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Luke 24:1-12; I Corinthians 15:12-26

    The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

    That is our glad confession of faith this day.  The Lord is truly, literally risen.  But there are many who do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  They love that today is April fool’s day, because they think that it’s stupid and irrational to believe in such fairy tale nonsense.  At best, they see Easter as a pious myth that has only spiritual, symbolic meaning that isn’t meant to be taken literally.  Christians are the fools.  

    And besides, the world would say, what good is a fleshly resurrection anyway?  In good new age fashion, they believe that the body and material things are lower level stuff, even evil, and our spiritual existence is where it’s really at.  Our culture tends to look at the body as little more than a container, and all that truly counts is the inner, spiritual aspects of who we are.  Your outward gender and sex are supposedly irrelevant to who you truly are.  Reincarnation is based on this faulty thinking.  You supposedly keep coming back in a different body, until finally you get it right, and then you are able to escape the body and leave it behind permanently and join the one spirit of the universe.  

    Even many Christians are tempted to think this way about the body.  They think that the goal is for the soul to go to heaven, and the body then is pretty much out of the picture.  A recent survey revealed that only about half of the Christians questioned said that they believed in the resurrection of the body.  That’s horrible!  For we confess the resurrection of the body here every week.  We believe in the God who is the Creator of this material world and of our bodies.  It is true that God’s physical creation has been corrupted because of sin.  But the problem is sin, not God’s bodily creation.  The goal of salvation is the restoration of God’s creation and the redemption of our bodies together with our souls.

    In today’s Epistle St. Paul speaks of the marvelous reality of the resurrection, the actual, literal raising of the dead body of Jesus to life again, a body that still bore the glorious marks of His sacrifice on the cross.  Easter is not just about Jesus living on in our memories or being alive in our hearts.  It’s about the truth that He who was indisputably dead, speared in the side and into the heart just to be sure, is risen in glorified flesh–touchable, tangible, and real.

    Today the church proclaims that it is a fact of history that Jesus the crucified One lives.  Earlier in I Corinthians 15 Paul laid out the evidence and eyewitness testimony for Jesus’ resurrection.  The Lord Jesus appeared risen from the dead to Mary Magdalene, to the apostles, to those on the road to Emmaus, and to more than 500 others–men who were still alive when Paul wrote these words, who could be asked and who did verify these claims, that the same Jesus who was nailed to a cross, was seen and heard and touched by them, raised from the dead.  

    And remember this, too.  If there had been a dead body to produce, the Roman and Jewish authorities would have produced it, and put it on public display, like our government sometimes has done to prove a terrorist has been killed.  They had every reason politically to do everything they could to silence these rumors of resurrection.  That was the point of having Jesus’ tomb securely guarded in the first place. 

    And if you think about it, why would the disciples want to make this up, anyway, and risk punishment and crucifixion themselves?  They’d be next on the arrest list.  The disciples showed clearly they weren’t exactly a bold and faithful bunch when threatened with suffering.  And yet after Easter, when faced with persecution, they consistently preached the risen Jesus and the church grew through much affliction.  Several other supposed messiahs had appeared on the scene and faded away.  But not Jesus.  His bodily resurrection isn’t a myth; it is a matter of history, a matter of fact.

    Now imagine for a moment if the resurrection were not true.  What then?  That’s the terrible question that St. Paul raises in the Epistle for the sake of argument.  Suppose that there is no resurrection of the dead.  Suppose that dead bodies do not rise from the grave.  What would that mean for our faith and our life?

    Well, if Christ is not raised, then my preaching is empty and your faith is empty, Paul says. Then it really is an April fools, and you and I are wasting our time here this morning.  For then that would mean that Jesus’ death on the cross didn’t really do the job on sin.  The curse of death would still remain on us.

    If there is no resurrection of the body, then all those who claim to be Christian but go to church only rarely are right on in their thinking.  After all, it’s only what’s inside that counts, right?  If there is no resurrection, then there is no real need for Baptism, or Absolution, or the Lord’s Supper, or preaching.  Those are all things that go on with the body–with the ears and the mouth and butts in the pew.  If there is no resurrection, then we can have a spiritual life apart from our bodily life.  All this stuff at Church, it’s just outward stuff.  Some of you who skip divine service most weeks have been infected with that worldly false teaching and are being lured to trust in something inside of yourself rather than outside of yourself in Jesus.  You’re being tempted to change the 3rd Commandment to “Remember the Sabbath day whenever there isn’t something else you want to do.”  One of the best tests of faith in the resurrection is what happens the Sunday after Easter.

    If soul and body are not intrinsically connected, then what goes on with our bodies has very little to do with our faith.  You can be a Christian on the inside and live and dress and act however you please on the outside.  You can talk about the faith that you have in your heart and then conduct your physical life no differently than the unbelieving culture.  It doesn’t matter, if there is no resurrection of the body.

    But of course that way of thinking is pure foolishness; and those who live believing that they can separate body and spirit are deceived.  For it is written, “Honor God with your body.”  On the Last Day all the dead will rise, some to everlasting life and joy, others to everlasting death and torment.  Let each of us, then, repent this day of our sin and false belief, and let us cling to the truth of the living Jesus, our Savior.  

    For Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. As the angels announced at the tomb, “He is not here, He has risen!”  Jesus Himself said it on Easter evening, “Why are you troubled? . . . Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”  Jesus’ rising from the dead is our deliverance from the powers of darkness.  It is the Father’s seal of approval on the work of His Son.  By raising Him from the dead, God showed that He was pleased with the death of His Son, that He accepts it as the redemption price for the world, that your sins are covered and forgiven by His blood.  You are now reconciled to God in Christ.  Nothing in all creation can undo what Jesus has done.  You who trust in Christ are fully redeemed.  You have new life in Him.

    Jesus is the first-fruits of the dead, which means that He is the beginning of the harvest, the first of many more to rise through Him.  That’s why Easter is such a big deal–it’s not only His victory, it is also your victory, too.  Jesus is the source and spring of our bodily resurrection.  For the Scriptures say that those who believe and are baptized are members of His body.  And where the head goes, the body must surely follow.  Jesus’ resurrection stands at the beginning of this New Testament age, ours comes at the close of the age.  But through our baptismal union with Him they are inseparably connected.  Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.  He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.”  

    Jesus alone can be trusted with our death, for it is written, “Death no longer has mastery over Him.” And death therefore no longer has mastery over anyone who is in Him by faith.  Jesus’ death is our death to sin. His life is our life before God the Father. The preaching of His death and resurrection is not some pious hope or merely some inspiring religious message, but it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

    Christ has glorified your bodies.  For not only did He purify you by taking on your very flesh and blood in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not only did He bear your sins in His body on the tree, but He has broken the curse of death by rising in the flesh on the third day.  And now He baptizes your bodies into His death and life.  He speaks His Word of forgiveness into them.  He feeds your bodies with His own life-giving Body and Blood.  God claims your bodies as His temple.  He honors them with His presence and works through them to bless others.  And though these bodies will one day die and decay, God has promised to raise them and glorify them at Christ’s return.  He will change our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself.

    So do not be led astray by all of the real April fools who would try to get you to doubt the Word of Christ and His resurrection.  The devil will continue flinging such excrement until the day of Judgment.  If there is no resurrection, if the body isn’t saved, then neither is the soul.  And so St. Paul says, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.”  If Christianity is only good for this life, if all Jesus is good for is to help us feel good about ourselves, cope with life, give our kids a little morality, then we are of all people the most pitiful.

    But Christ is risen from the dead.  Your greatest enemy has been defeated by the cross.  What’s the worst that can happen to you?  What is there left to be afraid of in this world if death is defeated and all sin is forgiven?  What do you have to fear of poverty, sickness, violence, cancer, hunger, persecution?  Christ has conquered and overcome it all for you.

    There is now great meaning to your life because Christ is risen.  There is meaning even in suffering and sorrow and affliction. And because of what we celebrate this day, your future is bright in Christ; it is brimming with promise.  Suffering will give way to resurrection.  Jesus Christ is risen today.  He is alive and among us to give Himself to us, even from this very altar.  He is our meat and drink indeed.  Faith lives upon no other.  Truly, this is the day which the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  

    The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

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John 2:1-11
Epiphany 2

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

    The Apostle John writes his Gospel in such a way that there is often a twofold meaning in his words. On the one hand, John will narrate the true, literal words and actions of Jesus. But on the other hand, he will often do this in such a way as to emphasize a deeper point about Christ and His redeeming work. That is the case with today’s Gospel.  There is the straightforward, explicit meaning; but there is also a deeper, implicit meaning which shows us the ongoing significance of Christ’s miracle and how it still continues in the church.

    We know the story well, how the wine ran out at this wedding feast, how at His mother’s prodding, Jesus was moved to help out, how the servants filled six stone jars with water which Jesus then miraculously changed to wine, how when the new wine was taken to the master of the feast, he was pleased but also bothered that it wasn’t served first; for it was better than any of the other wines.

    So, what are we supposed to learn from this?  Well clearly we learn that Jesus is truly God. For no mere man can change one substance into another without doing something to it along the way.  Water gets turned into wine every year in vineyards and wineries throughout the world, as rainwater produces grapes and juice and fermentation makes the wine.  But here Jesus compresses all of that power of His creation into this one moment.  It is as we sang a moment ago: Jesus is “God in flesh made manifest.” This miracle reveals Jesus to be the divine Lord of the elements of creation, who cares even about the little things, like beverages at weddings feasts.

    We also clearly learn in this Gospel that Christ approves of marriage and honors it. For if He didn’t uphold marriage, He wouldn’t have sanctioned it here with His presence.  Especially in our current cultural context–where marriage is being redefined into nothingness, where people behave as if they’re free to join themselves together sexually without God first giving them to each other, where people cast marriage aside when it no longer fits their plans for self-fulfillment–with the casualties of the sexual revolution piling up all around us, we must constantly be reminded that matrimony is a holy thing, established by God Himself before sin ever entered the world. The Lord is the One who joins together a man and a woman and makes them to be husband and wife. Therefore, the marriage relationship should be held in the highest regard.

    Consider, after all, how the Lord has given two commandments that uphold this holy estate. In the 6th Commandment, the Lord seeks to protect marriage from adultery and to maintain the faithful unity of husband and wife. And in the 4th Commandment, He establishes the marital relationship as the foundation of the family and commands that the husband and wife be honored by their children.  We must learn, then, from our Lord’s presence at the wedding feast of Cana how He fully approves of married life.  Those who are single should honor God and this institution by remaining chaste. And those who are married should treat their spouse as a gift from the Lord Himself.

    And last of all, we clearly see from this Gospel that alcohol is not inherently sinful.  Alcohol can definitely be misused for self-indulgent purposes that unleash the sinful nature; drunkenness is clearly a sin.  Nevertheless, all of those who would call the good gifts of God’s creation evil must reckon with the fact that Jesus here produced about 150 gallons, the equivalent of more than 700 bottles, of vintage wine for the people to enjoy. We do better simply to follow the words of St. Paul in I Timothy: “Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because the word of God and prayer make it holy.”

    All of this is the straightforward meaning of today’s Gospel. And yet John clues us in that there is still much more for the church to grasp in this account.  For John calls this miracle a “sign.” And signs point beyond themselves to something else, to a larger reality. This changing of water into wine, then, is a sign of something much greater.

    We begin to perceive what that something greater is in the very opening words of this passage: “on the third day.”  In this way the believer is told right from the start that the events at Cana are directly connected with the death and resurrection of Jesus, who rose from the grave “on the third day.” This sign points us to Christ’s greater work of overcoming the consuming power of the grave and restoring all of creation to its original newness and abundance.

    When Jesus was told by His mother that the wine ran out at the wedding banquet, Jesus responded to her with these strange words: “What does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” When Jesus refers to His “hour” in John’s Gospel, it is always a reference to His impending crucifixion. So why would Jesus make that connection?  What would running out of wine have to do with the cross?

    Part of the connection is revealed in the word used here to say that the wine failed and ran short.  It’s the very same word in Greek that is used in Romans 3, where St. Paul writes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  The reason that the things of this creation fail us and run short is because we ourselves have failed and come up short in keeping God’s Law and living according to it. This has not only brought mortal judgment on us; it has brought a curse on all things. Even the blessings of God’s good creation are temporary.  Sooner or later all of our stuff will fail us.  The Scriptures say that the world in its present form is in bondage to decay and is passing away.

    So, when the wine ran out, that drew attention to the hour of Christ’s suffering and dying in order to redeem His sapped and fallen creation. Jesus reminds His mother that if she is going to appeal to him for a miracle, she must also deal with the cross, where He will break the curse of decay and death forever. Already here, then, Jesus was beginning to bring about the redemption of creation, which would come to fulfillment on Good Friday and Easter. For He was reversing the draining force of sin so that there was bounty and joy once again.

    In order for this creation to be made new again, the curse on it had to be removed.  And that curse was broken through the flesh of Christ sacrificed on Calvary.  Galatians 3 declares, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”  Jesus took the curse into Himself so that by His death sin’s draining domination over us and over creation would be undone.  All that saps the life out of this fallen world He has subdued and destroyed by His holy cross.

