Perhaps it seems strange to you that Jesus would pray. I remember as a child wondering who it was that Jesus prayed to, since He’s God. Is He talking to Himself? What’s going on? Of course, we know that even from before creation, there has been an eternal conversation going on among the persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So it’s perfectly natural that the Son of God would speak to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is part of their everlasting union and communion with one another.
But with the incarnation of Jesus, there is an additional and very important element added. He is now praying not only as true God, the Son of the Father, but also true man, our fully human brother. Behold the Man, Jesus, who prays as one of us, who leads a life of faith and trust in the Father as a perfect human being. When we say that we are saved by faith, one of the things we mean is that we are saved by Jesus’ faith, by Jesus’ trust in the Father and His faithful following of the Father’s Word and will. If you ever find yourself struggling in your faith, if your faith feels weak and fading, don’t try to work up more faith in yourself somehow. Rely on Jesus’ faith; cling to His perfect trust and faithfulness; take refuge in Him who took refuge in the goodness and love of His Father. That’s what Christian faith is. That’s how we come to know the Father as good and loving toward us.
To have faith in God is to pray to God. Prayer is the exercise of faith. So that’s what Jesus does, throughout His ministry, and particularly here in His Passion. And we see that Jesus is praying as a true human being, because He expresses a will that is different from the Father’s. Think about that! For our sakes, Jesus has emptied Himself of His divine powers, and He faces His suffering on our behalf as a man, without any of His divinity to diminish it or mitigate it. And His truly human will quite obviously wants to avoid the hellish afflictions He’s about to undergo if at all possible, if there’s some other way. “Father, if it is possible, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me.”
The cup that Jesus is referring to there is the cup of judgment, like a cup of poison that will cause Him to die a slow, agonizing death. By drinking this cup for us, He will take away the judgment of sin that stood against us. Only in this way can we be saved. Only by Jesus submitting to the Father’s will are we rescued. And Jesus does submit; He obeys. “Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.” That is our salvation. Behold the Man, who submits His fully human will to the Father’s will in perfect obedience. Where we had asserted our human will against the Father, wanting to do things our own way and make ourselves the greatest and avoid the narrow way, Jesus says, “Thy will be done.” He restores our humanity by bringing the divine and the human will back together, back in line with each other. He restores us to communion with the Father by His obedience and His willingness to serve and to suffer.
And we see that suffering already beginning here in the Garden. It was in the Garden of Eden that man first fell under the curse. And so it is fittingly here in this garden that Jesus begins to bear the full weight and pressure of the curse. The name Gethsemane literally means “oil press.” It was part of an olive grove where the oil was pressed out of the olives. Here, Jesus is pressed down in a similar way, under the crushing burden of the world’s sin and the judgment we deserved. Imagine the anxiety and the stress you would feel if you knew what was coming on you like Jesus did, if you knew that tomorrow you would be dying a slow, agonizing, and torturous death. Here in Gethsemane, Jesus is pressed in such a way that His blood is forced from His pores. It is written, “His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.”
Medical experts describe this condition where a person is under such duress and stress that the capillaries in their skin actually begin to burst, and the blood mixes together with the nervous sweat. This is what Jesus is experiencing here. Even before anyone can arrest Him and do Him harm, already He is shedding His blood for us. Remember this when you are undergoing stress, when anxiety seems to dominate your mind and your life, when there seems to be no way out from underneath your burdens and whatever it is you’re dealing with. Remember Jesus, who has been there, who knows just what you’re going though–and more–and who provided the way out through His suffering and into the resurrection.
It is written in 1 Corinthians 10, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the way of escape. It is Christ who, when put to the test, was faithful. After Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the Gospel of Luke records that the devil left Him “until an opportune time.” This is that time, where Jesus is tempted to turn away from the Father’s will. But He doesn’t. He follows through on your behalf.
And now He says to the disciples and to you, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Pray in the name of Jesus, who conquered sin and Satan for you. Take refuge in Him when you are put to the test and lured away from God’s Word and God’s will. Cling to Christ for mercy and forgiveness and for strength to endure in the faith until the end. He is your Mediator, your Intercessor, your Advocate before the Father, speaking in your defense, appealing on your behalf by the virtue of His shed blood. In the time of trial He has promised that He will never leave you or forsake you. Learn to pray with Christ, “Not my will, but Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
Let me begin by saying what today’s Gospel is not about. If your first thought in hearing about the laborers in the vineyard is to try to apply it to politics or economics, don’t. This is not about socialism or capitalism; it has nothing to do with the rights of workers or employers. It doesn’t support a conservative or a liberal agenda. More and more we tend to see everything in terms of politics and rights and power and victimization. But Jesus is no politician, and his mission is not to empower you in your quest for your rights. His kingdom is not of this world. He says here very explicitly, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” The way things work in God’s kingdom is quite different from the ways of the world. Wages are given not based on the merit of the worker but on the goodness of the owner. Here’s the key saying from the vineyard owner, “Is your eye evil because I am good?”
God’s unmerited goodness is what we call grace, His undeserved love toward us in Christ that we receive by faith. Now unfortunately, some take that teaching about grace and use it as an excuse for laziness when it comes to doing good works. “My salvation isn’t based on my works at all? Great! I’m going to take it easy, then, and just enjoy myself and do as I please.” But that’s just a perversion of God’s grace, and ultimately it’s a rejection of grace. For God’s Law is still in force. You should still be loving God above all things–including your money, including your family, including the approval of your friends. You should still be loving your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments are still commanded. They’re not the Ten Suggestions. God has told us to do them, and so we must. It’s not optional.
But here’s the point: If you do good things in order to gain some eternal reward out of it, is that truly a good work? Or if you do something good out of fear that if you don’t you’ll be punished, is that truly a good work? In both cases the good deed is tainted, isn’t it? It may be good humanly speaking, but it’s not in God’s sight. For with Him it’s not just the outward act but what’s going on in the heart that counts. Love and trust in Him is what He seeks. If heaven is the reward we get for living a good life, we’re hopelessly lost; because then trying to live a good life would end up being a self-serving thing, which in fact is the opposite of doing good before God.
Let me illustrate it this way: Valentine’s day was just celebrated. If a husband gets his wife a card and flowers or some other gift only because he feels like he has to or else he’ll be in the dog house, is that really love for his wife? Or if he does something romantic because what he truly wants is to score some points that he can cash in on, is that really love for his wife? What he does might be good outwardly speaking, but what makes it real love is when it’s done without thought to rewards or consequences, but simply with a desire for the good and the happiness of the spouse and their marital communion.
