Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7A)

June 25, 2023

Text: Matt. 10:5a, 21-33

            Beloved in the Lord, confess Christ.  Speak of Him.  Speak His Word.  Boldly.  Confidently.  Unapologetically.  Do not be afraid.  This is what Jesus bids you in our Holy Gospel: “So everyone who acknowledges me before men”…  the Greek word for “acknowledge” is better translated “confess”… “I also will acknowledge”… confess… namely, as my own… “before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33; ESV).  Our text is the continuation of our Gospel from last week, addressed originally to the Twelve Apostles.  But it applies not only to Apostles, and not only to pastors, but to all the baptized, all who bear the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are given to confess Him.

            There are the extraordinary occasions, of course, when you are called upon to confess Him before hostile government authorities or other enemies of the Gospel.  And there are the more mundane times when you are called upon to confess Him before family members, friends, co-workers, or even those you just meet while going about your business.  From time to time, you find out the occasion is not so mundane after all, when a loved one or acquaintance reacts to you with disgust and vitriol.  So also, there are the sacred occasions in which you publicly confess Christ: Your Baptism (perhaps by the mouths of your sponsors and parents), your Confirmation (when you made your confession with your own mouth), Holy Communion (when you attend the Lord’s Supper here, you publicly confess that you believe what this Church teaches), your Christian wedding (yes, that, too, is about Christ above all).  You do this every Sunday in the Creed and in the liturgy and hymns of the Church.  Pastors do this at ordination and installation.  And for the Christian, even a secular oath of office carries with it the confession that “I will be faithful, as my Lord is faithful to me, and as a direct result of His faithfulness.”  In fact, “so help me God” is, for the Christian, a prayer for just that: God’s help to execute what is entrusted to you faithfully.  In fact, when you get right down to it, simply living in your vocation faithfully, fulfilling your responsibilities, loving, serving, sacrificing for others, is a confession.

            And may I suggest, beloved, those mundane confessions of Christ among family, and others you know or meet along the way, may be the most important.  And may I further suggest, the best way to make such confession is to foster the habit of simply speaking of Christ, and the things of Christ, and to Christ (with the Father and the Holy Spirit), routinely, naturally, in your daily conversation.  This is what Luther talks about in the Large Catechism.  With regard to the Second Commandment, he says, “It is also useful that we form the habit of daily commending ourselves to God [Psalm 31:5], with soul and body, wife, children, servants, and all we have, against every need that may arise.  So also the blessing and thanksgiving at meals [Mark 8:6] and other prayers, morning and evening have begun and remained in use [Exodus 29:38-43].” The more you do this, routinely praying with your family, including Christ in everything, Luther intimates, the easier it will be to speak of Christ in the rest of your conversation.  Thus he goes on, “Likewise, children should continue to cross themselves when anything monstrous or terrible is seen or heard.  They can shout, ‘Lord God, protect us!’  ‘Help, dear Lord Jesus!’ and such.  Also, if anyone meets with unexpected good fortune, however trivial, he says, ‘God be praised and thanked!’ or ‘God has bestowed this on me!’ and so on.”[1]

            Do you see how this is confessing Christ, injecting Him and His Word, into every part of life, every event, good or bad?  Don’t underestimate, first of all how good this is for you, for your edification.  But also how helpful it is in confessing Christ to others.  A number of years ago, I happened to run into a prominent (and decidedly secular) public school official here in town, just walking down the street.  I knew her, and we exchanged some pleasantries, and she told me about a very nice thing her husband had done for her.  And without even really thinking about it, I responded enthusiastically, “Praise be to Christ!”  Well, the pregnant pause that followed, you’d have thought I’d just blurted out the grandaddy of all naughty words!  It was a shock to her, to hear me speak like that.  She wasn’t accustomed to such talk.  But then she turned and said, “Yes.”  You know what, that isn’t much, but I’ll take it.  And then she was telling me about some other things going on at the school, and I said, “I’m praying for you.”  And she responded, “Thank you.  Prayer works!”  Which, of course, was no revelation to me.  But see, what has become for me habitual and natural, speaking Christ into every situation, if nothing else, got her to think about Him for a minute.  Beloved, confess Him, speak of Him, naturally, routinely, as though He is Participant in all your conversations, present and active in every moment of your life.  Because He is.  Someone tells you something sad or painful… “Christ, have mercy!”  Or something wonderful or joyful… “Thanks be to God!”  And not just “Bless you,” or “Blessings,” but “God bless you.”  Bless your neighbor, beloved, in the Name of God which you bear by virtue of your Baptism.  It is at one and the same time the imparting of God’s favor to that person… Christian blessing actually does something, as God’s word always does… it actually does what it says… and a confession of Christ to that person, in which confession the Holy Spirit is active.