    The fact that this miracle occurs on the third day not only points forward to the resurrection, but also points back to the 3rd day of creation when God brought forth the fruit-bearing plants from the earth.  Jesus performs this sign with the fruit of the vine in fulfillment of the prophecies of the Messiah’s kingdom.  It is written in Amos, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when . . . sweet wine will drip from the mountains and flow from the hills.” No running short there! And Isaiah foretold a day when the Lord would swallow up death forever. Of that day he said this, “The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine–the best of meats and the finest of wines.” In this miracle, then, we begin to see the very kingdom of God and the new creation breaking in, which will be revealed in all its glory on the Last Day.

    The six water pots were filled to the brim. For the fullness of time has come.  Jesus fulfills all that was written in Moses and the Prophets.  Out of the water of the Old Testament promises we draw the finest wine of Jesus Himself.  The number six points us to the day of man’s creation in the beginning.  And it points us to the day of our recreation on the sixth day, Good Friday.  The water and the wine in this miracle, then, are signs of the water and the blood which flowed from Jesus’ side and which flow to us now in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  The six jars were used for ritual washing.  Likewise, the Scriptures say that Holy Baptism is the washing of regeneration, and that the blood of Jesus cleanses us of all sin.  Our Lord renewed the gifts of creation at Cana’s wedding feast, and now He renews us through His sacramental gifts in water and wine, so that we might be restored to the sweetness of life with God.  

    You must learn to see and believe, then, that the miracle of Cana still goes on; the wedding banquet continues.  The heavenly groom, Jesus Christ, comes in the Divine Service to His churchly bride to comfort you with His love.  By water and the Word He has made you His own.  And in Holy Communion you become one with Christ as He gives you His life and all that He is.  He who showed Himself to be Lord of the elements at Cana now shows Himself to be Lord of the elements on the altar.  He causes His blood and body to be present under the wine and the bread, and through this miracle He recreates you in Himself.  These elements of creation won’t fail you; for they deliver to you the Lord Himself who will never fail you or leave you.  His grace doesn’t run out; there is always enough and more.  That is why the Scriptures say, “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”

    Know, then, that the Lord here is giving you a vintage sign:  at Cana, at Calvary, and on the altar–a sign of His glory, glory revealed in His love for you.  As always, He has saved the choice wine for last.  He has given His best; and it is all for you.  Come, then, in faith to His table, that you may partake in the great wedding feast when He returns.  For it is written in Revelation 19, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”

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

Revelation 7:9-17                                                    

Matthew 19:23-30

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    St. Lucia was born in Sicily in the year 283 A.D. to rich parents, members of the nobility.  However, her father died when she was still very small, and so she and her mother Eutychia were left alone.  Eutychia taught and raised her in the faith, and Lucia was a very devout and pious young woman.  In fact even though they still had much wealth, she desired to devote all her worldly goods to the service of the poor.  Her mother, though, did not permit her to do this.  

    But then something occurred that changed her mother’s mind.  Eutychia had been suffering for several years from a hemorrhage, a chronic flow of blood.  Lucia prayed for her mother’s healing.  Evidently, her prayer was answered.  Her mother was restored to health; the hemorrhage stopped.  In response to this wonderful gift of healing from God, Eutychia allowed Lucia to have her wish and to distribute the vast majority of her share of the family wealth to the poor.

    There was just one problem.  Lucia had been betrothed to a deceitful young man who was not a Christian.  He loved Lucia’s riches more than her.  When she gave away her wealth, he was furious.  His greediness moved him to get revenge.  He went to the governor of Sicily and  exposed the fact to him that Lucia was a Christian.  This was during the year 303 when Christianity was still illegal and Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of the church was taking place.  All that someone had to do was denounce a person publicly to the authorities, and that person would be arrested.  If they didn’t deny or recant their faith by cursing Christ and offering incense to Caesar, then they could be killed.

    Lucia did not recant or deny her faith in Christ even under this threat.  As a result she was tortured, her eyes were put out, and she was executed, perhaps having been burned at the stake.  Her martyr’s death immediately made her famous in Sicily, and the story of her life and death, with some embellishments, lives on to this day.  

    Particularly in Sweden, Lucia is remembered on December 13th by having one of the daughters of the house dress in a white robe with a crown of lighted candles and go singing from room to room early in the morning while it is still dark to awaken the other family members and to offer them cakes of saffron bread.  There are several reasons for this tradition.  First of all, Lucia is said to have once brought bread to needy people who were living in a cave.  This gift also reminds us of Lucia’s faith that Jesus is the Bread of Life.

    The other aspects of this tradition are also important.  The white robe is a reminder of the holiness of the saints who have died in Christ, and indeed of all those buried with Christ in baptism.  It is written of Christians in the book of Revelation, “These are they who come out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” Jesus Christ.  St. Lucia’s holiness arose not from her own goodness or her virginity but from the cleansing forgiveness of Christ.  

    The crown of candles is also significant for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it indicates that even when Lucia no longer had her eyes, she still had the light of Christ to walk by.  She could yet “see” by faith, far better than any of her persecutors could ever see.  Though physically blind, she had better vision than any unbeliever.  For she was enlightened with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as we say in the catechism.  Furthermore, the fact that these candles are worn as a crown is a reminder of the crown of glory that all believers shall inherit through Christ in heaven.  Though her life in this world ended in darkness and death, her eternal existence is one of light and life, even as it is for all the faithful.  Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.  He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.”  

    Jesus entered our world of darkness by literally becoming one of us.  He was born at midnight in the cold that He might warm us with the light of His presence.  It is fitting that Jesus’ birth is celebrated on December 25th when the days are just beginning to grow lighter again. For He is the Light who wins out over the powers of darkness.  Though Jesus suffered on the cross under a dark shroud as the sacrifice for our sin, on the third day He came forth from the gloom of death in resurrection light.  He is the Sun of righteousness who has risen with healing in His wings, as we heard this past Sunday, and through faith in Him, Romans 8 says, we too are conquerors, victors over death and the devil.  

    St. Lucia bore witness to that fact in her life and in her death.  In fact the word “martyr” literally means “witness.”  In giving away much of her goods and wealth to help the poor, she bore witness to the love of Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.  She bore witness to a belief in God as the Creator who can and will provide for all of our daily needs.  And in death she bore witness to God as the Recreator, who is more powerful than death.  She testified that she loved the Lord and His salvation even more than life itself in this world.  Like Abraham, she was looking for a better country, a heavenly one.  She knew that the only way to have life in the world to come is to lay down your life in the world that is.