So what God has done is this: He has enabled you to do truly good works by taking the eternal threat and reward entirely out of the mix. The reward is already yours before you even start working. It’s been purchased by Christ for you; it’s a done deal, whether you entered the vineyard at dawn or at the 11th hour. Your reward, your eternal life in Christ is not in doubt. The denarius is yours through faith, simply by trusting Him. So now what? Now you are truly free to do the work God has given you to do from the heart, out of love for Him and love for your neighbor, without any thought of what’s in it for you. All the tainted motives you might have are taken away in Christ. Fear of what might happen to you, self-serving goals no longer have a role to play since Jesus has already given Himself to you with every blessing. You are set at liberty to do good, not because you have to in order to win God’s favor, but precisely because you already have God’s favor in Christ, and because your neighbor needs you. In a sense you actually are free to do as you please. Because what pleases the heart of faith is not to go back to the same old shallow, empty, self-serving ways, but to live in Christ, loving and trusting in God and serving others. That’s why it is written that without faith in Christ, it is impossible to please God. Only in Jesus are you truly free to do good.
When we forget that, that’s when we’ll start to grumble. You only complain when you think God owes you, that you deserve better based on what you’ve done. “I’ve worked harder than that other guy; I’ve done more for the church. So I deserve better than him.” “It’s not fair that God is letting me go through this hardship. I’ve lived a good life and been a good person.” You can only talk and think that way when you believe it’s your works that run the show with God. And when your works run the show, then it’s all about you, not Jesus.
The laborers in the vineyard wanted the landowner to be fair. But in fact He was more than fair. A denarius is a good and proper wage for a full day’s work. That’s exactly what they received. The landowner wasn’t being miserly; he didn’t stiff them. It’s just that the landowner was extremely generous to the others. He treated even the ones hired at the 11th hour as if they had worked all day. The landowner wasn’t unfair but gracious. Besides, he had the right to do whatever he wished with His own things.
Beware of applying standards of fairness to God. Beware, because generally the fairness argument is just a mask for promoting your own interests. That’s why we love to grouse about the rich and income inequality. “They don’t deserve it, and we deserve more for all our hard work; it’s not fair.” But God doesn’t want to deal with us that way, on the basis of what we deserve, as if we had a contractual arrangement with Him, a business deal, a pre-nuptial agreement. He wants our relationship to be one of real love, freely given, no strings attached. As soon as it’s about what we think God owes us, then we’re not seeking to love Him but to use Him.
We should beware of wanting God to be fair with us, anyway, as I’ve often told you before. For then we’d be in grave danger. If you want fair wages, then here’s what the Scriptures say, “The wages of sin is death.” Those who end up in hell are really in the end only getting what they asked for, namely, the just and fair payment for their faithless works. “Go your way,” the landowner said. Have it your way. Hell is filled with grumbling and complaining against God. You might think that hell would mostly be about regret. But regret quickly shifts to anger and blame, especially toward God. The damned actually believe that God is wrong, that He’s being unfair. This worsening bitterness and teeth-gritting frustration is part of their unending torment.
Repent, then, of dealing with God as if He were against you, as if He needed to be negotiated with and badgered into loving you. Turn away from your anger with Him. Trust that He is good, that He is merciful and abounding in steadfast love. He is blessedly unfair with you, pouring out on you the fullness of His generosity in Christ. He does love you. He will provide you with all that you need. After all, if the Father has given you His own Son, will He not also graciously give you all that is good and necessary and right for you? Remember that the laborers who were hired later in the day went to work without being told what they would be paid, just trusting in the goodness of the landowner. So you also, even though you can’t see what the future holds, even if life doesn’t seem to be fair–trust in the goodness of your heavenly Father; stake your life on His grace in Jesus. Know that He will give far more than you could ever dream of.
Just like the landowner dealt with those hired at the 11th hour, so the Lord treats you as if you did all the required work, from the beginning to the ending of the day. For what you failed to do, the Lord Jesus has accomplished perfectly on your behalf in His perfect life and death and resurrection. He Himself is the true Laborer in the vineyard. He began His work even before dawn on Good Friday, being condemned by the Jewish authorities. He was questioned by Pontius Pilate at the third hour of the day, flogged, and then crucified. Darkness covered the land from the sixth hour, noon, until the ninth hour, as a sign of the judgment He bore in your place. Then our Lord cried out “It is finished!” and died as the perfect and complete sacrifice for your sin. Behold how He did all the work for you! He who is the Rock was struck, and water and blood flowed forth from His side for your cleansing and your forgiveness. He was buried at the eleventh hour just before sundown to sanctify your grave and make it a place of rest from which you will awaken and rise in glory on the Last Day.
“The Lord will save the humble people, but will bring down proud and haughty looks.” And so we are not jealous of the newcomer in the vineyard of the church or of the one converted in his dying days, but we rejoice that the same mercy that saved us has also saved another. Even a faithful lifelong Christian recognizes that of himself he deserves nothing and that it is only because of Jesus that he has forgiveness and life. As it is written, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).”
Let us, then, be truly full of good works by trusting in the grace of Christ alone to save us. Or as St. Paul puts it, let us run in such a way as to obtain the prize of life with Christ, which He Himself has won for us. Let us run with the certainty of faith, setting our hearts on Him, disciplining our bodies and minds, more than even a dedicated Olympic athlete, filling ourselves with His words and His life-giving body and blood. Come and lay hold of the denarius Christ earned for you–not because it’s owed to you; but simply because it is His good pleasure to be generous and loving toward you.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
Posted on February 16, 2019 12:31 PM
by
Aaron Koch
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
We know that Jesus grew up like any other faithful Jewish boy, going to the synagogue weekly, and to the temple for the various feasts. And so praying and singing the psalms would have been a regular part of His life, all the way to the end even as He prayed from the Psalms on the cross. But that raises an interesting question: Would Jesus also have also prayed the penitential psalms, those Psalms that ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness? For instance, could the sinless Son of God pray Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out My transgressions”? It’s pretty easy for us to picture Jesus praying parts of Psalm 69 to His Father like this, “Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. . . Because for Your sake I have borne reproach . . . Zeal for Your house has consumed me.” The New Testament even says that those words apply to Jesus. But what about verse five of that same Psalm, “O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You”?