            But whatever the occasion for such confession, extraordinary or mundane, the long and the short of it is, you will suffer for it.  Jesus promises it.  The devil cannot abide your confession of Christ.  He will stir up the world against you.  Unfriending and unfollowing on social media is the least of it.  Mean words.  Slander (“You hateful bigot!”).  Rejection from family members and those you thought were friends.  And whether it happens or not, you have to be ready to give testimony before governors and kings, if necessary.  Jeremiah did.  Paul did.  All the Apostles and Prophets did.  And Jesus did.  He spoke the Truth in His testimony before Governor Pilate and King Herod.  And it got Him killed.  Mocked, beaten, scourged, crucified, dead and buried.  It could happen to you.  The danger is real.  Because you are in Christ. 

            But do not be afraid.  “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matt. 10:24-25).  It is enough for you to be like Jesus.  And you are most like Him when you suffer for His Name and His Word.  He suffered to atone for your sins and the sins of the whole world, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.  You suffer that others may know this Gospel, and believe it, and be saved.  For not everyone will reject your confession.  Not everyone will reject Christ.  Many will hear and believe.  Because you were willing to speak the Word of the living God.

            But look, whether they receive or reject you… Don’t fear them!  Don’t fear those who can merely kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.  Fear God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  And that is what He will do to those whom Jesus disavows on the Day of Judgment; namely, those who in this life have disavowed Jesus.  Denied Him.  Confession is a fruit of faith.  If you believe in Him, you will confess Him.  Justification is by faith alone, but faith is never alone.  Faith confesses Jesus Christ.  With the heart one believes, and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses, and is saved (Rom. 10:10).  So fear God, and confess Christ and His Word.

            But even more, do not fear because, look what Jesus has done for you.  See how He loves you.  See how the Father loves you, that He gave His only-begotten Son into the death of the cross to redeem you and make you His own.  But then, you also know that this isn’t the end of the story.  Christ is risen.  The tomb is empty.  Jesus lives.  And so you who suffer with Christ, and die with Christ, will be raised with Christ.  Bodily, when He comes again in glory.  Spiritually, already now, in Holy Baptism. 

            Beloved, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).  The very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Who of you counts the hairs on your head?  This is to say, you are more precious to God than you are to yourself.  So they kill you for confessing Christ.  What then?  They can’t do anything more to you.  And you will be with Jesus.  As Paul was, when he felt the steely blade against his neck.  As Peter was, after he, too, was crucified in the Name of His crucified and risen Lord.  As so many are who, across the centuries, and throughout the world to this very day, are martyred merely for the crime of being baptized into Christ. 

            What of that?  What of it?  They can’t really kill you.  That’s the point!  Because Jesus lives, you live.  That is the unshakable fact of the matter.  So confess Christ.  Speak of Him.  Speak His Word.  Boldly.  Confidently.  Unapologetically.  This is a good day to remember this.  This day, June 25^th, happens to be the 493^rd Anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession (the Augustana, for which our congregation is named).  It wasn’t only the pastors and theologians who put their lives on the line before the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire and Emperor Charles V.  It was the princes and electors, the lay leaders of the Evangelical Churches, who signed their names and offered their necks for the confession of the true faith.  And, really, it was all those who went to Church to hear the evangelical preachers, who believed and confessed the faith set forth in the Augustana, and who received the Sacrament accordingly.  Many of them paid with their blood.  Blessed are they.  And so you, their heirs.  Here you are at Augustana Lutheran Church, 493 years later, hearing, believing, and confessing as they did.  Do not be afraid.  The Day is coming when all that is hidden will come to light.  And Jesus will confess you before His Father in heaven.  And then He will turn to you and say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).  Until that Day, beloved, keep His Name ever upon your lips.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                                     

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[1] LC I:73-74 (McCain). 

Third Sunday after Pentecost

Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6A)

June 18, 2023

Text: Matt. 9:35-10:20

            Your Lord Jesus sees that you are harassed by Satan, by the world, and by your own sinful nature.  He knows that you are helpless in your sins and in the face of death.  Like sheep without a shepherd.  He hears your cries, and He is deeply moved.  The Lord Jesus has compassion for you.  Literally, He feels it in His guts.  And so, He must act.  He must step in.  He Himself will be the Good Shepherd you need.  He Himself will tend you, guide you, feed you, and protect you.  In fact, He will lay down His life for you, for His sheep.  And He will give under-shepherds to do these things for His flock.  He will give to His Church the Office of the Holy Ministry.

            As the Lord travels through all the cities and villages in our text, preaching and healing every disease and affliction, He sees that His beloved people Israel are like sheep without a shepherd.  And He feels it in His guts.  He has compassion.  So, He immediately does two things.  First, He bids His disciples pray earnestly… literally, bind God in obligation… to send out workers into His harvest, a prayer which should forever be on the Church’s lips, “Compassionate Father, send us pastors!”  (This is also why it is imperative that the Church support seminarians, like Pastor-elect Jonah Laws.)  And then He answers the prayer He has commanded us to pray.  He calls the Twelve to be His sent-ones, His Apostles. 

            He gives them authority… His authority to cast out unclean spirits and heal every disease and every affliction.  He gives them authority to speak for Him, so that their Word is His Word.  The Apostolic Word is the Word of Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God.  They are to preach.  They are to proclaim as they go, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 9:7; ESV).  And this is not a mere announcement of some future event, this preaching.  It is the bringing about of the reality.  Because it brings about the presence of the King, the Lord Jesus.  And there can be no doubt.  Wherever the Apostles go, they will heal the sick, as Jesus healed the sick.  They will raise the dead, as Jesus raised the dead.  They will cleanse lepers and cast out demons and let their peace rest upon every place where people receive their Word.  As Jesus did.  As Jesus continues to do through their ministry. 

            And they will suffer, as Jesus did.  They will bear the cross as they preach the Word of the cross.  But, even and especially in the midst of the suffering, they are to rely totally on God.  And they are to depend upon the generosity of those who hear and receive their preaching.  Jesus says, “You received without paying; give without pay” (v. 8).  That is not permission for congregations not to pay their pastor.  It is actually the opposite.  Preachers are to preach the Gospel freely, unhindered by want, or necessity, or greed for gain, depending on the fact that God’s people will respond by providing the laborer his food.  You should think this way: You do not pay me for services rendered.  You pay me so that I may render service. 

            But that doesn’t always happen.  The Apostles must be ready to be rejected.  When a town or house receives the Word, the Apostle is to stay put and let his peace settle on the place until he departs, until he is called away to another place.  But when a town or a house does not receive the Word, the Apostle is to shake the dust of that town or house from his feet.  Because many places will not receive the Word Jesus sends His Apostles out to preach.  Just like the prophets of old.  Many will not hear.  Jesus promises it. 

            And it will be worse than that.  The Apostles must expect to be delivered over to the courts, as Jesus was delivered to the Sanhedrin.  They must expect to be flogged, as Jesus was flogged.  They must expect to be dragged before governors and kings, as Jesus was dragged before Pilate and Herod.  But they must also believe that the suffering will be for God’s purposes.  In so suffering, the Apostles will “bear witness,” εἰς μαρτύριον in Greek, literally, in martyrdom, which simply means to give testimony, but as you well know, that word comes to mean exactly what most of the Apostles eventually suffer: a sacrificial death for the sake of Jesus.

            But again, they are to rely totally on God.  They are not to worry how they are to speak or what they are to say.  The Holy Spirit will give them the words in that hour.  In fact, it will not be the Apostles speaking, but the Spirit of our Father.  The Apostolic Word that preaches the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sinners is the Word of our Triune God.

            Now, the Apostles have all died, John reportedly in ripe old age, the rest in martyrdom.  But the Lord Jesus is no less compassionate for you, here and now.  He is still your Good Shepherd.  And He still hears and answers your prayer to send out workers into His harvest.  He sends pastors. 

            Now, pastors, of course, are not Apostles.  The Apostles occupied a special Office as those who were eyewitnesses of the Lord’s ministry, beginning with His Baptism in the Jordan, and culminating in His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.  But pastors do occupy the Office of the Apostolic Ministry.  That is, they proclaim the Apostolic Word, which is the Word of Jesus Christ.  They preach what the Apostles and Evangelists, as well as the Prophets, wrote down by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Scriptures.  By means of their Office, the Lord Jesus Himself continues to tend His sheep. 

            He gives His pastors, His under-shepherds (the word pastor means shepherd), authority… His authority as His called and ordained servants of the Word.  To do what?  To cast out unclean spirits by preaching and personally applying the Gospel and biblical prayer.  Now, you may say, “But obviously not to heal every disease and affliction.  Not that it couldn’t happen, but I’ve never been miraculously healed when the pastor came to see me at the hospital, and we pray for the same bunch of people suffering the same old things week after week in the Service.”  I get why you’d say that.  But you would be wrong.  Well, okay, it doesn’t happen all that often these days that the pastor visits a cancer patient in the hospital one morning, and by afternoon the patient walks out of the hospital cancer-free.  It could happen, but it’s true, we’re not often given such spectacular (as in spectacle) miracles these days (could that be, in part, because we think we’re smarter than those ignorant ancients who expected such things because they didn’t know science?).  But you know what does happen?  Every time the preacher shows up with the Apostolic Word, and that Word is received?  Every disease and every affliction is ultimately overruled.  Death is forbidden to make a claim on the one who is in Christ Jesus.  In fact, the dead are actually raised.  Which is to say, those hearing the Gospel are coming to faith, and therefore to life, in the risen Jesus.  And the demons flee. 

            This is all hidden to the eyes.  But it isn’t any less true.  Because in the preaching of the Gospel, all sins are forgiven.  For Jesus’ sake.  And death, and death’s symptoms in disease and affliction, can only make a claim on sinners.  But when a sinner is in Christ, the sin is gone.  Take that, death!  And see, the miracle that takes place when the pastor visits, and especially right here and now in the Divine Service of the Church… though hidden at the moment… will be revealed in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.  Resurrection Day is simply the revealing of the healing, cleansing, and restoration the risen Jesus has been doing all along in the ministrations of His under-shepherds.  So the pastor preaches, baptizes, absolves, feeds, cares for, protects, and defends his congregation.  Because that is what Jesus has authorized him to do.  He has authorized him to do it for you. 

            Now, like the Apostles, the pastor is to rely totally on God in all things.  The minute the pastor begins to rely on himself, his own resources, talents, and abilities, disaster is immanent.  The pastor himself does not possess the power for healing and release.  Jesus does.  Jesus is the Shepherd.  The pastor serves under Him, and at His will.  He is to proclaim Jesus’ Word, and follow in Jesus’ Way.  And that is how you are to receive his ministry.  “This is how one should regard us,” Paul says, “as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). 

            But that necessarily entails rejection and suffering.  Maybe even martyrdom. 

            By the way, that is not only true for pastors.  That is true for all Christians who walk in the way of Jesus.  The same suffering attends all who bear His testimony. 

            But so also, the same promises attend all who bear His testimony.  God will provide.  God will speak.  And God will save out of disaster.  Maybe not temporally.  But then, temporal salvation is only temporary salvation.  The sick who are healed will get sick again and die.  The real and eternal salvation that death cannot touch, is the resurrection of the body.  And that is what we have in the risen Christ. 

