Mark 10:32-45

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

When it comes to religion, we fallen human beings tend to get it all backwards.  We think that God created the world so that He would have people to serve Him and wait on Him (as if He needed anything), when in fact He created the world and humanity so that He might serve people and wait on them with His good gifts.  We think that church is about what we do and give to God to keep Him pleased with us, when in fact church is really about what God does and gives to us because of Jesus, in whom the Father is already well pleased with us.  And when it comes to our good living and our good works, we tend to think that those deeds are to be directed upward to God, when in fact they are to be directed outward to our neighbor.  

We see an example of this with James and John in the Gospel.  They were in Jesus’ inner circle.  Along with Peter, they alone had witnessed the transfiguration on the mountain.  They were His closest disciples.  But James and John came to think that their standing with Jesus was based not on His choosing of them but on who they were and what they had done for Him.  And so with this self-sufficient attitude they come to Jesus to try to cash in on their good works.  “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.”  Imagine talking to Jesus like that!  I can just picture the smirk on His face when He heard that–sort of like when a person today prays, “God, I’ve stuck with you all these years; I’ve lived the best way I know how.  It’s time for you to come through for me now.  Do this or that for me.”  

Jesus easily could have blasted James and John right then for their self-focused religion and their presumptuousness and conceit.  But instead He says, “Hmm.  What do you want me to do for you?”  They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand the other on Your left, in Your glory.”  They figured Jesus was going places.  And they were hitching their wagon to Him.  They wanted to be first in line.  They aspired to be His top advisers and top power brokers when Jesus got to be in charge.  This is like those today who use religion as a means for self-advancement and self-fulfillment.  It’s not so much about loving God as it is a way to have a successful and happy life.  Church is just part of the formula of getting where you want to be in life.  It’s one of things you’ve got to do to get blessed in this world.

Jesus was indeed going places.  But James and John didn’t grasp where it was that Jesus was going, even though He had just told them.  Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask.  Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”  Jesus there is referring to His suffering and cross.  He would drink the poisonous cup of judgment against the world’s sin.  He would be swept away in the cold flood of death.  There were two people who would be placed at Jesus’ right and Jesus’ left hand–namely, the two criminals who were crucified with Him.  They were the ones for whom those places had been prepared.

James and John wanted to be with Jesus in His glory.  But it is Jesus’ glory to die for miserable sinners in order to save them.  It is His glory to lay down His life that we may live.  It is His glory to be the God who is love, who gives Himself completely for us that we might be drawn in to His loving embrace.  Referring to the time of His death, Jesus said, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. . .  And if I am lifted up from the earth [on the cross], I will draw all men to Myself.”  

If you want to share in Jesus’ glory, then, you must share in His death.  You must die to yourself and your desires.  You must become like a death-row criminal before God, with no merit or worthiness of your own, with nothing to give and everything to receive. You must be emptied of your righteousness so that Christ may fill you with His righteousness and His life.  

Jesus said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”  God doesn’t need your service; He’ll get along just fine without your good works.  Besides, what can you truly give to the God who is the Creator of all things and the source of everything good?  Jesus came not to get something from you but to give something to you, to give His life as the ransom price for your soul.

For you were kidnaped, captured by the devil and the power of the grave.  They demanded a price that neither you nor any other creature could pay for your release.  In time you would have been executed by your abductors and given over to eternal death.  But Christ came to pay your ransom.  He paid not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.  He offered His life for yours.  In this way He not only set you free, but in the end He annihilated and destroyed your kidnappers by the power of His resurrection.  All this He did purely by grace, as a gift, for you.

So make sure you don’t get it backwards.  By nature we want to receive from others and give to God, right?–have others serve us while we do our personal, spiritual thing for the Lord.  But in Christ we get it right: we receive from God and give to others.  You need not spend all your time trying to please God; you are already pleasing to Him in Jesus.  The thing that truly makes God happy is for you to trust in His goodness and to believe in His Son in whom He is well pleased.  The true worship of God that glorifies and pleases Him is faith, simply to receive His love and forgiveness and life and to extol and praise and give thanks for these gracious, unmerited gifts.  

Jesus gave up His life at Calvary, and now He gives out His life in preaching and the Sacraments.  That’s why what we’re doing now is called divine service–Gottesdienst in German, God’s service.  That term puts the focus on the primary thing, namely, that Christ Himself is here serving you.  Jesus is still the One who comes not to be served but to serve, to give Himself to you for your good, your redemption.

And here’s a key point from today’s Gospel:  Jesus’ servanthood doesn’t stop here in church.  It continues through you out there in the world.  Just as God uses ordinary things like water and words and bread and wine to give His saving gifts, so also He uses ordinary Christians in your ordinary stations in life as a means by which He serves the world.  In this sense, you Christians are God’s Sacraments to the world.  Christ is present in, with, and under you His people to show forth His love to the neighbor.  Jesus is active through you to serve others.

Martin Luther famously put it this way: Christians live outside of themselves.  You live in God by faith, and you live in your neighbor by love.  By faith you get to stand in Jesus’ place and receive His righteousness as your own.  By love you get to stand in your neighbor’s place and make his needs your own.  Faith looks up to God and offers Him nothing; love looks down to the neighbor and offers Him service.  A Christian receives God’s Service in church and then gives God’s service to his neighbor in whatever stations of life God has put him.  

So if you want to know what God wants you to be doing, consider the callings into which God has placed you–as a husband or wife, as a parent or child, as an employer or employee, as a ruler or a citizen, as a preacher or hearer.  Then apply “Love your neighbor” to those specific divine callings.  Then you will see all the ways in which He desires to serve others through you.  No longer will His command to love be bland or generic but specific and concrete.  It will sound more like this:  “Be an efficient, hardworking, and thorough employee or student.”  “Be honest and fair in your business dealings.”  “Listen carefully to the sermon; give a proper offering.”  “Make your bed, and help with the dishes.”  “Pay your taxes.”  “Take time to listen and talk to each other.”  “Be there for your children, speak about the Word of God with them, teach them about Jesus the Savior.”  

