The Ascension of our Lord

Sermon on Mark 16:14-20
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
May 13, 2010 (The Ascension of our Lord)

Ascension Day is one of those Church festivals that seems to be overlooked more often than not. We talk about it during the Sundays before and after, we confess it in the Creeds, we don’t forget that the Ascension happened, but not many Lutheran churches in America today have services on the day of the festival itself, and those that do don’t have very many of their members in attendance. Of course, it doesn’t help that it falls on a Thursday every year. In today’s secularized society, there are very few Church festivals that employers and the government actually recognize, for which they allow their employees to take time off. Even Sundays aren’t a day off any more for most people who work in retail, so it’s not surprising that the only non-Sunday Church festival the rest of the world recognizes is Christmas. And so Ascension Day services are usually held in the evening, if at all, and usually not very well-attended.

But while it isn’t surprising given the realities of the world in which we live, it’s also very unfortunate. The Ascension of our Lord is one of the three high festivals that comprise the Easter Season. Easter itself and Pentecost are the beginning and end of this most festive season in the Church Year, but the Ascension is just as high and important a festival as the other two. It’s an integral part of the events that lead from Jesus’ resurrection to the institution of the Holy Christian Church at Pentecost. In fact, it’s an integral part of the salvation Christ won for us.

Now, that last statement may seem odd at first glance. From a human perspective, the Ascension doesn’t even seem to be a happy occasion. Jesus ascends upward from the earth, and then vanishes from the disciples’ sight. He is no longer visible to physical human eyes. It sounds downright disappointing at first glance. Why would Jesus leave them now, only ten days before they were to begin their ministries as apostles and pastors in the Church? Why wouldn’t He, now that He is risen from the dead, stay with them to guide and teach the young Church?

Well, there are a couple of reasons why the Ascension had to happen. Firstly, and most importantly, Jesus is showing the disciples the fact that He is seated at His Father’s right hand, not just as God, but also as Man. He, our human brother, born of the virgin Mary, is now seated at the right hand of God the Father. Where the head of the Church is, there the rest of the Church is as well. The Ascension teaches us that we human beings are now restored to the fellowship of God the Father. Not only that, but God’s right hand is not so much a physical place as it is a status, a position within the Godhead. God is everywhere, so being seated at the right hand of the Father means Jesus as man is everywhere as well. And not only that, but not only His divine nature but His human nature is part of our God’s gracious presence for our salvation. Which means that His body and blood can be, and are, present on thousands of altars every Sunday, eaten and drunk by millions of Christians, without being divided or used up, while at the same time remaining a real human body and real human blood. The Ascension is the festival that teaches us, in other words, that we now have access to the Creator Himself through His Son, and that our human nature now is part of what is saved through the forgiveness of sins won by Christ on the cross. Salvation isn’t a matter of entering some dreamlike state or becoming some sort of angel or other spiritual being; rather what is saved includes every part of our human nature, including our physical bodies, which will be raised up when Christ returns in glory and which will live forever with Him in eternal righteousness and purity. The physical is also redeemed.

And that’s part of what makes it so unfortunate that the Ascension gets ignored by the Church so often these days. Religion seems to be so often made into a private matter that deals solely with the spiritual realm and therefore doesn’t have anything to do with “real life.” In fact, many Americans are suspicious of, or even openly hostile to, politicians and other important people who allow religious considerations to influence their decision-making in any way. The idea that “religion is a private matter” no longer means that Government can’t interfere in religious affairs, but that religion is not supposed to have anything at all to do with the physical, real world, and that those who are influenced by it are themselves not living in the real world. The Ascension is a healthy corrective to that idea, because it is precisely Christ’s physical body, and therefore through Baptism into Him, our physical bodies, that are redeemed and perfected by the salvation won for us by Christ on the cross. It’s precisely the physical world He created that He has now redeemed. It’s precisely the physical, everyday lives we all live, the physical, everyday vocations we all have, that are sanctified by the physical, human body of Christ which is now part of the new creation and eaten and drunk in the Lord’s Supper. The physical is redeemed. We are reunited with our Creator. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +

Holy Thursday

Or, yes, pastors do recycle sermons sometimes. Tonight I preached the same sermon as I did at Norwood Park last year.

Holy Thursday Sermon

Wednesday after Invocabit

Sermon on Psalm 32
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
February 24, 2010 (The Wednesday after Invocabit)

When I was young, there was a certain part of the liturgy, right at the very beginning, that didn’t really make sense. Right at the beginning of both p. 5 and p. 15 of The Lutheran Hymnal, which we now know (with some updated language) as Divine Service III in the Lutheran Service Book, the pastor says, “Our help is in the name of the Lord,” and the congregation responds, “Who made heaven and earth.” Then the pastor says, “I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,” and the congregation says, “No you didn’t, you said, ‘Our help is in the name of the Lord.’” Actually, no, the congregation responds, “And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” That second versicle and response never made sense to me until I was older and realized that it was a quotation of the second half of Psalm 32:5.

David is contrasting his desire to confess his sins and receive absolution with his earlier silence in verses 3 and 4. When he, because of shame or guilt or fear of punishment, decided to keep his sins to himself, they corroded him. He couldn’t even stand in his own presence, let alone that of his family and friends. Even his most intimate relations with his wives were affected by his guilt and shame (that’s what “my strength was dried up” means in the original language, by the way). He knew he deserved nothing but sin and death, and so the idea of going on with life as if everything were normal was simply intolerable to him. He had no peace and no rest.

