Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Midweek of Lent 4/Fifth Sunday in Lent


Lenten Midweek 4: “Behold the Man! A God with a Mother”[1]
April 3, 2019
Text: John 19:25-27

             Woman,” Jesus calls her, before His first miracle at the wedding in Cana (John 2:4).  Woman,” He calls her from the cross as He commends her into the care of His beloved disciple, John (19:26).  Mary is the new Eve.  She is the fulfillment of the first Gospel prophecy spoken in the Garden in the midst of the Curse, God preaching to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15; ESV; emphasis added). 
            God has a mother.  The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, is sent by the Father to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.  He is God of God, and flesh of Mary’s flesh.  To say that God has a mother is to say that God is a Man.  Our Lord Jesus is one Person with two natures, divine and human.  He is God and Man.  And the reason He is God and Man is for us men and for our salvation.  Our Redeemer must be God to live a sinless life of perfection before God, His heavenly Father, in our place.  To fulfill the Law of God in our place.  To count for all of us, all humanity in His active and passive obedience, His righteousness before God and His suffering for our sins.  And He must be Man to be under the Law and suffer and die to atone for us.  In Christ, Man stands righteous and holy before God.  In Christ, God is born and suffers and dies. 
            It is the great battle between the Seed of the woman and the accursed serpent, the dragon hell-bent on devouring Him (Rev. 12:4).  On the cross, the serpent takes ahold of Him, sinks His poisoned fangs into our Lord’s heel.  On the cross, the dragon swallows the Lord of Life into death.  But the joke is one him.  On the cross, the Offspring of the woman stomps the serpent’s head into the dust.  He bursts through the belly of the dragon, whole and alive, risen from the dead, the flesh and blood born of Mary exalted and enthroned at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  In Christ, our flesh is exalted above all creatures in heaven and on earth (Cf. FC SD VIII:26).  God has a mother.  God became a Man.  This Man is God.  Mary is Theotokos.  Mary is the Mother of God.
            Christmas wasn’t so long ago, and I think we can all agree that Christmas is a very special time of year.  I don’t mind telling you that, with the way the school vacation worked out, having my kids at home all Twelve Days of Christmas this year made it extra special.  But what really makes Christmas so special?  We don’t even give this a lot of conscious thought, but we know it instinctively, though perhaps saying it out loud will be a little shocking.  Christmas is special for this reason alone: Holy Week.  God was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary to die.  For you.  And that is why you feast and sing and give presents on December 25th.  Because Jesus was born to die for the forgiveness of your sins. 
            He goes through all the stages of human development, and this is so important.  God took up residence in the Virgin’s womb to be a Zygote, a Blastocyst, a Fetus, a Newborn, for all zygotes, blastocysts, fetuses, and newborns.  For you.  This, of course, has great implications for our doctrine of life.  If God was all of these, we can no longer safely pretend that unborn children are anything less than fully human persons whose lives are sacred, holy, gifts of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.  And then this Newborn grew into a Toddler, a Boy, an Adolescent, a Teenager, a Young Man, a Man.  For you who have been any or all of these.  What Jesus becomes, He redeems. 
            On the cross, Jesus’ hour has come, the divinely appointed hour of His suffering and death for our redemption.  Now we understand the rebuke of His mother at the wedding in Cana, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?  My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).  Jesus is not being mean, nor is He disobeying or dishonoring His mother.  But even as Mary is our Lord’s mother, He is her Savior and her God.  And this is actually a confession of His two natures.  “Woman, I don’t get my working of miracles from you, but from my Father.  I work miracles because I am the Son of God.  God tells me when to perform a sign.  That is not your place.”  And then we know the Father does give Him to perform the sign, the changing of water into wine, that His disciples believe in Him, and that we understand Jesus is the Bridegroom come to redeem His Bride, the Church, and take her to Himself as holy, cleansed by His blood, and give her joy, wine in abundance, the good stuff, the very best.  This reveals His divine nature.  The Man, Jesus, can do this, because He is God. 
