Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

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Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

February 1, 2026

Text: Matt. 5:1-12

            What kind of life would the world call blessed?  Certainly not what Jesus says here.  Blessed are the poor in spirit?  No, no… blessed, rather, are the rich in spirit.  Those who mourn?  The meek?  Those hungering and thirsting for righteousness?  How about, rather, those who are disgustingly happy (you know the type), the bold and assertive, and those full to the brim of the admiration of the masses for their public virtue and pious respectability?  Merciful?  Sure, to a point.  But only to the deserving.  Or, to those who, if I help them, I’ll feel good about myself.  Pure in heart?  Okay, whatever that means.  Peacemakers?  Absolutely.  We like peace.  As long as the peacemaker maintains the advantage.  But, persecuted?  No way.  That is the opposite of blessed.  If the world composed the Beatitudes (the “blesseds”), those Beatitudes would have nothing to do with weakness or sadness or suffering.  They would have everything to do with strength and exaltation, glory and triumph.

            “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says (Matt. 5:3; ESV).  Sounds like utter foolishness to the world.  But isn’t that exactly what St. Paul says in our Epistle?  “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).  The cross.  Weakness.  Suffering.  Poverty of spirit.  That is to say, having no rightful claim on the blessings of God by your own merit.  Just a beggar before Him, with an empty sack.  Mourning.  Mourning what?  Your own sin.  Unrighteousness.  Injustice.  The state of things in the world.  The brokenness of it all.  Death, the great destroyer.  Meek.  Unpretentious.  Patient.  Humble.  Again, making no claim for yourself, whether before God, or before other people.  Putting yourself after God, and after others.  Hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  Within others, yes.  But above all, within yourself.  You are yearning for it, longing to be filled by it.  And you know that it doesn’t come from you.  It can only come from God.  The righteousness of God that comes through faith for all who believe (Rom. 3:22). 

            Jesus calls this blessed.  Why?  How so?  Well, it is not because there is some inherent righteousness in suffering and lack.  Poverty is not a virtue, any more than wealth; sadness, any more than happiness.  What makes these things blessed, then? 

            It is only when you come before God with an empty sack, that He can fill it.  And He does.  With all His gifts in Jesus Christ.  He empties your sack of all that is worthless in repentance, which He often brings about by sufferings.  He fills your sack to overflowing in Christ, who suffered for you, and is risen for you.  He fills it, such that then you can go and pour out His gifts on others.  And then what?  Come back, and God will fill your sack again.  So now, you can go and be merciful.  Even to those who don’t deserve it.  That is, you can forgive their sins.  Not hold their trespasses against them.  Not despise them, even when they are despicable (you realize, that is exactly what God does for you, right?!).  You can help them in their time of need.  Give them what you have, and what they lack.  Pure in heart.  Cleansed of your own filth by the Absolution of Christ.  He’s your only source of purity.  And now, like Him, not only can you have mercy, but you can make peace.  Between yourself and others.  And between others.  You can make peace.  Even to your own disadvantage.  (How did Jesus make peace with you?  He died on the cross, that’s how.  See how He made peace with you by His own, unspeakable, disadvantage?)  Love your enemies, He tells you (Matt. 5:44)… and shows you (the cross)!  Pray for them.  Bless those who persecute you.  Bless, and do not curse (Rom. 12:14).  And there is that word, “persecute.”  “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Matt. 5:10).  “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (v. 11).  He tells you to “rejoice and be glad” in that (v. 12), because it puts you right up there with the prophets.  It is blessed, He says.  Because you are pouring yourself out for your persecutors, like Jesus, who poured Himself out for you.  And you know what God did for the dead Jesus after three days.  Resurrection.  Vindication.  And so you.  Sack empty, you come before God in death, and what does God do, but fill you up again, to the brim and beyond, with resurrection life, and all good things. 

            That is what the second part of each Beatitude is about.  Here is the Gospel for all those who are poor in spirit, and know it!  Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  Comfort for the mourning.  The meek receive the earth as their heritage, and that is to say, the New Creation, the Resurrection world.  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?  What else could satisfy them like the perfect righteousness of Jesus, God’s Son, credited to their account, given to them as a gift, covering them and dumped in their sack, by grace alone?  And then, enacted in them.  And so… mercy for the merciful.  The beatific vision (that is, the blessed seeing of God Himself) for the pure in heart.  And the peacemakers?  Sons of God, they are called, because they do what the Son of God, Jesus, did and does by His self-sacrifice on the cross… they make peace.  And, the persecuted…  We come full circle.  Again, theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  Not because they’ve earned it by suffering persecution.  Nobody earns, here.  Remember, this is all by grace.  But it’s just a statement of fact.  What can they actually take from you by persecuting you, when the Kingdom of heaven belongs to you?  Your life?  Nope, you have that, eternally, in Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead.  So that, dying, you live.  And Jesus will raise you up on the Last Day.  Your freedom?  Nah, if the Son sets you free, you will be free, indeed (John 8:36).  The reality is, it is precisely because of your freedom in Christ, in whom you live eternally, that you can suffer persecution without loss.  Your possessions?  Well, let’s face it, you could stand to get rid of some stuff, anyway.  And, you know, as it is, everything they take from you will only break or rot away.  But your lasting possessions are eternal in the heavens (cf. 2 Cor. 5:1), and those they cannot take away. 