And when he repents, what is the Lord’s response? Not punishment, not wrath, not humiliation or anything of the sort. Forgiveness. To God it was as if his sin was not even there in the first place. The Lord did not count his iniquity against him. He was free, clean, and his sin was no longer something that could trouble him, accuse him, or condemn him.

Now, I want to be clear that David’s repentance was not what caused God to forgive him. David was forgiven already, because the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, David’s ultimate Descendant as well as his Lord, Jesus Christ, had taken his sin and nailed it to the cross. Even while David was trying to hide his sin and cover it up by keeping it to himself, God had already taken it away and given it to His Son and David’s to die for on the cross. It’s just that when we human beings try to claim our sin as our own problem, instead of allowing God to have it, we get in the way of God’s delivery of His forgiveness to us in the Word and Sacraments. It’s as if we’re saying, “Well, God, you can’t forgive this one because you can’t have it. It’s mine. It’s my precious.” But, like the One Ring in Tolkein’s books, all that your precious does is corrode you. Repentance, letting Jesus have it, is the only way to be free of it.

And free of it you are. Your iniquity is counted against the one man who was free of sin, the God-man, Jesus Christ. What is attributed to your account is His perfection and His righteousness. Your sin no longer exists because it died with Him on the cross. David wasn’t talking about two categories of people in verse 10 of the psalm, the righteous and the unrighteous; he was talking about his own experiences with trying to keep his sin for himself as well as with confessing it and receiving the absolution won for him by Christ. Your sin is forgiven. You don’t need to hold on to it. You are free. Amen.

Lent 1

Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
February 21, 2010 (The First Sunday in Lent)

Life would be so much easier without temptations. It would be so much easier to be able to go through life and accomplish what you need to accomplish and to do what you want to do and what you ought to do without being distracted by the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. All of us would be much happier and healthier if we didn’t have temptation to contend with. Even when we don’t give in to temptation, fighting it off takes strength and willpower that could be more productively devoted to other things. Well, temptation is a fact of life in this world. Even our Lord, who was perfect and without sin, had to fight against the temptations of the devil. Even though unlike us He didn’t give in to the temptations, He still had to expend energy and time fighting against the devil and against the temptations he put in Jesus’ path. As we look at these temptations we see that the temptations Jesus faced are really the same ones that face all of us, because Jesus’ purpose was to face them in our behalf, as our substitute.

Now, at first glance, these temptations may seem to be unusual and extraordinary; after all, how many of you have fasted for forty days straight, or been offered rulership over the whole world, or stood on the highest part of the temple in Jerusalem? But when you dig beneath the surface, these temptations are the same as the ones we face each day. Each of these temptations asks us to violate the First Commandment, which says that we are to have no other gods before the true God; each of these temptations asks us to rely on something else than what God in His providence, mercy, and love gives us for our well-being.

The first temptation, perhaps the most obvious one, is to rely on something other than God for our daily sustenance. The Son of God came to earth to share in our experience, and that means that although He used His divine power to help others, He never used His divine power to help Himself, but rather suffered what an ordinary man would suffer in the same circumstances. Here Satan tempts Him to break that rule. God had not provided bread for Him in that wilderness, and so He had to suffer the pangs of hunger. If He would have taken the stones and made bread for Himself from them, He would have been criticizing the Father’s providence by doing so. We, too, often try to get things apart from what God has given us, whether those things be material things or relationships with other people. The sins of stealing and adultery are of course what happens when we give in to this temptation, and even when we don’t outwardly give in we commit the sins of jealousy and covetousness, which are, of course, the same thing.

The second temptation is to test God, to try to force Him to act outside of the means He normally uses to help us. How do you really know that God is supporting and upholding you and protecting you unless you make Him show Himself? After all, if Jesus had jumped down from the Temple and landed unhurt, or even better been carried back up to the top by angels, it would really have shown the world that He was somebody special. But God has not promised to take away the consequences of our own foolishness, nor does He condone the unbelief that wants to make God show Himself by forcing His hand. We are to trust that God is with us and protecting us, and rely on His promises. If we try to make Him prove that He is protecting and upholding us, we show that we don’t really believe His promises, and we might end up getting ourselves hurt. The Christian Church is not always outwardly prosperous and successful in this world. It may be tempting to think that something besides baptizing and teaching are how disciples are made, and therefore how the Church grows. If only God would show Himself by some sort of sign or wonder. Maybe He is doing so at that church down the road where they have thousands of members and it seems they have money coming out of their ears. Maybe if we did like them it would show us, and those around us, that God really is watching out for and taking care of us. But signs and wonders are not where God has promised to be found. Signs and wonders can be faked, not only by human beings, but by the demons themselves. To doubt the promises in the Word is to doubt God, and that can land you in Satan’s territory very quickly.

The third temptation is to focus on results rather than what our responsibilities actually are. Jesus, after all, had come to this earth in order to be the Lord of the whole earth. But His purpose was to become the Lord of the whole earth by becoming the Savior of the whole earth. And to save the people of the world He had to pass through some mighty unpleasant things, including the scorn and contempt of the religious leaders, pains and sorrows, and finally beatings, mockery and a painful, ugly death. It would be so much nicer if all He had to do was to pretend to bow down to Satan, and mouth a few words worshiping Satan which He didn’t really mean. It would be so much easier just to play-act for a few seconds and gain lordship over the whole world that way rather than to endure all of that suffering and pain. Many people in our society face this temptation. To live the good life, to be on the fast track, to measure a person by how much money he has rather than how he uses it; this temptation is operative there as well, especially when dishonest means are used to get where you want to be. God does not call us to worldly success. He does not call us to gain the approval of the whole world. He calls us to faithfulness. The ends do not justify the means. He calls us to act within His will for us even if it means that by the world’s terms we finish last. Because when we cheat, the way Jesus was tempted to cheat here, we really end up worshiping someone or something other than the true God. Even the outward success of the church itself can become a false god if it is achieved by compromising what the Scriptures say.