    So it is also for you, especially in this Advent tide as you set your hearts on the coming of the Lord.  You may not be called to be a martyr, but you are given to testify to Christ in word and deed and to take up your cross and follow Him.  Jesus said, “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  Baptized into Christ, you are given to live the pattern of His life–humility before glory, death before resurrection, crucifying your old Adam that Christ may be pre-eminent and that His life may show forth in and through you.  

    This life of repentance and faith is not easy.  It is truly a narrow road on which you are called to run.  But along this road, Hebrews says, you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses–Abraham and Joseph and Moses, Gideon and David and Samuel, prophets and apostles, saints and martyrs like Lucia.  And above all, you are upheld by Him who laid this path and ran it for you, Jesus.  Consider Him, Hebrews says, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.  “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Your road will end up where Christ’s ended up, for you are in Him.  What is now only a candle in the darkness will soon be the dawning of the everlasting Day of resurrection at Jesus’ return.  Let that joy set before you give you endurance in the faith.

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

Matthew 25:31-46
Second Last Sunday in the Church Year (Trinity 26)

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

    Why should you do good works?  There are two very simple reasons: God has commanded them, and your neighbor is served by them.  You shouldn’t do good works, though, as if God needed your service.  He’s perfectly fine and complete without anything that you do.  In fact, any good that you have the ability to do came from Him in the first place, right?  What a foolish thing it is, then, to try to shove your good works into His face thinking that you can earn your way into heaven, as if He somehow owes you for what you’ve done.  The Lord doesn’t owe anyone anything.  

    God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.  All you have to do is look around for two seconds to see that this world is full of need that is to be met with works of love–and not just charity, but the ordinary, day to day fulfilling of your callings.  Today’s Gospel reading shows us where our good works are to be directed–not up to God as if to earn a merit badge, but down and out toward your neighbor, even toward “the least of these My brethren.”

    All that is needed for heaven is faith–the empty hands of faith that receive the works of Jesus for you and that cling to Him and His cross alone.  But then, with hands filled with the mercy and goodness of Christ, all that is needed for the neighbor is love which passes along Christ’s mercy and serves the neighbor in need.  And those two things are connected and go together.  Faith in Christ gives birth to deeds of love.

    Though faith is unseen, and love often goes unnoticed, all will be revealed for what it is on the Last Day.  When Jesus comes in glory with all His angels, He will judge both the living and the dead.  And His judgment will reveal who are the sheep and who are the goats, who are the believers and who are the unbelievers.  What is now hidden will be uncovered.  That’s actually what the word “apocalypse” means, the uncovering.  The private will be made public.  Everyone, on the Last Day, will be revealed for who they are: either a sheep of Jesus’ flock or a goat.  Everyone will be seen for how they stand in God’s sight, the faithful or the faithless.  And it will be a day no one can avoid.  “All nations” will be gathered.  Everyone.  No one left out.    

    Your life as a baptized believer prior to the Last Day is hidden before the world.  Colossians 3 says, “You died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  That passage also describes the end, too:  “When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”  And Romans 8 says that “the entire creation groans and eagerly waits for the sons of God to be revealed.”  So that’s a good way to think about what’s going to happen on the Last Day–it will be a revelation, the curtains and the covers will be pulled back; everyone and everything will be seen for what it is.

    In some ways we’re already getting a taste of the ugly side of that with all the recent media-fed scandals involving politicians and celebrities and actors.  It seems no one is as good they would like to appear.  And we have to admit that if everything were reported about our lives, if every thought, word, and deed were made known before all, we would not look so good ourselves.  The old Adam in a Harvey Weinstein or a Kevin Spacey or a Roy Moore or an Al Franken is fundamentally the same that inhabits each one of us, and gives birth to our particular sins.  The only difference is that their old Adam was more fully unleashed by power and fame and wealth.  Our only hope of being able to stand unashamed on the Last Day, then, is if our sinful nature has already been dealt with before then.  And it has!  That’s what the cross is all about.  That’s what your baptism is all about.  It is written in Romans 6, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life . . . For we know that our old self [the old Adam] was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”  We have been crucified with Christ by water and the Word; our sin has been answered for and done away with.  And so there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom.8:1).

    That’s the first thing that will be revealed and uncovered on the Last Day.  Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats.  Sheep on His right.  Goats on His left.   To the sheep:  “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”   To the goats:  “Depart from me, you who are cursed.”   To the sheep:  “Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”  To the goats:  “Depart … into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

    Notice that the separation of the sheep from the goats comes before any talk of their works. The sheep are not at the Lord’s right hand because of the works they have done, but because of who and what they are in Christ by His grace.  All this had been prepared long before their works, from the very foundation of the world, it says.  Salvation is by God’s election and doing, not ours, as Ephesians 1 says, “(The Father) chose us in (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.”

    On the Last Day, once the sheep and goats are divided up, then their works will be judged and evaluated by the Lord.  And the works of the sheep give evidence of the fact that they are indeed the blessed children of God through faith in Jesus.  The Last Day judgment simply makes that fact plain.  Works are counted as good before the Lord only when they flow from faith in Jesus.  No work is good in God’s sight without faith in Jesus, for it is written, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6).  And it is also written, “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23).  You see, not only does Jesus’ blood cleanse us, it cleanses our works, too, and makes them holy.  Such good works provide evidence of our faith in Jesus.

    And yet even that will not be fully revealed until the Last Day. This is a very important point.  Even this evidence of our faith, the evidence of good works, is something that finally only Jesus the Judge can see right now as we live before Judgment Day.  So, while we live before the Last Day, we should not look to ourselves and our good works as proof that we are sheep.  It is a dangerous thing to look to yourself for the assurance that you are saved.  After all, unbelievers do humanly good works and acts of charity, too.  It’s faith in Jesus that makes all the difference.  Always, remember, the life of the believer is hidden and creation eagerly awaits the revelation of who God’s people are!

    So, in the meantime, Christians live in this world side by side with unbelievers.  And most of the time you can’t tell a huge difference, especially if you only look at what they do in the world.  There is no “Christian” way to deliver the mail, fix a flat tire, or plow a field.  You would hope Christians would be more ethical and hard-working and loving; but pagans can be ethical and hard-working and loving, too–though the ultimate motivation for that will be different.  The difference is internal, and it is the difference between faith in Jesus or unbelief in Jesus.  On the Last Day, Jesus, who judges the heart, will reveal the faith or the unbelief.   And the only works that will be judged good before Jesus are the ones that flow from faith in Him.

    Faith in Jesus is a divine work in us.  It transforms us and gives us a new birth brought about by the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel.  Faith in Jesus slays the old Adam and gives us the life of Christ, making us new people in heart, spirit, and mind.  Such faith by its very nature is active in good works.  Faith doesn’t ask whether good works are to be done.  Before the question is even asked, faith is already doing them.  Jesus, the Word made flesh who dwells within us through faith, shows love to the neighbor in word and deed.  