            Beloved, your Lord Jesus knows what you suffer.  He sees that you are harassed by Satan, by the world, and by your own sinful nature.  He knows that you are helpless in your sins and in the face of death.  And He feels it in His guts for you.  He has compassion.  So He comes to be your Shepherd, to deliver you from all that afflicts you.  That is why He has given you a pastor, in the very midst of the harassment and helplessness.  To preach the Apostolic Word, which is the Word of Jesus Himself, into all your afflictions.  To forgive your sins.  And to put you in touch with the bodily presence of the risen, healing, and life-giving Lord.  Jesus will not leave you as sheep without a shepherd.  Behold, He comes.  In fact, He has arrived.  This is what He has authorized me to preach to you: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.      

             

 

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5A)

June 11, 2023

Text: Matt. 9:9-13

            The disciples are stunned.  The pious Jews are scandalized.  Jesus walks right up to the tax booth, to that disgusting traitor, that greedy swindler, Matthew (Levi, as he is known to us in the other Gospels [Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27]), and invites him to be a disciple.  “Follow me” (Matt. 9:9; ESV), Jesus says, and Matthew does.  He rises… leaves everything there on the table, all the money, the ill-gotten gains, the revenues for Rome… and follows Jesus.

            What stunned everybody… scandalized them, in fact… is not simply that Jesus chose this man, of all men, a despised tax collector.  It’s that He didn’t even lecture him about his immoral lifestyle, and the necessity of loyalty to God’s holy people over against their pagan oppressors.  He didn’t demand Matthew show some evidence of moral reform, amendment of life, make himself worthy of this gift… pull a Zacchaeus and give half his goods to the poor, and restore four-fold whatever he’s defrauded anyone (Cf. Luke 19:1-10).  Come to think of it, Jesus didn’t demand this of Zacchaeus, either.  It all happened subsequent to Jesus coming in to stay, to abide, at his house (v. 5).  The Lord has this annoying habit of simply calling by the Gospel those burdened by their sins, without tearing into them like they deserve.  And He immediately includes them in His fellowship, His communion.  Oh, He can preach the Law to secure sinners like a thunderbolt from heaven.  Secure sinners are sinners who think they are righteous.  Pharisees.  Pietists.  “Good Christian folk.”  But sinners like Matthew, who make no such claims for themselves… who know they are not righteous… who figure they may as well get what they can from this life, because ultimately, they are lost… to them Jesus comes and says, “Oh yeah?  Actually, you’re right where you need to be for me to come and do my saving work.  You are dead in your trespasses and sins.  And I can only raise you to life if you are dead.   Those who believe they are alive will have nothing to do with resurrection.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.  Matthew… Follow me!”

            And then, wouldn’t you know it?  Jesus goes to Matthew’s house as a guest, and reclines at table to eat with him.  And not just with Matthew, but with all of Matthew’s friends: “many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples” (Matt. 9:10).  Now, the disciples may have been scratching their heads about the situation, and perhaps some of them were even a little resentful at Jesus dragging them along to this notorious dinner party, even including Matthew, now, among their number.  But then, they’re used to this kind of behavior on the part of their Master.  The Pharisees, on the other hand, as you can well imagine, are scandalized.  “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (v. 11).  “Doesn’t He know these people are unclean?  Doesn’t He know their reputation?  Doesn’t He know we judge Him by the company He keeps?”  And, table fellowship?  Pious Jews never sit down to a meal with anyone who doesn’t measure up to their moral criteria.

            It is pretty scandalous, isn’t it?  “Jesus sinners doth receive” (LSB 609).  It is true that Jesus meets sinners where they are, apart from any meritorious preparation or worthiness in them.  He doesn’t wait for them to become good Christians before He calls them.  As if they even could!  Think about it, who could become a good Christian apart from Jesus?  But this not only scandalizes Pharisees, it also, all too often, scandalizes us.  “What is she doing here?  How can he call himself a Christian?  You let that guy serve on that board?  Really?  And how can Pastor commune her?  He must not know what I know about what she does, and what kind of person she is.”