Our Lord overcame these temptations using the Means that God had given Him to use, namely the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God. This is our defense as well, against all the temptations which come against us. God’s Law is clear, and the better we know it, the better we will be able to remind ourselves of it when we are faced with temptation. But in this text Jesus stands, not merely as a good example of how to overcome temptation, but more importantly He stands as the One who overcame temptation for us. Adam and Eve gave in to temptation, and so all of their descendants, including you and me, have been infected with the disease of sinfulness. But in our baptism we were adopted into Christ, and so we have become part of the new family, the descendants of the new Adam, namely Christ Jesus. He overcame temptation, and we overcame those temptations in Him. Because of this we can be declared righteous and holy, which is what happens when your sins are forgiven.

Through the Word of God as we live daily in our Baptism, the Holy Spirit works in us to overcome the temptations we face. It is only because of His power through the Word that we are able to overcome temptation. This is especially true since we have so often fallen to temptation in the past, which makes it easier to give in again. Only by the Holy Spirit are we given the courage and strength to overcome temptation. Even Jesus needed to be strengthened by God’s messengers after facing the devil’s temptations. God sends the Holy Spirit to you through Word and Sacrament preached and administered by pastors such as myself, pastors who are His messengers of forgiveness and eternal life to His people. This is why it is vitally important that we are regularly in Church to hear God’s Word and receive His sacramental gifts.
Christ overcame temptation, not for Himself, but for us. He is the new Adam who won the victory over temptation where the old Adam fell flat on his face. He now comes to us in His body and blood. By partaking of His body and blood we receive everything He won for us, including His victory over temptation. This means both that our failures to resist temptation are forgiven, and that we are nourished and strengthened by Him to resist temptation in the future. We do not need to rely on the rocks of our own inadequate spiritual resources when we face temptation. We have the true living bread from heaven. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +

St. John, Apostle and Evangelist

Sermon on John 21:20-24
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
December 27, 2009 (St. John, Apostle and Evangelist)

Here we are, two days after Christmas. The presents have been opened, the toys played with, the food eaten (in some cases including my own way too much food was eaten), and all of the other things that go along with Christmas in our culture have pretty much taken place. Some of you who have widely scattered families might still have some Christmas celebrations yet, but by and large Christmas is over for most people, and we as a society are turning our attention to New Year’s Day and the various parties and other events that take place on that day. But here in the Church, Christmas has just started. To the world, the Christmas season is the Christmas shopping season, which runs from mid-November up until Christmas. But in the Church, the Christmas season starts on Christmas and runs until Epiphany. I’m sure all of you are familiar with the song, the Twelve Days of Christmas. There actually are twelve days of Christmas, from December 25 until January 5, with January 6 being the Epiphany of our Lord. That makes today the third day of Christmas. Back during medieval times in Europe, when a much greater portion of the population were members of one Church and even the secular and business worlds were more in tune with the Church’s calendar, these twelve days of Christmas were one big celebration, with Church services every day for twelve days in a row.

Each of these twelve days, however, had its own emphasis. Yesterday, the second day of Christmas, was devoted to commemorating St. Stephen, who was the first Christian to be stoned for his faithful confession that Jesus Christ, the baby born in Bethlehem, the man crucified and risen for us, is indeed the Son of God. Tomorrow, the fourth day of Christmas, is the commemoration of the Holy Innocents, those baby boys up to the age of two in and around Bethlehem who were killed by Herod’s soldiers when Herod had found out that a king had been born in that city. Today, the third day of Christmas, commemorates the apostle and Gospel writer St. John, whose teaching about the union between God and Man in the person of Jesus Christ gives us a new appreciation for the mystery and the wonder of what took place in that stable in Bethlehem.

The Gospel lesson for today took place after Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus had come to His disciples while they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee, and had given them a meal of bread and fish, which are the same foods He used for the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 earlier in John’s Gospel. After the meal, Jesus has a conversation with Peter in which he asks Peter to be a faithful shepherd, a faithful pastor, to Christ’s church, even though it will mean that he, Peter, will eventually be put to death for his confession of faith. Jesus did this because Peter had fallen away from Christ by denying Him during the trial on Good Friday, and without Holy Absolution Peter’s guilt would cripple his ability to forgive others of their sin and guilt. After that conversation, we read today’s text, in which Peter and Jesus discuss St. John, who was Jesus’ closest friend among the disciples.

Since Jesus had just told Peter that he himself would face martyrdom for his faithful confession of the truth, Peter is naturally curious about John. What about him? Will he also be put to death? Jesus tells Peter not to worry about John, but rather to focus upon the work that Jesus was giving Peter himself to do. God will take care of John through the course of his life, just as He will take care of Peter through the course of his life. We know from some of the ancient historians in the Church that John was the only apostle who died of natural causes in old age, even though ironically John’s older brother James was the first of the twelve to be put to death. The other apostles were killed either by the Jews or by the Romans for their faithful confession of the truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. This led to the rumor that John was not going to die at all until Jesus came again. This is why John writes what he does at the end, in an attempt to put that rumor to rest. John lived long enough to write five books of the Bible: the Gospel that bears his name, the three epistles or letters that also bear his name, and the Revelation to St. John. This was what God kept him alive to do, was to testify to the Truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so to enrich God’s Word with his own uniquely simple and profound style of writing.