In your various vocations and stations in life, ordinary and mundane though they may be, Jesus is still giving His life for the world through you who are members of His body.  He calls you to offer up your bodies as living sacrifices for the sake of one another.  As your sinful nature is put to death in acts of service, Christ works life and good for your neighbor, just as He worked the ultimate life and good by offering up His own flesh for sin on the cross.  Through His Church, Jesus continues to be the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve.

There is one final benefit to this understanding of vocation and service, and that is that it always drives us back to Christ.  For the more we see what we are called to do in our daily duties, the more we recognize how far we have fallen short of our callings and how much we need Jesus’ forgiveness.  This teaching reveals how the sinful nature hangs on to us and doesn’t want to honor the spouse or wipe the child’s runny nose or give 10% in the offering plate or work hard for that miserable boss.  The doctrine of vocation drives all self-righteousness out of us and leads us to repentance where we are again nothing but beggars with empty hands ready to receive the service only Christ can give.

Jesus told James and John, “You will drink the cup I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized.”  So it is also for you.  You have been baptized in Christ’s baptism, cleansed by His death.  And today He again gives you to drink of His cup.  Because it was a cup of judgment for Jesus, it is now a cup of mercy for you, the cup of His own life-giving blood.  Receive it gladly.  Live in the freedom of Him who gave His life as a ransom for you.  His life is yours.

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

Leviticus 16; Matthew 4:1-11
Lent 1

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

Pretty much everyone knows what it means to be a scapegoat.  It means to be blamed for something that you didn’t do, or at least that you only had a very small role in.  A scapegoat bears the full consequences for someone else’s mistakes.  When a sports team loses, often one person in particular will be blamed–just ask the former Packers special teams coach.  When things go wrong at work or in our family, when a crisis or a tragedy occurs in the world, one of the first things that happens is scapegoating, finding someone to blame and to punish–it’s all the fault of my co-worker or my parents or this or that political leader.  We are experts at this, passing blame onto others so that we don’t get held accountable ourselves.  This ability goes all the way back to Adam, who blamed Eve for eating the forbidden fruit.  Eve herself blamed the devil.  

We usually think of scapegoating, then, as a bad thing, an unfair thing.  But the term, of course, originates in the Bible as something that God instituted and commanded.  When the Lord does it, it is actually a good and blessed thing for us.  So let us consider today how God engages in scapegoating, not to avoid blame–since He most certainly has none–but so that He can take the blame away from us and bear it Himself on our behalf.  It all begins in today’s Old Testament reading where the observance of Yom Kippur is described.  

Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement.”  Though God had commanded many different sacrifices in the Old Testament, on Yom Kippur, something special would happen.  Only on this day, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies behind the veil in the tabernacle, bringing with him with the blood of slaughtered animals to make atonement for the people.  The blood would be sprinkled on the mercy seat above the ark of the covenant.  Through the promise God attached to these sacrifices, He was merciful to His people and covered their sins.  

All of the sacrifices of the Old Testament were opportunities for God’s people to look forward in faith to the coming of His Son to be their Savior.  Without the shedding of blood–Christ’s blood–there would be no final and complete forgiveness of sins.  All the blood that was shed in Old Testament times was meant to foreshadow the blood that Christ would shed upon the cross in order to deal with man’s sin once and for all.

The Day of Atonement, then, is really all about Jesus, especially the part about the goats.  You recall that two goats were to be selected and presented before the Lord.  One would be sacrificed; but the other would not.  Instead, the high priest would lay his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the people, and in this way put all their sins on the goat.  Then this scapegoat would be sent away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man, presumably to perish there in the desert along with the transgressions of the people.  

This is particularly interesting in light of today’s Gospel.  For just like the scapegoat, we find Jesus sent out in the wilderness, fasting for 40 days and nights, even as Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.  And just as the scapegoat had become the bearer of Israel’s sin, so Jesus here bears the sins of the world.

For Jesus had just been baptized.  Though He was without sin, yet Jesus submitted to John’s baptism, standing shoulder to shoulder with sinners, that He might be our substitute and stand-in.  There in the water God the Father made Jesus the scapegoat, laying on His head the guilt of the world, which He would take and carry away.  

And just as it was someone suitable who was to lead the goat into the wilderness in the Old Testament, it is written that the Holy Spirit immediately led Jesus up into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  It is the God’s will that He endure this for us.  Jesus does all of this in our place.  Whereas Adam had succumbed to the devil’s temptation, whereas the children of Israel had grumbled and been unfaithful in the wilderness, whereas we all too often give in to the desires of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature, Jesus did not.  He took everything that the devil threw at Him and prevailed, for us.  He was and is entirely without sin.  

And please note that Jesus does this without using any of His divine powers.  Don’t think this was easy for Him.  Why do you think angels had to tend to Him at the end?  It wouldn’t be of much comfort to us if Jesus had done this with a brush of His almighty hand as God the Son.  Instead He humbles Himself to do this as one of us, our representative, as the Son of Man–weak, hungry, alone, face to face with the devil.  He even allows Satan to cart Him around–to the pinnacle of the temple, and then to an exceedingly high mountain.  Jesus uses nothing but the Scriptures to fight with.  And He wields the sword of the Word powerfully, skewering the devil and fighting off and defeating the him at every turn.  

“If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”  “Go ahead and give in to your self-seeking desires.  Serve your own appetites.  Who cares what your Father has said.  A little bread is no big deal.”  We would give room to the devil’s words, dialogue with Him, and perhaps even give in.  “You know, that’s true.  I’m not sinning by providing a little bread for myself.”  But Jesus stands firm and is not moved.  His food is to do the Father’s will, which means self-sacrifice.  And so for us, in our stead He simply replies, “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Strike one for the devil.

