Advent Midweek I

Video of Service

Advent Midweek I: The Nicene Creed

“One God, The Father Almighty”[1]

December 3, 2025

Text: First Article of the Nicene Creed

            For 1700 years now, the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic Church has been confessing some form of the Nicene Creed.  Forged in the heat of controversy at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325; namely to deal with the Arian heresy: The false teaching that the Son was created in time, and that our Lord Jesus Christ is not fully God with the Father; the Nicene Creed is THE statement of orthodox Christianity.  If you are looking for some criteria to measure whether a church body belongs to the One Holy Church of God, this is it.

            Now, I covered the history of this earlier this year on Trinity Sunday.  (That Sunday, incidentally, falls when it does every year because the Nicene Creed was written in late May/early June.)  The newsletter article this month also gives a little more background on the Creed, and, if you want to take a deep dive, you can purchase the book, Worshiped and Glorified, by my dear friend and Matthew’s Godfather, Pastor Timothy Winterstein.  So we won’t spend a lot of time on background in these midweek meditations.  Instead, we’ll let the theology of the Creed permeate our hearts and minds, one article each week.

            What is a Creed?  And why confess it?  The word, creed, comes from the Latin word, credo, and simply means, “I believe.”  So, at the most basic level, a Creed is simply a statement of what you believe.  Whenever you confess the faith, you are speaking a Creed.  That’s one reason Christians who say “No Creed but the Bible,” or “Deeds, not Creeds,” are being ridiculous.  First of all, both those statements are Creeds!  Secondly, the historic Creeds of the Church (the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, known collectively as the Three Ecumenical Creeds), are simply a summary of the teaching of the Bible: Who God is, what He does for us, and who we are in God.  So let’s not make a false distinction between the Bible and the Creed.  The Creed just gives us what the Bible teaches.  And third, you know, if you have no authoritative standard, like the Creed by which to measure your theology, you can believe and teach anything you want, and claim the Bible as evidence.  Take Arius as an example.  He used Bible passages to prove his heresy, that the Christ is not God.  But the fact is, he was misusing those passages, and, in fact, denying the fundamental assertion of Holy Scripture: God made flesh for the salvation of the world.  The Creed keeps us honest.  It keeps us in bounds.  It keeps us in the faith of the Bible, which is to say, in the Christian faith, the faith of Jesus, the faith of our Triune God. 

            But it’s not just this theoretical, abstract theological statement, this Creed.  The Creed is the story of God in relation to man.  It is the story of God as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.  And so, it is our story.  When we confess the Creed, we’re telling our story, who we are in God.  When we mediate on the Creed… when we pray it… we’re immersing ourselves in that story.  And then we live in it.  It’s who we are.  It’s our identity.  And see, this is a concrete reality for us.  Because we are baptized into it, born anew into this story, and into this God Whom we here confess: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

            Tonight, the First Article: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.”

            He is one God, as emphasized in our Old Testament reading, the Shema, the Creed of the Hebrews: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”  (We’ll hear this Oneness echoed in the Second Article, when we confess “one Lord Jesus Christ.”)  This is a confession over against paganism’s many gods, as well as the many gods of our own idolatry.  It is not the case that there are different gods presiding over different places and peoples.  There is no Greek or Roman pantheon.  Nor are the idols beguiling our hearts true gods.  There is one God… not many gods, and not no God… One God, the One we confess in this Creed, the One Who reveals Himself in Sacred Scripture.  We who know the Holy Trinity may also hear in this confession the mystery of God’s unity, His Oneness, even as He is Three Persons. 

            But, specifically, we are speaking here of the First Person of the Trinity, the Father.  And this hits on the central concern of the Nicene Creed.  That God is Father, necessarily means He has a Child… His Son.  God is the Father eternal.  And that means He has a Son from all eternity.  The Son is eternally begotten.  That is to say, Arius is wrong to teach there was a time when the Son was not.  Eternity doesn’t just mean without end.  It also means without beginning.  The Son was with the Father in the beginning.  He is before the beginning.  Always.  He was not created.  He is eternally begotten of the Father.  That is something our finite minds cannot comprehend.  We can only wonder, and worship, believe, and confess.  It is this eternal Father who sent His eternally begotten Son to be conceived by the Holy Spirit (also God), born of the Virgin Mary, in time, to be our flesh, and be our Savior.  The Human Nature of the Son has a beginning: The Incarnation.  We celebrate that at Christmas.  The Divine Nature of the Son does not have a beginning.  He, rather, has that Nature with the Father from all eternity.  More on that next week.