It may have been tempting for the other apostles to be jealous of John when they were imprisoned and put to death for their faithful confession of the truth. It’s not fair, it might seem, that even though all of them testify to the same truth, not all are given the same treatment. Most are killed, but one is not. That’s not fair! For us as well, it’s tempting to think that it’s not fair when it seems like it is those who have fallen away from the faith or are notorious sinners that seem to be doing the best in this life, while the nice guys, the good people, seem to finish last, at least from the perspective of this world.

But in the midst of thoughts like these Jesus’ words to Peter regarding St. John speak to us as well. “What is that to you?” Why should you care how someone else is doing? Look after yourself. Focus your eyes on what God has given you to do, the life He has given you to live. Look at others around you not as targets of jealousy, but as those given us as opportunities to show God’s love. Remember that no matter how bad you think you might have it, as a sinner you deserve worse. Remember that no matter how good you think others have it, they have problems and troubles of their own, and these problems and troubles are opportunities for Christ to love them through us. Remember especially that because of Christ’s suffering and death our own sufferings and deaths are merely temporary. We will be raised up with Christ on the last day to live before God in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Let God worry about how others are doing. Your vocation is simply to confess Him whose suffering removes your suffering and theirs, through your confession of faith to them in word and deed.

Consider also our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth, ruling every cubic inch of this creation personally by His infinite power and wisdom. And yet, when He became man he had to become a lowly, helpless infant, who relied upon His mother for everything. He was born of a completely unknown family, in a stable of all places, because nobody would make room for Mary, Joseph, and Himself. Even though He is the eternal Son of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made—even though He is all of that, He was born and lived as an ordinary man. And worst of all, He never boasted or bragged about being the Son of God, but He was put to death for claiming to be what He really was. If you think life is unfair to you, you have nothing on Jesus Christ!

But all of this, everything He endured, was for you. Everything that happened on Christmas, leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Ascension Day, and Pentecost, was for you. He gives you the blessings He earned by His suffering through Word and Sacrament even today. Just like John, we are to rely solely on Him, to be so close to Him as to lean on His breast when we suffer, so that we may receive comfort from Him through His Word and His body and blood, even as John did on Maundy Thursday. Receiving these blessings strengthens you to go and live the life God has given you to live, to serve your family and neighbors and those for whom you work in your daily jobs with the strength that Christ gives you to perform your duties faithfully and well. Living your life in thanksgiving to God this way, you won’t have the need to be constantly looking around at others who seem to be doing better than you are. You will be following Christ, even as both St. Peter and St. John did, each in his own way. And ultimately by God’s grace the destination will be the same as well: you will be reborn into eternal life just as Christ was born into our lives in Bethlehem to set us free. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +

Wednesday of Advent 2

Sermon on Malachi 4:1-6
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
December 9, 2009 (Wednesday of the Second Week in Advent)

The great and awesome day of the Lord will burn like an oven and set the arrogant and the evildoers ablaze. But for those who fear His name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. This past Sunday I mentioned how perverse it sounds that we are supposed to rejoice and lift up our heads when we see and hear about the wars and diseases and disasters that remind us that the Day of the Lord is coming. The Old Testament lesson shows us that same sharp contrast focusing on the Day of the Lord itself. That which is a cause for horror and despair for those who are not in Christ, is a cause for joy and profound relief for those who are in Him.

But who is this Elijah character mentioned here? Jesus identifies this as a reference to John the Baptizer, the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets. But John was, in earthly terms, Jesus’ cousin, and his ministry overlapped Jesus’ ministry, close to two thousand years ago. His purpose was to prepare the way of the Lord in His earthly ministry. But Malachi makes it sound like he’s preparing the way for the end of the world and the final day of judgment, which to our time-bound human way of reasoning, doesn’t make any sense at all.

The key is found in Malachi’s description of what John will do. He will “turn hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.” The separation between human beings, even members of the same family, is yet another tragic result of the fall of humanity into sin, along with the diseases and disasters mentioned elsewhere. Separations and disorders, leading to utter destruction and chaos, are symptoms and results of the first and ultimate separation caused by Adam’s transgression in the garden. The crown of creation, mankind, was separated from his creator. That’s where things started to fall apart, and the wars and disasters we see around us, and the hatreds and failures to forgive we see even among us, are all consequences of that fundamental separation. John’s job, according to Malachi, is to fix that. It is, in the words of the New Testament, to preach repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

But ultimately it’s not John who can do that. He can preach it, but the reconciliation that needs to happen is not just between human fathers and human children, but between our true Father and His true children. Only when the breach caused by sin is healed, can the hearts of fathers be turned to their children and the children to their fathers. Only if God forgives us, can we forgive each other. And that is the sense in which we are to remember the laws and statutes given through Moses. The summary of the Law is to love God with all our heart, and love our neighbors as ourselves. But even that, God has to initiate. We can’t heal the breach, we can only love each other if He first loves us. The separation is too great otherwise.