It would be easy to think that Jesus could not possibly have prayed those words. But I would suggest to you today that one of the things the baptism of our Lord teaches us is that Jesus must have prayed those psalms in their entirety–not because He had any sins of His own to confess, but because He bears our sins in His flesh and makes them His responsibility and confesses them as if He were guilty of every single one of them.
It was a strange sight for John the Baptizer, to see the Messiah, the One he had been preparing the way for, stepping down into the water to be baptized. The people were coming out to John in response to his preaching of repentance confessing their sins. John’s baptism was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. And yet here is Jesus with His feet in the murky Jordan waters asking John to baptize Him. You can understand why at first John tried to prevent Him and didn’t want to do it.
We probably would have done just as John did. For the truth is, we don’t necessarily want Jesus getting down into the mess and the muck of our everyday life in this world. Better to keep Him at a distance all shiny and clean; better to keep Him here at church unstained by our lives out in the “real” world. We, too, try to prevent Him, keep Him away from the coarseness of our workplace or the imperfections of our home life. It bothers us and unsettles us a bit when Jesus gets down into the nitty gritty of our existence. For then there’s no more hiding the way things are with us. Jesus’ entry into the water means things are going to be stirred up and changed, everything out in the open. And that means repentance for us; that’s never easy.
But it is good. For Jesus enters the water to take our place. Jesus said to John, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” In doing this Jesus was fulfilling the Father’s righteous plan to save sinners by trading places with us–the holy for the unholy. Jesus receives this baptism for sinners in order that He might become the Sinner, the only sinner. Like a great sponge He absorbs the whole’s world’s sin into Himself, and counts Himself guilty of it all, so that we would be counted righteous in God’s sight. It is written in 2 Corinthians, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus takes our curse of death so that through Him we might have the blessing of His divine life. Here in the water is where it all starts. Jesus begins His ministry here by accepting and taking this burden on Himself, as John would later say, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away, who carries away the sin of the world.”
You might say that Jesus stole your sins from you; He took them away. The only way they can damn you now is if you steal them back and insist on continuing in them and keeping them away from Jesus. Either your sins are on Him or they’re on you. And Jesus says today, “They’re all on me. I took them. Believe that; deal with it. You don’t get to hold on to them any more; you don’t get to keep beating yourself up over them. I became your pride, your greed, your lust, your immorality, your jealousy, your impatience, your laziness and weakness. And in turn you have become My righteousness, My holiness, My glory. Today I begin My sacred journey toward Calvary, bearing and carrying the sin of the world, so that I may destroy it there by My death and the shedding of My blood.”
It’s interesting to note that after Jesus persuaded John to baptize Him, it says that John “allowed” Him or permitted Him. It’s the same word that Jesus Himself later uses when He says, “Let the little children, permit, allow the little children to come to Me.” That word in Greek is closely related to the word meaning to be forgiven, released, let go of our sins. The point for us is this: Because Jesus was permitted to be baptized, there is now forgiveness and release for us in the water of baptism. By the power of His Word and Spirit, all our sins washed away. They have been taken up by Christ and carried to the cross where they were paid for and destroyed forever. You are forgiven, pure and holy in Jesus’ name.
Proof of what Jesus’ began to accomplish in His baptism is shown by the signs that appeared that day. As soon as Jesus was baptized, the Gospel says behold–pay attention to this–the heavens were opened to Him. That’s what Jesus accomplishes: He opens the heavens by His taking on and taking away the sin of the world. Heaven was closed to us fallen creatures. There was no entrance permitted for us by our own efforts or striving. But now the heavens are opened to Him, the righteous One, and to all who are baptized into Him and who share in His righteousness by faith.
Then it is written that “the Spirit of God descended like a dove and alighted upon Him.” That imagery of the dove is important, particularly as it connects this event to Old Testament events involving water and new life. In the very beginning we hear that the Holy Spirit was hovering, like a bird gliding over the face of the waters. The Holy Spirit was there with His creative power to bring life to the world that was being made. And then we hear of Noah sending out a dove from the ark, hovering over the waters, and then bringing back a freshly plucked olive branch, as a sign of the new creation that Noah and his family would enter after the flood. The Holy Spirit coming in the form of a dove points to Christ as the bringer of the new creation. It’s all there in Him. Through our baptism into Christ we receive the same Holy Spirit which He was anointed with. The Holy Spirit alights upon us to bring us new life, to make us new creatures, and to give us entrance into the new creation to come.
Finally, it is written that a voice came from heaven, the Father’s voice declaring, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God the Father was most pleased to see His Son obediently humbling Himself in love like this to save us, beginning His journey to the cross. Because of what Jesus has done, all the baptized now hear this very same voice of our heavenly Father saying, “You are My beloved Child; in you I am well pleased. I see no fault, no blemish in you–only my perfect and holy son or daughter. You may feel like a bruised reed or a smoldering wick, worn down and at the breaking point. But I will never cast you aside or forsake you; find your rest in My Son. I have called you by name; you are Mine. You belong with Me. Nothing in all creation can separate you from My love.”
All three persons of the Trinity are present here at Jesus’ baptism. That’s why you are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so that you may receive all the mercy that is wrapped up in the Holy Trinity’s saving name. Jesus has put Himself in the water for you. And so your baptism is a cleansing, life-giving flood. Jesus has put Himself in the water for you. And so all your sins are taken away. Jesus has put Himself in the water for you. And so you have a place in the Father’s house forever.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
Some of the most important women in the Old Testament are ones who were barren or infertile or beyond the age of childbearing–and yet beyond all expectation, God granted them to be mothers. Think of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, the mother of Samson, and Hannah. They are pictures of how our God is One who creates out of nothing. The closed, infertile womb is the most fertile ground for God’s saving work. For it shows how God brings His deliverance without our contribution or works or efforts or attributes. The same God who created out of nothing, also brings salvation out of nothing for us. These births emphasize that it’s all God’s grace simply to be received in trusting faith.
And so appropriately on this final Sunday in Advent, on the threshold of the celebration of the gracious birth of Christ, our Gospel tells of the meeting of two women who are remarkably, miraculously pregnant. One woman is well past the age of bearing children, probably in her sixties; the other is a young virgin, probably no older than sixteen or so. Elizabeth is six months along with John the Baptizer, the prophet and forerunner of Christ. Mary has conceived a child in her virginity by the Holy Spirit. Both of them are pregnant by the power of God’s Word. They are living testimony that “with God nothing is impossible.”