            What it comes down to, beloved, is that your blessedness is Christ.  Blessed are you who are in Christ.  No matter the circumstances.  By virtue of His Baptism into you in the Jordan River (Matt. 3:13-17), and your Baptism into Him at the font, you are united with Him in such a way that He takes all the emptiness and lack and weakness and suffering and death that you deserve by your sins, upon Himself, and puts it to death on the cross… so that you get all the blessedness… the Kingdom, the fulness, the joy, the righteousness, the life that belongs to Him.  Everything is transformed in the death and resurrection of Christ, and by your Baptism into Christ.  Turned upside down (or really, right side up).  Made new.  “Behold,” Jesus says, “I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). 

            And here is why it matters, to you, personally, here and now.  Every time you suffer some kind of grief or setback… every time you shed a tear… every time you are weary, or heavy laden, as you come to realize that things are not as they should be in the world, in you, in those around you… every time you come to realize that you need saving, and everybody else needs saving, and you can’t save, them or you, because you don’t make a very good savior… Every time you experience pain, or loss, or rejection, or any other sadness… and especially when that is for the Name of Jesus… you know that there is a hidden beatitude in it.  Hidden, but assuredly present.  And if you doubt it, just come read this Gospel text again.  Things are not as they appear.  There is always hope.  Hope, sure and certain.  Because Jesus Christ, who was crucified, is risen from the dead.  That is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.  And He is coming back, this Jesus.  For you.  He is coming soon.  To pull back the veil, and bring the blessedness, the beatitude, to light.  You cannot see it now.  But you will.  And, in the meantime, what does He do?  He brings you to His Table, and feeds you with Himself.  The Bread of Life, the Blessed One.  His body, His blood, given and shed for you, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Filled to the brim, with every good and perfect gift. 

            That is the kind of life Jesus calls blessed.  Emptied of all that is not Him.  Filled with all that is Him and His.  That’s you.  Blessed are you.  And yours is the Kingdom of heaven.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                          

The Conversion of St. Paul

Video of Service

The Conversion of St. Paul

January 25, 2026

Text: Acts 9:1-22

            The Lord Jesus stops Saul of Tarsus in his tracks.  Saul is going his own way, and it is the wrong way.  Jesus is the Way (and the Truth, and the Life – John 14:6), but Saul’s way is to persecute the Way, to find those belonging to the Way (men and women), and bring them bound to Jerusalem (Acts 9:2).  And so, the light, suddenly flashing from heaven (v. 3).  And the voice: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (v. 4; ESV).  That is the accusing finger of God’s Law, convicting, condemning.  “Who are you, Lord?” … “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (v. 5).  For, in persecuting those who belong to Jesus, you persecute Jesus Himself.  And now what?  Blindness (v. 8).  His physical condition exposing his true spiritual condition.  And really, it’s a death, isn’t it?  Three days (a time stamp which should not be insignificant to us) he is without sight, and neither eats nor drinks (v. 9).

            But then?  A Divine Promise: You will be told what you are to do (v. 6).  And God sends a preacher… Ananias, by name.  And Ananias preaches (v. 17), and Saul hears, and the Spirit comes on the wings of the Word.  Therefore Saul believes, and is healed (“something like scales fell from his eyes” [v. 18]), and he rises (a word which should not be insignificant to us, especially after three days), and is baptized.  After which he takes food and is strengthened (v. 19).  He is converted.  Saul to Paul, we sometimes say… although, don’t make too much of that.  Saul is his Hebrew name, after the first King of Israel, coming, as he does, from the Tribe of Benjamin.  Paul is his Greek name, particularly fitting as he will now be sent to the Gentiles.  Converted, though, from denier of Christ to believer in, and preacher of, Christ… from vigorous persecutor of the Church to one “now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy” (Gal. 1:23)… one who confesses… one who will learn how much he must suffer for the Name of Jesus (Acts 9:16)… an Apostle (which is, one sent by Jesus to speak in His Name, so that what he says is as good as if Jesus said it Himself, because Jesus does say it Himself through the voice and pen of Paul)… one who will carry the Name of Jesus before Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel (v. 15)… one who will die for that Name, beheaded in Rome, we believe, on the same day Peter was crucified upside down, under Emperor Nero, who was insane, first of all, and who, as we know, blamed the Christians for the Great Fire in AD 64.  But dying, he lives.  In Christ, who died, and who lives.  His conversion is nothing less than a resurrection from the dead.  Indeed, his Baptism into Christ was to die with Christ, and so he lives in Christ, as Paul himself teaches us in Romans 6.  And one day soon the risen Christ will raise Paul, bodily, from the dead, along with Peter and all people, and give eternal life, bodily, in the New Creation, to Paul, and us, and all believers in Christ.

            You know, this account of the conversion of St. Paul illustrates for us how conversion works for all of us.  Young and old, men and women, infant and adult, this is how it happens.  Oh, usually not with the spectacular flash of light and voice from heaven and scales covering eyes and such.  Artist that He is, God usually paints with much more subtle tones.  But sometimes He has to get the attention of the Lutherans, and that demands a more obvious demonstration!  In all seriousness, it is not unlike the way the Baptism of Jesus shows us visibly and audibly what takes place in a hidden way in our own Baptism into Christ.  What happens here to Paul in his conversion, happens in a hidden way to us in ours.  The ordo salutis, we call it; the order of salvation.  Now, understand, this order is not a chronological process, but rather a theological sequence.  Like Saul, God finds a person going his own way.  That person stands condemned under God’s Law.  That is all of us in Adam.  We are sinners.  Our nature is so corrupted by the inherited disease of original sin, that before we even have a chance to commit sin, we are sinners (remember, it is not that we are sinners because we sin; it is rather that we sin because we are sinners): conceived and born spiritually blind (thus the scales), dead (three days), and an enemy of God (like Saul, the enemy of Jesus and persecutor of the Church).  So, we go our own way.  Off to sin and unbelief.  Off to hurt Jesus, and kill Jesus.  But, in His grace, the Lord stops us in our tracks.  And there we stand, naked, like Adam and Eve in the Garden.  Our corruption is exposed.  And the Law terrifies us.  God is rightly angered over our rebellious state.  But now we enter upon the ordo salutis proper.  What happens?  God sends a preacher.  Or a Christian confessor.  Or a Bible passage.  Or Christian parents who bring us to Baptism.  The Gospel, in other words.  And the Spirit comes on the wings of that Gospel and turns us.  He picks us up out of our corrupt way, and puts on His Way, the Way of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He speaks the faith into us, breathes the life of Jesus into us.  So that we live in Jesus.  And salvation now having been apprehended by faith, thereupon (and after the ordo salutis) follow sanctification, love, and good works.  And sufferings for the Name of Jesus.

            Notice, though, how God does it all.  Conversion is totally and completely God’s work in us, by grace alone.  We don’t make our decision for Jesus.  We don’t decide to follow Him.  Not before the Spirit does His work in us.  How could we?  Not only were we blind, and hating God, we were dead.  Have you ever asked a dead man to make a decision about anything?  How did that go for you?  “Hey, why don’t you decide to just get up out of that coffin and rejoin the living?”  Well, he probably would, if he could make that choice, but he can’t, why?  Because he’s dead.  And if anything is going to change that, it has to come from outside of the dead man.  It has to come from God.  Only God can raise the dead.  That is how it is with conversion.  Conversion is nothing less than a resurrection from the dead.  And that is what God does for us when He gives us faith in Christ.  Now, He doesn’t do it by randomly zapping us from heaven (He didn’t do that with Paul, either.  Read the text carefully.)  He does it by means of the Gospel, which is to say, the Word and the Sacraments.  These are the Spirit’s divinely appointed means.  They aren’t our works, but His.  Thank God, it all depends upon Him.  Isn’t that good news?  Because He’ll never screw it up.  I will, every time.  But He won’t.  Ever.  He is ever faithful.  And not only does He bring us to faith in the first place, it is He who keeps us in that faith.  Now, we can walk away from the faith.  That is true.  We should always be aware of that, and receive it as a warning, and so stay ever near Him in His Means of Grace.  But what else can separate us from the love of Christ?  Paul tells us in Romans 8.  Nothing.  Nothing else in all creation.  Not death or life or angels or rulers or things present or things to come or powers or height or depth or anything (Rom. 8:38-39)… God is faithful, and He keeps us by His Spirit in the one true faith.  You can count on Him, and rest in Him.

            Also, think what a comfort this is when we are anxiously concerned about the conversion of others.  Especially loved ones.  Right?  If conversion is all God’s work, what a relief!  Realize this: You can’t convert anyone.  Now, you can and should pray for a person’s conversion (your tears are particularly precious prayers).  And you can and should speak to the Gospel to that person (remember, that is the means the Spirit uses to bring about conversion).  And invite them to Church.  Or, if they’re your kids, bring them to Church.  Always.  Bring them to Holy Baptism.  And Sunday School.  And Catechism class.  And pray and read the Bible with them at home.  Teach them.  But you can’t convert them, or keep them converted.  That isn’t your job.  That is God’s job.  And that takes the pressure off of you, doesn’t it?  It’s His responsibility.  You just get to be His instrument in it.  And for that, you can rejoice and thank God. 

            Beloved, let this make you bold to confess Christ.  Speak Jesus to the world.  Live a Christian life.  Unapologetically.  And then… suffer for it, if called to do so.  What’s the worst that can happen to you?  Don’t fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.  Fear only Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt. 10:28), and that is God.  For, dying… what?  You live.  They can’t, actually, take your life.  They can’t, actually, take anything from you.  Because, whatever you lose in following Jesus, never forget this: You’ll receive it back a hundredfold, in this life, and in the life to come.  And in the end, eternal life.  And the whole world.

            By the way, let this fill you with compassion, too, for people like Saul of Tarsus.  Remember what the Lord can do with a guy like that.  And maybe… just maybe, like God did with the martyrdom of Stephen (remember, they laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7:58)?)… maybe God will use your suffering in the conversion story of your persecutors.  I only say that in case an angry mob comes and interrupts us one of these days.  It’s been known to happen.  Don’t be scared of them, and don’t get angry at them.  Pity them.  Pray for them.  Paul himself once said, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom. 12:14).  Love them.  Preach to them.  And then die for them.

            Because Christ is risen.  And He’ll raise you.  And by your suffering, He might just pick them up (your persecutors) and set them on the Way.  God grant it.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.     

 

Confession of St. Peter

Video of Service

The Confession of St. Peter

January 18, 2026

Text: Mark 8:27-9:1

            “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35; ESV).

            Peter had to die.  There were no two ways about it.  He knew it, and so he wrote, “I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me” (2 Peter 1:13-14; ESV).  Our Lord Jesus Christ made it clear to him, of course, at the end of St. John’s Gospel: “‘when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.’  (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.)  And after saying this he said to him, ‘Follow me’” (John 21:18-19).

            Peter had to die.  Because he confessed of Jesus, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29).  Satan doesn’t like that confession.  And, therefore, the world doesn’t like that confession, either.  And frankly, our own sinful flesh doesn’t like that confession, as Peter himself proves in this very episode.  Because that confession means the downfall of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh.  It means that Jesus is King, and Jesus is God, and that God, the Son of God, has come into the flesh to snatch us away from the devil’s kingdom, claim our allegiance over against the unbelieving world, and do Old Adam to death, raising us to new life in Himself. 

            Peter had to die.  Because the Christ Peter follows had to die.  Jesus teaches Peter and the disciples what it means that He is the Christ.  “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (v. 31; emphasis added).  He must.  The Greek word (δεῖ) indicates divine necessity.  This is why God sent Him.

            Peter had to die.  Because martyrdom is the ultimate confession.  Martyr means witness.  In Christian terms, it can simply mean the testimony we bear to the Lord Jesus, our confession of faith.  But it has come to mean dying as a consequence of maintaining that confession.  The disciple is called upon to lose his life for Jesus and for the Gospel, and so find it.  And sometimes that means bodily suffering and death.  But there is a Promise attached to that.  Whoever loses his life for Jesus will save it.  The one who is not ashamed… who does not deny Jesus and His Words under threat of persecution, but persists in this confession, no matter the consequences…  of him, Jesus will not be ashamed when He comes into the glory of His Father.  But let us be warned: The opposite is true, as well, as our Lord here explicitly states: “whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (v. 38).  Peter was such a one, ashamed of Jesus in the hour of trial, denying Him three times.  Thank God, the Lord looked at Peter (Luke 22:61), and bid His rooster preach a sunrise sermon (v. 60), and so brought Peter back to Himself in repentance (he wept bitterly), and then restoration and faith (Do you love Me, Peter?  Feed My lambs.  Tend My sheep.  Feed My sheep.  Follow Me [John 21:15-19]).

            We see the seeds of this denial already in our text.  After Jesus teaches the disciples that the Christ must suffer and die at the hands of sinners, and for sinners, Peter takes him aside and rebukes Him.  Peter doesn’t want that kind of Christ.  Peter has in mind the things of men… power, might, glory… not the things of God… weakness, suffering, humiliation… the cross…  We know the blistering words this elicits from Jesus.  “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33).  It kills Peter to hear it.  But then, that’s right, isn’t it.  Peter has to die. 

            The same is true of you and me.  When we have in mind the things of men, rather than the things of God, Jesus must speak us to death with His Law.  That He may raise us to life… His life… by His Gospel.  When we want a Christ other than the Christ of the cross… a Christ who obliterates His (and our) enemies in a blaze of power, might, and glory, not One who accomplishes His mission in weakness, suffering, and humiliation… Jesus says to us, “Get behind me, Satan!”  It kills us to hear it.  But then, that’s right, isn’t it.  We have to die.

            To ourselves, first of all.  That we may live in Christ alone.  Jesus does that to us in Baptism.  Old Adam, drowned in the water.  New Creation emerging and arising to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.  He does it in Scripture, and preaching.  Law and Gospel.  Repentance and faith.  Daily life, planted in the blest baptismal water.  Possessed by the Spirit.  Nourished by the body and the blood that was given and shed for us on the cross.

            And then, who knows?  We may have to die, bodily, for Jesus’ sake, and for the Gospel.  Well… it’s a scary thought, but then, is it really so bad?  We all have to die, anyway, unless Jesus returns first.  If our death is for Jesus, all the better.  God grant us His Spirit, and courage, that if we are called upon to shed our blood for the One who shed His blood for us, we do so, with confidence and joy, maintaining our confession to the end.  But in any case, we are called to be martyrs, witnesses, confessors, no matter the consequence.  Whether simple rejection (the worst most of us have ever had to suffer), or imprisonment, torture, and execution.  Let it be so.  Beloved… you and I, we have to die.

            Because we confess of Jesus, “You are the Christ.”  Because the Christ we follow had to die.  Following Him necessarily (and divinely so) means our journey to eternal life goes by way of the cross.  So be it.  Deny yourself.  Take it up, the cross Jesus gives.  And follow Him.  In weakness, and suffering, and humiliation.  Because you know where this all ends up.  After three days, He must… (what?)… rise again.  And so you.  He will raise you.  Bodily, in the End.  And eternally.  The only way to that life is the death of Christ.  And your death with Christ, and in Christ.  Your life being, as Paul says, “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

            Peter had to die.  And he did.  First, to himself, in repentance.  And then, quite literally, in fulfillment of the Lord’s Word: He stretched out his hands, and others dressed him, and led him where he did not want to go.  Crucified in Rome, it is believed.  Upside down, believing himself unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus (thus his symbol is an upside down cross).  This happened, apparently, on the same day Paul was beheaded, both by order of Emperor Nero, who blamed the Christians for the Great Fire in the imperial city.

            Peter died.  But Peter lives.  He joins us, by the way, at the altar, every time we gather, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.”  Jesus will raise him up on the Last Day.

            You have died with Christ.  But you live.  In Christ.  And you will die, whether a martyr’s death, or some other way.  But you will live.  Eternally.  Jesus will raise you up on the Last Day.

            Because Jesus died.  But Jesus lives.  He is risen from the dead.  And so, you confess Him, your Savior, your God.  You’ve already lost your life in Him, and so found it (Baptism, faith).  In light of that, what could the devil or the world possibly do to you, that it would be worth giving that up?  Lose your life?  Die?  Okay.  Because Christ is risen, and so, for you who are in Christ, the final word is Life.  You live.  And that, forevermore.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

The Baptism of Our Lord

Video of Service

The Baptism of Our Lord (A)

January 11, 2026

Text: Matt. 3:13-17

            “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15; ESV).

            John would have prevented Jesus from submitting to his Baptism.  John’s Baptism, after all, was for repentance, and Jesus had no sins for which He needed to repent.  True enough.  Jesus, though fully Man, is nevertheless the sinless Son of God.  But here He is in the water with John, and with all the sinners lined up for the bath.  John, for his part, recognizes that he ought to be baptized by Jesus.  John is a sinner, and he knows it.  But here is Jesus, desiring to be baptized, and let it be so now, John, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

            All righteousness does need to be fulfilled, you know, or it is not righteousness.  Any amount of unrighteousness is unrighteousness.  Well, that is our problem.  We cannot fulfill all righteousness.  We cannot fulfill God’s Commandments.  We break them all over the place, and we never really live up to them.  That is already true in terms of outward behavior.  Stealing, adultery, murder, gossip or slander.  Hurting or harming our neighbor in his body.  Hurting or harming our neighbor in his soul.  Something… or several somethings… on that list got you as you heard it.  That is, the Law convicted you.  So, that is bad enough.  But then Jesus goes and points out to us that Commandment keeping isn’t just an outward matter, but a matter of the heart.  And now we’re all nailed by every single one of the Commandments… “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder’… But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matt. 5:21-22).  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (vv. 27-28).  And how about, simply, “You shall not covet” (Ex. 20:17).  See, the heart.  Not just outward behavior.  And whether outward or inward, the sins we commit are really only a symptom of the problem.  We are conceived and born in sin.  Inherited from Adam.  And that is really the problem.  Original sin, we call it.  It is the mortal disease that infects our nature to our very core, and it is that which gives birth to our actual sins of thought, word, and deed.  Before we even have a chance to sin, we are sinners.  See, it is not that we are sinners because we sin.  It is that we sin because we are sinners.  Understand?  Original sin is the disease.  Actual sins are the manifestations of that disease.  Okay, so, we’re unrighteous, as we confessed right off the bat at the beginning of Service.  And, as a result, if there is any hope of fulfilling all righteousness, it can’t come from us.

            And that is the answer to John’s conundrum.  Why would Jesus present Himself to be baptized?  He isn’t doing it for His sake.  He’s doing it for us.  Jesus comes to be baptized into us.  Into our sin and death.  Into our unrighteousness.  Into our breaking of the Commandments and failure to perform them.  Into our fallen flesh.  He soaks it all up into Himself, as He is baptized, there, in the Jordan.

            And He does something else in His Baptism.  He leaves something behind in the water.  What?  Himself.  His righteousness.  His death, and resurrection life.  His keeping and fulfilling of the Commandments.  His new, pure, and sinless flesh.  Why?  So that John’s Baptism of repentance may give way to the fulness of Christian Baptism when our Lord rises again.  So that ever after, we may be baptized into Christ.  And all that is His becomes ours, even as He takes up all that is ours, and bears it to the cross, to bleed all over it and die for it. 

            The Great Exchange, or Happy Exchange, as it is sometimes called.  The Sweet Swap.  St. Paul defines it this way in 2^nd Corinthians: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  And in Romans: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4).  And in Galatians: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Gal. 3:13).  Again, see… He takes what is ours, and gives us what is His.

            The exchange takes place in the water.  There, we are clothed in Christ, the Sacrifice for our sins, and He is clothed… or better, unclothed… in us; like Adam and Eve in the Garden, in the shame and nakedness of our guilt.  “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27).  Clothed.  “And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak,” unclothed, “and put his own clothes on him,” clothed with our sin… “And they led him out to crucify him” (Mark 15:20).  He dies our death.  We live His life.  “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).  The Great Exchange.

            So… one with Christ in the water.  That means all His perfect keeping of the Law is credited to us.  We heard last week about our Lord’s keeping of the first three Commandments by being in the Father’s House, about the things of His Father, and His keeping of the Fourth Commandment as He goes back to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph and submits to them (Luke 2:41-52).  He did that for us, in our place, so that where we have not kept those Commandments, He has, and He gives His keeping of those Commandments to us as a gift.  Again, it happens in Baptism.  His righteousness is our righteousness.  And then the guilt of our not keeping those Commandments, He takes upon Himself, to be punished and put to death on the cross.  There are a couple theological terms that are helpful to learn in this regard.  We call our Lord’s keeping of the Commandments in our place, His active righteousness.  He perfectly fulfills the Father’s will in His earthly life, in thought, word, and deed, and He gives us the credit for it.  Then, we call our Lord’s suffering the punishment for our sins, in our place, His passive righteousness.  Passive, not because He isn’t doing anything, but according to the meaning of the Latin root, passivus, meaning to suffer or endure.  He is baptized into us to be able to do that for us.  We are baptized into Him to receive it.  And in this way, all righteousness is fulfilled. 

            What else happens in the water?  The things that happen visibly and audibly to Jesus in His Baptism, happen invisibly, but still audibly in the rite and in the preaching, to us.  That is to say, there is Jesus in the water, to receive us into Himself.  And heaven is opened.  And there is the Spirit descending and coming to rest on us, to enkindle faith in us and fan it into flame, to guide us into all truth, sanctify us, and keep us in Christ.  And there is the voice of the Father, declaring of Jesus, and therefore of you in Jesus: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).  That is justification language.  God is well pleased with us, because all righteousness is fulfilled in Christ.  All of it.  And then, all of it, given to us.  As a gift.  By grace.  Understand this, because this is the heart and center of the Christian faith: Now that you are in Christ, when God looks at you, He sees perfect righteousness.  It is a righteousness from outside of you.  It is the righteousness of His Son.  Jesus takes away your sins.  He gives you His righteousness in exchange.  That is the reality of your Baptism into Him. 

            So, first thing when you arise in the morning beloved, and last thing before you go to sleep at night, you can make the sign of the holy cross (as Dr. Luther recommends), and invoke the blessed Name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And you can remember that you are a beloved, blood-bought child of God, united to the death and resurrection of Christ, immersed in His Holy Spirit.  And, therefore, all your sins are forgiven, and all righteousness is fulfilled for you.  And you can live, and die, and live forever in that reality.  Let it be so now.  It is.  Because Jesus is in the water with you.  For you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.     

 

Second Sunday after Christmas

Video of Service

Second Sunday after Christmas (A)

January 4, 2026

Text: Luke 2:40-52

            When you are looking for Jesus, where do you expect to find Him?

            Mary and Joseph should have known.  Where else would He be?  Did they not remember the Promises given them concerning Him?  The preaching of the Angel Gabriel?  The shepherds?  The wise men?  Simeon and Anna?  The Hebrew Scriptures of which their Boy is the fulfillment?  But where did they look when they thought they’d lost Him?  For three long days, everywhere but where they should have known Him to be.  “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49; ESV).  The place of teaching?  The place of prayer?  The place of sacrifice for sins, and communion with God?

            They knew.  But they did not know.  Like us.  Why do we forget?  Why are we so easily deceived?  Well, we know.  It is Old Adam in us.  Ever susceptible to the devil’s tricks, and the world’s siren songs.  And, of course, sufficient in and of ourselves, to deceive ourselves by our own fallen, sinful passions.  So that, when we become aware of our great need for Jesus, for salvation, for a Savior… we look in all the wrong places.  In ourselves.  In our own heart, our own mind.  To our own scruples, our own righteousness.  To escape.  Amusement.  Pleasure.  Retail therapy.  Food.  Sex.  Substance abuse.  The list could go on and on.  And we know this, but insanely, we keep trying the same things over and over again, with the same results.  Ask yourself once again, whatever your substitute Jesus may be… does it ever work?  Do you ever find fulfillment and meaning and life and salvation in those things?

            When you need Jesus, you know just where to find Him.  He’s told you.  It’s no secret.  “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  Well, “house,” yes.  That is a good word in this text.  This is, after all, the Temple, the House of God, where Mary and Joseph find Jesus after three days of frantic searching.  God’s gifts are located.  They are not ambiguous or ethereal, indefinable somethings that come to you mystically by immersion in some kind of spiritual atmosphere.  God gives His gifts audibly and tangibly in a concrete location.  So, “I must be in my Father’s house.”  In the Old Testament, we think of the Tabernacle and, later, the Temple.  In the New Testament, we think of the Church.  When you are looking for Jesus, you come to His House.  You come to Church.  And you always need Him, so, beloved, always come to Church.

            But it’s not just a matter of being in the building.  And I think we have a clue to that in the Greek of this verse, which actually doesn’t say the word, “house.”  Literally, the verse says, “Did you not know that I must be in the things of My Father?”  And what are the things of Jesus’ Father?  There is Jesus, sitting in the midst of the Teachers… The Teachers of what?  The Torah, the Word… listening to them, and teaching them by asking and answering questions.  Jesus is embedded in His Word.  The things of His Father are the things of His Word, the things by which God imparts His Spirit, and salvation, and Christ Himself.  In other words, this is a Means of Grace text.  Jesus is talking about His Word and Sacraments.  When you are looking for Jesus… when you need Jesus… you will always find Him in Baptism, Scripture, preaching, and Supper.  That is where you should expect to find Him.  And you always will.  You will always find Him speaking your sins forgiven, speaking Himself and His life and His strength and His Spirit into you, immersing you in Himself and His cleansing blood, feeding you with His very body, His very blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Don’t go looking all over the place for Jesus.  Look for Him here, in His Father’s House, in the things of His Father.

            But then, there is a second question to which we are directed in this text.  When you are looking for Jesus, what kind of Jesus are you expecting to find?

            Again, Mary and Joseph should have known.  But they were looking for the wrong kind of Jesus.  In spite of all the Promises.  In spite of the angel, and the shepherds, and the wise men.  In spite of Simeon and Anna, and the Hebrew Scriptures.  Mary and Joseph were looking for a merely human Child.  A good Boy.  A Gift of God.  But your typical twelve-year-old, who gets distracted, maybe misses some of His parents’ instructions (“be here at this time with all your things packed so we can get on the road”), and who maybe even gets ideas of His own, and takes risks that He shouldn’t, thinking He can handle it.  That is why they look all over the city.  Where are some of Jesus’ favorite places?  Where are the curiosities?  Where might a twelve-year-old Boy find Himself after sneaking away from His parents?  Three days, it takes them.  Finally, to look in the place they should have known all along.  Because they forgot who they were looking for.  In their mind, they were looking for Joseph’s Son (“your father and I have been looking for you in great distress” [v. 48]).  But see, had they been looking for the Son of God and Sacrifice for the sins of the world, there would have been only one place to look for Him.  The Father’s House.  Where the Sacrifices are made.  In the things of the Father. 

            Because we are fallen people, we often find ourselves looking for the wrong Jesus, too.  Perhaps a merely human Jesus.  A good Man.  A teacher of wisdom and morals.  And example of how to live your best life (hard to reconcile that with the cross, though).  Or, maybe we want a purely spiritual Jesus who just comes into our hearts and gives us the warm fuzzies.  Perhaps we are looking for a Jesus who will confirm our own preferences and opinions.  Perhaps a political Jesus, who set the governments of this world straight.  We are all often looking for a Jesus who just wants us to be happy.  Who just wants us to feel good about ourselves.  And so we say things like, “My Jesus would never…” say or do whatever the Bible says He says or does that we don’t like.  Or, “The Jesus I worship would…” do or say the things we want Him to do or say.  But that Jesus isn’t the right One, beloved… the true One, the One from God, and who is God.  That Jesus is an idol of your own making. 

            But it often happens, thank God (and has happened among us, because we are here today), that after hours, or days, or even years of searching for the wrong Jesus, and in all the wrong places, and in great distress… by God’s grace, we stumble into the place, and before the Jesus, where and whom we should have known all along.  That is, we meet the incarnate Son of God in the things of His Father, the Word and Sacraments, preached and distributed here in the Father’s House.  That is a gift of the Holy Spirit, beloved.  Do not despise it.  Receive it, and rejoice in it.

            Know this about yourself.  This side of heaven and the full and final death of Old Adam, you will always be prone to looking for the wrong Jesus in all the wrong places.  So, watch for that, and repent of it whenever it happens.  That is, stop that false searching in its tracks.  And listen again to the Promises, and return where you know you will always find Jesus for you.  Here.  In the things of the Father. 

            This is the Jesus who became flesh to die for your sins.  For three days, we disciples thought we’d lost Him, didn’t we?  Crucified, dead, and buried.  But then what?  Looking in the wrong place… the tomb… we heard the preaching of the angel.  He is no longer dead.  He is risen.  And when He speaks His Word, your heart will burn within you.  And you will recognize Him in the Breaking of the Bread.  That is to say, in the things of the Father (the Gospel)… there, we find the Son of God in risen and living human flesh and blood.  He is always in the Word.  The audible, tangible, located Word. 

            All of which is to say, beloved: You’ve come to the right place.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                      

First Sunday after Christmas

Video of Service

First Sunday after Christmas/ The Holy Innocents, Martyrs

December 28, 2025

Text: Matt. 2:13-23

            Merry Christmas! 

            Though, our Holy Gospel doesn’t seem very Christmassy, does it?  The whole thing is covered in blood!  The blood of babies, no less.

            The little Lord Jesus is marked for death from the very beginning.  The devil hates Him.  And hates all babies because of Him.  Those held captive by the devil, including the princes of this world, hate Him, too.  And so, they hate babies because of Him.  They hate Him because they know that unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given (Is. 9:6).  They know that, in the fullness of time, “God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5; ESV).  They know they were robbed of a kingdom by the Seed of the Woman, who crushes the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15).  Thus the war on babies, and marriage, and families, and sex.  And life.  And the Lord.  And His Church. 

            And so, the baby boys of Bethlehem shed their blood.  The Holy Innocents, we call them, cut down at such a tender age.  They are victims, but they are more than that.  They are martyrs.  They shed their blood for Jesus.  And they are prophets.  They foreshadow the blood of Another.  Jesus escapes to Egypt, for now.  But He will not always.  This is why He has come.  He was born with flesh and blood for this very purpose.  To give that flesh, and shed that blood, for these dear boys, and for us all.  To snatch us out of Satan’s claws, and death’s dread jaws.  Yes, even those precious little boys.  To live with Him in His Kingdom.  And that means resurrection and eternal life.  So… Satan and his henchmen have been after babies, and after all of us, ever since. 

            It doesn’t seem very Christmassy.  But it reminds me of the Christmas story as told by St. John.  Now, you are more familiar with Luke’s, and even Matthew’s, telling.  And, true, you know John’s theology of the Incarnation as we read it Christmas Day, that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  Wonderful.  But I am talking about the Christmas story as John tells it in the Book of Revelation.  Do you remember?  I’m sure you do.  But just in case, here it is again.

            A “great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.  She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.  And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.  His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.  And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.  She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days” (Rev. 12:1-6).

            Wouldn’t that make a great Christmas pageant?  Maybe next year.  Who is the woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon as her footstool, and a crown of twelve stars?  Mary, of course.  Who else?  Well… God’s Old Testament people, Israel.  And above all, dear Mother Church.  And whether Mary, or Israel, or the Church, understand, this glory is not inherent in her, but has been given to her.  Bestowed on her, by God, by grace.  The twelve stars are the twelve Apostles, the Twelve new Patriarchs.  And, of course, we know who the Male Child is, to whom Mary, Israel, the Church gives birth.  He is our Lord Jesus.  See?  Christmas. 

            Ah, but who is the great, red dragon?  We know that, too.  The serpent.  The devil.  Who else could it be?  And there he is, dressed up to look like a mighty god.  Seven heads.  False wisdom.  Ten horns.  Strength, but far inferior to the strength of the one true God.  On his heads, seven diadems.  As though he were the rightful king.  He does have a following, though, doesn’t he?  A third of the stars of heaven, swept down and cast upon the earth.  The fallen angels.  The demons. 

            What is he doing?  This is where the account reflects our holy Gospel.  He is standing before the woman, waiting for her to give birth, so that he can devour her Child.  Now, the story moves quickly, but it is worth pausing here, and reflecting.  Is he successful?  Well, yes and no.  Yes, because… what, in fact, happens to the Child?  The dragon catches Him in his steely teeth.  The serpent crushes His heel.  The cross.  Right? 

            Okay, please grant me a little Christmas indulgence as I detour to a story within a story within a story, but… this is Aslan and the Stone Table in Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, right?  Do you remember it?  Have you read it?  If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?  The white witch (the devil figure) demands of Aslan (the Christ figure) the sacrifice of his life on the Stone Table, if he is to make atonement for Edmund’s sin of betrayal.  And the lion does it.  He willingly gives himself as sacrifice.  He submits to the ropes and taunts and swords of the witch and her wicked hordes.  They torment him.  They humiliate him.  The shave him of his glorious mane.  And then, with a cackle, the witch plunges the blade in a mortal blow. 

            She think’s she’s won.  There is great celebration among her hellish beasts.  But what happens?  (Spoiler alert!)  After a short and very sad time, all at once, the children hear a great cracking, a deafening noise.  It is the Stone Table, broken in half!  And then, what do they see, but him!  Well, they hear him first, speaking to them.  Just like us and Jesus.  See, He is risen from the dead.  And then, a romp.  And a mighty roar!  And the rescue of all Narnia, and the utter defeat of the white witch and her minions.

            The dragon thought he’d won, devouring the Child, and now he’d make short work of the woman and her children (believers, us).  But what happened?  (Spoiler alert!)  A great cracking.  The crushing of the serpent’s head.  Death itself, broken in half.  The stone rolled away from the tomb.  And then, they see Him.  The women.  And the Apostles.  And we will, too.  Though, first, we’ll hear Him speaking to us, as we do this day.  See, He is risen from the dead.  And ascended to the right hand of God, to rescue, and to rule.  The story in Revelation sums it all up with the words, “her child was caught up to God and to his throne” (v. 5).  And as for the woman (here, particularly, the Church)?  Given a safe place in the wilderness, prepared for her by God (v. 6).  Now, it is the wilderness.  That is, there is danger and suffering and want to be endured.  It is the wilderness of life in this world, this side of the veil.  But God keeps us.  And nourishes us.  Throughout the whole time appointed, represented by the 1,260 days.  Don’t take that number literally, by the way.  It is only meant to teach us that the time is short, that the days of grief are limited. 

            The Male Child is coming back soon.  The Day is known to God.  But in the meantime, there is blood to be shed for the Kingdom, martyrdom to be borne.  And it has everything to do with Christmas.  The whole thing is covered in blood.  Bethlehem’s boys are the first, and they are prophets.  But they are not the last.  Their blood proclaims the death of Christ for us, and the bloody witness of those yet to come.  Stephen next takes up the task (his Feast Day was Friday).  Then James.  Then the Apostles.  Then countless Christians, to this very day, shedding their blood for the Savior who shed His blood for them.  We don’t know… perhaps some of us will be in that number.  God grant us, in the moment of decision, to be ready.  And willing. 

            And we can be ready and willing, because, though the dragon did, in a sense, get the Child… he lost Him!  And lost us, in Him.  It is true, the wages of sin is death.  But there is a deeper Truth… a Truth the devil cannot comprehend.  In Christ, born of Mary, death is now the portal to Life!  Jesus died, but He is risen.  The dragon may kill us, but he cannot keep us.  Because we are in Christ, who lives.  And rules.  And romps.  And roars.  The eternal Gospel roars forth from His mouth, and the mouths of His martyrs and confessors… you. 

            Not very Christmassy, the slaughter of Bethlehem’s boys?  Oh, quite the contrary.  The Christmas surprise is that they live, because Jesus lives.  And so do we.  Let the world and its prince rage and hate.  They can slay our bodies, but they cannot take our Life.  And so, merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas, indeed!  Jesus has come, and we are sons of God.  Rachel is comforted.  The devil be damned.  The blood of the babies preaches the blood of the Baby.  He was born to die your death.  He was born that you might live.  Rejoice this day, dear Christian friends.  Christ, the Lord, is born for you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.