            Then again, the judgment isn’t always so blatant.  In fact, most of the time it is much more subtle.  I’m holy.  Everyone else is a little less holy.  Or in some cases, a lot less holy.  I’m right.  I’m pious in just the right way.  I conduct my life rightly.  Yes, I have my sins.  And I repent of those rightly, too.  Everyone else should do as I do.  Now, you don’t say these things explicitly to yourself, do you?  At least not out loud.  But if you’re being honest… brutally honest… if you examine yourself objectively and candidly… that is how you feel, isn’t it?  Of course, it is.  Of course, you feel that way.  I do.  We all do.  If you think you don’t, look again.  It’s why you have negative thoughts about other people.  Don’t deny it, beloved.  And for God’s sake don’t justify it.  Repent.  I repent.  It’s sinful.  Let’s knock it off.  We need Jesus’ forgiveness, and one another’s.  Thank God, Jesus sinners doth receive.  That means He receives even us judgmental Pharisees.  Now let’s receive one another as forgiven sinners in Jesus, our Lord. 

            But there is another danger, a trap we sinners fall into when we hear that Jesus meets sinners where they are, calls them to Himself, receives them, and eats with them.  Now, it is absolutely true that Jesus does this for sinners.  But then we take that as though Jesus leaves sinners in their sins.  That He never calls them to repentance.  That He never tells them go and sin no more (John 8:11).  We can run with this in any number of wrong directions.  Today it is popular to just affirm everybody in whatever they do, whatever they believe, and however they want to live, in the name of welcoming them to the Church.  Well, you can welcome them all the way to hell, beloved.  The Church is called to speak clearly all that the Lord has given us to speak.  To call sin, sin.  To warn against the things that lead to death and condemnation.  I’m guessing you’re all more or less on board with me so far.  “Yes, Pastor, the Church should speak clearly about those things, in general.  Just don’t get too personal.  Don’t pick on the issues that affect me directly.  That challenge my politics, or my comfortable life.  And don’t call any of my family members to repentance or amendment of life.  That’s none of your business, Pastor.  What do you mean, you’re not going to commune my kids who live together outside of marriage, or work for Planned Parenthood, or have denied the faith in which they were raised?  And whatever you do, don’t call me to repentance or amendment of life.  Stop preaching about my sins.  Jesus receives sinners, and I’m a sinner, and proud of it.  I like to sin, and He likes to forgive.  It’s a great system.  Leave it alone.” 

            No…  No.  Repent.  That’s not you anymore.  Not now that you are in Christ.  You think Matthew continued to defraud the tax payers, his brother Jews, after Jesus called him?  No, remember, he rose from that life of death, to follow Jesus through death to life.  That is what it means that Jesus receives sinners.  He calls them out of sin to new life, not in their own righteousness, but in Him. 

And so us.  What is remarkable is how we can, at the exact same moment, as pious Pharisees, stand in judgement over others, and then give ourselves a pass because, after all, Jesus receives sinners.  You know what that says about us?  We’re sick.  We’re not well, we’re sick!  We need a physician.  We need THE Physician!  We need Jesus to walk right up to us in our sickness and sin and call us to be His own.  We need Him to cut out any and all cancerous self-righteousness in us, and all the rotting, sinful filth in us.  And then, when we’re right where we need to be, dead in our trespasses and sins, we need Him to raise us from death with His healing and life-giving Gospel.  We need Him to call us to life: “Follow me.”  Which is just what He does for us in Holy Baptism.  And what He does for us daily in Confession and Absolution, repentance and faith, the preaching of Law and Gospel.  He doesn’t wait for us to get ourselves right before He does it.  He does it to make us right, by His own declaration.  To walk, not in our own rightness, but His rightness.  His righteousness.  His justification.  He doesn’t wait for us to become good Christians before He calls us.  He calls us to be Christians, which is to say, in Christ, with His goodness.  Not to return to our sins.  That is like a dog returning to its vomit, Peter says (2 Peter 2:22).  But to walk in His way.  No longer in the life of death, but through death into life.  Sins forgiven.  Serving Him now.  That is what it means to follow Him.

It's stunning.  It’s scandalous.  And Jesus does it for you and me.  Why?  Because in love, the Father sent Him to do it.  And in love, He did it willingly.  He’s already done our sins to death in His death on the cross.  Now He is risen to give us His resurrection life.  It is on that basis, and not on the basis of our own morality or worthiness, that He calls us: “Follow me.”  And then, He still has this habit… He reclines at Table with us, and eats with us.  Table fellowship with Jesus.  Communion with Jesus.  Note, this Table is only for sinners.  Sinners who know that they are sinners, who follow Jesus out of sin and death and into life.  Which is to say, you.  Don’t be scandalized.  Jesus called Matthew.  Jesus calls you.  And He calls all of these, your brothers and sisters, into the one Holy Communion of His body.  Mercy.  Grace.  Thanks be to God.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                    

The Holy Trinity

The Holy Trinity (A)

June 4, 2023

Text: Matt. 28:16-20

            The Divine Service is the concrete realization of Jesus’ Words to us in our Holy Gospel.  The Service begins in the Name Jesus here gives, the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Think about what that means.  From the very start of the Service, we are planted in the baptismal water, immersed in the very communion of Persons in the Divine Trinity.  Where God has written His holy Name on us, to mark us as His own, redeemed by Christ the crucified, temples of the Holy Spirit, children of the heavenly Father. 

            And then a death.  The confession of sins.  Old Adam is drowned and dies with all sins and evil desires.  We are crucified with Christ.  And then a resurrection.  The pastor declares that all our sins are forgiven in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ.  You are raised as a New Creation in Christ’s resurrection, to live before Him in His righteousness and purity, once again, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Confession and Absolution is always a return to Holy Baptism.  Baptism, remember, is not just something that happened to you one time.  It isn’t just that you were baptized on the day your parents brought you forward, or you ambled up to the font.  It is that you are baptized, present tense, ongoing reality.  Confession and Absolution, individually, and in the Divine Service, and daily repentance and faith in the Gospel, is the concrete exercise of that reality.  Death with Christ.  Resurrection with Christ.  In the Name of our Triune God.  So, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”… that’s you… “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19; ESV). 

            And then what?  What happens next in the Divine Service?  The teaching!... “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (v. 20).  The Service of the Word!  Jesus sends, first of all, His Apostles, His sent ones, to do this very thing.  They are to go, and as they go… “while going” the text actually says in Greek, “while travelling and going about their business”… they are to disciple-ize all the nations.  The Gospel is to go out from Israel into the whole world.  Jesus authorizes His Apostles do this with the authority He, Himself, has been given.  All authority in heaven and on earth.  The authority He has possessed from all eternity as God with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  The authority the Father has now bestowed upon Him as a Man.  And this authority is to be used in a very particular way.  To baptize.  In the Name.  And to teach.  Not just anything, but “the things I have commanded you.”  Even the things that are hard.  Even the things you don’t like.  Even the things that are beyond your comprehension… like the Trinity!  Now, we in the Apostolic Church are inheritors of this, and so we are to do.  Grounded in Baptism, sins forgiven, now given to hear and learn the Word, keep it, treasure it… we go forth and teach it, and confess it.  The Service of the Word: Psalms, hymns, the Scriptures, and the preaching… “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

            And then what?  The Promise: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20).  Where does that happen, concretely, in the Divine Service?  At the altar.  Under the bread and wine.  The Service of the Sacrament!  The very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.  The crucified and risen Lord Jesus meets you, not just spiritually, but bodily.  He invades you in the eating and drinking, to be in you, to possess you, to enliven and strengthen you.  And where Jesus is, there is the Father, and there is the Spirit.  For Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of the Father, and in Him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9).  And so, with Jesus in you, and you in Him, you are disciple-ized, right here, right now, in this gracious encounter with the living God in His Service of Word and Sacrament.

            But this is not just a Sunday morning reality.  Luther tells you to begin each day, right when you wake up, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Each day immersed in the baptismal water, God’s own child I gladly say it, in repentance and forgiveness, in the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection for you.  And so, in this reality and confidence, you go.  You get up and get to work and go about your daily life.  And while going, you confess the faith into which you are baptized, and you love and serve your neighbor in your vocations, the callings, the relationships, the responsibilities into which God has placed you in the world.  You are God’s mask.  He is hidden behind you, doing the work for your neighbor. 