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.  For it is written, ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and ‘In their hand they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”  The devil can play the Scripture-quoting game.  Only for him, it’s just that: a game, a way of shrouding his temptation and making evil and falsehood appear to be good and holy.  Don’t think that just because someone quotes Scripture that they’re using God’s Word rightly.  Every false prophet uses the Bible.  Jesus sees through the devil’s game.  To put God the Father to the test, to ask for signs and miracles, to make Him give you evidence that He’ll really protect you and be true to His Word–that is to act not in faith but in unbelief.  It’s to put yourself above God, making Him prove Himself to you.  For our deliverance, Jesus replies, “It is written again, ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’” Strike two.

Finally, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, saying, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”  “You don’t have to suffer and go to the cross.  Let’s team up and you can get to the glory right now.”  We know that temptation to take the path of least resistance, to follow the crowd and avoid offending people, to take the easy way out rather than the narrow way.  But on our behalf, Jesus says, “Away with you Satan!  For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Strike three.  The devil’s out.

The good news for us today is that because Jesus was there as our stand-in, being tempted in our own flesh and blood, His victory over the devil now counts as ours, too.  Whatever the devil had accomplished through the temptation in the Garden of Eden, Jesus has completely undone in His own sinless temptation.  That’s what the hymn is all about when it says, “But for us fights the Valiant One, whom God Himself elected.  Ask ye who is this?  Jesus Christ it is.  Of sabaoth Lord, and there’s none other God.  He holds the field forever.”  On this wilderness battlefield, the devil has been routed.  Through faith in what Christ has done, the sin of Adam your father is no longer what’s most true about you; now the faithfulness of Christ your Brother is your true identity before the Father.  You are children of God through faith in Him.

In all of this, Jesus is our great High Priest, the one who makes sacrifice for us to rescue us–except that Jesus is both the sacrificer and the sacrifice.  The blood He sprinkles on us in baptism to cleanse us is His own.  He is both goats to accomplish our Day of Atonement.  First, He is the one cast into the wilderness, actively obeying His Father’s will in our place, who was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.  Then, bearing all of our sins He is the second goat, passively being offered up on the mercy seat of the cross.  Out of great love for you, Jesus has willingly made Himself to be your scapegoat.  In Him you are free from blame.  And in Him you are free from the need to blame others.  Jesus has covered it all, for you.  

Therefore, since we have such a High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, and who stands before the throne of the Father in heaven as our mediator, let us come boldly to the throne of grace–let us come boldly to the altar in faith–that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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

Ash Wednesday
Matt 6:1-6, 16-21

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

There was no internet or social media when our Lord preached today’s Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount.  The average person didn’t dream of “going viral,” and merchants didn’t tell people to “be sure to like us on Facebook and Twitter.”  There were no YouTube personalities and Instagram celebrities.

But even though technology has changed, human nature hasn’t.  In every decade and century and millennium, the fallen old Adam craves attention and loves to be seen by other people in order to be praised by them. The same thing that is true now was true in the first century–we naturally seek reward and approval from others more than God.

Today we call it “virtue signaling”–doing certain things publicly and for show to indicate that you’re a good person and that you support the right things.  In a lot of ways, it’s the contemporary version of being a Pharisee–wearing your righteousness on your sleeve so that others will see you and notice you.  But our Lord says today to beware of practicing your righteousness to be seen by other people.  If that is your motivation for doing such things, then “you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”  For if the goal is a dopamine rush for someone noticing you, well, you have your reward.  But that good feeling only lasts a little while.  It’s not a treasure that endures

.

The righteousness that our Lord offers to us instead is not a passing and phony good feeling but rather eternal life and communion with Him.  Instead of minutes or hours, it lasts forever.  Jesus came to give us this righteousness as a free gift.  And as a result of this gift, we are freed up to do truly good works for the right reasons.

The Old Adam in us is a hypocrite who does religion and good works lovelessly, for himself.  He doesn’t give to the needy because his neighbor is in need; rather he does it in order to “sound the trumpet before [him], that is to say, to “toot his own horn.”  That’s why Jesus says not even to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing when you give.  The old Adam doesn’t pray with his eyes focused upwards on God, but sideways on the neighbor and what he thinks.  That’s why Jesus says, go into your room and close the door when you pray.  The old Adam doesn’t fast and engage in self-denial for the sake of leading a more disciplined Christian life but in order to look super spiritual.  That’s why Jesus says to wash your face and anoint your head and get yourself all put together like usual when you fast.  And of all these good works Jesus says: Let it be in secret.  Trust that God the Father sees.  Let your reward be from Him and not from man.

And I should add another warning here.  The Old Adam can even twist these Gospel words. He says, “Well, since people often do these good works for self-serving reasons, I’m not going to be a hypocrite.  My solution is that I’m not going to give special attention to any of these spiritual disciplines.  No danger of me praying in front of others or fasting or giving away my money to charity and church.  I’m just going to do my usual other stuff.”  But that’s just falling into the ditch on the opposite side of the road.  Jesus doesn’t speak of these things as if they’re optional.  It’s not if but, “When you do a charitable deed...”  “When you pray...”  “When you fast...”  So consider how you will do these things, not only during Lent, but beyond as well–how you will give to support the ministry of the Gospel and your neighbor in need; how you will engage in daily prayer and what resources you might use to do that; how you will discipline your body through fasting and self-denial and bring it into subjection.  Beware of letting the abuse of these practices cause you to abandon them.

Our Lord came to crucify the Old Adam in us, and to give us a new life in Christ, who is the New Adam–to give us a renewed self that is motivated by true righteousness and actual self-giving love.  Though we inherit a mortal curse from our father Adam, we are given immortal blessing in our brother Jesus.

The name “Adam” is closely related in Hebrew to the word “adamah” – meaning “dust or dirt”  He was created from the dirt, and so that is his name.  The Word of God is clear for him and for all of us who have fallen with Adam, “Dust you are and to dust you shall return.”

The ashes that are applied to you on this day are a reminder of that.  But they are more than that.  For ashes are not merely dust; they are what’s left after something has been burned.  And so it is that they remind us of the sacrifices of old, the burnt offerings.  Those burned animal sacrifices were performed in view of the once-for-all, final sacrifice of Jesus, who suffered hell for us to redeem us.  That’s why those ashes are in the shape of a cross.  They are a sign of repentance–not only the sorrow over sin, but also the turning away from sin toward Christ who forgives us and sets us free.  The ashes are more than just dust, for they proclaim the sure and certain hope we have that we will be raised from the dust in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.

So we receive the ashes on our bodies, not as a work of righteousness to parade before men.  It is not virtue signaling, but an act of humble honesty.  It is an admission of guilt and a cry for help as we stand at the edge of our graves, teetering between life and death.  But above all it is a statement of faith in the One who conquered the grave.  And so on this day we cry out, “Lord, have mercy; Jesus help!”

And the Lord does indeed help us; He comes to our rescue.  For He redeemed you and called you by name, when His name, the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was placed upon you–when, not only your head, but your very soul was washed in baptismal water, cleansed, and given the gift of eternal life.

That’s why we have the ancient custom of tracing that sign of the cross on your forehead at your baptism, as we say in the baptismal liturgy: “Receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”  Remember that as you wash off the ashes later.  You are cleansed in Christ, marked and signed and redeemed by His holy cross.

It is also the custom for the pastor to make the sign of the cross upon your forehead on your deathbed.  The sign of the cross is even made on your casket at your burial, tracing the sign of the holy cross upon you one more time until the Crucified One rouses you from your body’s slumber and raises you in the flesh to everlasting life, which is the fulfillment of your baptism.

Believing and living in this truth, we are freed from being dependent on the clicks and the likes and the back-patting and the praise of people; we are freed to be God-pleasers rather than man-pleasers, storing up treasure not on earth but in heaven.  Instead of signaling our own virtues, we point to and praise the virtues of our Savior, who sacrificed all to win you back through the hidden and secret means of the cross.  Hidden in secret beneath the goriness of the crucifixion is the glory of God and the love of God for you.  The Father sees in secret and honors His Son’s work, and He now reveals openly the mystery of the cross through His Word.  Through the foolishness of the preaching of Christ crucified, He saves you who believe.

So trust in Him.  Trust that He sees you and knows you and that He will give you openly the reward of Christ on the Last Day.

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

Luke 8:4-15
Sexagesima

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

In His parable about the sower and the seed, Jesus is teaching us again about the kingdom of God.  Through the common symbols in this story–a farmer, seeds, various kinds of soil–He is teaching us about higher and greater things.

As we move farther and farther away from being an agricultural society though, and as children are less educated, especially about where food comes from, you wonder how long it will be before future preachers will have to explain what a seed even is.  Then again, if you have never seen a seed germinate and sprout, it may actually add to the wonder of our Lord’s story.  For what if you knew nothing about seeds, and I handed one to you, and told you that if you put it in the dirt and put water on it, in a few decades it could possibly feed 1000 people?

You might think that this sounds like superstition; it doesn’t sound possible.  For how does a little seed know what to do?  Where do the stem, the roots, and the leaves come from?  And what about the fruit?  And how does it seem to work perfectly all the time – if it has the right conditions to grow?

The original listeners of our Lord’s story all knew that if you plant seeds, they will grow and become food, if they were placed in good soil and watered.  People were more connected to where food came from.  They didn’t just figure that it magically appeared on the store shelves.

But what a wondrous thing a seed is if you’ve never seen or heard about it before!  Many of us planted seeds in a little paper cup in school when we were children, perhaps a sunflower seed.  We observed with wonder as the little stem burst forth out of the dirt and started to grow leaves.  And if we stuck with it long enough, the sunflower might have grown to be taller even then our dads, with a flower bigger than a grown-up’s face – and in time, it would have a bunch of new seeds in the middle – which we could plant and start the process again – with no limit to the potential number of plants that would come from that original seed.

This sense of wonder should equally apply to the Word of God.  For the seed in our Lord’s story symbolizes the Word of God.  Just as the little seed contains microscopic DNA instructions embedded in the cells, which start working like a computer program when water signals the seed to do its thing – so too does the Word of God contain power – true power to bear everlasting life by germinating faith in Christ.  The DNA of salvation is carried within the preached Word of God.  How it works exactly, we don’t know any more than the original hearers of Jesus knew how seeds germinate and mature.  They didn’t know about DNA in the first century.  But they knew that the seed had some kind of hidden power: power to feed an countless people – so long as there was water and good soil.

The Kingdom of God also begins with water: baptismal water that sets in motion the activation of the Word of God.  Water and the seed of the Word are placed onto and into the dirt.  And you are that dirt.  For you are sons and daughters of Adam who was created from the dirt and dust of the ground.  From this watered Seed faith sprouts.  It starts out small.  Its beginnings are humble.  But it grows.  And with the right conditions, a seed will transform into a large plant, multiplying itself a hundredfold.

In our Lord’s story, the sower of the seed tosses it everywhere.  He doesn’t discriminate.  He doesn’t try to predict what soil will ultimately be good soil.  Likewise, preachers do not discriminate.  We cannot predict who will hear the Word and come to faith.  We cannot see into hearts.  We cannot point to any group or category of person and project who will be good soil and believe, and who will ultimately prove to be bad soil, and the Word of God will die in their hearts.  We don’t know, so we just sow our seeds everywhere, recklessly and at times desperately.  Sometimes we preach convinced that nobody is listening, that nobody cares, that our words are being wasted.  But the Word, of course, is never wasted.  It carries out the purposes of God regardless of appearances.  And when we least expect it, sometimes in surprising ways, the Word takes root and grows in the hearts of our hearers.

First, Jesus speaks of the seed sown “on the path.”  It was trampled on, like those who mock the Word of God and try to trample it down through lies and distortions, hardening people’s hearts to what it says like a footworn path.  The seed was carried away by birds.  This is like the devil coming and snatching away the Word of God because it never had the chance to take root.  

Second, Jesus speaks of other seed that falls amid rocky soil.  It doesn’t get enough moisture and dies.  This is like those who initially hear the word “with joy.”  But their faith is shallow, built in large part on feelings and how well God seems to be coming through for them at the moment.  But the Word itself has “no root.”  And as soon as difficult times come–relationship troubles, financial difficulty, a bad health diagnosis–this person loses his or her faith.

Third, Jesus speaks of seed that does take root and sprouts, but then gets choked out by thorns, and it bears no fruit.  This is like the people who hear God’s Word, who may even come to church fairly regularly.  But then they go out and get distracted by the “cares and riches and pleasures of life.”  These are all the things that make us anxious and fearful and stressed out, and it’s also all the distractions that this world offers–the phone screens, the never-ending sports, the mindless media entertainment–all of this leads to a faith that fails to bear the fruit of good works in God’s sight.

Hearing all this, it’s easy to see ourselves unfortunately in the first three soils, isn’t it–at times having a shallow faith, or distracted from the Word, or hard-hearted and cold to its message.  When we hear of the fourth soil, the good soil in which the seed sprouts and grows up healthy and strong, those who hear the Word with a noble and good heart who bear fruit one hundred fold, it’s hard for us to look in the mirror and say, “That’s a description of me.”  This parable most certainly is call for us all to repent.

But let your repentance be the kind that turns you to Christ.  For at the end of the day, the good seed in the good fourth soil in this parable is a description of Jesus.  He is the eternal Word of God, the Seed, who has taken root in the earth of our humanity–fully human but entirely without the rocks and thorns and hardness of sin.  He has sprung up from the grave and yielded a crop a hundred fold, bringing you the abundant fruit of forgiveness and new life.

And this is how He did it.  The Word became flesh and bore all that has infested your soil.  Behold how this Seed is cast to the earth, how Jesus is thrown onto the wayside, the way of sorrows, where he is dragged to His cross, mocked in His suffering like the caws of scavenging ravens.  But notice that the birds of the air do not devour Jesus’ body, as was often the case with other crucified criminals who would be left for the animals to consume.  This Seed is hurled upon the rocky ground of Golgotha, where he lacked moisture and cried out, “I thirst!”  But in spite of his suffering and thirst, this Seed would not wither away permanently.  And Jesus was even crowned with thorns, the very symbol of Adam’s curse; yet this Seed would not be choked out of existence, but would rise again.  A Seed has to die, if it is to rise out of the earth and bear much fruit.  The fruit of Jesus’ suffering is your salvation.

In this way our Lord has overcome all that stands against you, all that keeps you from having life, all that keeps you from growing to maturity.  In Christ you are free from hard-heartedness and the rocks of shallow faith and the thorns of this world.  In Christ alone you are the holy fourth soil, pure and righteous and fruitful and forgiven.  In Him you have a noble and good heart, as we pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  In you, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Word of God is implanted.  It is sown in the soil of your body even today, preached into your ears, placed on your very tongues in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood.  The power of God to give life is in the Seed.  And the Seed of the Word is in you and with you and for you, the Word of the Father who wants with all His heart for you to share forever in His life.

Let us, then, be eager to confess this Word with our mouths before the world.  Let the scattering of the holy Seed continue outside of these walls, out in the daily callings that God has placed you in.  Let the Word accomplish its purpose with your unchurched or de-churched friends and family.  Take courage and invite them in to divine service, to adult instruction classes.  Together with them, let us all seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near; for His Word is here.  Return to the Lord, for He will have mercy on you, and He will abundantly pardon.  His grace in Christ is more than sufficient for you, even in the midst of your weakness.  For His strength is made perfect in the weakness of the cross.  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

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

(With thanks to the Rev. Larry Beane)

John 2:1-11
Epiphany 2

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

We tend to think wrongly about miracles.  We think of them as basically just a bit of divine magic.  Jesus heals someone, or calms a storm, or in today’s case, He does something fun and produces 150 gallons of fine wine.  And our focus is directed almost entirely on the supernatural event rather than on the One who makes it happen and what it means about Him.  We become more enthralled with the spectacle of what Jesus does than with who He is.  And then we begin to wonder, “Well, where’s my miracle?”  We begin to desire something spectacular and miraculous more than we desire the words and the presence of God. We seek an extraordinary experience from Jesus more than we seek Jesus Himself.

And so it’s good to remember that the miracle in today’s Gospel is called a sign.  A sign’s purpose is to direct our attention to something more than itself, to the real presence of the Creator and the Redeemer of the world.  Jesus’ miracles aren’t examples of how if you ask Jesus the right way, you’ll get your miracle too. The miracles aren’t little bits of Jesus interfering with the normal course of events, with the expectation that He’ll do the same for you if you just believe in Him enough.  After all, almost nobody believed in Jesus in today’s Gospel until after the water became wine anyway.  Signs like these reveal Jesus for who He is, namely, the Word who created all things and who upholds everything in Himself.  John even says at the end of his Gospel that Jesus did many more signs, but he wrote down seven of them in His Gospel so that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and have life in His name. And if we take John seriously, (which we should) once you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, there’s no need for miracles any more, is there?  Because you already have the One to whom the signs are pointing.  There’s nothing wrong with praying for God to intervene in our lives to heal or help, even miraculously so if that is His will.  But we always do so with the understanding that we already have everything that we need in the risen Jesus and His words.

So let’s consider this miracle, with our eyes squarely fixed on Jesus to whom this sign is pointing.  First of all, this miracle is not primarily about marriage and how Jesus approves of marriage–although, of course, He does.  He’s the one who invented and instituted marriage.  It’s worth reminding ourselves of that in a world where most people think that it’s just fine to join themselves together sexually without God first joining them together in marriage.  A man and a woman are not to give themselves to each other in this way until God has given them to each other.  It’s as simple as that.  Think of how much heartache and trouble would be avoided if people simply honored marriage in that way.  Marriage is God’s good gift.  To reject it in favor of your own ways of finding sexual fulfillment is to reject God.  Scripture begins with the wedding of Adam and Eve and ends with the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end.  And it is especially that marriage of Christ and the Church that the wedding feast at Cana is meant to be a sign of for us.

This miracle is also not about divinely approved drinking, though Jesus certainly is no prohibitionist.  In fact the religious types in His day called Him a glutton and a drunkard, and no doubt they had this incident on their checklist.  150 gallons of wine at a time when the people had already emptied the supply is hardly an endorsement for the use of grape juice.  But this, too, is only incidental.  Wine represents joy, “wine that gladdens the hearts of men” as Scripture puts it.  This is more than Jesus eliminating the middle man and saving them a trip to the liquor store.  This is about joy overflowing in the age of Messiah, when, as Amos said, “the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.”  

So back to the story.  Mary tells Jesus, “They have no wine.”  We don’t know how she found out, or if someone in charge tipped her off.  But this rather indirect statement is intended to be a pretty big hint for Jesus, “You could do something about this, if you wanted.”  Jesus seems a little put off by the suggestion, though.  “Woman, what does that have to do with Me?”  Then Jesus says one of those rich, pregnant phrases:  My hour has not yet come.  That term, “hour,” in John’s Gospel refers to the moment when Jesus will bring glory to the Father by laying down His life on the cross for us.  This is a big reminder to us that there is much more to miracles than we realize; they are always connected to His sacrificial death.  For miracles are a setting right of what has gone wrong in this fallen world, even something relatively trivial like running out of wine.  And things are only truly set right when Jesus conquers the curse at Calvary.  

Whatever else Jesus might have said, or whatever look He gave Mary, she seems confident that He will do something, so she says the last words ever recorded from her in the Scriptures:  “Do whatever He tells you,” which isn’t bad advice all the way around.  If you want to know what Mary would tell us today, it’s the same thing:  “Do whatever my Son Jesus tells you.”

So Jesus has them fill six stone jars with water, then draw some of it out, and bring it to the master of the feast.  And when he tastes it, it’s as if he’s popped open a vintage $1000 bottle of wine at a fancy restaurant.  “You have saved the best for last.”  That wasn’t meant to be a compliment, by the way.  The master of the feast was basically calling the bridegroom stupid, wasting the good stuff on people who wouldn’t appreciate it because their taste buds were dulled; the guests had already “well drunk.”  This is how our Lord operates, though.  Even to people who don’t deserve it and who won’t always appreciate it as they should–people like us–He still pours out and offers His gifts, out of love and mercy and grace.

Even if the world thinks that it’s foolish, God had indeed saved the best vintage for last.  The Epistle to the Hebrews says that in the former days, God spoke to His people by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.  John begins his gospel by saying, “The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  This miracle is a commentary on that.  One greater than Moses and the prophets is here.  The Son of God has appeared.  The Word through whom all things were made has become Flesh and dwells among us.  It is the age of Messiah; the end times have begun–the best for last.

John tells us that this sign happened “on the third day.”  That phrase ought to take you back to Genesis, and the third day of creation, when the Word called forth vegetation from the earth, including the grapevines which still today produce our Cabernets and Merlots and Zinfandels.  It was a kind of “resurrection day,” the day life first rose and sprang up from the earth.  And of course, every Christian who hears that phrase “on the third day,” immediately thinks: “Easter!”  The third day is resurrection day in Christian vocabulary, when He who is the source of the new creation Himself sprang forth from the tomb.  This wedding, then, is a foretaste of the feast to come in the resurrection.

There were six stone jars waiting to be filled.  Six is not quite a fulfilled seven.  The Law of Moses can only get you so far, but not far enough.  Washing water, but not wedding wine.  You may try to keep the Law, and you should, but your commandment keeping will always come up short.  Moses can tell you to wash your hands before dinner, but only Jesus can fill your glass with joy–the joy of undeserved kindness, of sins forgiven freely, of deliverance from death and condemnation.  Man was created on the 6th day.  And on another 6th day, that Good Friday, Jesus recreated and redeemed mankind by His sacrifice and the cleansing blood and water that poured from His side.

“You have saved the best for last.”  In the fulness of time, when everything was perfectly aligned, God uncorked His finest vintage, He sent His Son to be born of a virgin mother to redeem fallen humanity from sin and death.  We are like that wedding feast run dry.  Without joy, without cause for celebration, without wine.  Sin has left us parched and weary, and the best we have by our own spirituality is six stone jars full of commandments, and how-to manuals, and principles for living that cannot impart life, that cannot save.

However, into our dry and dreary lives, Jesus has come.  He took up your humanity in His conception and birth.  He came to have fellowship with you, to sit at the table with you.  And He brings the good stuff, the finest vintage there is.  God saves the best for last.  When people have drunk their fill of principles and methods and how-to rules, when they’ve had all the commandment-keeping and positive thinking philosophy that they can swallow, Jesus comes to bring true joy, a joy that can be found nowhere else but in Him.

The wedding at Cana is still going on; it continues among us. We have the sacramental sign of water, which is more than water, the baptismal washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.  We have the sacramental sign of bread and wine which is more than bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ given and shed for our forgiveness. In that sense, then, we see miraculous signs all the time, signs that reveal the real presence of Christ among us, that we might believe in Him and have life in His name.  He reveals to you His glory, the glory of His death that  makes you His own. This is His wedding party where He is the Groom, and the master of the feast, and the wine, and you all together are His Churchly Bride.

Our Lord has one more vintage that He will give to you on the Last Day.  Soon this world’s party will permanently run dry, and Jesus will appear in glory to raise the dead to life.  And then with a new, resurrected body and a life forgiven and restored and joy overflowing, you will see that God truly has saved the best for last for you in Jesus.

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

(With thanks to the Rev. William Cwirla)

Titus 3

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  You know the account in Genesis.  Everything was good.  Then everything went wrong.  Man, wanting to like God, rebelled against God.  Man fell.  With him all creation fell.  Now, because of sin, man dies.  In the end this creation, too, will die and pass away.

We are not mere victims of that past event in the garden, for we have been participants in the rebellion of Adam and Eve; we have shared in the same deeds.  Titus 3 says,“We ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful.”  

We would be destined to perish eternally, except for the fact that the kindness and love for mankind of God our Savior has appeared in the person of Jesus Christ.  Instead of simply erasing this creation and destroying us fallen creatures, God has set out to redeem and recreate us through His Son.  Christmas is about God inaugurating a new creation in Jesus.  That’s why John’s Gospel starts out, “In the beginning was the Word . . .  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  In the flesh of Jesus God has made a new beginning, a new world, a new creation that is not subject to decay and death.  Christ’s death and resurrection in the flesh broke the curse of sin and brought life and immortality to light.  

Christmas, then, is like a second Genesis.  It is as if the very first day were happening all over again.  God said, “Let there be light.”  And the Light of the world was born.  Before the old creation passes away, God the Son has entered into this world in order to make a new Genesis that will never pass away.  He has done this so that we who are subject to the old order of things might be released from it and made to be participants in the new and eternal order of things.  And it is only through the body of Jesus that this takes place, He who once was laid in a manger.  He is the point of contact between the old and the new.  He is the only portal, the only passageway from this fallen creation into the everlasting creation.

So how do we pass through that portal?  How are we made to be participants in this new creation?  Paul answers that question in Titus 3 when he says, “God saved us through the washing of regeneration.”  That last word, regeneration, is especially significant.  In the Greek “regeneration” literally means “genesis again,” “a new genesis.”  Do you see?  Through baptism we are recreated, given a new life in Christ.  We are made to share in the eternal blessings of the new world that Christ brings into being.  Even as Christmas is a Genesis event, so also Baptism is a Genesis event.  For God’s creative power is at work–not only to wash away our sins, but also to join us to Christ, who gives us entrance to the new heavens and the new earth.  It is just as Jesus said in John 3, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  Just as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters in the first genesis, so also He hovers over the waters of baptism to bring about the second genesis, the new birth into the kingdom of God.

Christmas continues to happen, then, every time someone is baptized.  For what takes place in the water but that someone is born as a member of the body of Christ?  So in a very real way, the Word is still becoming flesh as He draws more and more people to Himself by water and the Spirit, those who have their life in Him.  

In this present age between Christ’s first and second comings, the old creation of Genesis and the new creation of Christmas overlap.  We still live in this fallen world of tragedy and pain and disease and death.  And yet we are also given entrance into the new world by our baptism into Christ’s body.  Both are now going on at once, and we feel that conflict.  But on the Last Day the old order of things will utterly and completely pass away, and the full glory of the new will be revealed forever.

And please note that all of this creating and saving work is entirely God’s doing.  Paul makes this clear when he says here, “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.”  It’s not our merits, it’s the merits of Christ by which we have forgiveness and life.  It’s not because we climbed up to heaven by our superior spirituality, it’s because the Son of God came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.  Christmas is the paradigm and pattern of our salvation.  God comes right down to where we’re at in order to save us.  He doesn’t do part and then require us to do the rest.  He goes all the way, 100%, even to the point of becoming one of us.  He descended to us in order that we may ascend with Him.

It’s all God’s doing.  The first creation was made by His power alone.  Christ’s coming at Christmas to inaugurate the new creation occurred without our help.  And even our entering into that new life through baptism is entirely by the Lord’s action.  When it comes to the Gospel, God is the one who does all the verbs.  “He saved . . .”  “He poured out . . .”  And when the verbs are applied to us, they’re in the passive voice, “We have been justified by His grace.”  God has justified us, He has declared us righteous through Christ, the righteous one.  He has made us His heirs having the hope of eternal life.  All this purely as a gift of His grace.  Only by this grace are we able to do as Paul says here and “maintain good works” for the good of our fellow man.

So then, as Paul reminds Titus here, don’t engage in useless discussion with those who deny this, who enjoy religious debate simply for the sake of hearing themselves talk.  After admonishing such people the first and second time, reject them, he says.  They are self condemned.  Don’t get drawn in to all their contentions and strivings about the Law.

For St. Paul concludes, “This is a faithful saying.”  Our salvation and re-creation by God’s grace alone in Christ is trustworthy, rock solid, reliable.  The same God who kept His promise to send a Savior will surely keep the promises that He made to you in your baptism.  The Lord is faithful, and He will do it.  Trust solely in Him.  Grace be with you all.

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

Isaiah 40:1-8; Matthew 3:1-12
Advent 3

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

We fallen human beings instinctively go at life backwards. We listen to those who preach that we should believe in ourselves, when in truth we should believe only in God. We fear crime, loss of income and benefits, illness, or some big tragedy, when we should really fear nothing except the Lord and losing life with Him. And we focus on the things this world gives—things that easily break or get used up, pleasures that quickly fade away, experiences whose glory and benefit are fleeting—when we should really focus on nothing other than attaining the kingdom of heaven.

So during the four weeks of Advent, through prophets and apostles and preachers and hymns and prayers and liturgy, God pleads with us to get our thinking straight. And not just our thinking, but also our believing. And not just our believing, but also our behaving. And not just our behaving, but also our entire being. A change of mind, a change of heart, a change of how we see ourselves and the world, a change of all we are and all we hope to be—that is the Church’s plea; and her prayer; and her heartfelt invitation. And that invitation is summed up in one word: Repent.

St. John the Baptizer prepares the way of the Lord by preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  “The kingdom is near, for Jesus the King is near.  So turn away from your worldly loves, the things that keep you from devoting yourself to His Word, the stuff and the activities that you let take precedence over His divine service.  No longer live for yourself.  No longer live controlled by your fears or your appetites.  No longer live pushing your agenda, making things happen, and acting as if it all depends on you.  Instead, live for the kingdom of heaven.  Live within the Life of God, and the Life that God wants to live in you and through you.  Live for unending communion with God.  For nothing else matters.  Everything else is expendable.  So discipline your body, reform your habits, put to death your inborn tendencies, change your hopes and prayers, and stop obsessing about the things you think matter so much.  For you don’t want to miss this.  You don’t want to miss out on the kingdom of God, which is so close you can taste it.”

And yet, even in this, we sometimes hear things backwards.  We hear St John say, “Repent,” and we say, “I can’t” or “that’s not realistic” or “I’ll think about it.”  Or we hear St John say, “Repent,” and we say, “Alright, let’s roll.” “I’ll do that right now”—and then get frustrated when things don’t change overnight.  What we forget is what fuels St John’s preaching, what it is that gives legs to true repentance.

And that is Mercy, the Lord’s mercy, the Lord’s never-ending, constantly renewing, life-preserving mercy.  That’s what’s imbedded in the word “Repent.”  It is the mercy that moves the Lord to say, “You are worth redeeming, worth saving, worth loving, worth transforming.”  Mercy that transfigures you so that you no longer live your old life, but now live the Life of the Lord Jesus, the Life that He freely gives to you.  Mercy that pulls you out of the pits you have dug, away from the messes you’ve made of life.  Mercy that calls you from death to life.

So behind and within St John’s “Repent,” is Our Lord Jesus saying, “Come.  Come, live life not on your terms, but the way I give it.  Come, not with conditions attached, but trusting that my promise is good, that my kingdom is yours.  Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

That is how John’s ultimate message is summarized in the OT reading: “Comfort, yes comfort My people!”  Speak tenderly and lovingly to the Church, speak to the heart of my bride, and preach kind words to her.  Tell her that she is forgiven.  Your exile is nearly over.  The end of all things is close at hand.  The Day of the Lord is coming soon. The Law no longer condemns you. Your iniquity is paid for and pardoned.  For you have received from the Lord’s hand double for all your sins.  John consoles you by always pointing to Christ and saying, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Notice that our Lord’s mercy doesn’t provide just enough forgiveness, but double forgiveness.  That’s how it is with the Gospel–the Lord lavishes on you more forgiveness than you have sins to forgive.  It’s not as if the Lord is miserly with His mercy, giving you just barely enough to cover your need.  No, the Lord is marvelously redundant and wonderfully excessive in His grace, so that you may know that there is no sin so great that Jesus didn’t atone for it on the cross, no life so messed-up that He could not redeem it.  You have been given twice as much forgiveness as you need.  Your cup runs over.  No matter what is there in your past, or in your present, there is more than enough mercy in Jesus to restore you and save you.  Your debt has been paid.  You have been set free.  How can you be certain of this?  Because it is written, “the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”  And what He speaks is done and delivered for sure.

That is real peace that will not pass away, even when Christmas is long over with.  All that burdens you, all that saddens you, all that dries the life out of your bodies and souls, Jesus took upon Himself and suffered to death.  Through the risen Christ you are now released from the power of the grave; you are restored to God the Father in Him who is the Prince of Peace.  Trusting in the merits of Christ alone, being baptized into Him who is fully human and fully divine, you are brought into communion and fellowship with God.  

At this time of year, you know that there are all sorts of folks in the media giving their version of the “real meaning” of Christmas.  They talk about togetherness and family, giving and sharing and love–all good things.  But Christmas is about a whole lot more than that.  It’s ultimately about the fact that the Word became flesh, God became man.  The Lord literally became one of us in order to restore us to the image of God and make us holy.  He came down to rescue us and raise us up to everlasting life.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  Christ took on our flesh and blood in order that He might die in the flesh as our substitute and shed His blood as our ransom price.  The true wonder and mystery that we should meditate on is this: that the baby in the manger is the Lord of the universe, that He created the mother who gave Him birth, that He redeemed your humanity by sharing in it fully.  All the other stuff is just withering grass compared to Christ.

“All flesh is grass, and all it’s loveliness is like the flower of the field. . .  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”  What Jesus says and promises endures.  And His Word has been spoken and applied to you, so that now, as I Peter says, “You have been born anew, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”  By His words and sacraments Christ has planted new and everlasting life in you.  So even though you are nothing but withering grass by nature, just a fleeting mist, in Christ the Scriptures now call you “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified”  (Isaiah 61:3).  Though all flesh must die because of sin, yet through faith in Jesus you have the resurrection and the restoration of the body.  He has poured out on your dry bones the living water of His Spirit, so that you may have real life, the abundant life of Christ that never ends.

The spirit of Christmas, then, is the spirit of humble penitence before God which acknowledges our lost condition.  And it is the spirit of confident faith in Christ who seeks us out and saves us.  It is the same spirit that we shall again give voice to in preparation for Holy Communion, as we echo the words of John the Baptist, “O Christ the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. . . grant us your peace.”  That prayer finds a rich answer in His very body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

So, enjoy all the stuff of this season; but don’t let it distract you from the heart of the Christ-mass or keep you from your Advent preparations for it.  Instead, let the evergreen of the Christmas trees remind you of the everlasting love of God for you.  Let the lights draw your attention to the true Light who conquers all the darkness of this world.  Let the presents be symbols of Him who is the perfect gift wrapped in swaddling clothes.  And remember, as always, that the only way to be close to the child in the manger is on your knees.

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

(With thanks to John Fenton)