the doctrine of original sin.  It’s not just the bad things people do and say that make them guilty before God.  It’s the very sinful nature we inherit from our parents, and they from theirs.  It’s the source of all our actual sins, the sick, twisted flesh in all of us – believers and unbelievers alike – that always runs away from the true God, that runs away from his love and mercy in Christ, that rebels against him and spends all its time looking out for #1.  Because of that sinful flesh that dwells in all of us, Jewish baby boys got to be marked with a sign – a sign that we can’t save ourselves from this inborn sin.  It needs cutting around and cutting out, a circumcision done by someone else.  And circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant to do just that for Abraham and his children.

So fast forward 2000 years from the time of Abraham.  There were Mary and Joseph and the baby boy that Mary bore, still in Bethlehem.  And as the Law demanded, they had the baby circumcised on the eighth day, just like every other Jewish boy.

But this one wasn’t like every other Jewish boy.  This one was born of a virgin, without the intervention of a sinful man.  This baby had no sinful flesh – no natural corruption or sickness that turned him away from God, because this baby boy was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

So why did he have to be circumcised?  There’s a very important verse in Galatians 3 that gives us the answer: Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. And that right there changes everything.

What it means is that neither Isaac – Abraham’s son, nor the nation of Israel itself were the intended recipients of the covenant God made with Abraham.  There was only one intended recipient, one heir of the promises, the coming Christ.  Christ, the baby born of Mary, was the intended recipient of all the promises of God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to the whole nation of Israel.  The nation of Israel, Abraham’s descendants, were brought into this covenant, too, but only until it should be fulfilled in the intended recipient.  Christ was the offspring who was to be born to Abraham and, according to the covenant, Christ is the one who would be the heir of that covenant, who would inherit all the promises of God, including the earth itself and an eternal place in the family of God, not just as the Son of God, but also as the Son of Man, which is what helps you and me.

But if and only if he is circumcised according to the Law and brought into this covenant God had made with Abraham long ago.

Our Savior had to be circumcised so that, as the Son of Man, he could inherit all the promises of God made to Abraham, and then, give away his inheritance to others.  That’s why we celebrate also the name of Jesus today, because God’s purpose from the beginning, was that the offspring of Abraham, circumcised on the eighth day of his birth, should be called Yeshua, Jesous, Jesus, Savior.

Savior of whom?  Of those who are circumcised like he was?  Yes, but also of the uncircumcised – of all who trust in him.

By that first infliction of pain in the innocent baby Jesus, in that first shedding of his holy, precious blood, God’s covenant with Abraham and his offspring was fulfilled, and the sign of circumcision was brought to an end as the sign of that old covenant.  Now Jesus, the heir of all things as both God and Man, could open the way for a new covenant to be made, a covenant in his blood.  That first shedding of his blood was just a foreshadowing of what his life was meant for.  Did you catch that in the hymn stanza we just sang?  “His infant body now begins the cross to feel; those precious drops of blood that flow for death the victim seal.”

Every other Hebrew baby who was circumcised was marked for death before he was born because of sin.  But this Hebrew baby, Jesus the son of Mary, was not marked for death by sin, but only by choice.  His blood never needed to be shed, except as the price for the sin of his brothers.  His name is rightly called Jesus, Savior!  And this is how he would save all who trust in him, by shedding his blood.  That’s the cost of your sins.  That’s the price of your forgiveness.  And that’s the sign of God’s love for the world.  His blood, the blood of Jesus, whose name means “Savior.”  Because your blood wasn’t worth enough.  But his was!  His blood was worth enough to open a new covenant.  And since he was the heir of the first covenant made with Abraham and his offspring, only Jesus has the right to make a new covenant, to pass on his inheritance to anyone he chooses.

And he chooses, not the one who deserves it, not the one who works for it.  He chooses sinners.  His Gospel goes out, even now, to sinners: Repent! Turn away from your god-less life and believe in the good news, that a Savior has been born to you, that a Savior has been circumcised for you, and that this Savior holds out a new covenant of the forgiveness of sins to you, and also, a new sign for the new covenant.

You know what that sign is?  It’s circumcision! But it’s a different kind of circumcision.  This is what it says in Colossians 2, In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.  And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Baptism is the sign of the new covenant, God’s way of bringing you into the family of Jesus and his Father, just as circumcision brought a Jewish baby boy into the family of Abraham and of God.  You heard what Paul said in the Epistle Lesson, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Jaimie and Jeremy were baptized just a few months ago.  They put on Christ.  They have become his heirs.  And now, today, Jaimie will be confirmed in the faith and welcomed into the family meal as well, the family meal of the continuous forgiveness of sins in which Christ himself comes to us and gives his own body and blood to us, the actual blood of the new covenant, the actual blood that was shed on Calvary, but that first was shed in Bethlehem, on the eighth day of his birth, when Jesus, our Savior, was circumcised.

Our Savior had to be circumcised, so that you, too, could become Abraham’s offspring, and heirs of all the promises of God.  As sons of God by faith in Christ, baptized into his family, all of us – men, women, boys, girls, rich, poor, Jew and Gentile – we all receive from our Father in heaven the inheritance that belongs to Jesus our brother, the inheritance of a righteous status before God, in spite of all our sins; eternal life, heaven, earth, past, present, future – all things are yours, because your Savior was circumcised, and you have been baptized in him.  Amen.

Sermon for Christmas Day

John 1:1-14  +  Exodus 40:17-21, 34-38  +  Titus 3:4-7

Today is gift-opening day in the Church, just as it may be also in your homes.  It’s the same gift we open every year.  For that matter, it’s the same gift we open every week, the same gift God gives to the world over and over and over again, but Christmas – Christmas marks the very first time God gave this gift to the world, the beginning of God’s giving of a gift that both has a beginning and has no beginning at all, a gift that is the perfect union of created and uncreated, the perfect union of God and man.