            And then, when the day is done, and you come home again, before you go to bed, you once again invoke the Name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and commend Yourself to Him.  It is the Divine Service of your life.  Just as the Service concludes with God putting His Triune Name upon you in the Benediction, “The LORD bless you and keep you,” etc., “The LORD, the LORD, the LORD,” so you go to bed each night with His Name upon you, all sins covered by the blood of Jesus, secure in the life He bestows no matter what should happen in the night, knowing He is with you always, even through the valley of the shadow of death. 

            Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three Persons, one God, one Name in which you live and move and have your being.  Man cannot rationally comprehend it.  This is not an article of doctrine to be understood, but to be believed and confessed… and lived in.  Now you’ll bring out your children’s books about apples and eggs and shamrocks, and for the deficiencies of those as illustrations, I will simply refer those of you with a sense of humor to the Lutheran Satire video on St. Patrick’s bad analogies.  For the rest of you who have forgotten how to laugh, I will simply warn you here that each one of those illustrations ends up in one or more ancient heresies, so maybe let’s stop trying to illustrate what is beyond our mortal capability to grasp, and simply say what God says in Scripture, and worship and adore. 

            This morning we did just that in the Athanasian Creed.  We confessed the one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance.  We confessed the incarnation of the eternally begotten Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and all that He has done for our salvation by His life, death and resurrection, and is doing to deliver us on the Day of Judgment when He comes again in glory.  We confessed our Triune God, who has created us and all things in heaven and on earth, redeemed us as His own by the blood and death of Christ, and sanctified us to lead holy lives here in time and there in eternity. 

            Now, some of you have hang-ups about this Creed, and I suppose we should briefly address the objections.  The first is its length, which you just need to get over.  You have nothing better to do than confess the sublime things God has revealed to you about Himself. 

            Second, many people get tripped up by the word “catholic.”  This is not a reference to Roman Catholicism.   The word “catholic” comes from a Greek word that simply means “according to the whole,” as in according to the whole doctrine of Christ which should be taught and confessed by the whole Church of Christ of all times and places, as Jesus Himself says, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (v. 20). 

            Then there are a couple more serious concerns.  After confessing line after line about the incomprehensible mystery of the tri-unity of God, we say “Therefore, whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.”  The concern, I suppose, is that maybe you have to have a certain rational grasp of very complicated dogmatics to be saved.  Fair enough if that were true.  But remember, this Creed was written and is confessed by those who baptize infants.  So it can’t mean that, and never has.  Infants can’t grasp complicated dogmatics, obviously.  The point is, this is the God in whom you are to believe and whom you are to confess… this God alone, this Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three Persons.  You cannot be saved by any other god than the One this Creed confesses.  Which is simply what Jesus says: No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).  And what the Apostles declare: There is salvation in no one else.  There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

            Finally, there is the line toward the end about those who have done good entering into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire, which is to say, hell.  We’re worried this is works righteousness.  But no, this is simply a summation of Matthew 25 with the sheep and the goats.  By grace alone, through faith alone in Christ, all the bad the sheep have done and all their deficiencies are cancelled out by Jesus’ righteousness and covered in the blood of Christ.  So they are not mentioned, those bad things and sins.  Evil does not follow Christ’s sheep into eternal life.  Only the good God has accomplished through His Christians follows them.  But the goats are without Christ.  They have rejected Him.  They do not want Him.  So they only have their own works.  And all human works outside of Christ are only evil all the time.  And they only lead to eternal fire.  So there is nothing said in the Athanasian Creed that is not from the Holy Scriptures.  This is simply the scriptural truth, which is precisely what we are to confess. 

            And what a joy to confess it.  It is the sublime reality in which we are grounded and live each day and for all eternity.  It is the sublime reality bestowed concretely here and now in the Lord’s Church, in His Divine Service.  There is only one Name, as there is only one God, but this one God is three Persons.  And we are baptized into Him, immersed in His Name, taken into His unity, into His eternal communion.  It is a splendid mystery, an incomprehensible reality.  And so, as we go, we speak it again and trace the sign of our salvation upon the body He has redeemed: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.