When faith was finally replaced with sight

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Christmas Eve

Luke 2:1-14

We walk by faith and not by sight. That’s sort of the Christian’s motto. It’s also the title of a hymn we sang on Wednesday evening for the festival of St. Thomas, who, famously, insisted on walking by sight and not by faith for a time. Walking by faith—that’s what we’re called to do. To believe without seeing. To believe, not just in any old thing, but in a promise that God has made. When the promise is fulfilled—that’s when faith is replaced with sight.

4,000 years before Christ was born, God made such a promise to Adam and Eve, that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head, would break the devil’s hold on mankind after they had sinned against God. And Eve believed God’s promise. In fact, the name she gave to Cain, her first son, may indicate that she thought Cain was that promised Seed. As Luther translates it, “I have gotten a man: the LORD!” But Cain wasn’t the promised Seed. Eve would live for hundreds of years and then die without ever seeing the promised Seed. She and Adam were forced to live their whole lives by faith, without seeing.

Some 2,000 years later, Abraham was told, “In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” He believed it, but he never saw it. Isaac and Jacob received the same promise. They believed it, but they never saw it. David was told that his Son would reign forever on his throne. He believed it, but he never saw it. The same was true for all the Old Testament saints. They were told over and over again, in various ways, by various prophets, that this Anointed One, this Christ, this Son of Man, would come, would be born, born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem, to be a Savior for Jews and Gentiles alike. They believed it, but they never saw it. They walked by faith and not by sight.

2,000 years after Abraham, Mary and Joseph were the very first human beings to have their faith in that promise replaced with sight. For nine months they knew it was coming. They believed it was coming. They had been told by the angel Gabriel, and they could see that Mary was miraculously pregnant and getting bigger. But they remained in Nazareth, which causes us to wonder, did they know the prophecy from Micah, the first lesson you heard tonight, that Mary’s Son, the promised Christ, had to be born in Bethlehem? Were they planning on traveling there? We don’t know. But isn’t it remarkable how God got them there? It’s as if He wanted to show the world something, to let us see what we always had to take by faith before, that He is truly the One running things, even using pagan rulers and tragic circumstances to accomplish His glorious plans.

It was a pagan ruler, the most powerful man in the world at that time, Caesar Augustus, whom God instigated to count the people of his empire, at just the right time. Who can fail to see the hand of God at work in that?

And when God caused things to work out so that all the places in the inns in Bethlehem were taken when Mary and Joseph arrived—they may not have understood it at the time, but, looking back, how can we not see God’s hand in it, in providing that humble-but-sufficient manger for His Son to be placed in? How can we not marvel at His willingness to stoop down to the lowest level, the most meager circumstances, to give us His Son in that memorable way and in that kind of place, so that we could see just how determined He was to reach down to us in our humble circumstances and to save us from our sins?

As for the shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, how fitting it was that God sent His very first birth announcement to these men and not to the important political or religious leaders of the day? Because God didn’t look down on shepherds, as some did at that time, nor does He think highly of the people whom the world considers to be important. God chose humble shepherds—average believers in Israel—for this memorable birth announcement, so that they, and we, could see that Christ came to be the Savior of all men.

The shepherds got to see an angel with their own eyes. But the angel himself was the smallest part of the visible Christmas miracle. It’s what the angels announced that was the true miracle. Do not be afraid. For, behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For to you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.

The world had seen deliverers of all kinds, some godly, most not. The Israelites had seen Moses raised up to deliver them from slavery in Egypt. They had seen judges raised up to defeat their enemies. They had seen Israelite kings and even foreign kings, at times, raised up to deliver them from this or that hardship or enemy. But never had anyone, ever, seen a true Savior, the promised Savior, who would deliver people, not just from some temporary threat, but from every bad thing. He would start by saving people from their sins and from the threat of everlasting death and condemnation, whenever they hear this good news and turn to Him for help. And eventually, He will save His people from every threat and from every hardship, even from death itself. This very Child whom the shepherds would find wrapped up and lying in a manger, whom they would see with their own eyes—He was, and is, a true Savior.

He was, and is, also Christ and the Lord, born into our world just as we are, born to live among us as one of us, to live under His own Law in our place, to die according to His own Law for the sins of mankind. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds were the first to have their faith in that old, old promise replaced with sight.

But not before the shepherds saw the whole heavenly army of angels and heard their glorious song: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. And when the shepherds found the right manger in Bethlehem, they saw for themselves the Christ-Child, who is God’s peace and goodwill toward men.

We haven’t seen the Christ with our own eyes, and we may not see Him in our earthly lifetimes. We still walk by faith and not by sight, just as the Old Testament saints did. But if you’ll pause this evening and reflect on the words you’ve heard about that night, some 2,000 years ago, when faith was finally replaced with sight, if you’ll look into the skies through the words of St. Luke and see the angels and hear their message, if you’ll look through the word of God down into the manger, then you’ll see everything you need to see about God’s faithfulness and love toward mankind, toward you and toward everyone who hears this good news of great joy. God wanted you to be here tonight and to see, through the word that is preached, what Mary and Joseph and the shepherds saw with their eyes when His Son was born into the world, that hearing, you might see, and that by seeing, you might be filled with joy and peace and hope in believing, and be better able to walk by faith and not by sight, until faith is finally replaced with sight when the Christ comes again, with all His angel armies, not lying in a humble manger, but riding in on a glorious cloud to save us at last from every bad thing. Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Saturday, December 24th

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Matthew 1:1-17

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

2 Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. 3 Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. 4 Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon. 5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, 6 and Jesse begot David the king.

David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. 7 Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. 8 Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. 9 Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. 10 Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah. 11 Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. 13 Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. 14 Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud. 15 Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob. 16 And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.

“It twas the night before Christmas …”

Now, most reading those words above would be able to finish the rest of that line.  Yet, if it read, “So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying:…” (Lk. 1:22) hardly anybody would be able to finish it.

It just reveals how mankind is more apt to read and re-read (or get familiar with) secular stories over God’s Holy Scripture because the flesh hates God’s Word; finding it boring and unsatisfactory to the flesh.  So goes the reading for today.  Not that anyone is supposed to memorize it, but simply reading it all the way through is still arduous for man’s flesh.  Yet, it remains “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” (vs.1)

Truly in Christ, God has drawn near to sinful man to redeem sinful man.  In Christ God became what God was not—a human being to save human beings.  No matter how disgusting our sins are —to ourselves or others— our Savior was born to die for those very sins.  It is God who moved toward us.  It is He who gave gifts to us.  Among those gifts are His human body and blood which we take into ourselves so that we might receive strength from them.  Since Christ’s holy, innocent Body and Blood have touched our lips, our sins are atoned for and our guilt taken away.  Now —that— should always be remembered and rejoiced in!

 

All praise to Thee eternal God,

Who, clothed in garb of flesh and blood,

Dost take a manger for Thy throne,

While worlds on worlds are Thine alone.

Hallelujah! (TLH 80)

Let us pray:  Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

 

 

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Each Day in the Word, Friday, December 23rd

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Luke 1:67-80

67 Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:

68 “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people,
69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David,
70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,
Who have been since the world began,
71 That we should be saved from our enemies
And from the hand of all who hate us,
72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers
And to remember His holy covenant,
73 The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:
74 To grant us that we,
Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
Might serve Him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
77 To give knowledge of salvation to His people
By the remission of their sins,
78 Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
79 To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

80 So the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his manifestation to Israel.

“To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. (vss. 74-75)

In the Small Catechism, we confess that Jesus has “purchased and won us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.”  So often we think of our enemies as being people.  But our true enemies are sin, death, and the devil.  If we do not understand this, we will fail to love those for whom Jesus died.

Persecution should not be a surprise to believers.  Persecution can be feared, that is normal.  We can face persecution confident that we are already victors over it.  Courage is standing firm even as our knees knock, teeth chatter, and hearts beat hard.

Believers, however, are delivered from sin, death, and the devil.  We sin, but sin has no power over us—full payment for it has been made.  We may die, but death is now the door to life.  Christ accomplished this for us by becoming man, tramping down death through death.  We do not need to fear those who can destroy the body, but the One who has power over body and soul; the One who in love sent His Son to redeem us.  Through Christ He has revealed that He’s on our side!

 

The Word they still shall let remain Nor any thanks have for it;

He’s by our side upon the plain With His good gifts and Spirit.

And take they our life, Goods’ fame, child, and wife,

Though these all be gone, Our vict’ry has been won

The kingdom ours remaineth. (TLH 262, LSB 656)

 

Let us pray:  Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Thursday, December 22nd

Posted on December 22, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Luke 1:57-66

57 Now Elizabeth’s full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. 58 When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her.

59 So it was, on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias. 60 His mother answered and said, “No; he shall be called John.”

61 But they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” 62 So they made signs to his father—what he would have him called.

63 And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying, “His name is John.” So they all marveled. 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God. 65 Then fear came on all who dwelt around them; and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. 66 And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, “What kind of child will this be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him.

But they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” (vs. 61)

The world desires to name us and have us conform to itself. It desires to call us its own.  Truly, each of us comes into this world of the world. By virtue of being conceived by sinful man, we are not holy, not welcome into the presence of holy God — actually, enemies of God.  We enter this life as worshippers of ourselves like the world around us. Even into adulthood our flesh can bring us to lash out if our needs and wants are not immediately met.  If you doubt this, go for a drive in rush hour traffic.  We are idolaters who believe that our needs and wants are to be fulfilled without regard to how it affects others.

Just as John was set apart from the tradition of being given his father’s name.  By the grace of God, the Holy Spirit calls us and separates us from the world.  Adopted as God’s children, through the waters of Holy Baptism, we are born again as holy children of God.  We are given a new name.  And, though we remain in the world, we are no longer “of” the world.  The world now does not understand us any more than it understands Christ our Savior or John His forerunner.  We get to rejoice that God our Father claims us as His children.

 

When Jesus comes — O blessed story! — He works a change in  heart and life;

God’s kingdom comes with pow’r and glory  To young and old, to man and wife;

Thro’ Sacrament and living Word, Faih, love, and hope are now conferred.

(TLH 65)

 

Let us pray:  Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen

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Believing without seeing

Posted on December 21, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Advent 4 – St. Thomas

Ephesians 1:3-6  +  John 20:24-31

Which of you would like to be defined by your worst moment—by that time when you really dropped the ball, behaved badly, fell into sin, by a time when your faith failed? None of us would. Unfortunately (in a way), the apostle Thomas is generally known for what we might call a bad moment. Of course, most of the apostles had their bad moments. Peter had a few of them. James and John had at least one. And if we go back into the Old Testament, most of the saints we encounter had some very bad moments, too, like Noah, or Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, Solomon, and so on. But they all are known for some very good moments, too, times when their faith shone brightly. Thomas just isn’t mentioned as often in Scripture and isn’t usually remembered for anything good—although he should be, as we’ll see in a moment.

He’s often referred to as “doubting Thomas,” though I would ask you never to call him that. The word doubt, especially as it’s used in Scripture, refers to a state of mind in which a person goes back and forth about something, when a person wavers, when a person just isn’t certain about something or someone. That doesn’t describe Thomas in the lesson you heard tonight. Thomas didn’t doubt the Lord’s resurrection. He didn’t waver in uncertainty. No, even though the other apostles gave him their eyewitness testimony that the Lord had risen from the dead, Thomas was quite certain the Jesus was still dead. And, as he told the apostles, the only thing that could make him certain in the other direction was to see the living Jesus with his own eyes, and put his finger into the nailprints in Jesus’ hands and put his hand into Jesus’ side where the spear had pierced Him through. Thomas wasn’t experiencing a moment of doubt. He was living in outright unbelief.

Jesus acknowledged that unbelief in Thomas. Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put your hand here and place it into my side, and be no longer unbelieving, but believing. So, yes, Thomas had a bad moment. A bad week and a half, really, from Maundy Thursday evening when he, along with the other apostles, abandoned Jesus, until this Sunday after Easter, during which time he remained unbelieving.

But then, after seeing Jesus, he had a very good moment that we should really remember him for: Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” That’s one of the clearest confessions of Jesus’ divinity in the whole New Testament, just as clear as the Christmas morning Gospel we’ll hear from John 1, where the Word was with God and the Word was God. It’s hard—impossible, really—to get around this verse. If Jesus weren’t God, then He should have rebuked Thomas for calling Him his God. Instead, He praised Thomas for his confession, although not for how he came to it.

“Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” Now, for Thomas to confess Jesus to be his Lord and his God, that still required faith. What he saw with his eyes was a man whom he had seen dead and whom he then saw alive. Thomas didn’t have faith that Jesus rose from the dead. Faith is for those things we can’t see. He had faith in Jesus’ identity as God and in His authority as Lord. The things he saw in Jesus led him to believe the things he still couldn’t see.

But that’s not good enough for the billions of people who would never have the opportunity to see Jesus, people like you and I. We go about our earthly lives having never seen the Son of God, having never seen a true miracle of God, having never seen an angel. How are we supposed to believe in Jesus?

That’s the power of His word. It’s the word that brought Thomas to faith in the first place, that brought him to acknowledge that, yes, he was a wretched sinner, but that the unseen God loved him and had sent His Son into the world in a way he could see. And the Old Testament word of God brought Thomas and the other apostles to believe that, yes, this Jesus was the promised Messiah and their Savior from sin. Where Thomas fell, where Thomas failed, was in letting his eyes get the better of him, letting the word of Christ suddenly become meaningless when He told His disciples that He would rise from the dead. Thomas chose to stop listening to the Holy Spirit of God, chose to follow his own human reason rather than to believe the word of Jesus. That’s always a mistake.

It’s a mistake for us, too. More than that, it’s a sin. We have been convinced by the word of God that we are sinners. We have been called to repent and to believe in the God who has revealed Himself in Holy Scripture, the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to believe that He is who He says He is, has done what He says He has done, and will do what He says He will do. And, by God’s powerful working through His word, we have believed it. We have confessed it. We have begun to live it. Don’t let your eyes fail you now. Don’t let your human reason take over and ignore or disbelieve what God has said.

Instead, let the blessing of Jesus Himself rest upon you: Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. And then consider how great the blessings are for those who believe! Paul mentioned just a few of them in the first lesson this evening. God has blessed us with every kind of spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And then he lists some of the greatest spiritual blessings: he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; He predestined us for adoption into his own family through Jesus Christ, not according to any good thing we had done, but according to the good pleasure of his will, the same good pleasure or “goodwill” He had the angels announce to the world on the night of Jesus’ birth. Why? For the praise of his glorious grace, by which he has made us acceptable in the One he loves. It’s only in Christ, the beloved Son of God, that we are made acceptable in God’s sight. And we’re only “in Christ” through faith, not by seeing Him, but by believing in Him as our Savior and Redeemer.

None of that can be seen. It all has to be believed. And you ought to believe it, because God’s word says it’s true. You may have had some bad moments in your life when you didn’t believe everything God’s word had to say. But believe it now, so that you’re not defined by the bad moments, but by the faith that God’s Holy Spirit is working in you even now.

Speaking of those bad moments, while Thomas is known by many Christians around the world for his bad moment, for his doubts, or rather, for his temporary moment of unbelief in that week following Christ’s resurrection, that’s not how he’s known by the Christians in India. Because Thomas went forward in that good confession of Jesus Christ, his Lord and his God, and took the Gospel to India, where many Christians still give the name Thomas to their children, remembering, not Thomas’ worst moment, but the faith that came after that moment, the faith that led him away from his home in Israel to their country, where he preached the word of faith to those who lived in darkness and the shadow of death, with faith firm enough to face the executioner rather than to deny that Christ was the world’s Savior who had risen from the dead. May the Lord bless us all with the faith and perseverance of Thomas! Amen.

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