The angel Gabriel had told Mary the news concerning Elizabeth, and so Mary hurried off to the hill country of Judea to visit her cousin and share in her happiness. And as soon as Mary’s greeting reached Elizabeth’s ears, the baby jumped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. What an amazing thing! The sound of Mary’s voice caused the unborn baby John to leap with happiness. Even as a six-month-old fetus in his mother’s womb he is already bearing witness to Christ! Mary gives voice to the Messiah within her, and the sound of that voice causes John to rejoice.
Who says that babies can’t believe? And who would dare argue that even unborn children can’t benefit from being in church and hearing the Word? If the sound of Mary’s greeting filled the baby Baptizer with joy, how much more will the sound of the living voice of Christ’s Word bring life and joy to the unborn! Being in the Liturgy, hearing the Word, eating and drinking the Sacrament is a vital part of every Christian woman’s prenatal care.
The same holds true for our infants and toddlers and little ones. They need to hear God’s Word even before they know what all the words mean. They need to grow into the vocabulary of forgiveness and eternal life in the divine service. They will have all eternity to master it, but the earlier they start, the better. Instead of merely soaking in the screen-driven preaching of the world, they need rather to be filled with the sound of God’s Word at home and in church, to know the historic hymns of the faith and the ancient creeds that have been handed down to us. A child can believe without fully understanding, just like adults do. A child can respond to God’s Word without having a huge vocabulary. If you doubt that, just remember John’s leap for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice.
The Gospel also records that upon hearing Mary’s greeting, John’s mother Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And by the Holy Spirit, she says of Mary and her holy Child. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” You may recognize those words. Together with Gabriel’s earlier greeting, they are the first part of the Ave Maria . “Hail, Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” We Lutherans, who hold to the sacred Scriptures, can agree with those words, at least.
Though considerably older than Mary, Elizabeth considers it an honor and a gift of God that Mary should come and visit her. She calls her younger relative “the mother of my Lord.” That’s why the church rightly calls Mary the Theotokos, “the mother of God.” She is the bearer of the eternal Word, the Son of God. She is the door through whom God entered our world, the temple in which our Savior chose to dwell as a tiny unborn child. She is the chosen and honored instrument of the Incarnation of God, through whom the Son of God received His humanity, so that He might offer it for the life of the world. Mary is truly blessed among women, and every generation of the faithful rightly recognizes this.
All women, especially younger women, have a great role model in Mary. She teaches us that the highest honor of women is motherhood. For every pregnancy and birth is connected to and is an image of the birth of our Savior, who shared in the humanity of every child, born and unborn. And in our culture that glorifies promiscuous celebrities and makes fun of chastity and virginity, in an age when pre-marital sex is pretty much considered the standard, Mary stands out as a picture of what happens when God’s Word holds sway with someone. She is filled with the Spirit and the Scriptures. Her psalm of praise, the Magnificat, shows us that this young woman knew the psalms well. She believed the Word of God that was preached to her by the angel. In that faith she said “yes” to God’s plan that she would be the virgin mother of the world’s Savior.
We do indeed bless and honor Mary–not because she has some special higher holiness of her own, but because of the Lord’s grace in choosing her. Who else but Mary is the source of our Lord’s human nature? Whose womb but hers was His throne room for nine months? Who else but Mary was He dependent on for nourishment as an infant? Jesus alone is sinless, but His mother is blessed because the Mighty One has done great things for her by His Word. To honor her is to honor the incarnation of God, to praise God for taking on human flesh to save us.
We sometimes have difficulty in blessing and honoring Mary. Perhaps it’s because we have difficulty with anything special and different that God sets apart for His holy purposes. Our culture has lost the idea of the sacred–sacred time, sacred space, sacred people, sacred things. Everything tends to be ordinary for our culture, the same, generic, interchangeable. Our age wants churches to be “comfortable,” the pastor to be “just a regular guy,” worship to be indistinguishable from the surrounding world, Mary to be just another pregnant teenager.
But that’s not how it is with the Lord. And so we treat the church building as a holy space. We don’t just stomp in here as though we were entering a stadium or an auditorium or a store–or at least we shouldn’t. This place is set apart. It isn’t because the carpeting is holy, or the concrete or wood is holy. It’s because of the Word of God that is preached and heard here. The Word makes this space holy and blessed.
Or consider the bread in the Lord’s Supper. We don’t throw it away after communion or even put it back with ordinary bread, because it is holy; the Word of God has been added to it which declares it to be and makes it to be body of Christ in the Sacrament. Likewise the chalice–we treat it as a holy thing; something sacred. You would be offended if I took it home and used it at my dinner table, not because the chalice is made of silver and gold, but because it is used for something sacred: to distribute the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ that it holds is what makes it holy.
And so it is with Mary. She is blessed and holy not of herself but on account of what she holds, on account of the holy Child that was conceived in her by the Holy Spirit. She is the instrument of our Lord’s incarnation, and for that reason she is to be blessed by all who believe in her Son for their salvation.
Mary is certainly not to be worshiped or prayed to. That would irritate her. No, her soul magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior. She directs our attention to the same place–to her Child. Mary teaches us not to take our place with the proud and the powerful, the ruling and the rich of this world. For the Lord is a toppler of thrones. He puts the powerful in their place. He scatters and puts down the self-sufficient and the self-righteous. There is nothing and no one that can withstand the strength of God’s arm. He destroys everything that competes for our trust.
Rather, Mary teaches us to worship God with humility and awe, for “His mercy is on those who fear Him” in reverent faith. He lifts up those who are humbled and bowed down. God helps those who cannot help themselves. “He has shown strength with His arm” especially by extending His arms on the cross for us to crush the power of death and Satan. His arm reaches out to fill the hungry with good things, even and especially here in the holy Supper.
Mary teaches us that our God is One who keeps His Word. He helps His people “in remembrance of His mercy.” He is faithful to His promises. Galatians 4 says that in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, born of Mary, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons. Just think about what that means for you: Mary gave birth to Jesus. And you are members of Jesus’ body. That means that Mary is your mother in Christ and the mother of all Christians.
In this way Mary is a picture of the church and of all believers. You, too, are virgin pure and holy; for you are washed by the blood of Jesus that has cleansed you from every spot of sin. The Lord has been conceived and born in your hearts by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Word. He dwells in you through faith.
And so you also magnify the Lord with Mary. For the Mighty One has done great things for you. He has scattered the pride of your sin, and toppled the old Adam from the throne of your heart so that Christ reigns there as your Savior-King. God is faithful to you; He will complete what He began in your baptism and bring His promises to their culmination on the day of His return. Just like Mary, blessed also are you who believe that what the Lord has said to you will be accomplished.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
(Some of the above was adapted from a sermon by the Rev. William Cwirla, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Hacienda Heights, CA.)
Posted on December 22, 2018 11:34 AM
by
Aaron Koch
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit
Psalm 24 says, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Well that doesn’t sound like very good news, does it? That description excludes us all. Whose hands haven’t been stained by selfish actions? Whose heart hasn’t been polluted by covetous desires? God’s Word is clear in Romans 3, “None is righteous, no, not one. . . All have turned aside; together they have become corrupt.. . They use their tongues to deceive.” You have no righteousness of yourself, in spite of your best efforts. Isaiah 64 says that even all of our own supposedly “righteous” deeds are like filthy rags before God.
How, then, can any of us ever expect to enter into God’s presence? The answer and the solution to that problem is revealed in today’s OT reading, where Jeremiah prophesies that the coming Messiah, Jesus, will be called “The Lord Our Righteousness.” That’s where your righteousness is to be found, in Jesus alone. Only He has clean hands and a pure heart. Only He has the right to ascend the hill of the Lord and to stand in His holy place. So it is that in today’s Gospel we see Jesus going up to Jerusalem–where He would cleanse the temple, where He would redeem us by His holy cross. His clean hands and His pure heart were pierced for us to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Trusting in Christ, His righteousness becomes our own. Romans 4 says that to the one who believes in Him, “his faith is counted as righteousness.” So, we are able to ascend the hill of the Lord and to stand in His holy place solely by Jesus’ merit. That’s why we begin nearly every service with confession and absolution. Holding to Jesus and His mercy, we are purified and accepted into the Father’s presence to worship Him. For Christ the Lord is our righteousness.
Today, at the beginning of a new church year, we celebrate again this holy, Christ-centered truth. We begin once more to recount the true story of salvation in Jesus. Rehearsing His life and His teaching is the heartbeat of our life. It’s the way we grow up into His righteousness and get ready for the life of the world to come.
Still, it might seem strange that we start out the Advent season by picking up the salvation story so far into it, at the beginning of Holy Week! You might expect that we’d start at the beginning of Jesus’ life, with more Christmas-y type readings. But you actually get very little of that in Advent. For the way the church recounts this story is not purely chronological. Advent is primarily a season of penitent preparation for Christ’s coming. Advent begins the same way Holy Week begins to remind us that you can’t disconnect Jesus’ birth from Jesus’ cross. His coming into the world is inseparably linked to His dying for the world. Today’s Gospel reading shows us that our Lord comes in lowliness and humility, whether it’s in a manger or on a beast of burden. As it is written, “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey.”
Notice how your King doesn’t merely do an obligatory gesture from on high as He passes by, waving and keeping a safe distance from you. Rather it says that He comes to you, right to where you’re at, past all the facades to the way things really are with you. He comes to you humbly, on your level, even to the point of sharing in your flesh and blood, to give you mercy, to rescue you and deliver you, to be your life and your help. Since He comes in this lowly way, you are called to do as the people did here and lay your garments on the road before Him, which means to cast off the works of darkness in your life. Let your sins be cast aside; lay them down so that He may trample them underfoot. Humble yourself through repentance, and then through faith in Christ put on His armor of light, walking properly as in the day.
We see in Luke’s Palm Sunday narrative that there is, actually, a very nice connection here to Christmas. Perhaps you noticed it when the Gospel was being read. At Jesus’ birth the angels praised God and said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!” And here, the multitude of the disciples praise God saying, “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!” The song of heaven becomes the song of earth. Angels sing of peace on earth; humans sing of peace in heaven. But that’s really just two sides of the same coin. For in Jesus heaven and earth are brought together, since He is God and man together Himself. By becoming man our Lord Jesus brings peace on earth. Then Christ reconciles us to the Father by offering Himself up as the sacrifice for our sins. There is literally peace in heaven as the crucified and risen Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father, and God and man are reunited eternally through the power of His blood. This is what brings glory in the highest; this is the glory of God the Father, to give His Son for us that we might live with Him in gladness and peace forever.
One of the things that stands out in this Gospel reading is the detailed information Jesus gives about getting this donkey colt. Here our Lord demonstrates not just His omniscience, that He knows all things, but that He has carefully planned and prepared for this day. Scripture says that the kingdom of God has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world, and here we see the Lord carrying out His mission to save you in precise detail.
And in particular, we see how important this specific donkey colt is. It is a colt on which no one has ever sat. For not just anyone can accomplish this mission; only Jesus can redeem us. Only He is worthy to be seated on this beast of burden and to bear the burden of our brokenness all the way to the cross. This colt is to be unloosed and released and brought to Jesus; for our Lord has come to unloose and release us stubborn donkeys from our bondage to death and the devil, so that we may serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
What happens in today’s Gospel is in fulfillment of a prophecy that goes all the way back to Genesis 49. There it says that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah.” In other words, the Messiah King, Jesus, will come from the tribe of Judah. And then it says of the Messiah, “Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes.” This means that the One who rides this colt does so in order to pour out His blood to atone for the sins of the world. It is this very blood that is poured out in wine for us in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. The King is still coming to us humbly in the Lord’s Supper to save us. And we are still carrying on the hymn of the people outside of Jerusalem as we sing in the communion liturgy, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!
Jesus rides this new colt on which no one has ever sat, and then He is buried in a new tomb hewn out of the rock in which no one had ever lain before. For there also He will do what no one else can do and conquer the power of the grave for us by His bodily resurrection. And it all will begin with Jesus being laid in a manger which had never been used as a cradle before. For who would put their baby in a cattle feeder? Only the humble and lowly Jesus would do these things for us and for our salvation. There is none other like Him. There is no other Savior.
Of course, some will not believe this. Some are looking for a more glorious Lord, one who brings success and prosperity and worldly honor. The Pharisees here actually tell Jesus to rebuke His disciples who are praising Him. For these Pharisees simply cannot accept that one so common as Him could be the promised King. Do not be led astray and deceived by those who think this way, who are scandalized by suffering, who want the crown of gold without the crown of thorns. Rather, embrace Him who embraced your humanity fully to redeem you, who is at work even in the midst of your lowliness and your suffering to bring you to share in His resurrection glory.