And so, in order for God the Father to turn His heart to us, He takes the separation, the division, the destruction, into Himself. His heart is turned away from His own Son. “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” is what David prophesies that His ultimate Son will say on the cross. The separations that plague us, the separations which will ultimately destroy this old world itself, are taken into the Godhead. And you can’t permanently separate the members of the Holy Trinity from each other. The separation is put to death. “It is finished.” God has unilaterally declared peace, and he proclaims this peace every time the Gospel is preached. And through it the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of the children to turn them back to their Father who loves them for the sake of their Brother, Jesus Christ. The destruction of the old world, like the destruction of Jesus Himself on the cross, is undone with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the first-fruits of the new creation where the Sun of Righteousness is our life, our joy, and our salvation. We died with Him, we rose with Him, and we partake of Him. The Sun of Righteousness will dawn on us on that last day, not with judgment, but with peace. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +

Advent 2

Sermon on Luke 21:25-36
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
December 6, 2009 (The Second Sunday in Advent)

The signs of the end times which Jesus lists in today’s Gospel are pretty serious. Some might even call them horrifying. “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” It doesn’t conjure up a pretty picture to my mind. In fact, Jesus describes the reaction of most of the world to these events rather vividly: “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth.” And, of course, the reminders that this old world is slated for destruction are not a pleasant thing to contemplate. In addition to the fact that these signs are unpleasant in themselves, they are also reminders that “security,” which is probably the biggest buzzword to sum up this entire decade since 2001, is only an illusion as long as we live in a world that’s been infected by sin, despite how we would like to think of ourselves as safe and secure, despite whatever steps we may take or what steps the government takes on our behalf. And that’s not a comfortable thought. The idea that no matter what we do or what the government does, we will never be truly safe from death or disaster, is not something most people like to contemplate.

And what comes after death is something that most people are even less equipped to handle. Facing the Judge who will hold them accountable for their actions is not something people appreciate having to deal with. It’s something that man by nature dreads. It’s something that our own old sinful natures dread. We haven’t been righteous. And we know it. Even our best attempts to please God are against the First Commandment because they come from us and not from Him. And so the reminders that this old world is headed to destruction are not something we like to contemplate. We’d rather wrap ourselves in as much “security” as we possibly can. Because as far as the old self goes, the alternative is death and judgment, panic and chaos. We want the illusion of safety, not just because of the potential of terrorism, but because we don’t want to face the judgment and would rather pretend we can ward it off by making ourselves as “secure” as possible.

And so it sounds a little bizarre when Jesus says a couple of verses later on, “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” In the context of all the death and destruction and chaos that results from sin and warns us of the eventual doom of this old world, the idea that such things are a hopeful sign which should cause us eager anticipation, is more than a little perverse, from a human standpoint. And of course, Jesus isn’t saying we should take a twisted delight in wars or rumors of wars; even when necessary such things are murderous, bloody events which remind us daily just how far man has strayed from his creator. And we definitely shouldn’t take a perverse delight in natural disasters or the other symptoms of the impending destruction of this old world. None of these things in themselves are causes for rejoicing. Instead they are causes for compassion for the victims caught up in such things.

But in light of the Christian faith, they are reminders to us that “our redemption draws near.” And that is a cause for rejoicing for those who are in Christ, because it is a reminder that we will inherit a new heavens and a new earth that are not corrupted by this old world sins, where death is no more, and war and disease and disasters are no longer a possibility. That’s why Jesus uses the budding of trees in springtime as an illustration of what looks to the world like wintry chaos and judgment. The end of this old world signifies the beginning of eternal life.

But there still something a little strange about what Jesus says in this text. Here we are, nearly 2000 years later, and Jesus still hasn’t returned in glory. What, then, did He mean when He said that “this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place”? Well, remember that the paradox of things that look bad being good news for us is not only true of the end times. The same paradox is true of something that did happen before the generation that was then alive passed away. Good Friday doesn’t look very good when we look at it with human eyes. In fact, it bears a strong resemblance to the signs of the end of the world Jesus mentions in our text. On Good Friday, something happened which shook the entire creation, which caused the sun to become dark, earthquakes, the opening of graves, and the shaking of the faith of even Jesus’ most stalwart followers. The Son of God died on a cross. God Himself suffered the punishment for the sins of the world. At first glance, that, too, sounds like an occasion for sorrow and fear. After all, it was our sins that put Him there. It was our selfishness that caused Him to be tortured and die. It was our failure to love and trust in Him that caused Him to be abandoned by everyone, even His Father. At first glance, this doesn’t seem like cause for rejoicing.

But Good Friday is still known as Good Friday. And that’s because our sins were, in fact, paid for by Jesus’ death on the cross. God no longer sees them because Christ took our place, and so now we take His place before His Father’s throne. And that means that the events of Good Friday, though horrifying in themselves, are now a sign to us that sin has been done away with and our salvation has been won. An instrument of torture and execution is now the symbol of Christianity itself, the symbol to which we look for comfort when our conscience will not let us rest because of our sins. Likewise with Judgment Day. The reminders to us that this old world is won’t survive forever because of the sin of its inhabitants, is also a reminder to us that what happens then is the new heavens and new earth in which we will live forever with our God. Good Friday and Judgment Day are very closely related to one another, which is why the signs of Judgment Day were seen on Good Friday, with the darkness and the earthquake and the resurrection of the Old Testament saints. In both cases, events which are in themselves horrifying and upsetting are reminders to us that something better is coming.

After all, we already know what verdict will be pronounced upon us on Judgment Day. When Christ said from the Cross, “It is finished,” He was telling us that our redemption has been accomplished. What the Judge says about us on Judgment Day, namely that we are innocent and pure and sinless, is what that same Judge said already on Good Friday with the words, “It is finished.” And it’s the same thing He says through the mouths of His messengers every Sunday with the words, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Not only that, but the new heavens and the new earth which will replace this old world also already exist. And we are already partakers of that heavenly kingdom. Christ’s body is the first-fruits of the entire new creation. In Christ’s resurrected flesh the new creation itself is begun. And it is that new-creation body and blood of Christ which we eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. Even while we must suffer the insecurity and the sorrow and the pain that so often accompanies life in this old world, we not only hear about with our ears, but we eat and drink into our bodies the new creation in which neither sin nor any of its effects exist at all. We already know the verdict of Judgment Day, and we are already citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Of course we don’t see that glorious reality with our physical eyes, and so we are in danger of walking away from it by the lure of this old world’s illusions of peace, happiness, and security. Which is why God continues to come to us to refresh and renew His promises to us by His Word and His resurrected body and blood. We are worthy to stand before the Son of Man, because He has made us so. And so the sorrows and troubles of this old life, even though in themselves they are a reminder of the sin and evil that has corrupted the world, have become for us reminders of the new life which is to come. Even the worst that Satan can throw at us, death, has become the gate to eternal life. And so all the things that lead up to death are reminders to us that this world will eventually be replaced by the new heavens and new earth of which we are already citizens. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +

Two Jobs

The more observant among you will have noticed that the last sermon posted here was for Lamb of God, not Our Savior Norwood Park. My wife and I have decided that driving down to Chicago every week was simply getting too stressful for us, especially in view of how we both had to fit our respective jobs in. Tina works 4-8 am on Saturdays and Mondays, and so dropping me off and picking me up at the Antioch, IL Walmart both Saturday and Sunday (after Church) has meant that she was getting next to no sleep on the weekends, which is very detrimental to her health.

I appreciate the opportunity Our Savior congregation has given me to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments to them, and I have asked them to keep my name on their call list. I had, of course, hoped that the vacancy would not last nearly as long as it has, and simply driving down there each week and staying in a hotel one night a week has become very stressful for us, more so the longer the vacancy lasted, not to mention the fact that several of our pet birds became very stressed that we weren't home every night.

I do keep Our Savior Norwood Park in my prayers, as they do need a pastor right now, one who can be there more than once or twice a week for a few hours at a time. I ask any of you who read this to do the same. Of course, as mentioned in a previous post, I am off CRM status, having a part-time call to Lamb of God in Pleasant Prairie, WI, and on Sundays when I'm not "on duty" there I am once again available for pulpit supply around the area.

It was not an easy decision to discontinue serving Our Savior in their vacancy. I have grown to love the congregation, as any pastor does for those placed in his care. I originally accepted the offer to serve them with the understanding that, whether or not I would be their next pastor, the vacancy would be relatively short and so we would only be spending weekends away from home for a few months. Of course, the vacancy has lasted much longer than that, and Tina and I have our limits. I pray that God will watch over and provide for Our Savior congregation and the saints who gather around Word and Sacrament there, and that God will continue to provide me with opportunities to serve at His altar into the future.

Trinity 9

This was preached at the Wednesday evening Divine Service at Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Pleasant Prairie, WI. Pastor Gary Gehlbach preached (same text, different sermon) at the Sunday morning Divine Service.

Sermon on Luke 16:1-9
For Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Pleasant Prairie, WI
August 9, 2009 (The Ninth Sunday after Trinity)

All of us are stewards of God’s gifts. To be a steward is to be a manager, one who realizes that the things he is given responsibility over don’t belong to him but to the one who gave him the responsibility. Most of us are somewhat familiar with the distinction between a company car and our own personal vehicle, or the distinction between a company credit card and a personal one. Some of us may have taken legal and financial responsibility for the affairs of an aged or diseased relative who is no longer able to manage such things for himself. And so we know what it means to be placed in a position of responsibility, of management, for possessions and assets that are not our own, of which we are only taking care in behalf of someone else. We know that to use those things placed in our care for personal use, for reasons that are contrary to the wishes of the one to whom they belong, is to betray the trust that person has placed in us, and is often downright illegal.

What we too soon forget, however, is that everything we have in this life, including our own personal assets and finances, including our own clothing and homes and vehicles, including our very own bodies and even souls, falls into that category, the category of things that don’t belong to us but which we are managing in someone else’s behalf. Everything we have and, yes, even everything we are, is a gift of God and we are only managers or stewards of it in His behalf. In other words, stewardship is not just a matter of whether or not we donate to the Church or to missions, although it is true that what we do in that area shows how much or little we value Christ’s painful and bloody death in our behalf, of course. The fact that from God’s perspective we are merely stewards of everything we are and have means a lot more than that. It means that every decision we make as to what to do with the resources we have should be a decision that’s made with Him in mind. And those resources include, as I’ve said, not only our money and possessions, but our very lives.

So how are you doing in your management of what the Lord has given you? Have you ever used the things God has given you contrary to the ways in which He would have them used? Have you ever used the mouth he gave you for speaking lies rather than the truth? For gossip which tears down your neighbor rather than building him up? Have you ever used the brain He gave to think up ways of taking advantage of your neighbor rather than ways of helping him? Have the other parts of your body ever been used to take what God has not given you, whether in terms of property or in terms of relationships? Has the money He has entrusted into your care ever been used to get you things God has forbidden you to have? In other words, are you a sinner? As you consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments, which the Catechism urges us to do before coming to confess our sins, have you gone contrary to the wishes of Him who gave you everything, in how you have used what He gave you?

Well, if not, you’re in denial, because you are a sinner, as are we all. All of us are basically in the same position as the steward Jesus tells us about in today’s Gospel lesson. This man was accused of being a poor steward, of wasting the resources his master had placed into his care. We don’t know whether the man was crookedly using what was placed into his care for his own selfish purposes, or whether he was simply an incompetent manager. It doesn’t really matter. In either case, he’s like us as we consider our management of the resources our God has given us. However, this man was allowed to continue as steward for a time, to give him a chance to assemble and present the account of his stewardship. He’s like us in this as well. We also are accused by God’s Law of being poor stewards of God’s assets and property, and yet we too are still stewards of it for the time being while we await the coming of the master to whom we will give a final account of our stewardship.

The steward who is in trouble cannot dig, and he is ashamed to beg. There seems to be nothing he can do about his situation. Likewise with us. There is nothing that we can do for ourselves that will do away with the accusation against us. What the man decides to do is to trust in the mercy of his master. Now, it may not look like he is doing that when you first read the parable, but that is really what he is doing. You see, by lowering the debt that these various debtors owe his master, he is making his master look good in their eyes. By the way, scholars don’t agree about whether or not the steward was being dishonest or doing something wrong when he changed the bills. I prefer to take the interpretation that the steward actually had the authority to set and change the amounts that others owed his master, and so he had every right to change the bills. It was part of his area of responsibility which his master had entrusted into his hands. He is also trusting that his master is a forgiving sort who approves of the lowered bills, since what the steward has done makes the debtors grateful to him. What he does relies solely on the mercy of his master. And the result is that the master, in fact, approves of what was done.

Now, to apply this part of the parable to our situation is a little tricky. We will not earn our way back into God’s favor simply by being generous to other people with what God has given to us. God is not impressed by good works done cynically to impress Him. This is where a parable such as this one only tells part of the story. God does not show grace and mercy to us because we are generous and help other people, give to the Church and to the poor, etc. This is where many “stewardship” sermons go very wrong, by giving the impression that giving to the Church, or working for the Church and participating in its activities, is somehow more holy and more noble than simply obeying God’s Commandments in our daily callings in life. Sometimes these sermons even give the false impression that we can earn our way into God’s favor with this kind of so-called “stewardship,” which of course is a denial of the most basic article of our faith, namely that salvation is a free gift from God for the sake of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. God has already showed grace and mercy to us while we were sinners, by sending Christ to die on the cross. It is not anything you do that earns you eternal salvation, but the gracious gift of forgiveness which was earned by Jesus Christ and which comes to you know through His Word and His body and blood. This is how God shows His gracious and merciful nature to us. The Second Person of the Trinity Himself becomes man and takes the accusation of poor stewardship upon Himself and bears it to the cross in our place. He gives us nothing less than eternity by forgiving us not just part, but all of the debt we owe His Father, giving us the oil of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and the bread of His body in the Lord’s Supper.

Because we have this gracious and merciful Lord and master whose stewards we are, it changes our whole outlook on how we conduct our stewardship. Our motivations are different from worldly people when it comes to physical possessions, and so our decisions will be different as well. How people use the physical resources they have been given is a confession before God and the rest of the world of what is in their hearts. Just as the steward did what he did because he trusted in the gracious and merciful nature of his master, we do what we do with His blessings to us because we know that He is gracious and merciful. As we relate to other people, we act as representatives of His grace and mercy to them. When you help out someone who is in need, whether that be someone who has lost their job or who is sick and in the hospital, or who just simply needs a shoulder to cry on or an arm to lean upon, you are acting as a representative of God to that person. You show by your actions how God thinks about that person, and by being merciful and generous you are preaching to them the glorious reality that God is merciful and gracious and generous. And as you do these things for those who need your help, you are serving God. Because God is not only the one who has given you what you have; He is also the one who receives what you give. “Insofar as you have done this for the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me.” God is on both sides of the equation. Your money, your possessions, your very health and life, are nothing. The God who gave them to you, and who receives them back in your giving them to others, is everything. You will receive a thousands of thousands times more than you have ever had here in this life when you enter into eternity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost themselves will receive you into the everlasting dwellings, where the blessings in which you will partake are more than you can possibly imagine. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +

Trinity 8

Sermon on Matthew 7:15-23
For Our Savior Lutheran Church of Norwood Park, Chicago, IL
August 2, 2009 (The Eighth Sunday after Trinity)

A good tree bears good fruit; a bad tree bears bad fruit. But what tree and what fruit are we talking about here? Often I hear people quoting these verses from today’s Gospel as if they referred first and foremost to Christian people doing good works during the course of their lives. Of course, the imagery of tree and fruit is applicable to the subject of sanctification and good works in a certain sense, but in context here in Matthew 7, Jesus is not talking about that kind of fruit, first and foremost, especially since the fruit of good works cannot often be seen anyway, as sinful as we remain while we are still in this life. Rather Jesus is talking about true and false prophets, that is, true and false preachers. And what is the fruit of a preacher or a teacher of the faith? His preaching. His doctrine. Whether or not what he says is in accord with God’s Word. That’s what Jesus is talking about here. True and false doctrine.

That sort of talk is unpopular today. Many religions in our day, including both the more liberal as well as many of the conservative neo-evangelical segments of Christianity, cry out, “Deeds, not creeds!” To many people, religion is about living a better life here rather than about arriving at the perfect life in heaven, the life that is given as a free and undeserved gift of God. And so the idea that we should evaluate preachers on the basis of whether their teachings are in agreement with God’s Word is rather unpopular, to say the least. Dare to insist in the public square that there is a difference between Christianity and other religions, and even the conservative political pundits and personalities will label you as narrow-minded, bigoted, intolerant, and whatever other names they can get away with calling you. After all, from a secular perspective, religion is just there to help people live a responsible, moral, conscientious life, since those who live such a life are much better citizens and workers than those who do not, generally speaking. Religion is good for the ordering of society, to this way of thinking. And pretty much all religions, even the New Age and neo-pagan ones, do that to some extent. And so when a particular religion agitates things and upsets people by claiming that it is true and others are false, that isn’t seen as good for secular society, especially in a time of war. Luther faced the same problem in his day as we do in ours; making a big deal out of religious differences seems (note, I said “seems”) to be unnecessarily disruptive when there’s a physical threat to national security.

The fact that this is what Jesus is talking about, namely true and false doctrine first and foremost, and good works only in a secondary sense if that, is shown not only by the warning against false prophets, that is, teachers of false doctrine, in the beginning of the text, but by what Jesus says after the parable about fruit and trees as well. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” It’s easy to attach Jesus’ name to something you do in the field of religion. Jesus’ name isn’t all that hard to pronounce. It’s only two syllables. But saying it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person who does so is doing Jesus’ will or that of His Father. The Mormons use it, and they aren’t Christians. So do the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who deny that Jesus is uncreated God equal with the Father. Muslims claim to respect Jesus as a great prophet of Allah before Mohammed came along, but they deny that He is God as well. And many Christian denominations, who get the basics right sufficiently to be recognized as Christian Churches that really do proclaim and distribute salvation and eternal life, nevertheless mix in false teachings that contradict and damage the saving message of the Gospel, and they also do so in Jesus’ name. Attaching Jesus’ name to something is no guarantee of the correctness of what is done.

So, Jesus is talking primarily about true and false doctrine here. But what’s doctrine? To most people, perhaps even to many of you, the word “doctrine” is a word that carries negative connotations. “We just want the simple Gospel, we don’t want all this doctrine,” is a statement that is often heard today from many Christians and even many Lutherans. Well, doctrine is a word that simply means “teaching.” And you can’t have the Gospel apart from doctrine, because the Gospel is doctrine. It is a teaching. In fact it’s the very center of Christian teaching. God the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the same Person as Jesus Christ who spoke the words of today’s text, became man, became our brother, so that He might pay the punishment we deserved by our sins against God’s Law by dying on the Cross. He rose again on the third day to declare to us the victory He won by His death, and so that we, who are in Him by virtue of what God does for us in Holy Baptism, also might rise again. He now comes to us personally and gives us the fruits of this victory, namely the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation, by the power of His Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Gospel, which includes both the reading and preaching of God’s Word as well as the direct forgiveness of sins in Holy Absolution, and through the administration of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, where Christ feeds us with His own body and blood. God did everything for us that we might be saved. Despite the fact that we are poor, miserable sinners, we have been restored to God’s fellowship, cleansed of our sins, and made to enjoy the love and the fellowship that even the three persons of the Holy Trinity share with one another. That is the pure doctrine. That is what we preach. It is this that Jesus urges us to defend. It is this that Jesus warns us against those who contradict it. It is this that is the very source and promise of our eternal life with Christ.

And so, since this is the very source of our life, we are charged to defend it. It’s important to us. It’s important to anyone who has come to the conclusion that they cannot save themselves by their own good works. It’s important to anyone who has come to the conclusion that life in this world is miserable and meaningless without eternal life to look forward to. It’s not just about getting people to do better in their lives here and now, though hopefully that is a blessed side-effect of becoming a Christian. It’s not about transforming society, either, although that has also been a blessed, if imperfect, side-effect in some times and places. It’s about realizing that you can’t save yourself but that Christ has done it all for you. You won’t be able to claim anything when you stand before the Judge’s throne on the last day. You won’t even be able to claim the things you really did do in His name, because those things were imperfect. I won’t even be able to claim that I really did preach the true doctrine, because even when I preach the truth there are some whose sinful natures will misunderstand and pervert it as they hear it, and part of the blame for that, believe it or not, rests on me for not being more clear in my preaching. No, we won’t be able to claim anything we did before the Judge on that last day. Rather our claim will be what Christ did for us. The only way any of us will stand righteous and pure before God’s throne is if God declares us righteous and pure for Christ’s sake. He does so through the fruit of His preachers. He does so through the doctrine, the message, the teaching of His Word of Law and Gospel, and through the Sacraments where that Word is poured on with the Water and eaten and drunk with Christ’s body and blood. Even the good work of holding on to Law and Gospel in their purity will not save us. Rather the Holy Spirit through that Law and Gospel work inside us and put us to death and resurrection so that we may live before God in righteousness and purity forever. That’s why the pure doctrine, the pure fruits of a true prophet, are so important to us. Simply because the Gospel of salvation as a free gift is the only thing that can save us. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +