Lenten Midweek 4:
“Behold the Man! A God with a Mother”[1]
April 3, 2019
Text: John 19:25-27
“Woman,”
Jesus calls her, before His first miracle at the wedding in Cana (John
2:4). “Woman,” He calls her from the cross as He commends her into the
care of His beloved disciple, John (19:26).
Mary is the new Eve. She is the
fulfillment of the first Gospel prophecy spoken in the Garden in the midst of
the Curse, God preaching to the serpent, “I
will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your
head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15; ESV; emphasis added).
God
has a mother. The Second Person of the
Holy Trinity, God the Son, is sent by the Father to be conceived by the Holy
Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. He is
God of God, and flesh of Mary’s flesh.
To say that God has a mother is to say that God is a Man. Our Lord Jesus is one Person with two
natures, divine and human. He is God and
Man. And the reason He is God and Man is
for us men and for our salvation. Our
Redeemer must be God to live a sinless life of perfection before God, His
heavenly Father, in our place. To
fulfill the Law of God in our place. To
count for all of us, all humanity in His active and passive obedience, His righteousness
before God and His suffering for our sins.
And He must be Man to be under the Law and suffer and die to atone for
us. In Christ, Man stands righteous and
holy before God. In Christ, God is born
and suffers and dies.
It is
the great battle between the Seed of the woman and the accursed serpent, the
dragon hell-bent on devouring Him (Rev. 12:4).
On the cross, the serpent takes ahold of Him, sinks His poisoned fangs
into our Lord’s heel. On the cross, the
dragon swallows the Lord of Life into death.
But the joke is one him. On the
cross, the Offspring of the woman stomps the serpent’s head into the dust. He bursts through the belly of the dragon,
whole and alive, risen from the dead, the flesh and blood born of Mary exalted
and enthroned at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. In Christ, our flesh is exalted above all
creatures in heaven and on earth (Cf. FC SD VIII:26). God has a mother. God became a Man. This Man is God. Mary is Theotokos. Mary is the Mother of God.
Christmas
wasn’t so long ago, and I think we can all agree that Christmas is a very
special time of year. I don’t mind
telling you that, with the way the school vacation worked out, having my kids
at home all Twelve Days of Christmas this year made it extra special. But what really makes Christmas so
special? We don’t even give this a lot
of conscious thought, but we know it instinctively, though perhaps saying it
out loud will be a little shocking.
Christmas is special for this reason alone: Holy Week. God was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary
to die.
For you. And that is why you
feast and sing and give presents on December 25th. Because Jesus was born to die for the
forgiveness of your sins.
He
goes through all the stages of human development, and this is so
important. God took up residence in the Virgin’s womb to be a Zygote, a
Blastocyst, a Fetus, a Newborn, for all zygotes, blastocysts, fetuses, and
newborns. For you. This, of course, has great implications for
our doctrine of life. If God was all of these, we can no longer
safely pretend that unborn children are anything less than fully human persons
whose lives are sacred, holy, gifts of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus
Christ. And then this Newborn grew into
a Toddler, a Boy, an Adolescent, a Teenager, a Young Man, a Man. For you who have been any or all of
these. What Jesus becomes, He redeems.
On
the cross, Jesus’ hour has come, the
divinely appointed hour of His suffering and death for our redemption. Now we understand the rebuke of His mother at
the wedding in Cana, “Woman, what does
this have to do with me? My hour has not
yet come” (John 2:4). Jesus is not
being mean, nor is He disobeying or dishonoring His mother. But even as Mary is our Lord’s mother, He is
her Savior and her God. And this is
actually a confession of His two natures.
“Woman, I don’t get my working of miracles from you, but from my
Father. I work miracles because I am the
Son of God. God tells me when to perform
a sign. That is not your place.” And then we know the Father does give Him to
perform the sign, the changing of water into wine, that His disciples believe
in Him, and that we understand Jesus is the Bridegroom come to redeem His
Bride, the Church, and take her to Himself as holy, cleansed by His blood, and
give her joy, wine in abundance, the good stuff, the very best. This reveals His divine nature. The Man, Jesus, can do this, because He is
God.
But
when His hour does come, on Golgotha,
He once again addresses her as “Woman,”
and we understand that what He is doing now He can do because He has taken on
flesh in the womb of Mary. God cannot
suffer. God cannot die. But God does suffer and die, because our God,
Jesus, is a Man. His power and majesty
are from God. His humility and
vulnerability to suffering and death are from Mary. His human nature gives death its hour. To redeem our human bodies and souls.
Now,
even from the cross, bearing the load of this world’s sin, our Lord beholds His
mother and the disciples whom He loves, and He has compassion. “Woman,
behold your son! … Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27). John is to take Jesus’ place as the Son who
cares for His widowed mother. Mary is to
care for John, who has been bereaved of His beloved Friend and Master. It is a moving moment. And it teaches us that we need each
other. The Lord sets the solitary in a
family (Psalm 68:6). He brings us into
the Church. He dies to make this the
reality. We’re a family, here. God is our Father. The Church is our Mother. We are brothers and sisters of one another,
brothers and sisters of Christ. Born of
the Font. Nourished at the Family
Table. The water and blood that pour
from our Lord’s side birth and sustain us.
Mary is the picture of the Church who gives us birth and nurtures
us. The Apostle John is the picture of
Jesus who cares for us, provides for us, and preaches the Word to us. In other words, John is the pastor.
Now,
some of you get nervous with all this talk of Mary. You shouldn’t. Repent.
You’ve gotta stop worrying about things being too Roman Catholic. Instead, you should ask what is revealed in
the Scriptures. Mary is the Mother of
God. God becomes a Man in her womb. To confess anything less is the Nestorian
heresy, and not Christianity. We should
not pray to Mary. She is not sinless,
and she is certainly not coredemptrix.
Those are the Roman errors. Jesus
is her Redeemer, even as He is ours. St.
Ambrose, who predates the Roman denomination by over a thousand years, wonders
if perhaps Mary thought Jesus needed her
to die, as well, to add something to His redemption. No, Ambrose reminds us, “Jesus did not need a
helper for the redemption of all, Who saved all without a helper.”[2] So much for the silly idea that Mary is any
kind of co-savior with her Son. The
Church Father, Ambrose puts that idea to rest.
How,
then, should we regard Mary? We should give her her proper place. We should honor her for what she is, the
Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus, a forgiven sinner who gave birth to our
Lord. Dr. Luther strikes the proper
balance: “We want to hold the dear Virgin and holy mother in all honor, as she
certainly deserves to be honored. Yet we
will not so honor her as to make her equal to her Son, Christ. For she was not crucified for us, nor did she
die for us; neither did she pray for us on the cross. But it was Christ who was crucified and died
for us and with tears offered supplications and prayer for us on the cross
[Heb. 5:7]. Therefore, let each one
honor the mother Mary as he will—provided only she is not honored with the
honor due to Christ. And this is also
the reason why the Lord separates His mother from Himself: so that He will be
the only one to whom we should cling.”[3] Thus Dr. Luther.
Well,
as any good mother does, Mary takes us by the hand and teaches us about our
Savior, and in so doing, she teaches us her proper place. She ever and always and only points us to her
Son. “Do whatever he tells you,” she says to the servants at the wedding
(John 2:5). “Do whatever He tells you,” she says to you and me. “Hang on His Word. I was honored to give Him birth, to bear in
my womb our gracious God and Savior. It
was all gift, to be His mother, to raise Him as my beloved Son, and there ends
my part in the story of your salvation.
Hear Him. Follow Him. He is your Savior. He is your God. By His blood you are cleansed. By His wounds you are healed. He died for you, and He is risen in the Body
I bore, and He lives and reigns in that Body at the right hand of our Father in
heaven. And where He goes, we go. He will raise us. We will reign with Him. Behold the Man! Behold my Son.” Jesus gives His mother to His beloved
disciple, to you, to point you to Jesus.
The Seed of the Woman, the Son of Mary, has crushed the serpent’s
head. The dragon is defeated. The Curse is done. You are saved. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Based on Jeffrey Hemmer, Behold the Man! (St. Louis: Concordia,
2018).
[2] Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose, Letter 63, NPNF2 10:473, quoted in Hemmer.
[3] LW 69:262, quoted in
Hemmer.
Fifth Sunday in Lent (C)
April 7, 2019
Text: Luke 20:9-20
Who would do such a thing? What vineyard owner would send one servant to
collect fruit, only to have him beaten and sent back empty handed; then send
another servant, only to have him beaten also and treated shamefully and sent
back empty handed; then send another
to be wounded and cast out? This is
ridiculous. When the first servant is
assaulted, you call the police. You
gather up a group of armed warriors and go on a raid. There should be hell to pay. What you don’t do is send another servant,
and another. But this guy? He just doesn’t get it. “I know what I’ll do,” he says to
himself. “I will send my beloved
son.” Because that’s gonna go well.
“Considering how they treated the servants, surely they will respect my
beloved son.” I’m not so sure this guy
is sane. What is the famous quote about
the definition of insanity? Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Who would do such a thing? Who would send servant after servant after
servant, receive them back bloody and bruised and empty handed, and then think
it a brilliant idea to send his son?
God would. And God
did.
Prophet after prophet He sent to His vineyard, His people
Israel. The tenants, of course, are the
religious leaders. The Chief Priests,
the scribes, and the elders all know Jesus is telling the parable against
them. The disciples and the crowds know
it, too. And they know there is a long
history, here. Prophets have to carry
high-risk life insurance. It never ends
well. If the reports are true, Isaiah
was sawn in two. Jeremiah was stoned to
death. Amos was tortured and slain by
the priests of Bethel. Ezekiel was slain
in Babylon by the chief of the Jews. And
we know from our Lord’s own report that Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, was
slain between the altar and the vestibule (Matt. 23:35). This is not to mention all the mistreatment
they suffered in their ministry prior to their martyrdom. So it goes.