    In fact, good works come so naturally to faith that the Christian most often does them without even recognizing them.  Notice that the sheep are surprised to find out that the food and drink they served to the hungry and thirsty was actually a meal served to the King of kings and Lord of lords.  That the sick neighbor they helped was actually Jesus Himself hidden in that neighbor.  “Whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me.”  Plus, they likely forgot all the instances where they did these things in the first place.  It's just what they did.

    Good works are done best when we become forgetful of having done them. Our works become a problem when we want to drag them with us into heaven, when we’ve got the score sheets and the tabulations, as if they are a bargaining chip to use in a salvation poker game.  No, the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus is all that is needed for heaven.  All our good works are to be left down here, for our neighbor in need.  In our neighbor who is sick or hungry or in prison, we learn to see Jesus, who fasted for us, who was arrested and afflicted and stripped of his clothing for us to fully redeem us.  The eyes of our faith are always and fully on Christ the crucified, whose works alone save us.  Living in that faith, we see Jesus also in our neighbor and show our love for Him by loving them.

    On the Last Day our faith will give way to sight.  We will see Jesus as He is, the crucified and risen Savior of the world.  To Him every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the everlasting joy of the sheep, to the everlasting shame of the goats.  On the Last Day, it will be revealed who you are.  But, of course, you don’t have to wait until the Last Day to know.  After all, the Son of Man and Judge of all, Jesus comes here every Sunday in the divine service as His Word is proclaimed.  And He speaks His Word to you, saying, “All your sin is forgiven!  I put my Name on you in your Baptism!  You are my sheep.  Have no fear little flock.  I am your Good Shepherd.  I laid down my life for you.  I was raised from the dead.  And I live and reign to give you life and peace and joy forever.

    Jesus and His cross is always the dividing line between the sheep and the goats.  The same Jesus who was crucified between a believing sheep and an unbelieving goat on Good Friday feeds you with His own body and blood at the foot of the cross, setting you apart here from the unbelieving world.  He joins Himself to you so that you will live eternally with Him in His kingdom, the one prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  And even the good works you do were prepared for you by the Lord.  For Ephesians 2 says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  Do you see?  It’s all God’s grace; it’s all what He has done for you and given to you in His Son Jesus.

    Every divine service is a little judgment day where Jesus judges you to be forgiven.  Every week He is here with all His holy angels as we gather around His altar to receive His gifts of grace.  On the Last Day you surely will hear Him declare:  “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

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

(With thanks to the Rev. Brent Kuhlman for some of the above)

Trinity 16

Luke 7:11-17

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

    In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus encounters a funeral as He enters the city of Nain.  I think it’s safe to say that none of us like funerals.  It’s uncomfortable being at the visitation or the service, not always knowing exactly what to do or what to say to those who have lost a friend or a family member.  We want to be caring, but we don’t want to say something stupid or cliche.  We’d much rather not have to deal with those situations at all; for they remind us of things we’d rather not think of and the death that is at work within us.  That’s why people revert so easily to fairy tale heavens filled the deceased’s favorite hobbies and myths of how the person is still with us and watching over us.  That’s why we’re OK with the undertaker’s embalming or cremating.  It helps to keep the realities of death at a distance.

    Of course, when someone has lived a good, long and full life, there can be a sense of completion and fulfillment at a funeral.  People are brought together, and we enjoy sharing good memories of the one who has died and honoring the life of that person–and that’s good.  And yet we dare not get lulled into believing, even in those circumstances, that death is somehow normal or OK or even a good thing, and that the only truly tragic deaths are the ones that are premature–a child or a middle-aged person.  Every death is premature; every death is tragic.  For God did not create us to die, but to live with Him, body and soul forever.  Death has only entered the picture because it is the curse of sin which we have brought upon ourselves.  Whether someone dies at 9 or 99, it’s still not how God created things to be; that length of time is still just a fleeting moment, as the Psalmist says, “Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.”  

    That reality does hit us hardest, though, when someone dies before we expected.  And that’s what Jesus was dealing with in today’s Gospel reading.  He comes upon this funeral, just at the time when they were carrying the body out to be buried.  The Lord of Life and this procession of death come face to face.  The one in the casket was a young man, his mother’s only son.  Perhaps there was an accident; perhaps some illness overcame him.  But she had to hold his dead body in her arms.  And she had just been through this not long before.  For she was a widow, who had to bury her husband as well.  Now she was all alone, no one to care for her, no one to provide for her future.  The name of this city, Nain, means “beauty” or “pleasantness.”  But here all we see is the ugliness of death’s curse at its worst–bringing us sadness and fear, separating us from those we love, crushing our hopes and dreams.  

    However, it is written, “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down . . . He relieves the fatherless and the widow.”  When the Lord sees this widow, He has compassion on her; He is deeply moved with empathy for her plight.  And He says, “Do not weep.”  Don’t cry.  Jesus wasn’t just telling her to be tough, to suppress her emotions.  For Jesus Himself grieved and wept openly at the death of Lazarus.  Rather, St. Paul reminds us that we are ones who do not grieve as those who have no hope.  We do not need to wallow in grief and self-pity and blame, because we have a sure and certain hope in Christ.  And so Jesus speaks with comforting mercy, “Don’t cry, for I have come to conquer everything that saddens you and makes you feel alone and cut off and hurt and helpless.  I am here to wipe away every tear from your eyes.  Behold, I make all things new.”

    Jesus earlier had said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.”  You do not face death and loneliness alone but with Jesus, the One who is your Help and your Shield, the One who is merciful to all who call upon Him, the One who is the Resurrection and the Life.  He faces death head on in order to renew your bodies and revive your spirits.

    Jesus comes and touches the open coffin, and those carrying the dead man stand still.  Jesus stops the procession of death dead in its tracks.  With this touch of the coffin, Jesus is putting Himself in the place of the widow.  He is sharing in her heartache and the heartache of all those who have lost loved ones, as it is written, “He is . . . a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”  And by touching the casket, Jesus also is putting Himself in the place of the only son.  For in so doing, according to the Old Testament Law, Jesus is making Himself ceremonially unclean with this young man’s death.  He allows that mortality to come upon Him so that the young man might have His own life in exchange, to make the young man clean and whole.  For remember, the only Son of the Father, Jesus, also became a dead man; He, too, would be held in the arms of His grieving mother Mary.  Jesus did that to save this young man, and all of you as well.