Although now, through faith in the One born in Bethlehem we are friends of God, the very family of God, when God first gave His gift to the world, we were neither of those things.  We were His enemies. We had sinned against Him, not He against us.  We had written Him out of our lives and had no intention of apologizing for it, no means to make up for it, no hope of reconciliation even if we had wanted it.  But just at that moment, God took His eternal, beloved Son – God the Son!, God the Word who was with God in the beginning – and wrapped Him up in human flesh and gave Him to the world.  God made reconciliation into a tangible, flesh and blood gift, a gift that can be given and also received, and he held it out to mankind – His Son, His Son born to us, given to us – and also crucified for us – that all who put their trust in him might have light instead of darkness, life instead of death, peace instead of punishment, and joy instead of fear.

God first held out his gift to the world at Christmas, his gift of reconciliation and peace, light and life to all.  He gave us his Word! He gave us his life and his light! The Word of God took on your flesh. He took on your sin, your condemnation, your punishment, your death. He took it all on himself as your brother.  And he did it, not just for you but for all men.  All men who are born of woman have been given the right to call the child of Bethlehem their child. All the sons of men have been given the right to claim this child as their peace with God.

But not all men do. Not all believe his Word. Not all are enlightened by his light, nor do all live by his life.  He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.  He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

So many men try to figure out life on their own.  So many try to live their lives apart from God’s Word, and still fool themselves into thinking they’re getting by all right without Him.  So many look to their families for peace and comfort and joy at Christmas.  And families can give great joy, but they can’t give life. They can’t give peace, and their comfort is only temporary, and sometimes, fickle.

Only the Word of God who became flesh – only he can give light and life.  He’s the source of all light and life, as John says, the source of all joy and peace.  He is God’s gift to the world.  If you have him, you have everything.

But the world didn’t receive God’s gift when he gave it for the first time, and the world still does not receive it.  The world doesn’t want everything.  The world wants one thing: to be its own god.

Remember St. Stephen, the first Christian Martyr whose feast day is tomorrow.  He preached Christ and was stoned to death for it.  The world did not receive God’s Christmas gift.

Remember the Apostle John whose day is December 27^th.  He was sent away into exile for his preaching of Christ, and all of his fellow apostles were put to death for the same.  The world did not receive God’s Christmas gift.

Remember the Holy Innocents.  Their day is December 28^th. They are the baby boys of Bethlehem whom King Herod slaughtered in his attempt to snuff out the light of Christ.  The world did not receive God’s Christmas gift.

The world is no different today.  But here’s what’s different: Some sinners did receive him when he came at Christmas, and some still do.

Here you are – you who have received the Word of God in faith, you who believe in the name of Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of his Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the virgin Mary as your Lord; you who claim Jesus Christ as your peace with God –  all ye faithful who have come to adore him, Christ the Lord.  Here you are to receive God’s Christmas gift.  You have been given a special privilege, a special right that does not belong to all men – the right to be called children of God.

What gives you the right to call yourself a child of God?  Only this: That God himself speaks the Word that gives you that right. For to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

God’s Word has come to you and converted you from dead to living, from sinner to saint, from a child of the devil to a child of God!  This is your family, right here!  If you have no other family, so what? This one lasts forever.  This one has God himself as the Father and Jesus Christ as Brother.

And in this Christian family, you still sin every day, but every day your heavenly Father forgives your sins anew.  You are covered by the blood of your Brother.  You still carry around your sinful flesh with you, but you are not ruled by it.  You are God’s child.  God’s Word dwells in you, and each day you are being renewed in the image of the Word made flesh, your Brother, Jesus Christ.

God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.  Only you who call Jesus your Brother and your Savior have the right to call God your Father and yourself his son, his child. That’s your Christian birthright.  That’s God Christmas gift to you, first given to you at your baptism when the Word made flesh first covered you with himself.  Since then God has been renewing this gift to you again and again in the Word of the Gospel.

To you, baptized children of God, has been given another special right, a right not given to the rest of the world.  Today we celebrate again the Christmas mystery, the Word that was with God in the beginning, the Word that was and remains God, given to us in flesh and blood who gives his flesh and blood to you again from the humble manger of this humble altar, to you and not to the world.  Here in this “Bethlehem – House of Bread,” the Bread of life is given to you, the very body knit together in the virgin’s womb and then born in Bethlehem.  Here, too, is wine, the wine of celebration and feasting, and with this wine, the blood of Mary’s Son, the Word who became flesh so that he might have blood to shed for you.  Here he makes his dwelling among us again, not just in the room with us, but within our very bodies and souls, and gives us his life to sustain and comfort and strengthen and forgive.

Here today, the gift of the Word made flesh is given to you again, in a way that you can actually receive him – with your ears, with your eyes, with your mouths and with your heart. He has come and called you to bask in the light of his grace, to share for awhile in the glory of his cross and suffering, and then to share eternally in the glory of his empty tomb and his eternal reign.

Open God’s present.  Unwrap it. Turn it around and admire it from every possible angle.  It’ll take you a lifetime to do it.  The gift is the Person of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, with all his love, his power, his strength, his victory over sin, death and hell; his light and life, his joy and peace, his companionship, his protection, and his gracious Father in heaven.  All of this is yours.  All of this God pours into your lap on Christmas morning, and he’ll do it again next week, too.  You can count on it.  God gives you – His Word!  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And here in his Gospel, we, too, here in this place, have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  A blessed Christmas to you all.  Enjoy your Christmas gifts!  Amen.