And finally, remember what Jesus says here, that if the people would have kept silent, the very stones would have cried out in praise of Him! John the Baptist also had preached that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from the stones. This is a reminder that all praise truly belongs to the Lord for our salvation. For we could do nothing to come to Him. Until He came to us, we were like stones, cold and lifeless under the curse. But then by His advent He brought us to life and built us into His own special dwelling, His holy church. Because Jerusalem rejected the Messiah, they would be destroyed by the Romans, and not one stone would be left upon another, Jesus said. But for us who believe and are baptized, it is written in 1 Peter 2, “Coming to (Jesus) as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” All of you together are the Lord’s holy temple. You are those who proclaim the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
As we enter into this new church year, then, let us continually join in with those who praised Jesus as He entered into Jerusalem. For your King is coming to you. He is righteous and having salvation. “‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit
Posted on December 01, 2018 10:26 PM
by
Aaron Koch
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
Most everyone loves a comeback story–somebody really messed up their life, or lost badly in sports, or made a terrible decision, or failed at something. But then instead of that being the end of the story, they change, they turn things around, they humbly learn from their faults and things are made right and good in the end. Deep down we believe everyone deserves a second chance–for we know how many times we ourselves have needed second chances.
And in many ways, that’s very much a Scriptural notion. We heard in last week’s epistle about how the Lord’s delay in His return is because of His longsuffering patience and His desire that all come to repentance. He doesn’t want anyone to perish eternally, but for all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. We know that parable where even the workers hired at the 11th hour receive the denarius of salvation. Our God is indeed the God of the second chance, and the third and the fourth and the 490th chance. He is a God of patience and forgiveness and grace.
However, there will come a time when 2nd chances will finally run out. Jesus’ parable of the 10 virgins is an example of that. They only had one opportunity to get it right. And when the bridegroom comes late, the oil of the foolish has run out, the storekeepers’ shops are closed, and the door to the marriage feast is shut–and there are no do-overs or turning back the clock.
This, then, is one of the messages of today’s Gospel. We dare never presume upon the grace of the Lord. What a foolish thing it is to say, “I’ll take the things of God more seriously in a few years, later on. Right now I’ve got to focus on other things.” Tell me: how do you know you’ve got a few years to work with? Do you know the day of the Lord’s return or the day of your death? How can you give so much attention to your worldly loves and assume that the things of the Lord can be taken care of at some point in the future? It is a foolish notion to think that you can schedule your repentance and put it off for later. That is perhaps the most silly and dangerous thing of all. If you are willfully clinging to your sin now, willfully putting off repentance until some nebulous future point, what makes you think your heart will suddenly be repentant later? Resisting the work of the Holy Spirit is a dangerous game. It numbs the conscience and deadens faith until finally you no longer feel your need for repentance or forgiveness or Jesus at all.
Now is the time; now is the day of salvation. Now is the moment for repentance and watching and receiving the Lord’s gifts. Now is the time to be wise in this foolish generation.
In the Scriptures, wisdom is not equated with a high IQ or great learning. One may be wise without being academically smart. Many of you have seen this in folks from generations past, who may not have even finished gradeschool, but who had a humble and insightful wisdom that some with doctorates don’t possess today. In the Bible real wisdom is seeing things–seeing all of life–from God's perspective, having the mind of Christ as St. Paul puts it. Our Lord tells the story in Matthew 7 of the wise man who builds his house on the rock. Jesus says, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.” In other words, the wise man knows that only a life built on the words of Jesus will endure, for even though the heavens and the earth pass away, His words will never pass away. It is no wonder, then, that Moses prays in Psalm 90 saying, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Moses’ prayer is not simply that we might be smart, but that we might see our fleeting days from God’s perspective.
Five of the virgins are wise. They do not merely live for the moment; they live with their hearts set on this most important wedding event. They do not know at what hour the bridegroom will come and lead them into the wedding hall. They do not know when the party would begin. But they know that the bridegroom is on His way and that they are his invited guests. So their lives are lived toward that wedding. Nothing else is as important as that event. So they are prepared for the wait. They check their lamps. They buy extra oil. Their flasks are full.
No doubt they seemed a bit foolish carrying around those extra jars of oil. Perhaps they were told stop burdening themselves, to loosen up and have a good time and not to be so extreme or obsessive. Nevertheless, these wise women paid attention to the oil; they were prepared for the delay. And when the bridegroom finally arrived, they were ready to take part in the marriage feast.
For the five foolish virgins it was too late. There was no more opportunity to purchase oil. They were unprepared for the feast and unable to enter into the joy of the celebration. The door was shut, and they were excluded.
What does this mean for you? Jesus' own explanation of the parable says it all, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” Watching does not mean that you should be speculating about the day or the hour. History is full of failed predictions about the end. All you are given to know is that Jesus’ return will come suddenly and unexpectedly, like a thief in the night, like the flood in Noah’s day, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. All you are given to do is to watch, to be ready, to devote yourselves to the worship of Christ and the receiving of His gifts.
To watch is to believe and to hope in His promises. The Word of God is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. It is filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit, who makes us wise unto salvation and keeps the flame of faith in Christ burning brightly. To watch is to be vigilant about the things of Christ, the life-giving gifts which He purchased for us with His holy and precious blood.
A church that ceases to watch will lose the Gospel. A church that becomes lazy or complacent regarding God’s doctrine is in danger of losing the teaching of Christ, falling from faith. Therefore, the Apostle Paul writes to Pastor Timothy and all pastors: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (I Tim. 4:16). Our watching is not a gazing up into the heavens, but attentiveness to the voice of our Good Shepherd as He speaks to us in His Word. We are now living in that evil age which Paul spoke about when he said, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from the truth to wander into myths” (II Tim. 4:3). We are to watch by holding fast God’s Word, hearing it, learning it, and taking it to heart.
Right now is the evening of the wedding feast. Right now is the time when you still have access to the oil. It is available to you in overflowing abundance. For the forgiveness of sins purchased by our Savior through His atoning death on the cross is enough for the whole world, for all of you; it covers every single one of your sins–none left out. There is no shortage of supply in His grace and mercy. This oil of the Holy Spirit is distributed now in the preaching of the Gospel and the giving out of Jesus’ body and blood in the Holy Supper. The wise cannot get enough of these. They never say, “Oh, I can skip a couple or three weeks of church.” For they always desire more of Jesus. And the more we get of Him, the more ready and eager we are to receive Him when He comes again in glory. Remember that the One who is coming is your Redeemer. He is the One who in His first coming willingly suffered for you in weakness to break the power of the curse over you. He is the One who loves you and forgives you. He is the One who comes not in wrath and judgment for you who believe but to bring you the fullness of joy.
When all is said and done, when we have properly been shaken down to our souls with the urgency of the call to watch and the finality of what will happen on the Day of Christ’s return, we also then need to take a deep breath and let it out with a joyous laugh. Because what we are watching for is a celebration. The unknown day and hour is not a dreadful time for the faithful; it is the ultimate day of happiness that we eagerly seek and look forward to. It is the ultimate holiday, the holy Day when the Lord, whom we love and trust in, is revealed, and when we get to be with Him and revel in His presence. If being reunited with loved ones for the holidays and just spending time together can bring great happiness, how much more will that be true of the return of our Savior? The Lord who is coming is not like that snooty relative who walks around finding all the flaws in your house and who is eager to give advice on how you should do things better. Rather He is like the uncle who always brings the funniest gifts and tells the best stories and who you just like hanging around with. Make no mistake, the One who is coming is your God and your Lord to whom you owe the greatest reverence. But He has also made Himself to be your flesh and blood. And so we do indeed need to watch for His coming; not as a burden, though, but as a joyful thing. For we eagerly are looking forward to the merriment of the wedding feast.
Your Bridegroom says to you, “Assuredly, I do know you in your baptism. More than you have watched for me, I have watched out for you. My eyes are on you to save you. I have redeemed you and claimed you as my own. You are holy and righteous. What awaits you is a new heaven and a new earth. No more tears. No more sorrow. No more crying. No more pain. All things made new. Perfect delight. The fulfillment of your salvation.”
This divine service is the Last Day in miniature. I cry out to you, we all cry out to each other, “Wake, awake! The Bridegroom is here! Jesus is coming to you in the Holy Sacrament. Go out to meet Him at His holy altar. He comes to you in mercy. Enter into the joy of the wedding feast.”
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit
The way that Satan attacks God is by attacking those who are made in the image of God. We need to recognize, especially in today’s cultural context, that the devil’s #1 goal is to corrupt and pollute and ultimately destroy our humanity. The way Satan lashes out at the Creator is by assaulting the crown of God’s creation, human beings.
In particular, the devil is now attacking the most basic reality of our humanity, namely, that we are created male and female. And here’s the way he does it: it starts with a lie that has actually been around for millennia. The lie goes like this: material things are bad, or at least unimportant, and spiritual things are good. The body is supposedly just a shell that you eventually cast aside; the soul is what counts. It’s not outward things like maleness or femaleness but inward things that matter. But do you see how that philosophy is a rejection of the Creator? For what did God declare about His creation? He said that it was good, even very good! This is the way we should think of physical, bodily, material things; for they are created by God. They’re not lower level stuff; they are good just as much as our souls are. To be sure this fallen creation now groans under the curse of decay and death because of sin. But the problem is sin, not the material creation. Besides, if you think about it, sin is as much a matter of the soul as it is of the body; for all sin begins in the heart.
Body and soul are one; they go together. Too often we try to separate them into different categories, body over here, soul over there, and the soul just sort of rattles around in this bodily container for a while till death when it is set free. But that’s not how it is. Remember how Adam was created? God formed him from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. That life is the soul. It’s not as if there are some pre-existing souls floating around up in heaven somewhere, and when a woman gets pregnant, God sends a soul down to the little unborn baby. Sadly, in fact, that’s how many people try to justify abortion. They say the baby doesn’t have a soul until later in the pregnancy or until they’re born; so killing the unborn child is OK. But of course that’s wrong. At the moment of conception, God creates a new human person, including a new human soul. The soul is the life of the body, the unique person that God creates.
This means that the soul is not just a generic spirit. If you’re a man, you have a male soul. If you are a woman, you have a female soul. None of this silliness that a man can be trapped in a woman’s body, or vice versa. The soul is the life of that particular male or female body. It is a demonic lie which tries to separate soul and body as if they’re two separate things, or as if they could be mismatched. To say so is to rebel against the Creator and reject His creation of the body. Now it’s true that under the curse, all sorts of things can go wrong with our bodies, as well as our minds, and so sometimes people will struggle with various feelings. But since that’s a consequence of sin, it’s not something a person should embrace but something they should fight against with God’s help. The way of faith is not to trust our feelings or the deceitfulness of our sinful hearts, but to trust God’s creative Word and His creating work. That is what is for sure and certain, unlike our feelings which are always shifting.
So let me put this in practical terms: when it comes to the current transgender fad–dare I call it the transgender contagion–we should never call someone by a designation of sex other than the one God gave them. We don’t choose our own identity, it is given to us by God. So if a man has supposedly transitioned to being a woman, it is not for us to deny reality, to deny the Creator, and call that man a “she.” It’s Bruce, not Caitlyn, despite the game of pretend that’s being played. If we call a person by their preferred pronoun which is contrary to their creation, we are joining in on a lie and giving support to the devil’s attempt to corrupt our humanity. It’s pure hypocrisy to say transgender ideology is wrong, and then when confronted with an actual example of it to join in on the make-believe. Christians refer to reality as God defines it, not as man defines it.
Now, I should hasten to add here, that in all things we should act with compassion and not behave like jerks. In many of these cases there are serious spiritual and bodily and mental issues in play. We want to help the people involved if at all possible and work to bring them back to the way of faith in God’s creative and redeeming work. Since the people involved are created in the image of God, we’re not there to put them down but to help lift them up to fullness of life in Christ. But that simply can’t be accomplished by affirming the mutilation of the body with surgeries and the pollution of the body with opposite sex hormones, especially when this is tragically being perpetrated on children. Faith in the Creator means embracing our bodily creation by Him.
“Male and female He created them.” Two sexes, two genders, complementary to one another and created for one another for the one flesh union of holy marriage. Which brings us to another way in which the devil seeks to degrade our humanity, namely through same sex unions and so-called same sex marriages. Again, the only way this can be embraced and accepted is if you deny the way in which God created our bodies. Only male and female form the wholeness and the fulness of what our humanity is. And only male and female can be God’s instrument in creating new life. Same sex unions are by definition contrary to the Creator, for they are sterile and non-creating–not for reasons of health or age which couples sometimes face–but by their very nature. God’s Word says that one of the primary purposes of marriage is that man and woman be fruitful and multiply. Same sex unions do not reflect the image of God, the Holy Trinity, for they cannot create that triad of life.