    On the cross Jesus touched your casket; He absorbed your death into His own body to save you from it.  Outside the gate of the city at Nain, and later outside the gate of the city at Jerusalem, Jesus allowed death to pass from you to Him so that you would be restored to life, cleansed and made whole.  The beauty of the city of Nain was made ugly by death, but now our Lord has turned the ugliness of the cross into a thing of beauty for us.  For there we see the fullness of His love; there we see our redemption from death and the sure hope of our bodily resurrection to life.

    “Young man, I say to you, arise!”  Those are the words of the Creator who brings life out of nothing.  The one who was dead sat up and began to speak.  Jesus presented the young man to His mother.  Just as this son was a gift of God in birth, so now Jesus gives this son again to his mother with the gift of new life.  

    It is the same as in baptism.  Jesus presents children to Christian parents–not just once at birth, but a second time at the font, born again to new life by water and the Word.  Remember, all who are baptized die with Christ.  We are crucified with Him in order that we might also rise with Him to live a new and holy life.

    Even as Elijah stretched himself out three times over the Zarephath woman’s son, God stretched Himself out over you three times with His name at the baptismal font.  He breathed His Spirit into you, granting you a sure and certain hope which transcends all grief and sorrow.  Yes, we must live now by faith, still under the shadow of our physical death.  But the life of Christ will be surely ours by sight in the age to come.  For Romans 6 says, “If we have been united with Him in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.”

    On the day of our death, our souls will be received into the blessedness of heaven.  And on the Last Day our bodies themselves will be raised from the dead, rejoined with the soul to live in Christ’s glory.  Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.  He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies.  And whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.”  No longer are we dead in our trespasses and sins.  God has made us alive in Christ by the forgiveness of our sins.

    In response to this miracle, holy fear came upon the people, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us,” and “God has visited His people.”  And it’s true; God has visited His people in Christ, the greatest of all prophets, the very Son of God raised up from the dead to bring life and immortality to all who take refuge in Him.  Even today He visits you in His holy Supper.  He is literally here for you with His true body and blood–to forgive you, to raise you up, and to strengthen the faith you need to rely on Him through all your earthly struggles.  

    That’s why, as the Epistle reading said, we bow our knees before God when we come to the altar.  It’s not some ridiculous form of protest, taking a knee; it’s a sign of reverence and respect and honor for the Lord Jesus who is truly present here to fill us with His life.  Real unity is to be found not in sports or even in the flag but at the altar.  Here we are brought into communion with God and with one another.  

    Since Jesus does all of this for us, we know now that all is well.  Even funerals have joy at their center for those who are in Christ;  for He is alive and has taken away death’s sting.  So do not weep; our Lord has said, “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.  Because I live, you will live also.”  Jesus will surely visit you yet again at His return to do for you what He did for this young man, and even more–much more.  And so we go on confessing in the Creed, “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

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

Trinity 15

Matthew 6:24-34

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

    In today’s Gospel we hear these words from Jesus, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness...”  Don’t be obsessing and worrying about all the other stuff; seek Him first.  This is similar to the first commandment where the Lord says, “You shall have no other gods.”  Perhaps some of you remember learning it as it is recorded in Exodus 20, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”  Or more literally in Hebrew, “You shall have no other gods in My face.  Get them out of here.  I alone am the true God who rescued you from your slavery.  I am Your Lord and Redeemer.  I don’t want to see any other gods or have you bowing down to them.  They are no good for you.  You belong to Me.  I love you.  You are My own precious and beloved people.”

    Too often, though, we hear the “seek first” words of Jesus or the “before Me” part of the first commandment,  and we take it to mean simply that we should put God first.  We can have other things that we love and trust in, other small-g gods, as long as we don’t let them become more important than the true God.  So we wrongly hear the first commandment as saying, “You shall have no other gods before Me; they need to be after Me.  As long as I’m first, we’re OK.”  But that’s not what the commandment means.  

    The falseness and the silliness of that understanding is revealed when we think of our relationship to God in marital terms.  The Lord often referred to Himself as the husband of His people.  Jesus, we know, is the Groom of His beloved Bride, the Church.  So imagine how ridiculous it would be for a husband to say to his wife, “I don’t want any other guys coming before Me.  But as long as I’m first, you can love and be with other guys.”  No spouses who truly love each other would say that.  It’s not just a matter of being first.  It’s a matter of being the only one.  That’s what the first commandment is about, “You shall have no other gods before Me.  I alone am your God; you are My people.”  The Lord is a jealous God, in the best sense of that word.  He wants to protect you from the lies of the false gods who try to entice you.  He wants what is best for you.  He defends you.  He wants you to be His own and to live under Him in His kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

    But still we act as if just putting God first is enough.  As long as I go to church each week, then I can devote myself to my other pet idols during the week.  As long as I give my 10% tithe in the offering plate, then I can use my other money to serve and worship the various other gods that I love.  We think that as long as we do things which try to demonstrate that the Lord is #1 for us, then we’ve kept this commandment.  But the Lord doesn’t just want to be first on a long list.  He wants to be the heart and center of the whole list–your family, your work, your recreation, your food and clothing, and yes, your money.  He wants you to receive all those things as good gifts from Him to be used and managed for His glory and the good of others.  The notion that we can serve Him on a part-time basis while serving other things the rest of the time is a lie.  Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters.  For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You cannot serve both the Lord and money.

    It is written, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”  Love of money causes us to compromise our principles and beliefs, to do things we shouldn’t do in order to fulfill our desires.  Love of money, for instance, causes us to see children as a burden to our finances rather than a divine blessing.  This is a big problem in our culture, with the average age of the population going up and family sizes going down.  God says, “Be fruitful and multiply,” but we listen to the culture and severely limit the children that God would give so that we can purchase and do all the things we want.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  

    Your security and comfort is either going to be in Him or in your finances and your stuff.  Martin Luther comments in the Large Catechism how we tend to choose the latter: “He who has money and possessions feels secure and is joyful and undismayed as though he were sitting in the midst of Paradise.  On the other hand, he who has no money doubts and is despondent, as though he knew of no God.  For very few people can be found who are of good cheer and who neither mourn nor complain if they lack mammon.  This care and desire for money sticks and clings to our nature, right up to the grave.”  We think that there is security in mammon; we think that it will give us what we want.  But that is a lie.  To serve mammon means eventually to pierce yourselves through with many sorrows.  It is to have a life that may look good but at its heart is full of worry and anxiety.

    Repent, then, of your misplaced trust in undependable mammon and depend on Him who is the sure Rock of our salvation.  Learn from God’s Word to turn away from worldly loves to the source of real Love.  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Let your heart trust not in temporary created things but in the eternal Creator.  Turn from your anxieties and doubts to your Father in heaven, who will provide for you.