And who would do such a thing? Who would beat and mistreat and murder prophets
graciously sent by God to call the people to repentance, to restore them as
God’s own special people? The wicked
kings of Israel and Judah. The priests
who had sold out to the prevailing opinions of the people. The false prophets who prophesied, “Peace,
peace,” but there was no peace. The
people themselves, who didn’t want to hear it.
Don’t tell me to repent. Tell them to repent, fine. But don’t tell me my sin separates me from
God.
God’s solution? I
will send my beloved Son.
And the Chief Priests’, the scribes’, the elders’
solution? “This is the heir. Let us kill
him, so the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14; ESV). So they threw Him out of the vineyard and
killed Him. They led Him out of the city
and they crucified Him.
There are several punch lines to this story. God
knew it would happen that way! Jesus
knew it would happen that way! In
fact, this is all according to plan.
Don’t for a minute think the religious leaders, or even the Romans, are
actually in control of our Lord’s suffering and death. Remember what Jesus says: “I lay down my life that I may take it up
again” (John 10:17).
Punch line number two: The wicked tenants, the religious leaders, actually think it will work! “This
is the heir,” they say. They actually
know, at this point, that Jesus is God’s Messiah. And they think they can get rid of this
problem by killing Him! And even after He warns them by way of this
parable what will result from this, namely, God will destroy the tenants and
give the vineyard to others, this is
still their plan.
But then the greatest punch line: In killing the Son, the Vineyard is given to the Church. It is taken away from Israel as a nation, and
given to sinners whose sins are forgiven by the blood and death of the Son, who
do not reject Him, but believe in Him and live in Him, Jews and Gentiles, young
and old, men and women, slave and free, all who cling by faith to the crucified
Lord. The unbelieving religious leaders
have their place and their nation ripped away, and with all unbelievers they
are destroyed. The believers, the
Christians, are the “others” brought in who are given the vineyard by grace.
And they are brought in by means of God sending more
servants! The Apostles, Christian
pastors, Christian parents who bring their babies to the baptismal font,
Christian confessors who speak Christ to their neighbor and bring them to the
Church to hear the living voice of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus
Christ.
Now, this is where the saying at the end of the parable comes
into play. Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22: “The stone the builders rejected has become
the cornerstone” (Luke 20:17). This
is a direct prophecy of His death and resurrection. The builders, the religious leaders, reject
Jesus and crucify Him. But He is risen
from the dead and is the cornerstone of the Vineyard, the Church. And now everyone
must die by this Stone. Because you
either fall on Him in faith to be broken to pieces, die to self in repentance,
and so live. Or He will fall on you and
crush you. There is no middle
ground. You either believe, in which you
lose your life in Jesus, and so find it, or you don’t believe, in which you lose
your life eternally. Either way, you
die. But only one of those deaths ends
in eternal life.
And it is important to take warning here. You are in the Vineyard by grace, because
your parents or some other servant brought you to Jesus. But there is always the danger of falling
into the sin of the wicked tenants. That
is to say, rejecting God’s Word, His preachers, and so His preaching. How do we do that? When we despise God’s Word and do not gladly
hear and learn it. When we reject the
Word that is preached to us because we don’t want to hear that our own
particular sins separate us from God.
“Go ahead, preacher, preach to them,
but don’t preach to me unless it’s to tell me I’m right.” When we make Sunday morning an option instead
of seeing it as the vital supplier of our spiritual life and breath that it is. Be warned that rejection of God’s Word is rejection
of God Himself. Rejection of the
preacher is rejection of the Christ who is on his lips. Rejection of the preaching is rejection of
life. Luther said that the Gospel is
like a passing rain shower. It pours on
a place and makes everything green and fruitful, but when we are ungrateful and
take the precious Gospel for granted, the shower moves on to another place, and
we are deprived. God is raining down the
Gospel upon us this very moment. That is
what happens at Church. Soak it in
deeply and receive it with thanksgiving.
The Divine Service is our connection to Christ, the
Vine. If we abide in Him, we bear much
fruit, the fruit of repentance and faith, the fruit the Vineyard owner is
looking for when He sends His servants.
But apart from Christ the Vine, we can do nothing (John 15:5).
And what are the fruits?
Connected to Christ by His Word and Sacraments, the nourishing sap of
the Vine flows into us and through us, so that we believe in Him and repent of
our sins. And the fruit of love for God
and our neighbor begins to bud. That is
the life of Christ flowing through us and out of us toward our neighbor. We serve him.
We are generous to him. We lend
freely, and give sacrificially. We
protect him. We speak well of him. We guard the sanctity of his and her
body. We love our neighbor as
ourself. We put him first. We even die for him, if God so wills. Because we have the real life that cannot be
taken away, the life of Christ, and the resurrection of our own body to
come. That is the fruit.
And God sends His preachers, and God sends His Son, with
all the benefits of His death and life, to keep you in the Vineyard of His
Church, for the Day of Harvest. Who
would do that for a bunch of ungrateful sinners like you and me? God would.
And He did. And He does. He gave His Son into death. He gives us His Son unto life. Blessed be the Lord. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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