So again, let me put this in practical terms: you may well believe correctly that homosexual unions are sinful, just as any sexual union outside of God-given marriage is sinful. But how do you deal with this when you are confronted with it in your day to day life? If a man refers to his “husband” or a woman to her “wife,” do you join in with using that terminology? The language and the words we use are important–for they either express the truth of the living words of God in Holy Scripture or the lying words of the evil one. It’s one thing to have to live under the ungodly laws of the land–and we do obey the civil laws insofar as we aren’t caused to sin. As Scripture says, our default position is to “live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). But above all, as Scripture also says, we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). You should never talk as if these so-called marriages are actually real in anything more than a purely legal sense. Before God, they are nothing but a rebellious illusion. And we want no part in that.
In particular, here’s a situation that some of you may have had to face, and I’m sure it will be happening with greater frequency in the future: what do you do if you’re invited to a same-sex wedding? This isn’t easy, because it may well be a family member or relative, a co-worker or client or friend who’s doing the inviting. There’s a lot at stake in how you handle this. As Christians we want to be clear that we don’t hate anyone or wish ill on anyone; there are no “phobias” at work. “Phobia” means “fear”; this isn’t about fear for Christians but truth. And if we really love the people involved as we should, we want to speak the truth for their eternal good. You’re not loving someone if you’re “supporting” them in their sin and false belief. It’s not kindness to show up and smile politely at actions that threaten to cut them off from God forever. (E.g., 1 Cor. 6:9-10)
So let me put the matter as clearly as I can. There is simply no way in good conscience that a Christian can attend and be a part of the celebration of a so-called same sex wedding. To do so is wrong and against God’s will. First of all, examine what your motives have to be for taking part if you know that the whole thing is forbidden by God. If it’s that you fear harming a relationship, doesn’t that mean that you fear people more than God, or put another way, that you love people and care about what they think more than God? We like to fool ourselves into believing that if we can just maintain the relationship, that eventually we’ll be able to bring people around to the truth of God’s Word. But in reality we just keep putting things off, and that time is always at some unspecified point in the future. Meanwhile, our actions speak volumes to the contrary. Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Or perhaps you fear some job-related, financial consequence. There might be some blowback from a co-worker or client. And so you try to play both sides and serve two masters. But again Jesus clearly says, “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). “One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16:10).
Some might say, “But didn’t Jesus eat with sinners?” And the answer is, of course He did! There is no sinner that Jesus would not engage with, including sexual sinners, and the same should be true for us. But what was Jesus doing when He sat at table with them? What was his message when He spoke to them? It was this: “Repent, and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Jesus came calling sinners to repentance. He came to seek and to save the lost. He never condoned sin; He forgave sin. But a same sex wedding is by its very nature an unrepentant approval of sin. Now, if you can go to a same sex wedding ceremony and call the couple involved to repentance (not to mention everyone else who is approving of this rejection of the Creator), then that would be an exception to the rule. But of course, that’s not going to happen. When you go to a wedding, you’re obliged to be pleasant and nice, to laugh at the jokes, to congratulate the couple and the rest of the family, to give them a gift celebrating their union, to act as if everything is just fine and wonderful. But the flowers and the fancy clothes are only covering rebellion against God. And this is made all the worse if it takes place in a church, a blasphemy of God’s name. It’s not angels that are rejoicing in these events, it’s demons. And we should never join in with the worship of demons.
We need to wake up to what’s happening. These things are some of the defining issues of our times. They are a test that you may well soon be faced with. It’s easy to justify our actions and take the broad easy road rather than the narrow way. But let us take the early Christian church as our example. All they had to do to save their lives and their means of making a living was to offer a pinch of incense to Caesar and acknowledge him as Lord instead of Jesus. They easily could have rationalized such actions by saying that they were doing those things insincerely, just going through the motions of idolatry, merely mouthing a curse against Christ to save their skins. But they didn’t. They would rather lose their lives than to do that. And that’s how the church grew. It didn’t grow based on the lukewarm compromise of those who loved their lives in this world, but because of the passionate faith of those who believed in a Creator who could and would raise their bodies from the dead to glory, even if they were mauled by lions or burned at the stake. That sincere faith and love of God inspired others and eventually won over an empire.
So let us, then, commit ourselves never to offer the modern pinch of incense to the gods of this world but steadfastly to hold to our confession of faith in the God of creation, the blessed Holy Trinity. For we have a God who not only created us and our physical natures, but when we had fallen into sin and under the curse of death, He reaffirmed the goodness of His creation by entering into it Himself! The Son of God, Jesus Christ, took up our human nature in order to restore our humanity again. What does Scripture say? “The Word became flesh.” Notice the Gospel writer uses the most blatantly earthy word possible there–not just “body” but “flesh.” And when Jesus shared in our flesh, He made it holy. Through Him all things were made in the beginning, and through Him all things are recreated by the power of His death and resurrection. Jesus died in the flesh to purge our human nature of its sin, and He rose again in the flesh so that we might also share in His bodily resurrection to glory in the new creation to come. In the midst of our earthly groaning, we eagerly wait for the redemption of our bodies through our blood brother in the flesh, Jesus (Romans 8:23).
The devil may do His worst to try to turn God’s creation upside down and corrupt and pollute it. But Satan has been defeated. For Jesus has cleansed your humanity forever by joining it to His own divine nature. Your human nature is now holy and pure in Christ. Even if you have polluted yourself in the past through various sins, your sins are forgiven and washed away from you forever through faith in His holy, precious blood. Our maleness and femaleness is an image of how God is a husband to His chosen people, how Christ the holy Groom gives Himself and lays down His life for His elect Lady. The Church is the baptized Bride of Christ, chosen and precious to Him.
So whatever you were before, you are now set apart and sanctified as God’s holy people, His beloved. And His Word is still powerful to accomplish what it says. Jesus said to the man in the Gospel “Your son lives,” and he did. So also He says to you, “Your sins are forgiven. Fear not. I have called you by name; you are Mine.” And it is so.
Therefore, fellow believers in Jesus, in the midst of the spiritual warfare that we are in on every front, put on the breastplate of His righteousness and the helmet of His freely given salvation. Take up the sword of the Spirit for the battle, which is the Word of God. And in all circumstances raise the shield of faith in Christ, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit
