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The Lamb

Maundy Thursday 
Exodus 12:1-14

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    The lamb was selected on the 10th day of the month.  The lamb was slaughtered at twilight several days later, on the 14th day of the month.  The lamb’s blood was put on the doorpost.  The lamb was eaten.  The people were saved by the blood of the lamb.  

    Note carefully here exactly what it is that the Israelites are being saved from.  They are being saved from the Lord and His judgment of death.  He is the one who is passing through the land to strike down all the firstborn.  It is the Lord’s Passover!  Don’t ever forget that the thing you most need to fear in this life isn’t the devil or the world; it is God whom you are to fear.  The Lord in His judgment is the One from whom you need to be saved!

    The Lord God isn’t a kindly old Grandpa God.  He’s not the type of God who comes to be your fishing buddy or your life coach.  The Lord God is the destroyer of sin and sinners.  He’s the unstoppable force and the immovable object who is not just a little bit bothered by sin, He’s burning with hell-hot anger and hatred against it and against those who do it.  He is a jealous God, visiting the sins on the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him.

    Ponder that the next time you dismiss your sins as nothing, or willfully do something you shouldn’t because you think that God will just forgive you afterwards. The fires of hell say that the Lord God isn’t manipulated like that.  The Lord God launches Himself on the night of the Passover to open a can of divine judgment on those who reject Him and His words.  He brings death to every male firstborn as the price for whatever gets in the way of His being your God.

    However, you won’t see that angry God in the Passover Lamb!  Here you see God carrying out His vengeance in such a way that His people receive mercy.  Take the Lamb, He says, a male without blemish.  This isn’t the time just to get rid of the runt of the litter, to give a token offering.  It must be a spotless lamb, something that is prized and precious, that requires sacrifice to give up.  Kill the lamb at twilight.  Take the lamb’s blood and paint it on the door post and lintel with a hyssop branch.

    Then, eat the lamb.  It must all be consumed, either with the mouth or with fire.  Eat it with bitter herbs, remembering your suffering.  There is to be no leaven, no yeast in the bread, which puffs up.  Have shoes on your feet, clothes tucked in, staff in hand, ready to go on the journey the Lord has prepared for you.  When the Lord arrives He’s going to deliver you.  When the Lord God saw the lambs’ blood on the doorposts of the children of Israel’s houses, He passed over their homes.  They were saved from His wrath, saved from Him.  The Lamb took their place in judgment.

    This is how the children of Israel celebrated the Lord’s Passover every year, until...Good Friday.  For this is what the Passover was always pointing forward to–a fulfillment in Jesus, who saves you from the wrath you deserve eternally because of your addiction and slavery to sin.  Jesus has come to set you from your spiritual taskmasters, and bring you into the Promised Land of the resurrection of the body.

    God the Father Himself is the One who selects His own Passover Lamb during Holy Week.  We saw this choosing of Jesus on Palm Sunday–which is the 10th day of the month!–when the Lamb of God was selected with shouts of “Hosanna!”  As the Passover sacrifice could come from the sheep or from the goats, so this Lamb of God takes away the sins of the whole world, both the sheep who will believe in Him and be saved and the goats who will reject Him and be damned.  This one Lamb is for everyone, for all time—a perfect Lamb, without sin or blemish or spot.

    The Son of God Himself is the Paschal Lamb whose blood is shed.  And please note how the blood of the Passover was to be applied: with the branch of a hyssop.  Remember how it was a branch of hyssop that was used to raise a sponge full of sour wine to Jesus’ lips right before He died.  And there’s also this: the Passover blood of old was painted on the doorposts with a vertical motion, then on the lintel over the door with a horizontal motion.  Do you see?  In doing this, the Israelites made the motions of the sign of the cross in blood.  It all points us to Jesus.

    And this is true also of the slaying of the firstborn.  Here God only punishes one Firstborn, for you.  All the anger and hatred that God has for every sin and against every sinner for all time fell upon His Firstborn and only-begotten Son on the cross.  The God who punishes, whose anger consumes and burns hotter than the surface of the sun, passes over punishing you.  Jesus dies.  You live.  You are saved and set free.  We will sing of it on Easter.

Here our true Paschal Lamb we see, Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree—So strong His love—to save us.
See, His blood now marks our door;
Faith points to it; death passes o'er.
And Satan cannot harm us.  
(LSB 458:5)

    God’s people of old received the benefits of the sacrifice by trusting the Lord’s words and by eating the meal He instituted.  So it is that on this night in which Jesus is betrayed to a hellish death, He takes the unleavened bread of the Passover and declares it to be His body; the cup of wine He declares to be His blood.  Believing Jesus’ words, we eat of the Lamb of God and receive the benefits of His sacrifice, the forgiveness of sins.  Death passes over us and does not touch us.  For the blood of the Lamb is on the doorpost of the church and on our hearts by means of Christ’s preaching and Sacraments.  Taking refuge in Him we are spared; we are safe.

    Jesus is the Firstborn Son who has saved us from the plague of eternal death.  And being baptized into Him who is the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18), we are now treated with the exalted status of firstborn.  Hebrews 12 says this, “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

    That blood of Christ was sprinkled on you in Baptism, doorpost and lintel, on your forehead and on your heart.  And that blood is given into your mouths in the Lord’s Supper, that you may be filled with His life and cleansed by His presence.  Feasting on the body and blood of the Lamb, death, hell, and Satan can no more harm you than they can harm Christ.  They are stingless and toothless against Him.  So, they are stingless and toothless against you.

    And even more importantly, God won’t harm you either.  Because of the Lamb who was slain and who has begun His reign, you are a beloved child of the heavenly Father.  Taking refuge in Christ, there is no more wrath, no more judgment, no more hell; only forgiveness, eternal life, and loving one another as Christ has loved you.

    The Passover month was the beginning of months for Israel.  In the same way the sacrificial death of Jesus marks a new beginning for you.  Let us then purge out the old leaven of sin which puffs us up in pride.  And let us partake of this paschal feast in sincerity and truth.  This is the Lord’s Passover: His Body broken for you and His Blood shed on the Cross for you.  Receive it in faith.  Eat Jesus’ sacrifice.  Be forgiven.  For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to George Borghardt)

We Wish to See Jesus

John 12:12-33
Palm Sunday

    ✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    In the Palm Sunday processional Gospel, the Pharisees said to one another, “We are accomplishing nothing.  Look, the world has gone after Him!”  The Pharisees were rather frustrated.  They hated our Lord and were plotting to kill Him.  They were also plotting to kill Lazarus whom Jesus had just raised from the dead.  The Pharisees had seen how the crowds went out to meet the Lord, shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  The King of Israel!”  It was like witnessing a huge rally for your political enemy right in your own home town.  Everyone wanted to see our Lord who had raised Lazarus from the dead.  And this annoyed and frustrated the Pharisees who were so full of their own righteousness that they could not stand the grace of God that was revealed and given in Christ.

    So, ironically enough, out of the mouth of the Pharisees comes a prophetic word.  You remember how God had done this before with the high priest Caiaphas.  Caiaphas had said that one man should die for the people.  He meant that as a political tactic to maintain the status quo; but God used even his enemy to speak a Gospel truth, that Jesus would die for the people to save them from their sins.  So also here, the Pharisees say, “We are accomplishing nothing.”  That was most certainly true; they were accomplishing nothing by their works before God.  Nor could they do anything to stop the mission of Christ.  Our Lord was firmly set upon His course to the cross.  The world, the devil, and sinful flesh could accomplish nothing against the salvation that He was bringing.

    The Pharisees also said, “The world has gone after Him.”  That, too, was most certainly true.  Not only the Jews who had gathered for the Feast of the Passover, but now even some Greeks who were there–they, too wanted to see Jesus.  “The world has gone after Him,” the world whose sins Jesus came to bear.

    So it is written in Psalm 2, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? ...  The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.  Then He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.’”  God has a sense of humor.  He puts words of prophecy into the mouths of those who oppose Him.  The Pharisees speak truth even though they do not understand it.  There is nothing they can do.  The whole world will be drawn to this Jesus.  God the Father will establish Him as King on the holy hill of the cross.  The Father sits on His heavenly throne, chuckling and laughing at those who are frustrated by His gracious will.

    Philip and Andrew come to Jesus with a request from these Greeks, “We wish to see Jesus.” But our Lord gives an answer which strangely makes no mention of the Greeks and gives no indication that He will speak with them.  Rather, their request causes our Lord to ponder His impending death.  For it was only through His death that the Greeks would ever see Him properly.  Jesus says to Philip and Andrew, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.”

    Throughout the Gospel of John we are told that Jesus’ hour has not yet come, beginning with His very first miracle at the wedding at Cana.  But now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Our Lord is speaking here not first of all about His resurrection but about His suffering.  That is the hour for which He has come into this world.  It is the hour when the righteous anger of God against sin will be shown for what it is.  But it is also the hour that God’s love will be shown for what it is.  Strangely enough, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, is glorified on the cross.

    That is why Palm Sunday has an odd tension to it.  That is why this day is a day of restrained joy.  Jesus enters into Jerusalem as King; yet He rides on a lowly donkey colt.  We join in with the people's shouts of “Hosanna!”; yet we realize that He has come in humility to die.  This King’s glory is to be lifted up in love for the world on the throne of the cross, to lay down His life in this world that you might be lifted up to heaven.  Jesus displays His glory and majesty by being the Groom who will let nothing, not even death, stand in the way of rescuing His bride, the Church.  

    Therefore, Jesus rides into the holy city on a beast of burden.  For Jesus was to be like that donkey, as it is written, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”  Jesus’ soul was troubled here.  For all your burdens were placed upon Him.  He hauled all of your trespasses and anxieties and diseases to that hill outside the city walls, where they were dumped and crushed and obliterated and buried forever.  Jesus took it upon Himself, literally, to make things right for you in the sight of your heavenly Father.

    “We wish to see Jesus,” is the request.  And the answer our Lord gives is to raise up before us His cross.  Our Lord came to do what the sinful mind of man does not expect.  Our Lord came to crucify our wisdom and our expectations, that we might be made truly wise and be given real hope.  Jesus came to be that kernel of wheat which falls into the ground and dies so that the old might be done away with and a new creation might come forth.  He is the kernel of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that all might be drawn to Him. 

    The “death” of a seed is what brings life to the garden.  In much the same way Jesus’ death brings about life for you.  Jesus chooses not to remain a single seed.  He enters into the Garden of Gethsemane, where He anguishes over what is about to come upon Him, where His sweat waters the dirt.  Then, after being lifted up for our sins on the cross, Jesus is taken down to the earth, lifeless and limp.  He is buried in a grave, planted in a tomb which is located in the midst of a garden.  However, Jesus sprouts forth to life on Easter morning.  He produces a harvest of forgiveness and salvation for all who trust in Him.  Through the planting of the one Seed, Jesus, many more seeds are produced, countless people who through Him are brought from darkness to light, from death to life.  Only by first being planted in the depths of darkness and death does Jesus raise us with Himself to light and life.  

    And here’s what that all means for your day to day life: Living in Christ, we are to die to ourselves in this world in order that we may share with Him in His resurrection.  Jesus said, “The man who loves his life will lose it.”  Love is not always a good thing, despite our culture’s ridiculous creed that “love is love.”  The Pharisees are not without love.  They love their own lives.  The fallen nature of man loves to satisfy its own appetites.  The love of money, the love of power, the love of glory in this world and the praise of men–hearts set on these things are dead to God.  The sinful nature loves to have its way and hates to suffer anything.  This world is full of those who are literally loving themselves to death.

    And beware of those who are always talking about “living their best life” –another stupid phrase in our culture.  If what you’re experiencing in this world is really your best life, then there’s a spiritual problem.  For Jesus said, “The man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  Hate is not always a bad thing.  To hate what is contrary to the will of our most gracious God is a holy hatred.  Such hate is the gift of God.  Psalm 97 says, “You who love the Lord, hate evil; He preserves the lives of His saints; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.”  The saints of the Lord are those who are freely given the righteousness of Christ through faith, those who rely not on their own goodness but on His alone.  The wicked from whom the Lord preserves His saints are the devil, the world, and even our own sinful flesh.  To hate the sin which still hangs around our necks is a blessing from God.  If you really want to know a person, find out what it is that they hate.

    Our whole Christian life in this world is a constant return to our Holy Baptism where the Holy Spirit leads us to hate what God hates and to love what God loves.  No one can go through this life without hating some things and loving other things.  The difference between life and death is precisely in what we hate and what we love.  The Pharisees loved their lives.  They loved their acts of righteousness, and they hated our Lord and the righteousness He freely brought to this world.  The Lord grant that we may hate our lives in this world and love Him who is our righteousness, life, and salvation.

    Our Lord had many admirers.  There were many who were fascinated by His words and eager to see the marvelous signs He performed.  Perhaps these Greeks in the Gospel who asked to see Jesus were like that, people who would admire Jesus without really knowing or caring about why He had come.  

    So to make matters clear our Lord speaks of His cross.  His death means the death of the sinner.  His death means judgment on this world.  His death means the driving out of the devil, who is the prince of this world.  Those who would follow Jesus must follow Him to the cross.  They must die with Him and be raised with Him.  They must die to this life and be raised to a new life in Him.

    “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  And our Lord replies, “I’ll see you at Calvary.”  That is where you are to look.  And where is it that you may behold Christ the crucified but in the Sacrament of the Altar?  For the Lord who came in His flesh and blood to Jerusalem comes also to you now in His flesh and blood to give you the forgiveness of sins which He purchased on the cross, riding on the donkey of the bread and wine.  You join in with the Palm Sunday crowd and sing, “Hosanna in the highest!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!”  So hold forth your palms today as symbols of your worship and faithful reception of Christ the King.  For it is Christ’s glory to come into the holy city to give His life for you that you may live.

    ✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to Michael Hill)

St. Mark's Passion, Part V

Mark 15:21-47
March 20, 2024

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    Jesus is led away to be crucified.  But He is so weak from the beatings and the flogging He has endured that He can only carry the cross for a short distance.  The lack of sleep, the loss of blood, the weight of the world’s sin causes Him to fall beneath the burden of the cross.  

    And so a man named Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry Jesus’ cross.  Simon was in the city for the Passover feast and was probably pulled out of the crowd randomly by the Roman soldiers to do this duty.  And yet it wasn’t entirely by chance that this happened.  God chose Simon for this.  You can tell that Simon and his family were part of the church decades later because the names of his sons are included in the Passion narrative--Alexander and Rufus--who would have been known by the early church.  God chose Simon to perform this special task which would give a vivid picture of Jesus’ own words, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up the cross and follow Me.”

    So it is for you.  In your baptism you were chosen by God to bear the cross.  You received the sign of the holy cross on your forehead and on your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.  You are given to carry that cross daily, bearing the burdens of the callings into which God has placed you, sometimes suffering because of faithfulness to the truth of Christ and His saving Word.  

    But notice the fundamental distinction between you and Christ.  Though you take up the cross, yet you do not bear the judgment against sin.  That’s all on Jesus.  He bears the real burden.  He bids you to follow after Him beneath the cross so that you may receive all the benefits of His suffering.  That’s how it is that Jesus can say, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”  Freed by Jesus’ cross from the crushing weight of sin’s curse, we find it to be a light load that brings rest and peace to our souls.    Jesus is taken to Golgotha, the place of the skull.  And there He is offered sour wine mingled with gall to drink.  This is meant to be a bit of an anaesthetic to dull the pain somewhat.  But Jesus won’t drink it.  For He has not come to escape pain, but to endure it fully to redeem us fully.  He will be conscious and lucid in His agony until the end.

    The soldiers crucify Jesus, driving the spikes through His hands and feet, lifting Him up to hang under the weight of His own body.  The stresses of that will cause His blood flow and breathing to begin to fail, eventually leading to slow, torturous asphyxiation.  

    The charge against Jesus for which He was convicted is placed over His head: The King of the Jews.  It would have been common Roman practice to place the charge over a criminal’s head like this.  For those passing by and entering the city, this would be a strong deterrent and disincentive to engage in unlawful behavior.  A clear message is being sent to one and all: “Here’s what happens to thieves and murderers and those claiming to be the king of the Jews in Roman territory.  Don’t try this yourself.”

    And yet Pilate’s charge is also a wonderful proclamation of the truth, a powerful sermon.  For here Jesus is rightly viewed as the true King of the Jews, crowned with thorns, exercising His royal authority and laying down His life for His people to protect and save them.  For the Jews are not only the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The Bible tells us that they are also all those who share the faith of Abraham, who trusted in God’s promises and was thereby accounted righteous in God’s sight.  Everyone then, who believes and is baptized into the promised Christ is a descendant of Abraham.  It is written, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”  Every believer, then, every one of us Christians is a Jew, in the Scriptural sense of the word.  And Jesus is our King, the King of the Jews.

    Jesus is numbered with the transgressors in order to save transgressors by taking their place. He is mocked with the words, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.”  In a sense that is true.  He saves others precisely by not saving Himself; His love prevents Him from doing anything but bearing the full darkness of our sin and sickness and death to set us free.

    Creation itself reveals what is happening here.  From the sixth hour until the ninth hour, that is, from about noon until three o’clock, darkness covers the land.  This is no mere eclipse, which lasts only a few minutes.  This is the powers of darkness being given free reign to do their worst to Jesus.  The full and entire judgment against the world’s sin pounds Him, as He cries out, utterly alone, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  Learn from this the great dreadfulness of your sin.  But, most of all learn from Jesus’ words that hell’s fury has now been taken away from you.  God forsook His Son, so that you would not be forsaken but would live in communion with Him forever.  

    When the centurion sees how Jesus dies, with words of mercy on His lips, commending His Spirit into His Father’s hands; and when the centurion sees the darkness and the other signs in creation, he confesses the truth, saying, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”  Just a few hours earlier the  Jewish high priest Caiaphas had torn his robes in anger and unbelief at Jesus’ statement that He was the Son of God.  But now the outsider, this Gentile centurion shows forth true faith in recognizing what the Jewish leaders did not: the one on the cross is the Son of God.

    This calls to mind an earlier event where Jesus healed the servant of a centurion.  Perhaps it was this very same Roman centurion.  When Jesus on that previous occasion saw the faith of this Gentile who trusted in His word, Jesus stated, “Many [Gentiles] will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.  But the sons of the kingdom [the Jews] will be cast out into outer darkness.  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  

    Of course, not all of the Jews reject Jesus here.  There are many who believe in Him and mourn His death–like the women who are there at the cross.  And there is also Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Jewish ruling council, but who had not consented to what they had done in condemning Jesus.  He had become a disciple of Jesus, though secretly, for fear of His colleagues.  Now He takes courage and goes to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus.  No longer would his respect for Jesus be secret.  But He would not have Jesus’ body carelessly thrown into a pit or a shallow grave by the Romans.  He treats it with reverence and honor.  He asks for the body of Jesus.

    Let us learn to be like Joseph of Arimathea, not only honoring but asking for Jesus’ body.  Martin Luther said that pastors should so preach and teach about the Lord’s Supper that the people would press and require their pastors to serve it to them.  And that truly is asking for the body of Jesus.   In our day Jesus’ body isn’t a corpse in need of burial clothes and a tomb.  In our day His body is risen from the grave and offered to us to eat as the very bread of life in Holy Communion.  So let us also take courage, particularly in those times when you can’t get to church because of illness or hospitalization, and ask for the body of Jesus.  Press your pastor to give you the holy medicine of the Sacrament.  Like Joseph let us continually attend to Jesus’ body and blood.  

   Finally, Jesus is wrapped in a clean linen cloth in His death, in token of the fact that all who die in Him are wrapped in His cleanness and holiness.  Jesus is buried in a new tomb.  For He has come to do something wonderfully new for you by His resurrection.  The tomb in which Jesus is laid to rest is hewn out of a rock, for He Himself is your Rock and your fortress against the power of death.  Take refuge in Him.

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

Abraham Rejoiced to See My Day

Genesis 22:1-14; John 8:42-59
Lent 5

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    Even though we’ve heard today’s Old Testament reading before, it really is still a bit scandalous and troubling that God would ask Abraham to kill his son Isaac.  This is the son he had waited for 25 years, the son of the promise, the one through whom all nations on earth would be blessed, God said.  It seems almost cruel now to command Abraham to sacrifice him as a burnt offering, like an animal.  Is He just toying with Abraham?  What good is a God who asks you to give up what you love, even people you love?  We want a God who will give us our heart’s desires and help us to fulfill our dreams.  But that’s not the God that Abraham had.  The true and living God speaks of denying yourself and taking up the cross, and sometimes He asks you or causes you to give up what is most dear to you–not because He wants to make your life difficult, but because He wants to make your life eternal.  He wants your heart to be set on things above, to have a treasure that will never pass away, to love Him above all else–even above your own children and family.

    When God calls for such sacrifices from you, that’s when what the heart loves and trusts in is revealed.  Think about the things or the people that you enjoy most and are most attached to in this world.  What if you had to choose between them and God, having them or having Him?  It’s hard enough for us to choose divine service when the competition is extracurricular activities or sleep or recreation or work or just when the weather is unpleasant.  What about when it comes to the truly serious sacrifices, when God asks you to give up even money or family or friends?  

    Christians sometimes think that they would never do what Peter did and deny Christ, that they would go to a martyr’s death before that.  And yet the church can hardly even compete with college basketball.  Just wait for the coinciding of March Madness and Holy Week services.  And if sports aren’t a test for you, I’m sure something else will be.  How will we ever be faithful in the big things when even the little things are such a struggle?  Sooner or later you will be asked to give up what you love, in one form or another.  And then you can either say to God: You aren’t good; you shouldn’t do this to me.  I’ve had enough and I don’t want to have anything to do with you any more.  Or, you can say: I don’t understand at all.  But Father, this much is true and certain; I know that your will for me and mine is only good, and I believe that in the end I will be able to see the good, even though I can’t right now.  Dear Father, I believe; help me and save me from my unbelief.

    It’s rather interesting that nowhere in Scripture are we let in on what Abraham was thinking or feeling about God’s command.  There’s nothing about the inner turmoil he must have been enduring.  That’s not the main thing here; his faith is.  Abraham simply walked by faith; he did what God said to do.  The book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham believed that the Lord could and would raise Isaac from the dead–which still doesn’t make it any easier to put the knife to your own son’s throat.  This must have been tremendously heart-wrenching.  In the Scriptures, God calls Abraham “My friend” (Isaiah 41:8).  And a friend is someone who can empathize with you, who knows and understands what you’re going through.  I would suggest that Abraham is called the friend of God in part because at the sacrifice of his beloved son Abraham tasted something of what God Himself would go through.

    God asks Abraham to do this not only for the testing and strengthening of his faith, but also because this is a picture and a prophecy of what God Himself would be doing on the very same mountain some 2000 years later.  Like Isaac, Jesus is the only Son, the beloved Son of the Father, the One long promised and long awaited, born of a woman who conceived in a way beyond human power.  Just as Abraham saddled his donkey, so a donkey would be saddled, too, for Jesus, and He would ride on it into the city of Jerusalem, which was later built here on Mt. Moriah.  As Isaac carried the wood, so Jesus, too, would have wood laid on His back, the wood of the cross for sacrifice.  As Abraham raised the knife to slay his son, so the cross was raised up from the ground to slay the Son of God.

    And there’s one more point of comparison that we should make.  Just as Isaac did not fight his father, Jesus willingly let himself be bound and nailed to the wood in obedience to His heavenly Father.  When this sacrifice is depicted in Christian art, Isaac is generally portrayed as an able and strong boy.  He certainly could have tried to prevent that which His aged father intended to do.  But he doesn’t lift a finger in self-defense. He allows himself to be tied up, not in order to prevent a last-minute change of mind, but because this is what you do with sacrifices: You bind them, you lay them on the altar, and you kill them. Isaac accepts the will of God as preached by his father, and in that he paints for us a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    So it’s not only Abraham the Father who should receive the attention in this narrative, but also Isaac the son.  He “did not open His mouth but was led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7).  And in that, he foreshadowed the much greater Sacrifice, the great patience and restraint which the Lamb of God exercises for us. Jesus, like Isaac, doesn’t raise a finger in His own defense.  They both trust their father; they both trust in God.

    It’s important for us to recognize that Jesus also had to walk by faith.  As a true human being, He had to face suffering and death trusting in His heavenly Father, believing that the Father would vindicate Him and raise Him up, even when by outward appearances He seemed utterly rejected.  The words we pray in Lenten Vespers each week from the Psalms are the words of Jesus, “In you, O Lord, do I put My trust; leave me not, O Lord My God.”  Don’t ever forget this: Jesus’ faith saves you, this commending of Himself into His Father’s hands.  You are saved by Jesus’ believing.  It is this faith of Jesus that the Holy Spirit gives to you, so that together with Christ you also may trust in the Father and commend yourself into His hands.  If you are ever struggling in the faith, just look to Jesus.  Take refuge in Him.  For it is by His faith that you are given the power to believe.

    Abraham didn’t have to go through with killing his son.  Instead of Isaac, God told him to offer up a ram, caught by its horns in a thorny thicket.  In this sense then, you are like Isaac.  You don’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice, because God has provided a substitute sacrifice, the Lamb of God with thorns on His head, willingly caught in the thicket of your sin.  Jesus is sacrificed, and you go free.  You are saved from death, forgiven by the blood of Him who was offered up for you at Golgotha.

    Jesus says in the Gospel, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”  I can’t help but think that it was here on Mt. Moriah that Abraham saw Jesus’ day, that he was given to understand fully the sacrificing of the willing, obedient Son, the meaning of the substitute being offered, the meaning of this being the third day.  As Abraham received his son back from the dead, figuratively speaking, on this day, so did the heavenly Father, literally speaking, on the third day. Abraham laughs with joy, not only to have his son, but also to see the Lord’s salvation.  Abraham saw that God the Father was willing to sacrifice His Son out of immeasurable love for this fallen human race, for him and Isaac, for you and me.  “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

    Finally, Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”  They were ready to kill Jesus for saying that.  He was unmistakably laying claim to being the Lord Himself in the flesh, the great I AM.  It was as though He said: Yes, I am the one who called Abraham from his homeland.  I am the one who gave him the promises.  I am the one who spoke to Moses in the burning bush.  I am the one who led the children out of their bondage in Egypt.  I am that one.  But now I’ve come among you to do something far greater.  For I’ve come to be your Great High Priest and to sacrifice My own self in your place, that you may have an eternal inheritance.  You claim Abraham as your father.  Then rejoice with him, since you, too, have been given to see My day.”

    The God who asked of Abraham the unthinkable is the God who came to do the unthinkable Himself.  The Lord Jesus continues to be your Lamb, just as you sing to Him when you come to His table.  His Body and Blood there are unquestionably “for you.”  And so He Himself is with you; He is on your side.  Like Abraham, you have been made to be the friend of God.  That is a tremendous comfort to hold onto, especially in those times when He asks you to make great sacrifices.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to the Rev. William Weedon and other brother pastors)

Bread King or Bread of Life?

John 6:1-15
Lent 4

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    Today’s Gospel concludes by saying that the people tried to take Jesus by force to make Him king.  They had finally found the leader they were looking for from among all candidates that were out there (a feeling that most of us may not share this election year).  Politics and theology were running close together in the people’s minds.  Jesus had developed quite a following through His teaching and His healing.  Now, by feeding the 5000 in this miraculous way, Jesus was the instant frontrunner to lead the people.  While some may have understood who Jesus really was when they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world,”–referring to the Messiah Moses had prophesied–most seemed to be more interested in the power and the miracles.  They followed Jesus not for forgiveness of their sins, not for reconciliation with God, but rather for free food and health care.  Here’s a guy who could really help their economic circumstances and their medical needs. The salvation they were looking for was deliverance from foreign Roman occupiers.  This is about as close as they could get to an election.  The people had spoken.
    
    Now at this point, Jesus would be the envy of every politician running for office.  His poll numbers were strong, and He had proven he could deliver on his promises.  Church politicians would be thrilled with Jesus, too.  Jesus really seems to have hit upon a successful evangelism program; just look at the crowds!  (Of course, by the end of this very same chapter, after Jesus had talked about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, He went from having thousands of followers to only a dozen.)

    Just because the majority speaks, it doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily right–whether it’s the 99% or the 51%.  The notion of a democratic republic wasn’t handed down from heaven as the way to run states or countries.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is a lousy form of government; it just happens to be the best one available in this fallen world, since power (which inevitably corrupts sinners) supposedly doesn’t get concentrated in the hands of a few.  But majority votes are still sometimes not too far from mob rule, giving the power of the law to the lawless and the immoral and the godless.  In a similar way with the majority in today’s Gospel, other agendas were at work that didn’t belong to Jesus, political agendas that weren’t the Father’s design for His Messiah king.

    That’s why Jesus goes to the mountain all alone and shuns the voice of the people.  For Jesus understands that while presidents and prime ministers are elected by the people, kings are not.  The king is who he is by virtue of his birth, by virtue of his person–regardless of the voice of the people. 

    There is a temptation offered here to Jesus that is not unlike what the devil had offered earlier when he took Jesus up on the mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  “All these I will give you,” the devil said.  But to attain such glory would require a deal with the devil, which our Lord Jesus would never do.  His kingdom is not of this world, it is from above.  And His kingship is not subject to the will of the people but the will of the Father.

    Jesus was all alone on the mountain, which is the way I’m sure Moses felt in the Old Testament reading as the people grumbled against him.  When they were in Egypt, they groaned against their yoke of slavery.  And once liberated, they groaned against the burden of freedom.  And this is right after God saved the children of Israel by opening the Red Sea to them as an evacuation route, and drowning the army of their enemy.  With very short memories, they now tell Moses they would rather be back in Egypt–note just how fickle public opinion can be!  If the Israelites could vote, Moses would surely have been recalled.

    And yet, God does not oust Moses.  The Lord alone is the deciding vote.  He gives the people that which they don’t deserve; in spite of themselves He rains bread from heaven upon them, manna, literally giving them their “daily bread.”  Of course, the children of Israel would later complain even against this generosity of God.  They wished they had more variety in their free meals and not the same old manna every day.

    Likewise in the Gospel, our Lord Jesus provides miraculous bread for the 5000, even for these people who did not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.  For God gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people.  He send rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous, that we may learn to receive His undeserved gifts with thanksgiving.  

    And again notice here how this calls to mind the wilderness temptation of Jesus.  Back then, Jesus would not turn the stones into bread to feed Himself, in faithfulness to His heavenly Father.  But now, perhaps very near the same spot where He had earlier been tempted, Jesus does use His power to produce bread, not for Himself but for others in their need.  Jesus is focused not on Himself but on others in the way of love.

    And this is where we often fall short.  We must confess that we get turned in on ourselves and have sometimes grumbled and complained against God for the way He’s provided for us or hasn’t come through for us as we wanted.  We want God to fit our agenda, and when He doesn’t, we become disappointed or upset.  Too often we let the voice of the majority affect our desires more than the voice of Jesus, the only divine voice of His Word.  It’s the opinion of our peers that drives us, a desire to fit in and keep up with the world, to have the approval of those who are considered important.  We are by nature people pleasers rather than God pleasers.  For this we must repent.

    And so must the church at large, which is constantly facing the temptation of watering down its confession and practices to make itself more amenable to the world–with market driven big box churches and success driven preachers.  We must ever be reminded that Jesus is Lord, not public opinion or financial pressures or human votes.

    And we must also be reminded that God is still at work in the midst of all these things, turning even evil for good.  Even the rebel will of the majority becomes an instrument of the will of God, both for judging and for saving.  You recall when Pontius Pilate placed Jesus and Barabbas before the people, and asked them which one they wanted him to release, there was something of an election.  They shouted for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be crucified.  And the murderer was set free while the Lord of life was sentenced to death.  Though this was a grave injustice humanly speaking, yet it was precisely how divine justice would be carried out.  For Jesus had come to take the place of us sinners, to bear the judgment for sins He did not commit, so that we would be forgiven.  And so the voice of the majority was indeed the voice of God the Father Himself, speaking through the people saying, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”  It was the will of God that His Son die for the people in spite of themselves.  Because of that sacrificial love of God, we Barabbases are released from sin and death.  We are now children of God in Him who is the Son of God.

    When politics and theology become indistinguishable, people die.  In the Gospel, the people were going to take Jesus by force to make Him king.  And in the end the crowds did just that when they forced Him to the throne of the cross, where He was crowned with thorns.  That is where Jesus is lifted up and exalted in all His royal love for us.  It is from the cross that we hear the true voice of God which trumps all other voices:  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”  

    Jesus said in John 6, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever.  And the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”  Jesus is our Manna, given over to the cross for the life of the world, given out to you in Sacrament of the Altar.  

    Thanks be to God for this, that our Lord does not give in to the mobs to become an earthly king.  For His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom to which you belong in baptism.  Jesus is more than a bread King; He is your Redeemer King, the very Bread of Life Himself.  Thanks be to God that His mercy overcomes our sin.  For in spite of our grumbling, our Lord also gives us that which we don’t deserve.  Not only does He give us our daily bread and the things we need to support this body and life, He also gives us the bread of immortality, His own flesh and blood.  Again, Jesus said later in John 6, “I am the Bread of Life.  He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. . .  Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  We have our own greater miracle from Christ right here in divine service: the Bread which is His body multiplying His forgiveness to you so abundantly that it never runs out.  Those who eat here are filled and satisfied with the goodness and mercy of the Lord.

    Let us, then, come continually to where we may truly hear the voice of God–not in majority votes or so-called scientific consensus, but in Christ’s Word, in His sacraments, in His preached Gospel.  Let us gladly hear and learn the words of Jesus, for they are the words of eternal life.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to the Rev. Larry Beane)

Spiritual Battle

Luke 11:14-28
Lent 3, Oculi

✠ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    We usually think of Lent as a time to meditate on the suffering and cross of our Lord, and that is true.  But the Gospel readings for Lent actually focus even more on spiritual warfare with the powers of darkness. These 40 days are very much like the 6 weeks of military boot camp, training to fight the ancient enemy.  The first Sunday in Lent recounts Our Lord’s temptation by Satan in the desert for us.  Last Sunday Jesus healed the demon-possessed daughter of the Canaanite woman.  And this Sunday our Lord is casting out another demon, and then He is accused of being in league with Satan. Lent is about battle.

    The Pharisee’s charge wasn’t quite as strange as it may sound to us.  They were right in recognizing that something supernatural was going on here.  There are only two options: either Jesus was casting out demons by the finger of God or He was doing it by the power of the devil. The idea that Jesus was simply a kind man, a wise rabbi who was trying to show us a better moral way is just not a possibility in Scripture.  The Pharisees recognized that something real and serious was going on.  There were only two options.  Jesus was either a prophet of the God of Abraham, or he was promoting something that was of the devil.

    And what is true for Jesus is true to this day of all prophets, all ministers, and all religions. If someone is not worshiping the Holy Trinity, they are worshiping the devil.  For in truth there are no other gods. There is only the true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who together with the Holy Spirit is one God.  Everything else is merely an impostor.  The pharisees speak of  “Beelzebub” which was the name of a Canaanite god, Baal. They call him ruler of the demons. Jesus doesn’t mince any words and calls him “Satan.”  There are no other gods, no other ways, no moderate middle. If you don’t worship Jesus you worship the devil, even if it’s simply by being an agnostic.  Jesus says, “He who is not with Me is against Me.”  So even though the Pharisees were completely wrong, even though they accused Jesus of casting out demons by Satan, at least they realized what was at stake, what the options were. In that, they were mostly ahead of us.

    Let this be to us a call to repentance.  For we have so often played the mild-mannered Christian, more distressed about cruelty to animals than we are about abortion, more worried about the honor of the American flag than we are of our God, more eager to talk about our favorite politician or celebrity than we are to talk about Jesus, more expert in the things of this world than in God’s Word, and we’ve nearly forgotten what is real and what truly matters and what’s at stake. We’ve preferred the good opinion of our pagan neighbors to their salvation, not wanting them to be annoyed with us or to think us odd or extreme.  We want to fit in and play both sides.  But here is the truth: You either belong to God or you belong to Satan. Those who think they sit on the fence, the undecided who choose the calm, middle way, are as delusional as those who think they can be a non-practicing vegetarian or that a woman can be sort of pregnant. Christianity is not just about being nice and moral; it is founded upon the death of Jesus alone.  Fence-riders belong to the evil one whether they know it or not. Jesus spits them out of His mouth.   It is written in Revelation 3, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.”

    Don’t let the demons tempt you to be moderate and lukewarm about spiritual matters, about sin and forgiveness and Jesus the Savior.  There is no middle ground on such matters, for there is no middle ground in eternity.  And also don’t ever think you’re living in neutral territory.  This world remains a battlefield where the enemy seeks to lure you over to the other side through sin and false belief.  Every sin is ultimately a temptation to forsake the true God and love and trust in another.  The Epistle reading speaks of how there is no place in the Christian life for crude joking, which seeks worldly approval and belittles God’s created gifts.  It speaks of how coveting is idolatry, setting your heart on and putting your confidence in money and things.  And it speaks of how no fornicator has any inheritance in the kingdom of God.  To willfully engage in sex before or outside of marriage, digitally or literally, is to cut yourself off from the God who created marriage.  This is no game.  Be watchful and prayerful.  Be on guard.

    Jesus continues in that same Revelation 3 passage, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

    In those words we begin to see the good news.  God does not give up on you.  God comes to you and seeks you out and calls you back to Himself.  As you repent and turn back to God you are no longer a fence-rider, though you have been tempted that way to be sure.  For you belong to the Lord; you are baptized. And that is no small thing, no minor detail. For Baptism casts out demons. God’s Word and Spirit in the water drives them away.  You will not be spewed out of the Lord’s mouth as you hold onto the words that proceed from the mouth of God.  

    So do not despair. Do not be afraid. Weak as you are, Jesus made Himself weaker. He made Himself a perfect target for all of Hell’s fury. He drew all their hatred, all their violence, all God’s wrath into Himself. He was stronger than the strong man precisely in His weakness and poverty, in His death. He disarmed the strong man by suffering all the strong man’s strength and attacks. Jesus emptied him of every ounce of poison he had, and now the devil has no strength left. He is spent; he is done. He used everything he had to kill Jesus on the cross. And there is no more.  It is finished.  He has no more accusations. The demons are mute in heaven’s courtroom. The blood of Jesus that they shed damned them to Hell.  For they tried to consume Him and destroy Him.  But whoever consumes the Body and Blood of Jesus in an unworthy manner is guilty of the Body and Blood of Jesus. They have their wages and their payback.  They are judged and condemned.  Jesus could not be consumed in that way.  He broke the jaws of those beasts that tried to devour Him.   And so you are declared innocent and holy. There is nothing left to do, nothing left to prove.  You are pardoned. You do not have to face the charges the demons lay against you. There are no witnesses to accuse you. You are released from the power of the accuser, Satan.  God does not recognize or remember your sins. You are free.  You are forgiven and welcomed as the rightful heir and the beloved of the Father.

    Isn’t it marvelous how our Lord works?  The strong man is defeated by His own tactics being used against him!  It’s worth rehearsing this every Lententide: The devil brought sin into the world by tempting the virgin Eve; and so the Lord brought forgiveness into the world by being born of the virgin Mary.  The devil first overcame man by a tree, and so the devil is overcome by the tree of Christ’s cross. Satan bruises Christ’s heel, but with that same heel the devil’s head is crushed. Christ’s blood, spilt at the hands of the evil one, is precisely what pays for and takes away your sin, and therefore it also takes away the power of the devil to accuse you and hold you captive. It is written in Hebrews, “The Son of God Himself likewise shared in our flesh and blood, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime held in bondage.” Christ has divided and conquered Satan’s kingdom by the power of His holy cross.

    Now it is true that the devil is still roaming about this earth seeking someone to devour. He is real and he is dangerous, but as long as you are in the refuge of Christ, you are safe.  For you belong to God. His Name is upon you in baptism. His promise will not fail. He has not forgotten what He has done, whom He has declared you to be.  You are given to hear the Word of God.  Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it, holding onto it in faith.  For that Word is powerful to drive out the demons, to declare sinners to be a saints. And you are given to eat the Body of Jesus. You drink His Blood. This miraculous eating and drinking is not done in rebellious unbelief like the demons, but in faith.  And so as you consume Him you are given to share in the life of Him who conquered the grave.  This eating and this drinking proclaims the glorious, life-giving death of Jesus. It proclaims the kind of death He died: a  death to end death, a  death that stands in for us, a death that draws us to Him, that destroys the gates of Hell, and shuts the devil’s mouth. This crucified One will come again. For He is truly alive in the body.  He gives Himself as food and drink for your body and soul, to make you whole, to make you His.  In this eating and drinking, He consumes you with His love. The Lord joins you to Himself. You are at one with God, in communion with Him.  All that is His He gives to you; His righteousness innocence, blessedness, His good works.  Everything.  It is a sign of His love for you and a foretaste of things to come.

    So, it can also be said of you: blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which nursed you; but more than that blessed are those who brought you to the font, that you might be born of God in the body of Jesus.  For in this way, the Stronger Man became your refuge.  The demons cannot have you.  You belong to the Lord.  

✠ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠ 

(With thanks to David Petersen)

Bread for the Dogs

Matthew 15:21-28
Lent 2

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    The Canaanite woman comes to Jesus alone–no husband, no mother, no sister, no friend to be with her in making her plea.  She comes all by herself to seek the Messiah’s help.  You can imagine how that would have been a bit intimidating, to address such a rabbi in public.  “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.”  Some of you parents and grandparents have children or grandchildren who are in trouble or danger of one type or another, physically or spiritually, or both.  You know the anxiety and the concern this woman had for her child and the passion of her prayers.  She had probably consulted all the doctors and specialists.  Jesus is her final and greatest hope.  

    Think of it that way.  Imagine you had a child or grandchild who had a life-threatening disease, something that was going to be terminal.  But there is a doctor who has developed a new procedure and treatment that could cure them.  Imagine if you were somehow able to talk to this doctor in person and make your case and ask for help.  You’d be passionate in pleading your cause and begging for him to pay attention to your need.  It wouldn’t matter if you had to go to great lengths, and even to be embarrassed in the process.  It would be worth it.  This is how it is with the Canaanite woman.  With boldness she prays and calls out to Jesus; and she does so with faith that He is the Messiah, for she refers to Him as “Lord” and “Son of David.”  We might think that Jesus would be moved by such courageous prayer.  “But,” it is written here, “(Jesus) answered her not a word.”

    Where is her husband in all of this?  What has her husband said?  Has he been silent also?  Does he blame her or the daughter for the demon oppression?  Or does he blame himself?  Is he ashamed of them; is he afraid?  Where are the people who should be helping this woman?

    Her first cries may have been bold, but it doesn’t seem to matter.  She is quickly put in her place.  Not only has she come alone, but the Lord also leaves her alone.  He ignores her and answers not a word.  He silently walks on by.

    There is a fine but important line between temptation and testing, between last week’s Gospel and this week’s.  When the devil tempts you, he is trying to lead you away from God.  When the Lord tests you, he is strengthening you and drawing you closer to Himself.  However, by outward appearances, it can be hard to see which is which.  They feel the same.  Even scarier is the temptation to believe that the Lord isn’t really good to you, that He’s moody and erratic in his character like us.  

    Notice that Jesus did not say “no” to the woman’s prayer.  He knows her faith, better than she knows it herself.  He knows what He is eventually going to do.  But for the moment He is silent, and in His silence, trust in Jesus is tested and purified.  Does she trust Him when He seems to ignore her?  Do you trust Jesus when your prayers appear to be unheard and unanswered, when He seems to be turning His back on you and offering you no help at all?

    Faith trusts not in what it sees or experiences.  It clings to Christ alone.  Faith clings to Jesus’ death and resurrection alone and not to whether or not God seems to be coming through for you at the moment.  Even if God never responds to a single word of our prayers in this life, even if He reserves all of His “yes’s” for the resurrection from the dead on the last day, even if all we receive in this life is suffering and silence, faith says, “so be it.”  We still have Christ and His kingdom and His forgiveness and His soon-to-be-fulfilled promises.  We have God’s “yes” even when the silence seems to say “no.”

    Jesus Himself would experience the silence of God the Father in his own ears.  He prayed on the cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” And the Father was silent.  Hell is the place where God is silent, where there is no Word from Him to give life or comfort.  No one came forth to answer Jesus’ “why” question.  Most of His friends and family had forsaken Him, too. There was only the terrible silence of God’s judgment against us, laid on Jesus. We too are given sometimes to hear the silence of God, not as punishment (since Christ endured that for us), but to stretch and strengthen our faith in Him who hung in silence for us.

    The disciples seem to be bit uncomfortable about all this, though it’s unclear exactly why.  Are they embarrassed by her because she keeps crying out and is a nuisance to their comfort, like a panhandler asking for money?  Or are they embarrassed because our Lord is not acting in a way that seems proper to them?  Are they confused by what appears to be His lack of compassion?  Do they want Him to show His power, to prove that He is the Messiah and help her?  Whatever it is, they intervene on her behalf, asking Him to do something to resolve the situation.

    However, just because you have a lot of people praying for you doesn’t mean you’re necessarily more likely to get what you want.  Prayer is about being conformed to God’s will, not God being conformed to your will.  It is good for us to pray for one another; for that is a part of how we love one another and exercise our faith in Christ.  But prayer is powerful not because of our praying but because of the One we are praying to.

    Jesus responds to the disciples’ prayers, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  The woman had addressed Jesus with the faith of an Israelite; but she was still a Gentile, not part of God’s chosen people.  Jesus won’t let her forget that.  And yet, Jesus does not say that He won’t help this poor woman.  He simply reminds her that He had come first to the Jews.  Making disciples of all the Gentile nations would come after His death and resurrection.  

    This is the second way in which God tests and tries our faith in order to strengthen it.  He acts as if we are rejected.  He won’t let us forget that our own merits and qualifications and family lineage are not what give us a place in His kingdom.  Christ teaches us to trust in nothing but Him– not our prayers, not the prayers of the pious and holy, or the saints in heaven, but only in Jesus.

    Now she comes and falls down before Him, desperate and fully submissive, “Lord, help me!”  It is the barest and yet most heartfelt prayer.  And what does Jesus say in reply?  “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”  

     Now that insult is softened a bit by His use of the diminutive word, “little.”  Jesus might well have meant something like a lap dog, something like that which a trendy socialite would carry around in her purse, a support animal.  But still, it’s an insult.  Lacking the presence of her husband, it could actually be taken to mean something far worse: a dog who lets men use her for money.  Who else has she thrown herself down in front of?  How did this demon come into their lives in the first place?

    Demons rarely come uninvited.  We have to deal with them because with every sin, we dangle our fingers in shark-infested waters.  The misuse of the internet can be a portal for demons.  Willfully sinning and compromising what you know to be right can invite the powers of darkness.  To harden your conscience to any sin, so that you can supposedly enjoy your sin and then repent later is to invite them in as well.  There are no victimless crimes, no small sins without consequences.  What do we think of people who don’t properly store their guns or dangerous chemicals in the presence of children?  The same is true with spiritual dangers.  Not only our own lives but also the lives of our daughters, our sons, our spouses, and our loved ones are at stake.  Let us repent of our failings and seek the Lord’s mercy and protection from all evil.

    The Canaanite woman is likely aware of how Jacob wrestled all night with God, as in the OT reading.  She also knows her own unworthiness to demand things of God.  And so she says, “Yes, Lord.”  Yes, I am a dog.  But then she shows not only a persistence as great as Jacob’s, but also a keener insight into God and His promises.  No, she is not one of the children, but she does belong in the house.  She doesn’t want the children’s bread anyway; she wants the Master’s bread, and that belongs to His pets as well as to His children.  “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their Master’s table.”  She is not a sheep of Israel or a child, but neither is she a pig or some wild animal.  She belongs in the house.  He is her Lord.  Even an apparent insult is a precious Word of God to her, and by faith she holds Jesus to that Word.  Like Jacob, she won’t let Him go until she receives a blessing.  Jesus marvels at her faith and rewards it.  Her daughter is healed.

    The circumstances of the affliction or the location of her husband don’t matter.  This woman needed a Savior, an advocate with the Father, someone who would send the demons away and provide the bread that gives life.  She found all of that in Jesus of Nazareth.  She held God to His promises even more fervently than Jacob.  She contended with God and man in Christ and prevailed.  Her faith was great because Jesus was everything for her. Faith is great that clings to a great Jesus.  And He is indeed greater than the Law that separated Jew from Gentile, greater than the demon that possessed the Canaanite’s little girl, greater than your sin and your death.  

    God’s Law, of course, calls us something far worse than “dogs.”  It calls us sinners, ones who have played with fire and danced with demons far too often.  Let us acknowledge this.  Repent and throw yourself upon the mercy of Christ with the Canaanite woman.  “Yes, Lord, I am, a poor miserable sinner; but you came into the world to save sinners, and so I trust in You and will not turn my heart from You but will cling to You persistently for deliverance from Satan and sin, for full forgiveness and new life.”  The Lord Jesus not only can save you, He has saved you.  He was attacked by the powers of darkness for you and in your place to release you and set you free.  You are the apple of His eye, His holy and beloved ones, His radiant and forgiven children.  Trusting in Christ you don’t simply eat the crumbs that fall under the table, you have a place reserved for you at God’s table as His sons and daughters.  Here is the cure to heal your soul and to send the demons away.  Come, receive the Bread of Life at the table of the Master, His body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to David Petersen and William Cwirla)

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