John 6:1-15
Lent 4

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

    At the end of today’s Gospel, the people said about Jesus, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”  When they spoke of “the Prophet,” they were referring to the promise that the Lord had made to Moses, when the children of Israel were afraid to hear the thundering voice of God on Mt. Sinai.  The Lord told Moses, “I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth.”  

    And to that extent, the people were right.  Jesus is the promised Prophet, the New and Greater Moses, who speaks God’s words to His people, who leads you and feeds you and intercedes for you.  Just consider all the details in today’s Gospel.  In the same way that  Moses led the children of Israel through the Red Sea, Jesus goes across the Sea of Galilee (6:1), and a great multitude follows Him.  And why did they follow Him?  Because of His signs which He performed on those who were diseased (6:2), just like Moses who had performed great signs in Egypt before Pharaoh.  And as Moses went up Mt. Sinai with the elders of Israel, and they saw God and ate and drank, so also Jesus here ascends a mountain with His disciples, and in Him the people would see God and eat and drink (6:3).  And it is written here that the Passover was near (6:4), the sacrificing of the unblemished Lamb whose blood protects from death.  In this Gospel, then, the Lord is teaching you that He is your greater Moses.  He alone is the One who sustains and leads you safely across the wilderness of this fallen world.  He is the One who comes after Moses, your Joshua, who leads you through death into the Promised Land and eternal life.

    Jesus is also your manna.  He said, “I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world (6:51).”  So when we hear of a miracle like the feeding of the 5000, we know that its significance doesn’t end with the earthly bread of that time and place.  No, here is pictured the true Manna, the Bread of Life which is still being distributed to the multitude today, to you in the Sacrament of the Altar.

    Seeing all the people coming to Him, Jesus asks Philip a question to test him.  Now when the Lord tests you, He does so not to find out information about you that He didn’t already know, right?  He’s God; He knows all things.  Jesus tests you ultimately to direct your faith to the right place and to strengthen it.  God’s tests are for your good.  The Lord asks Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?”  In this way the Lord leads Philip to despair of his own ability to do anything to solve this problem.  “Even if we had 200 days’ worth of wages, we still couldn’t buy nearly enough food.”  The disciples were helpless to do anything.  The first thing about having the right faith is knowing what not to trust in. Tests serve to empty you of your idols and your false gods.  The disciples were not to trust in themselves or their own resources.

    It’s the same way with you.   Jesus asks this question to show you that the bread of life is not something that you can acquire with your own spiritual resources or by your own goodness.  You simply have no ability to come up with what is necessary to attain eternal life.  You must learn to turn way from and despair of your own qualifications to solve this problem.  You’ve got nothing to barter with to make yourself right with God.  You can’t purchase this heavenly bread.  Rather, God offers it to you freely in Christ.  His forgiveness and salvation are granted to you without cost; for He has paid the price.  As Isaiah 55 says, “You who have no money, come, buy and eat.”

    Only those can receive the bread of life, then, who acknowledge their spiritual bankruptcy before God, who recognize that of themselves they can lay no claim on God’s eternal gifts.  Those who think that they are worthy of the Bread of Life will not be given life at all.  For they are still trying to “buy” their way into God’s good graces with their own merits.  Only to the poor in spirit does the kingdom of heaven belong.  Our righteousness is like the rotting Old Testament manna that was kept overnight; it’s goodness doesn’t last.  Only those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Christ will be satisfied.  For His is the food which endures to everlasting life (6:27).

    One of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, said to Him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?”  On the surface it appeared that this bread and fish would be useless to help feed the people.  But with Jesus it was more than enough to do the job.  It’s the same way with the Sacrament of the Altar.  Someone might ask, “What good can this little bit of bread and wine do?  How can these elements help my soul or give me any eternal blessings?”  But in the hands of Jesus, such elements are more than enough.  For what counts is not the impressiveness of the bread and wine but the miracle that our Lord does with them.  You must focus not simply on the elements only but on the Word of the Lord who stands behind them.

    “Then Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’  Now there was much grass in the place.”  The Lord invites you also to do the same thing today, for the Psalm says, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall lack nothing.  He makes me to lie down in green pastures.”  Right here is your grassy pasture where He calls you to come for rest.  It is here that He leads you beside the still waters of His living Word.  It is here that He prepares a table before you, spread with heavenly food.

    “And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.”  Here is the great miracle, that as the disciples handed out this food given them by Christ, there was always more and more.  The more they handed out, the more there was.  First there were five loaves in the basket.  Then, as this was distributed, the disciples would reach in and find more and more loaves ready to be given out.  And likewise with the fish.  Thousands upon thousands of people were fed, and the food never ran out.  Everyone was filled and satisfied; no one was left out.  The Lord more than covered all of their needs.

    Isn’t this also how it is with the gifts that Christ gives in Holy Communion?  In bread and wine He multiplies His body and blood, and through His ministers He distributes them to His people, that you may receive all that you want of Him who is the Living Bread from heaven, and that your souls may be thoroughly satisfied with His mercy.  There is always more and more of this Bread of Life to be given out.  For this bread is the flesh of God Himself; and there is no limit to God.  He offered up His body for you on the cross to purchase your forgiveness.  And now He offers up His body to you in Holy Communion that you may receive that full and limitless forgiveness.

    Like the five loaves and the two fish, our Lord’s love is ever-expanding.  It’s reverse mathematics; the more that He gives, the more that He has yet to give.  It can’t be measured; you can’t put a boundary around it.  So when you come to the Lord’s table with penitence and faith, you need never fear that the sin you bring is bigger than the Lord’s forgiveness.  The cross covers it all, and then some.  The shed blood of the Passover Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.  When you eat the Living Bread from heaven in the Sacrament, you receive the fullness of Christ’s pardon, all that you could ever want.  And there is still more even beyond that.  For when you eat this Supper, you are partaking in the very life of God Himself.  Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (6:54).”

    After the 5000 were fed, Jesus told the disciples to gather up what remained, so that nothing would be lost.  We also do the same thing here in Holy Communion.  What remains after the Supper is gathered up and placed into the tabernacle there at the back of the altar.  From there it is carried out to our hospitalized and shut-in members.  In that way the Lord’s love also reaches out to them in their need so that they might be drawn in and joined with us in this same holy communion.  

    Finally, when the disciples gathered up what remained, they filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves.  Five loaves became twelve baskets–more than when they started.  Five is the number of the Law, for there are five books of Moses.  Twelve is the number of the apostles.  In this miracle, then, we see a transition, from the old Israel, guided by the Law of Moses, to the New Israel, the Church, built on the doctrine and ministry of Christ’s apostles, as we say in the Creed, “one holy Christian and apostolic Church.”  It is written in Acts 2 of the early church,  “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers (Acts 2:42).”  This is what the 5 becoming 12 means for you: You have been freed from the judgment of the Law by Christ, who fulfilled it all for you; and your life is now to be found in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking and receiving of the Bread of Life, and in the prayers and liturgy of the church.  

    The multitudes back then wanted Jesus to be king–but only to keep their bellies filled and their appetites fed.  But you know that Jesus is much more than that.  He is the King who goes off to the mountain by Himself where He will be crowned with thorns, that His flesh might be given for the life of the world.  You are children of the Jerusalem that is above.  You are children of the promise in Jesus, the Greater Moses and the Bread of Life.

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

John 19:1-24

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✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    Our God is a God with skin.  The Lord Jesus, true God, took upon Himself real flesh and blood, body and soul, and became true man.  He is covered with skin.  Skin clothes our bodies, yet we usually also cover up most of our skin with clothing.  This is to protect it from the sun or from the cold weather.  But we also cover our skin to cover our shame.  In the beginning, man’s skin was uncovered.  Genesis 2 says that Adam and Eve were naked and that were not ashamed.

    But you know what happened.  They fell into sin, and immediately Scripture says that they saw that they were naked.  Their eyes, which had been directed upward to God in faith and outward to one another in perfect sinless love, now were turned in on themselves.  They became self-preoccupied and self-absorbed.  That’s one way of understanding what sin is; it’s when your humanity is distorted and bent and curved in on yourself.  

    Having lost their humanity, with the image of God broken in them, our first parents sought to cover their shame with flimsy fig leaves.  We too try to keep the truth of our sin and shame from being exposed by doing our best to cover it up and hide it, or to justify it and rationalize it.  But such fig leaves don’t work too well.  They’re not a good or lasting solution.  They cannot truly hide sin and shame.

    And so according to Genesis 3, God covered Adam and Eve with skins.  The first real item in their wardrobe came from the death of an animal or perhaps several animals.  Their sin had brought death into the world, not only to themselves, but to all creation.  Their nakedness would be covered at the cost of an even deeper nakedness.  For what could be more exposed than an animal stripped of its skin? And so the first death, the first bloodshed, happened at the hands of the Creator Himself, to grant to these rebellious human beings the luxury of hiding their sin and shame behind the innocence of another creature.

    You cannot truly hide your own sin.  Sin can only be covered with skin.  No one knows for sure what type of animal it was in the garden from which God peeled its innocent hide in order to hide the exposed and vulnerable parts of Adam and his wife.  But considering what was later used on Passover and in the tabernacle and the temple, it's not unreasonable to suspect that the first animal to die was a sheep, a lamb.

    "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," John the Baptist declared of Jesus (John 1:29).  Behold in Jesus the fulfillment of every lamb with its throat slit to render it a sacrifice in the temple. Behold in Jesus the fulfillment of every Passover lamb roasted and completely consumed the night before God brought His people out of slavery.  Behold, the Lamb who is a man, and the man who is God.  Behold the God who literally has skin in the game.

    Jesus was scourged by the Roman soldiers with a whip called a flagrum.  It was designed to shred the skin from the back of the one being whipped, tearing away flesh so deeply that the internal organs are nearly exposed.  In order to rescue us from our shame and cover the nakedness of our exposed sin, Jesus is not only stripped of His clothing, but even His skin is torn open.  Jesus is utterly uncovered on the cross, and the soldiers cast lots for His clothing.  All He wears is the crown of thorns that were mockingly pressed into His head.  Thorns were part of the curse on Adam and Eve in the beginning.  Now that’s what Jesus wears, for He bears the curse for us to break its power over us.  Behold the God with skin, God made naked, now clothed only in the mockery of sinful men.

    This event not only exposes Jesus to shame, above all it uncovers and reveals His great mercy toward you.  It lays bare His sacrificial love for you.  Jesus’ garment is seamless and perfect.  This garment is taken off of Him so that it may be placed on you, so that you may be covered with His perfect righteousness and enveloped with His full and free forgiveness.  

    Behold the man who willingly bears your sin and shame.  Behold the man who suffers in your place without complaint.  Behold the man whose nakedness answers for Adam’s, and for yours.  Behold the man with nothing to hide, with no sin of His own to cover up.  He is stripped bare to bear all of your sins, and especially to take away the ones that cause you the greatest shame.  All of them hang there on the cross with this man, this God, Jesus, naked and dying for you.

    Baptized into Christ, you now have new skin.  Behold the man who dresses you in His own holiness, who gives you Himself to wear.  For it is written, “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  Behold the man who was sacrificed for you sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, who covers you with His own skin.  Gladly wear His garment of righteousness and peace, knowing that you are dear children of God.  For in Christ, your sin has been removed, and your shame is gone.

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

Luke 22:24-46
Midweek Lent 1

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    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 Jesus ✠

Matthew 20:1-16
Septuagesima

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✠ 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 ✠

Luke 1:39-56

✠ 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.)

✠ 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 ✠

Genesis 1:26-27
Trinity 21

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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