    Don’t ever forget that the Lord has power to supply whatever we need in ways that we can’t always understand or that we don’t expect.  Just consider the Old Testament reading.  I’m sure the last thing that the widow thought she needed was the prophet Elijah coming to her house in the midst of a famine, another mouth to feed.  And yet she trusted in the Lord’s word that the jar of oil and the bin of flour would not run out.  And they never lacked for bread.  And who would’ve expected that it would be a poor widow, of all people, that the Lord would make use of to provide for Elijah?

    Let us trust, then, that our lives are in the Lord’s hands and that He will care for us according to His good and gracious will, even when it seems like we’re getting to the breaking point.  Let us not engage in worry but in prayer.  Worry produces stress, but prayer produces peace.  For it dwells upon the sure words and promises of God, like those in today’s Gospel.

    Prayer says such things as, “Father in heaven, you know all the things I need, even before I ask for them.  You feed the birds of the air, and not one of them falls to the ground apart from your will.  Help me to trust that I am more valuable in your sight than the birds and that you will feed and sustain me even in the midst of my troubles.  And dear Father, you splendidly clothe the lilies of the field, even though they are little more than the grass.  Give me to believe that you will also clothe me and take care of me.  Keep me from worrying about tomorrow, and give me a thankful heart for the gifts you give day by day, my daily bread, and everything that is necessary to support this body and life.  The world is passing away, but your Word of mercy and life will never pass away.  It will save and sustain me forever.”

    Faith can only pray in this way because of what Jesus has done.  For He is the One who has made you children of the heavenly Father and has given you a place in the family.  Jesus calls you to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness because He Himself is the Righteous One who seeks first your salvation.  God has made you His first priority.  The King seeks after you and pursues you to rescue you.  The Eternal Son of God took on your perishable flesh and blood so that you would be redeemed.  Jesus bore in His own body all the corruption and the decay and the mortality that your sin brings, and He put it all to death on the cross.  In Christ the old undependable, perishable order of things has passed away and all things have become new in the power of His bodily resurrection.  In Him all of the false loves of your old self are forgiven and done away with, and you are given a new love and faith toward Him. This is how the Lord seeks after you and demonstrates His love toward you first, in that while we were still sinners, He died for us.  We love and seek Him first because He first loved and sought us.  And He hasn’t stopped seeking you out.  Christ continues to come to you in the ministry of His Word to bless and keep you.  Surely His goodness and mercy shall pursue you all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

    Trusting in Jesus, knowing all that He has done and prepared for us, our worries and fears are calmed.  For if God has provided so bountifully for our eternal needs, certainly He will care for us in all the necessities of this temporal life.  And even when the hard times do come, even if it’s all taken away and God’s care seems to have vanished, we know that we who are His baptized people are not forsaken.  We believe that even when terror and tragedy, sickness and death come, He who created us can and will also recreate us in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.  So literally nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.  It is as Romans 8 says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things?”  If you have Jesus, you have it all, for in Him all things hold together.

    That’s how Job could say in His suffering, in the loss of his property and his loved ones, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  “Though he giveth or he taketh, God His children ne’er forsaketh.”

    Living in that confidence, we are freed to use our money and possessions for the good of all, especially those of the household of faith, as the Epistle directs us.  We don’t have to cling tightly to our mammon.  We can give it away, because it’s not our god; it’s a gift of God and an instrument to be put to His use.  Let loose of your mammon.  Give away the security and power you think it gives you.  Turn the idol of mammon on its head; make it bow down to the true God and put it to a godly use, not only here but also out in the world.

    “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” which is to say, “Seek Christ the King, the Righteous One, and all the things you need will be added to you in Him.”  By faith we see that it’s not just a matter of putting the Lord first.  It’s a matter of seeing that Jesus is your first and middle and last.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, your all in all.  He is your entire salvation and life, from beginning to end.  Not only does God promise to feed you your daily bread, but here and now He feeds you with His very body and blood under the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of your sins.  Not only has God promised to clothe you, but He has already robed you in the white garment of Christ’s righteousness in your baptism.  

    And on the Last day you will forever be rid of your mortal clothing, this perishable flesh and blood, and you will put on your new and everlasting clothing in the resurrection of the body, as it is written, “The perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. . .  Then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ . . .  Thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is because of this certainty that we take to heart the words of St. Paul, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

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

Luke 17:11-19

Trinity 14

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

    Jesus said to the Samaritan in today’s Gospel, “Your faith has made you well.”  Now those words are easily misunderstood, particularly in today’s religious context.  Often when people talk about faith, they turn the focus inward.  The emphasis is on something that’s inside of you, something that you’re doing spiritually.  And so a statement like “Your faith has made you well” could sound like there’s some inward characteristic you have that healed you.  Basically, you healed yourself.  And that’s not at all what Jesus is saying here.

    All too often we think of faith as some special power within us.  It’s all about my believing, my praying, my spirituality.  The power is within me.  That’s the way the world thinks of these things.  “Just look within yourself for the answers,” they say.  “You can do anything if you just have faith and believe.”  But that’s wrong.  Faith is not some power you harness to achieve your own personal goals in life.  That’s not the way the Bible talks.  Such thinking is faulty for several reasons, but especially because it puts the focus on the believer rather than on the One who is believed in.  It locates the ability to save in man’s doing rather than in God’s doing.  It gives the credit and the glory to the one who has faith rather than the One to whom faith clings.  

    You must understand that faith is nothing by itself–nothing.  The power of faith comes from that which it trusts in.  Faith is defined not by its own qualities but by the qualities of what or who it relies on.  And in the realm of Christianity, faith relies on Christ alone.  Faith by itself is like an empty glass.  If you’re thirsty, I might give you the most ornate crystal glass in the world, but if there’s nothing in it, it’s not going to quench your thirst one bit.  It’s not the glass but what’s in it that finally counts.  That’s also how it is with faith.  It’s not the faith itself but what the faith holds to, what or who you believe in that really matters.  Your faith is just the cup.  It’s the content of your faith–what it contains and embraces–that’s most important.  The essential thing is not your trust but where your trust is directed.  

    That’s why the familiar statements, “You gotta have faith,” or “My faith saw me through” are really meaningless by themselves.  They don’t say what you’re believing in!  Faith in what? in yourself? in your doctor? in your bank account? in the government? in the forces of nature? in your horoscope?  You see, when it comes right down to it, everyone has faith of some kind, even atheists.  Everyone puts their trust in something.  It’s just that not everyone has Christian faith.  Some people believe in science and technology–they think that will give them purpose and provide all the answers they’re looking for.  Others believe in a generic sort of God, not the God of the Scriptures but a false god of their own making that fits in with their own philosophy of life.  Still others trust in worldly idols of power or prestige or possessions or their own wisdom and abilities.  But Christian faith is directed toward Christ Jesus, the eternal and only Son of the Father, who together with the Holy Spirit is the one true God.  That is what the Scriptures mean when they speak of faith:  to fear, love, and trust in this God above all things.  So there is true faith and there is false faith.  There is misplaced belief, and there is properly placed belief.

    Now Jesus’ words to the leper should be much clearer.  When Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well,” He was not saying that the leper had worked up this thing called “faith” within himself that had healed himself or earned God’s blessing.  Rather, Jesus was saying that by God's Word and Spirit this leper was brought to put his faith in the right place, the only place that could truly bring healing and deliverance from the deteriorating power of sin.  It is as if Jesus said, “Your faith is the correct kind.  You believed that I could help you, and rightly so.  For I alone have the power to save–and not only from temporal bodily ailments, but even from eternal death.  By the Father’s grace you have trusted in Me, the fountain of life.  And so you have been made well.”

    True faith isn’t just a generic belief that God exists.  True faith actively and specifically desires Christ, trusting in Him and in all that He has done.  A person can't have faith without desiring Christ in divine service.  Faith seeks after Christ where He is to be found, in His words, His preaching, His supper.  It calls upon the Lord in time of need and looks to Him and thanks Him for all good things.  

    The ten lepers in the beginning of the Gospel are a good example of this.  They stood afar off because they knew of their uncleanness, even as we all should know of the uncleanness of our hearts.  Yet they still were bold to cry for help, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  So also, we should all be bold to do the same, letting our “Lord, have mercy’s” be full of faith.  The lepers firmly trusted in Christ and were confident He would heal them.

    *That is one of the chief lessons of today’s Gospel, that we should commend ourselves into God’s hands and trust Him for everything, for He will surely supply it.  We should look to Him for all our needs and know that He is our only source of help.  Do not doubt but instead say, “I know that for Christ’s sake God will hear me and give me what I ask.  And even if He doesn’t do it in the way or at the time I prefer, He will do it in His own time and in His own way.”

    A wavering heart that doesn’t believe, that isn’t convinced it will receive what it asks for, will certainly receive nothing.  For our Lord God can give such a heart nothing, even though He would dearly love to do so.  It is as if you have a glass in your hands, but refuse to hold it still and keep waving it back and forth.  I can’t pour anything into it.  If I have a bottle of fine wine and you won’t hold your glass still to let me pour some for you, I’m not going to waste it and pour it all over the floor.  That’s the way it is with an unbelieving, wavering heart.

    On the other hand, if you do not waver, but wait and endure–God loves to give to people like that, as we see in the case of the ten lepers.  They wait patiently and never doubt that Christ will help them.  That is why they get exactly what they believe.  Let us take careful note of that, so that we too learn to trust God’s goodness implicitly, never letting our hearts falter, but patiently expecting what we pray for, be it health when we are sick, food when we are poor, righteousness when we are unrighteous and full of sin, or life instead of death, because God truly loves to pour out His blessings on us.

    The Lord will sometimes make you wait, to see if you continue believing and praying.   That’s how it was with these lepers.  Jesus didn’t heal them right away.  Instead, He simply said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”  “Go to the temple in Jerusalem so that you can have yourselves legally declared clean by the religious leaders.”  But Jesus sent them off without any apparent change in their condition.  Then the Gospel says, “And as they went, they were cleansed.”  As they held to Jesus’ words and proceeded down the road, then they were healed.  These men had faith in the promise implicit in Jesus’ directions even without any evidence.  They believed that they had been made well by Jesus, even though they couldn't see it yet.  And in the end, it was revealed to have been true.  Jesus’ words accomplished what they said, first in a hidden way, then in a revealed way.

    And that is exactly how it is also for you.  When you cry out to Jesus in your need, He calls back to you with His words of life.  Of your uncleanness He says, “You are forgiven and cleansed in the waters of your baptism.”  Of your physical health He says, “By my wounds you are healed.  I have taken away all your diseases by my suffering.  Death cannot harm you.”  Of your struggles and difficulties He says, “I have delivered you from them all by my Easter triumph.”  Yet, by all appearances, it may not seem to be that way.  You may still find yourself facing many of the same things.  Nevertheless, just as He did with the lepers, Jesus sends you on our way.  He calls you to walk down the narrow road that leads to everlasting life holding only to His words.  To be a Christian is to trust in Jesus’ promises even without any visible evidence, to believe that you have been cleansed and healed and delivered, even if you can’t always see it yet, to walk by faith not by sight.  For in the end His words toward you will be shown to have been true all along.  Jesus’ words always do what they say–first, in a hidden way, “down the road,” in a revealed way.

    We know that Jesus’ words deliver these things to us because of the destination of His journey.  Not only did the lepers go to Jerusalem to show themselves to the priests, the Gospel says that Jesus was going there as well, to be our Great High Priest.  The ten went to get a new lease on life; Jesus, however, went there to give up His life.  His very purpose in coming into this fallen world was to make that ultimate sacrifice to release us from sin and suffering, from death and the devil.  So it was that Jesus breathed in our sin-poisoned air; He was afflicted with our afflictions in order that He might save and rescue us, as it is written, “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.”  When Jesus comforted someone, He took their sadness on Himself; when He healed someone, He took their sickness on Himself; when Jesus forgave someone, He took their sin on Himself.  And Jesus has done that for you all.  All of the weight of the fallen world was laid on Jesus’ shoulders, and He carried that load to the cross, where it perished with Him.  Your sin and sorrow and sickness have been overcome, left dead and buried in the tomb from which Christ arose in triumph.  

    Believing in Christ, you have everything now.  Through Him you have healing in the midst of sickness, holiness in the midst of weakness, victory in the midst of things which overwhelm you, even life in the midst of death.  By faith you have it all in Christ, a truth that will be revealed to all creation at the close of the age.  That is why St. Paul could confidently say, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

    “Your faith has made you well.”  You can be sure you’re understanding the word “faith” correctly when you can insert the name of Jesus in its place.  Since faith is defined by what it trusts in, you should be able to replace it with “Jesus,” and it should still be saying the same thing.  “Your faith has made you well.”  “Your Jesus has made you well.”  Same thing.  That’s Christian faith.  

    Let us then be like the Samaritan, who returned to give praise and thanks to the Lord, worshiping at His feet.  And let us receive the words that Christ spoke to the cleansed leper as being spoken also to us, “Your faith has made you well.  Your Jesus has saved you.”

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

* This paragraph and the following two paragraphs are adapted from a sermon by Martin Luther in The House Postils, Vol. 2, p. 423.