            But when His hour does come, on Golgotha, He once again addresses her as “Woman,” and we understand that what He is doing now He can do because He has taken on flesh in the womb of Mary.  God cannot suffer.  God cannot die.  But God does suffer and die, because our God, Jesus, is a Man.  His power and majesty are from God.  His humility and vulnerability to suffering and death are from Mary.  His human nature gives death its hour.  To redeem our human bodies and souls. 
            Now, even from the cross, bearing the load of this world’s sin, our Lord beholds His mother and the disciples whom He loves, and He has compassion.  Woman, behold your son! … Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27).  John is to take Jesus’ place as the Son who cares for His widowed mother.  Mary is to care for John, who has been bereaved of His beloved Friend and Master.  It is a moving moment.  And it teaches us that we need each other.  The Lord sets the solitary in a family (Psalm 68:6).  He brings us into the Church.  He dies to make this the reality.  We’re a family, here.  God is our Father.  The Church is our Mother.  We are brothers and sisters of one another, brothers and sisters of Christ.  Born of the Font.  Nourished at the Family Table.  The water and blood that pour from our Lord’s side birth and sustain us.  Mary is the picture of the Church who gives us birth and nurtures us.  The Apostle John is the picture of Jesus who cares for us, provides for us, and preaches the Word to us.  In other words, John is the pastor. 
            Now, some of you get nervous with all this talk of Mary.  You shouldn’t.  Repent.  You’ve gotta stop worrying about things being too Roman Catholic.  Instead, you should ask what is revealed in the Scriptures.  Mary is the Mother of God.  God becomes a Man in her womb.  To confess anything less is the Nestorian heresy, and not Christianity.  We should not pray to Mary.  She is not sinless, and she is certainly not coredemptrix.  Those are the Roman errors.  Jesus is her Redeemer, even as He is ours.  St. Ambrose, who predates the Roman denomination by over a thousand years, wonders if perhaps Mary thought Jesus needed her to die, as well, to add something to His redemption.  No, Ambrose reminds us, “Jesus did not need a helper for the redemption of all, Who saved all without a helper.”[2]  So much for the silly idea that Mary is any kind of co-savior with her Son.  The Church Father, Ambrose puts that idea to rest. 
            How, then, should we regard Mary?  We should give her her proper place.  We should honor her for what she is, the Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus, a forgiven sinner who gave birth to our Lord.  Dr. Luther strikes the proper balance: “We want to hold the dear Virgin and holy mother in all honor, as she certainly deserves to be honored.  Yet we will not so honor her as to make her equal to her Son, Christ.  For she was not crucified for us, nor did she die for us; neither did she pray for us on the cross.  But it was Christ who was crucified and died for us and with tears offered supplications and prayer for us on the cross [Heb. 5:7].  Therefore, let each one honor the mother Mary as he will—provided only she is not honored with the honor due to Christ.  And this is also the reason why the Lord separates His mother from Himself: so that He will be the only one to whom we should cling.”[3]  Thus Dr. Luther.
            Well, as any good mother does, Mary takes us by the hand and teaches us about our Savior, and in so doing, she teaches us her proper place.  She ever and always and only points us to her Son.  Do whatever he tells you,” she says to the servants at the wedding (John 2:5).  Do whatever He tells you,” she says to you and me.  “Hang on His Word.  I was honored to give Him birth, to bear in my womb our gracious God and Savior.  It was all gift, to be His mother, to raise Him as my beloved Son, and there ends my part in the story of your salvation.  Hear Him.  Follow Him.  He is your Savior.  He is your God.  By His blood you are cleansed.  By His wounds you are healed.  He died for you, and He is risen in the Body I bore, and He lives and reigns in that Body at the right hand of our Father in heaven.  And where He goes, we go.  He will raise us.  We will reign with Him.  Behold the Man!  Behold my Son.”  Jesus gives His mother to His beloved disciple, to you, to point you to Jesus.  The Seed of the Woman, the Son of Mary, has crushed the serpent’s head.  The dragon is defeated.  The Curse is done.  You are saved.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                


[1] Based on Jeffrey Hemmer, Behold the Man! (St. Louis: Concordia, 2018).
[2] Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose, Letter 63, NPNF2 10:473, quoted in Hemmer.
[3] LW 69:262, quoted in Hemmer.





Fifth Sunday in Lent (C)
April 7, 2019
Text: Luke 20:9-20

            Who would do such a thing?  What vineyard owner would send one servant to collect fruit, only to have him beaten and sent back empty handed; then send another servant, only to have him beaten also and treated shamefully and sent back empty handed; then send another to be wounded and cast out?  This is ridiculous.  When the first servant is assaulted, you call the police.  You gather up a group of armed warriors and go on a raid.  There should be hell to pay.  What you don’t do is send another servant, and another.  But this guy?  He just doesn’t get it.  “I know what I’ll do,” he says to himself.  “I will send my beloved son.”  Because that’s gonna go well.  “Considering how they treated the servants, surely they will respect my beloved son.”  I’m not so sure this guy is sane.  What is the famous quote about the definition of insanity?  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?  Who would do such a thing?  Who would send servant after servant after servant, receive them back bloody and bruised and empty handed, and then think it a brilliant idea to send his son?
            God would.  And God did.
            Prophet after prophet He sent to His vineyard, His people Israel.  The tenants, of course, are the religious leaders.  The Chief Priests, the scribes, and the elders all know Jesus is telling the parable against them.  The disciples and the crowds know it, too.  And they know there is a long history, here.  Prophets have to carry high-risk life insurance.  It never ends well.  If the reports are true, Isaiah was sawn in two.  Jeremiah was stoned to death.  Amos was tortured and slain by the priests of Bethel.  Ezekiel was slain in Babylon by the chief of the Jews.  And we know from our Lord’s own report that Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, was slain between the altar and the vestibule (Matt. 23:35).  This is not to mention all the mistreatment they suffered in their ministry prior to their martyrdom.  So it goes. 
            And who would do such a thing?  Who would beat and mistreat and murder prophets graciously sent by God to call the people to repentance, to restore them as God’s own special people?  The wicked kings of Israel and Judah.  The priests who had sold out to the prevailing opinions of the people.  The false prophets who prophesied, “Peace, peace,” but there was no peace.  The people themselves, who didn’t want to hear it.  Don’t tell me to repent.  Tell them to repent, fine.  But don’t tell me my sin separates me from God. 
            God’s solution?  I will send my beloved Son.
            And the Chief Priests’, the scribes’, the elders’ solution?  This is the heir.  Let us kill him, so the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14; ESV).  So they threw Him out of the vineyard and killed Him.  They led Him out of the city and they crucified Him. 
            There are several punch lines to this story.  God knew it would happen that way!  Jesus knew it would happen that way!  In fact, this is all according to plan.  Don’t for a minute think the religious leaders, or even the Romans, are actually in control of our Lord’s suffering and death.  Remember what Jesus says: “I lay down my life that I may take it up again” (John 10:17). 
            Punch line number two: The wicked tenants, the religious leaders, actually think it will work!  This is the heir,” they say.  They actually know, at this point, that Jesus is God’s Messiah.  And they think they can get rid of this problem by killing Him!  And even after He warns them by way of this parable what will result from this, namely, God will destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others, this is still their plan.
            But then the greatest punch line: In killing the Son, the Vineyard is given to the Church.  It is taken away from Israel as a nation, and given to sinners whose sins are forgiven by the blood and death of the Son, who do not reject Him, but believe in Him and live in Him, Jews and Gentiles, young and old, men and women, slave and free, all who cling by faith to the crucified Lord.  The unbelieving religious leaders have their place and their nation ripped away, and with all unbelievers they are destroyed.  The believers, the Christians, are the “others” brought in who are given the vineyard by grace.
            And they are brought in by means of God sending more servants!  The Apostles, Christian pastors, Christian parents who bring their babies to the baptismal font, Christian confessors who speak Christ to their neighbor and bring them to the Church to hear the living voice of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. 
            Now, this is where the saying at the end of the parable comes into play.  Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Luke 20:17).  This is a direct prophecy of His death and resurrection.  The builders, the religious leaders, reject Jesus and crucify Him.  But He is risen from the dead and is the cornerstone of the Vineyard, the Church.  And now everyone must die by this Stone.  Because you either fall on Him in faith to be broken to pieces, die to self in repentance, and so live.  Or He will fall on you and crush you.  There is no middle ground.  You either believe, in which you lose your life in Jesus, and so find it, or you don’t believe, in which you lose your life eternally.  Either way, you die.  But only one of those deaths ends in eternal life. 
            And it is important to take warning here.  You are in the Vineyard by grace, because your parents or some other servant brought you to Jesus.  But there is always the danger of falling into the sin of the wicked tenants.  That is to say, rejecting God’s Word, His preachers, and so His preaching.  How do we do that?  When we despise God’s Word and do not gladly hear and learn it.  When we reject the Word that is preached to us because we don’t want to hear that our own particular sins separate us from God.  “Go ahead, preacher, preach to them, but don’t preach to me unless it’s to tell me I’m right.”  When we make Sunday morning an option instead of seeing it as the vital supplier of our spiritual life and breath that it is.  Be warned that rejection of God’s Word is rejection of God Himself.  Rejection of the preacher is rejection of the Christ who is on his lips.  Rejection of the preaching is rejection of life.  Luther said that the Gospel is like a passing rain shower.  It pours on a place and makes everything green and fruitful, but when we are ungrateful and take the precious Gospel for granted, the shower moves on to another place, and we are deprived.  God is raining down the Gospel upon us this very moment.  That is what happens at Church.  Soak it in deeply and receive it with thanksgiving. 
            The Divine Service is our connection to Christ, the Vine.  If we abide in Him, we bear much fruit, the fruit of repentance and faith, the fruit the Vineyard owner is looking for when He sends His servants.  But apart from Christ the Vine, we can do nothing (John 15:5).
            And what are the fruits?  Connected to Christ by His Word and Sacraments, the nourishing sap of the Vine flows into us and through us, so that we believe in Him and repent of our sins.  And the fruit of love for God and our neighbor begins to bud.  That is the life of Christ flowing through us and out of us toward our neighbor.  We serve him.  We are generous to him.  We lend freely, and give sacrificially.  We protect him.  We speak well of him.  We guard the sanctity of his and her body.  We love our neighbor as ourself.  We put him first.  We even die for him, if God so wills.  Because we have the real life that cannot be taken away, the life of Christ, and the resurrection of our own body to come.  That is the fruit. 
            And God sends His preachers, and God sends His Son, with all the benefits of His death and life, to keep you in the Vineyard of His Church, for the Day of Harvest.  Who would do that for a bunch of ungrateful sinners like you and me?  God would.  And He did.  And He does.  He gave His Son into death.  He gives us His Son unto life.  Blessed be the Lord.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.        

No comments:

Post a Comment