            But there is something else about this confession of God as Father.  In Jesus, His only-begotten Son, He is also now our Father.  He is not just our Father because He created us (although He certainly did).  He is our Father because, in Christ, He has redeemed us, and adopted us to be His own children by our Baptism into Christ.  He loves us.  Enough to purchase us with His Son’s blood and death.  He cares for us.  He provides for us and protects us.  And He can, because He is Almighty, Omnipotent (this, by the way, also being a confession over against the pagan gods, most of whom were not worshiped as almighty, as omnipotent).  Now, our God could use His omnipotence to enslave us, rule over us in tyranny, or destroy us.  But that is not who He is.  The word Almighty here is joined to Father in such a way that we may know our God uses all His omnipotence in love for us, and for our good.  Remember, God is the true and perfect Father.  Don’t measure Him by human fathers.  Even the best of human fathers fall far short of God’s Fatherhood.  Our heavenly Father never fails us. 

            He is the Maker of heaven and earth.  Creation.  Genesis 1 and 2.  You’ll be reading those passages this week if you’re joining us in our Advent devotions, and I pray you are.  Creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing.  God speaks all things into existence, by His Son, the Word, Who would become incarnate.  “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible,” says the writer to the Hebrews (Heb. 11:3; ESV).  Now, heaven, here refers to the stuff that is not the earth (that is, the heavens, the stuff up there), and earth to this world and everything in it.  But then we go on to confess that our Father created all things visible and invisible.  The visible part is easy to understand.  That’s all the stuff we see: Creatures, objects, the material universe (sun, moon, and stars, etc.), flesh and blood (the stuff that makes up our fellow human beings).  But then also the things that are invisible.  That is this whole invisible realm of angels and demons (demons, having originally been created as good angels, who then rebelled), of what we think of as heaven, God’s throne, the spirits of the saints, hell, the spirits of the damned, our own spirits, and the eternal God Himself.  It is invisible to our fallen eyes.  But it will be visible to us when our sight is healed, when we cast aside forever this fallen flesh, to be raised anew, and whole, in Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead.  Don’t think of this invisible realm as somehow less real than the material of this world.  That is the deception with which the devil has beguiled this generation.  It is real.  In fact, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is even tangible.  And if that is true now, just wait until we are raised from the dead, and given to inhabit the New Creation.  New Creation, healed of the corruption resulting from our sin, restored as our Father always intended it for us, and exalted even beyond the Paradise of Eden. 

            This is our story… the story of God for us.  The story of God with us.  The story of us in God.  Beloved, the words of the Nicene Creed are precious words.  Treasure them.  Believe them.  Pray them.  Live in them.  And then speak them with all the saints of the last 1700 years.  Speak them to yourself, for your own edification, to sustain you in the holy faith.  Speak them to one another, to strengthen and embolden the Church.  Speak them to the world.  This is your witness, your testimony of the one true God.  The day may come when you have to die for this, as so many before us have.  But this I can guarantee… If this is your confession, you will live in it.  Not just now, but forever after.  Unto the Day you see with your own eyes this one God, our Father Almighty, with Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit, world without end.  God grant it, and that, soon.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                   

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[1] Advent Series loosely based on Timothy J. Winterstein, Worshiped and Glorified: A Study of the Nicene Creed (St. Louis: Concordia, 2025).

First Sunday in Advent

Video of Service

First Sunday in Advent (A)

November 30, 2025

Text: Matt. 21:1-11

            “Behold, your king is coming to you” (Matt. 21:5; ESV).

            One of the things I find most astounding in Genesis 3, is that… after Adam and Eve have plunged humanity into sin, subjecting creation to the curse… after they’ve rebelled, rejected God and His Word, and run off to hide in fear of Him… in spite of it all… and, in fact, because of it all… the LORD God comes to them.  Not to annihilate them.  Not even to damn them.  But to call them.  To call them out of hiding.  To evoke from them confession.  Yes, to declare to them the full ramifications of their sin.  Pain in childbearing (and in childrearing!).  Chafing under God’s order.  Thorns and thistles.  Bread by the sweat of your brow.  Death.  Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.  That is the Law, and the preaching of it is critical.  But even that is not the purpose for which God came to them.  He came, rather, to seek them.  To rescue them.  To save them.  To give them the Promise, spoken to and against the serpent.  One is coming who will undo all this… this curse, this sin, this death.  “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” O serpent, “and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).  He came to proclaim another coming… the coming of Christ, and His sin-atoning death, by which death would be undone, and Satan conquered forever.  And so to call our first parents to repentance, and to faith in this coming Christ, this Seed of the woman.  A Promise to sustain humanity, now, in the midst of the fall, even as they… we… are exiled from Paradise, stranded east of Eden.  God comes to Adam and Eve, right in the midst of their sin and shame, to do that for them… for us.

            And then He does something else for Adam and Eve, and so for us.  He unclothes them of their fig leaves.  Self-made coverings for sin and shame never work.  And He clothes them, instead, with garments of skin.  Note that very carefully.  The first death in history, in all of creation, is brought about at God’s hand, as a sacrifice to cover our sin and shame.  For, as God says elsewhere, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22), and “it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Lev. 17:11).  So He unclothes His sinful humans, now living in death.  And He clothes them anew with what is dead, that they might live.

            Now, this little detour through the Garden and into the wilderness is brought about by these words in our Holy Gospel: “They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.  Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road” (Matt. 21:7-8; emphasis added).  What is happening in this scene?  Once again, God is coming to those who have rebelled, rejected Him and His Word, and run off to hide in fear of Him.  He is coming, not to annihilate them, or damn them, but to call them, to seek them, to rescue them, to save them.  Yes, to declare to them the full ramifications of their sin.  And, in fact, to suffer those ramifications for them, in their place.  Because He is the Promised Seed of the woman, the One come to undo the curse, our sin, our death.  The One who crushes Satan’s head under His heel, even as He is pierced by the serpent’s venomous fang.

            But the cloaks!  What is happening with the cloaks?  Of course, the disciples and the crowd are honoring Jesus as He rides into Jerusalem.  They are spreading the proverbial red carpet before Him, as is good and right.  Thus also the branches.  They are preparing a royal highway for their Lord.  But what is happening theologically with the cloaks?  There is an illustration, here, of what our Lord did for our parents in the Garden, and what He does for us.  He is unclothing the people of their self-made coverings.  He is sitting on them, and His donkeys are trampling them.  Because they’ll never do.  Sinners require a different covering.  The covering of sacrifice.  For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.  It is the blood that makes atonement by the life.  Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman… the living God, the eternal Son of the Father… has come to be that Sacrifice.  That we might be clothed with Him.

            That is what happens for us in Holy Baptism.  In Baptism, as Paul says in our Epistle, we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14).  Or, as he says in Galatians, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (3:27).  You’ve “put off the old self with its practices,” Paul says again, this time in Colossians (3:9), and “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (v. 10).  Unclothed of what is yours as you live here in death; clothed anew with Him who died… but now lives!... that you might live.  Stripped of your death, you’ve put on His!,,, the death of the cross.  Stripped of your life, you’ve put on His eternal resurrection life!  Stripped of the fig leaves of your own self-justifications, your own self-righteousness, you’ve put on His justification, His righteousness.  So that you stand before God fully clothed.  And restored.  No longer an exile.  The angel no longer blocks your way to Paradise.  The crucified and risen Lord Jesus brings Paradise to you, right here and now, at the altar.  And soon… soon He will bring you further up, and further in (to steal a line from Lewis), so that you see with your own eyes a sight more glorious than Eden.  Heaven.  And New Creation.

            Why do we wear clothes?  To cover our nakedness.  And why is that important?  Have you ever thought about that?  Why do we desire to be covered?  We desire to be covered because of what happened in the Garden.  We don’t want others to see us naked, because we understand that then our sin, our shame, is exposed.  So our clothes are essentially fig leaves.  Now, don’t misunderstand me.  Please continue to wear clothes this side of the heaven.  In fact, dear Christians, we ought to lead the way in practicing the lost virtue of modesty.  But you know those clothes don’t really cover your sin.  They’re just a stop-gap measure.  Christ covers your sin.  And when Christ covers your sin, the clothes really do make the man and the woman.  Covered with Christ, you are righteous. 

            The Church’s ancient baptismal practice confessed this.  Now, again, let me say, I’m glad we didn’t do this today… the Rainwaters are especially glad!... and it would be entirely impractical for us to do this.  But in the early Church, in the days of baptistries, housed in another room or building, before entering the baptismal pool (and, incidentally, out of sight of most of the people), the person being baptized would be stripped of their clothes, right down to their birthday suit.  Unclothed.  Fig leaves cast aside.  And then all the way down into the water they’d go.  Full immersion.  You don’t have to be fully immersed to be baptized (baptizo in Greek just means washing with water), and we usually don’t immerse in the Lutheran Church, but look at the symbolism of it.  Old Adam, drowned.  Put off the old self, all the way to death.  And then, up out of the water, all in the Name of our blessed Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And then clothed.  With a white garment.  An alb, like the one I’m wearing.  This is the robe of the baptized.  Why?  What does it confess?  You are now covered with the righteousness of Christ.  Unclothed, to be clothed.  Dead, so that you may live. 

            And that is now the daily rhythm of the Christian life.  You are a sinner, and you sin, and so you live in death.  In your sin, the Lord Jesus comes to you, calling you, seeking you, to rescue you, to save you.  He strips you of your self-made coverings whereby you try to cover up your sin and shame.  He sits on them.  He tramples them.  You repent.  You daily die.  It is always a return to the blest baptismal waters.  So that then you emerge again… you rise from death, to be clothed once again with His life and His righteousness.

            Beloved, all your sins are forgiven.  You are covered by the blood and skin of Jesus.  He comes to you.  That is what Advent is all about (Advent means coming).  He came as your Savior, to bear your sin, God in human flesh (we celebrate that coming at Christmas).  He is coming again, to bring you back into His Paradise, and further up, and further in.  And He comes to you now, in Baptism, in His Word, and in the Supper of His body and blood.  Spread your cloaks under Him in confession of sin, beloved.  And be wrapped up in Him as He comes to you in His gracious gifts to cover you with Himself.  “Behold, your king is coming to you.”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!” (Matt. 21:9).  Amen.  Amen.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                       

Thanksgiving Eve

Video of Service

Eve of the National Day of Thanksgiving

November 26, 2025

Text: Deut. 8:1-10

            You shall remember.  So the LORD commands His people, Israel.  And so he commands you.  Thanksgiving, when you get right down to it, is an exercise in remembrance.  When I say thank you to someone, I’m remembering the nice thing that person did for me.  The way to foster a disposition of gratitude, gratefulness in my heart, is to remember the good things done for me and given to me.  And then to acknowledge them.  That is what thanksgiving is.  And, by the way, such gratitude always requires an object.  That is, someone to thank.  I don’t give thanks to myself.  That would be absurd.  I give thanks to the one who did the good thing for me.  We should always practice that with the people around us who do nice things for us.  Hopefully our mothers taught us that.  But there is Someone else, who does all good things for us, much of it through those very people.  We Christians know that Someone, personally.  And we love Him.  Because He loves us.  He is our gracious Father.  And His beloved Son, Jesus Christ.  And the Spirit of life and grace.  He is our Triune God.

            God commands the Israelites to remember.  But if you’ve spent any amount of time reading the Old Testament, you know the Israelites are so quick to forget.  God did so much for them, the people He formed to be His precious possession.  The gracious call of Abraham.  God’s providence toward the patriarchs.  The Blessing (the Land, the Descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand by the sea, and THE Descendent, the Promised Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head).  Then, slavery, yes, but the Promise of deliverer.  Moses.  The plagues.  The exodus.  Crossing the Red Sea on dry ground.  And now, the specifics listed in our reading: God’s guiding Presence in the wilderness (the pillar of cloud by day, fire by night); manna from heaven (not to mention quail, and water from the Rock… and the Rock was Christ, Paul says [1 Cor. 10:4]); the Word of God, from His own mouth, by which man lives; God’s Fatherly discipline (yes, we should be thankful for that!); and now, in Deuteronomy, on the cusp of a good land, with brooks of water, fountains and flowing springs, valleys and hills, wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive trees, and honey; bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; stones of iron, and hills full of copper.  You shall eat and be full, God says, and therefore you shall give thanks.  Remember, and bless the LORD your God for this good land He has given you.

            But what did the Israelites do?  Time and time again?  Grumble.  Complain.  Reject the LORD’s prophets.  Reject the LORD.  Look for other gods to fill their bellies and tickle their fancies.  We are amazed.  I mean, the miracles these people witnessed!  Only to forget!  And yet, it reminds me of some other people I know.

            God commands us to remember.  But like Israel of old, we are so quick to forget.  So we grumble.  Don’t we?  Even us Christians.  We complain.  Why?  For one thing, we’re just so full.  We have so much.  And so, we’ve developed a sense of entitlement.  Rights.  We deserve it.  And we deserve it in the way, and in the time we want it.  See, this leads to dissatisfaction, bitterness, resentment, and ultimately, despair.  It hurts us, this amnesia with regard to God’s gifts, this ungratefulness.

            What is the cure?  Beloved, remember.  Intentionally.  As a matter of devotion.  As a spiritual discipline.  Remember all that God gives you.  Creation (I mean, Psalm 19 hits it right on the head: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” [v. 1]).  Providence (“The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season” [Ps. 145:15]).  All the great things you enjoy.  All the great people with whom God has surrounded you.  Don’t despise them.  Your family.  Your friends.  Your neighbors.  Your colleagues.  Your fellow-redeemed, your brothers and sisters in Christ in His Holy Church.  (Do you realize what a glorious privilege it is to be counted in this number?  These people, warts and all.  I confess, I all too often forget.  God open our eyes… and our hearts!) 

            God gives us so much, and we don’t deserve any of it.  He does it “only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in” us.[1]  The Catechism helps us with the specifics.  When our Father in heaven gives us each day our daily bread, what does that include?  It “includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”  For all this it is our “duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.”

            So, remember those things.  But above all, remember the things of your redemption.  God loves you.  He sent His Son.  Jesus died for you.  He took all your sins away, and put them to death in His body on the cross.  Jesus lives for you.  He is risen from the dead.  He ascended into heaven in your flesh.  He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty in your flesh.  And He rules all things for your good, from the great affairs of the nations and the movements of the cosmos, right down to what each cell of your body is doing at this very moment.  Not to mention, all the things that trouble you.  He has them all handled.  Trust Him.  Every hair on your head, numbered.  Every heartbeat.  Every breath.  He knows them.  He wills them.  He counts them.  He knows precisely how many you will take in a lifetime.  And what we will do for you at the end of that lifetime.  And at the End of the world.  Remember, beloved.  Remember.

            Remembering in the Bible is not simply calling to mind.  It is living in the reality of the thing.  Now, you can remember bad things.  Disappointments.  Sins committed against you.  Sins you’ve committed.  Grudges.  Remembering those things is easy.  We do it by nature.  But I’ll tell you now, that only leads to more bitterness, resentment, and despair.  Don’t do that.  Beloved, you’ve been given so much better than that.  Remember God’s unimaginable goodness to you.  And then you'll be filled with gratitude and joy.  And you’ll extend that goodness to others.  You’ll know that Christ has forgiven you all your sins.  So you’ll forgive others.  And love them.  And pray for them.  And do good to them.  And bless them.  Remember God’s goodness to you, and you will live in that reality.

            The Lord Jesus knows we have trouble remembering, and so He has given us two precious gifts to help us remember.  First, His Word.  He simply tells us, again and again, every time we encounter His Voice in Scripture, and in preaching, and in Christian confession, and in the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters in Christ.  By this, we know that “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3; ESV).  And then, the Holy Supper of His body and blood.  We even call it the Eucharist, from the Greek word that means Thanksgiving.  What does Jesus say?  “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24-25).  That is, live in the reality of My body, given into death on the cross for you, and My blood, poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins, and your eternal life and salvation.  That changes your whole life, beloved.  Forever.

            So… You shall remember.  Our Lord doesn’t give us this commandment because His ego needs the credit for all He’s done for us.  That’s the kind of thing we think we need (we don’t!), but it’s never what God needs.  It is, rather, a Gospel gift when God bids us remember.  For in remembering, we receive.  Remembrance is faith.  And faith gives thanks to God, as it rejoices greatly in the Lord.  Not for God’s sake, but for its own.  For the joy that is in it.  “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 106:1).  Remember that, beloved.  Remember it.  And then come to the Great Thanksgiving Feast, and be filled.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

             

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[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986). 

Last Sunday in the Church Year

Video of Service

Last Sunday in the Church Year (Proper 29C)

November 23, 2025

Text: Luke 23:27-43

            This is the King of the Jews (Luke 23:38)?  This Man, naked, bleeding, raw… dying the death of the damned, accursed, hanging from a tree (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13), nailed to a Roman cross?

            Well, Pilate says so, by official Roman proclamation.  That is the inscription nailed above our Lord’s sacred head.  And the bystanders, and the rulers of the people, though they scoff and jeer, nonetheless acknowledge that He saved others, and He could save Himself, if indeed He is the Christ of God, His Chosen One, which is to say, a King (Luke 23:35).  Then there are the soldiers, offering Him libation, in mock obeisance, saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (v. 37; ESV).  Finally, the criminals, one on His right, and one on His left.  The one joins the soldiers.  “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” (v. 39).  Of course, he doesn’t believe it.  He doesn’t believe this Man from Nazareth could possibly be the Christ, the King, or save Himself, or anyone from death.  But notice this… In every case, something has provoked them.  They’ve had to face the question.  This is the King of the Jews?  And their only answer is… mockery.  Not reasoned argument.  Certainly not the holy Word of God.  Just cynical dismissal.  There is a rock in their shoe, and they just can’t get rid of it. 

            Even those who love Jesus have difficulty seeing it, though.  The daughters of Jerusalem… They behold the heartbreaking sight, and they weep.  But they ought not weep for the Lord.  Crowned with thorns, He is ascending His throne.  They ought to weep for themselves, in repentance over their sins, and for their children, whose inheritance is dust and ashes, sin and death.  They ought to weep for those who will reject this King.  For those who say… and let the point not be lost on us in our generation… those who say, “Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!” (v. 29)… and then, in dismay, when they see Him coming in triumph and judgment, say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us” (v. 30).  Yes, weep for them, for in rejecting this King, they bring upon themselves His almighty wrath. 

            But in the whole scene, there is one who gets it.  He is the least likely of them all, but then, isn’t that just like God, hiding these things from the wise and understanding, but revealing them to children (Luke 10:21); choosing what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, what is weak to shame the strong, what is low and despised, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being may boast in His presence (1 Cor. 1:27-29)?  Who gets it?  Who hears, and sees, and knows (and it can only be by divine revelation, by the Spirit in the Word of Jesus)?  Who is it?  You know the answer, and you love it.  It is the other thief.

            Why him?  Why not the theologians, the chief priests, the rabbis, the scribes?  Why not the pious Jews in the crowd?  Or the soldiers presiding over the whole bloody mess?  For that matter, why not the women, the daughters of Jerusalem, confused, but faithful?  Or the disciples (where are they, by the way)?  Of course, God has His reasons.  We must always recognize that we can’t see the whole picture.  God’s ways and His hidden will are, for us, inscrutable.  But among the reasons is that everybody else is simply too full of him or herself to see it, to get what is happening here.  This thief, though… he cannot be full of himself.  Because he’s been brought to the end of himself.  He has nothing left.  There is no more hope.  He is condemned to death, and as good as dead.  He is suffering the excruciating pain of crucifixion (same root, by the way… excruciating and crucifixion), and the shame of naked exposure to the world for crimes he had, indeed, committed.  He deserves it.  And he knows it.  And what happens after he breathes his last?  This is the only man on scene who knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on before God.  Even the other criminal goes into the afterlife cursing God as though he can maintain his own autonomy, his own self-rule.  The rulers of the Jews, of course, have their righteousness according to the Law, or so they think.  And the soldiers… who knows?  It seems like they’re so hardened by their own cruelty (execution duty… again), they pass the time with dice games, gambling over garments.  They represent the nihilists of the world, those who think everything is meaningless, and it all comes to nothing in the end.

            But there dawns one shred of hope in the heart of the thief in question.  It starts small.  But as he watches, and as he hears, hope grows and blossoms.  What does he witness?  What does he catch that everyone else misses?  Even as the soldiers drive the nails through the Savior’s precious flesh, our Lord issues a royal proclamation.  It is a prayer, but also, a divine declaration: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (v. 34).  Astounding.  It is a Holy Absolution.  Amnesty for His enemies.  An armistice.  Terms of peace between God and man.  “Yes, kill me,” He seems to be saying, “and the result will be… forgiveness of sins.”  Amazing.  “Well, if that is true for them, that He longs for their forgiveness, and grants it,” the thief begins to hope… if that is true for those who pound the nails, and raise the stake… for all those responsible for this Man’s death… “maybe… just maybe that can be true for me, too.”

            Now, there are a total of seven words, seven statements, Jesus speaks from the cross, recorded among the four Gospels, and the thief undoubtedly hears them all.  In addition to the two in our text today, there is the Lord’s commending His mother into the care of the Apostle John (and vice versa); His praying of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?…”); His thirst; His declaration that the Sacrifice of Atonement, the work of redemption, is finished; and the committing of His spirit to the Father.  Somewhere in the midst of all of that, in the three hours they spent together, suspended between heaven and earth, this thief made his confession of sin, “we are receiving the due reward of our deeds,” and of Jesus’ innocence, “this man has done nothing wrong” (v. 41).  And then, turning to Jesus, he makes his appeal to the only One who can help him.  He petitions the King: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (v. 42).  And he receives the Promise… again, by royal proclamation… “today you will be with me in Paradise” (v. 43).

            Do you see, now, what the thief sees?  What is the cross, but simultaneously the royal coronation, the administration of perfect justice and mercy (as Jesus pays for the sins of the whole world), and the King engaging the hordes of hell in battle, to win for Himself a Kingdom?  Damning Satan.  Doing to death, sin… and death itself.  To rescue this thief, and every poor, miserable sinner who would believe in Him, who would have Him for a King.  And that means you.  Do you remember how we say it in the Small Catechism (the Catechism kids know it!): “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity; and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord,” or, in other words, my King.  Who did what?... “redeemed me, a lost and condemned person”… like the thief!... “purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil”… there’s the battle!  But we’re surprised at how He does it… “not with gold or silver,” or, with vast conquering armies of angels, “but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death”… “this man has done nothing wrong”… And why does He do it?... “that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness,” because that is what He won for me on the cross.  And then, let’s finish it out: “just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.  This is most certainly true.”[1]

            Now the thief’s prayer is our prayer.  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And here is the thing… Jesus comes into His Kingdom right there on the cross.  And He does remember us.  He wasn’t only thinking of the thief as He suffered for the sins of the world.  He was thinking of you.  Remembering you.  And what is the result?  When your time comes, and you draw your last breath, there He will be, your crucified King, with His bejeweled scars, risen, living, and reigning.  And He will say to you, beloved: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  And every day, from now on, and for all eternity.  As a matter of fact, He comes to you now, here, bringing Paradise with Him.  The world doesn’t see Him.  But you do, there, enthroned on the altar, spreading His royal Feast. 

            But the Day is coming when all will see.   Every eye will behold Him.  Even those who pierced Him (Rev. 1:7).  Because the veil will be removed.  We will see the Son of Man, coming on the clouds, with His holy angels attending Him.  The dead will be raised.  The books will be opened.  The King will judge from His royal throne.  And on that Day, you may be assured, at the Name of Jesus every knee will bow.  Every knee, without exception.  Those in heaven, and those on earth, and even those under the earth, the damned in hell.  Pontius Pilate, and every earthly ruler.  The women.  The soldiers.  The once-cowering disciples.  The thief.  And the other thief.  And you, dear child of God.  Every knee will bow, and every tongue confess, what?  The Creed: “Jesus Christ is Lord,” or, as Pilate wrote it, “This is the King of the Jews… and of the whole universe!”… to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11).  All because, on a hill outside Jerusalem, on a Friday afternoon, God, the Son of God, was nailed to a cross: naked, bleeding, raw… dying the death of the damned, accursed, hanging from a tree.  Yes.  Yes.  This is the King of the Jews.  He is your King, and mine.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

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[1] Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986), emphasis added.

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Video of Service

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28C)

November 16, 2025

Text: Luke 21:5-36

            “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33; ESV). 

            Do you see all the things passing away in our Gospel?  The Temple, the House of God in all its majesty.  The nations.  Creation itself.  Those who bear the Name of Christ, martyred for their confession.  The Holy City, Jerusalem.  The earth overcome by the sea.  The heavens shaken.  These are the signs.  The Day is coming.  The Day of Judgment, and Christ’s appearing.  St. Peter writes, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10).  He then asks the pertinent question: “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be” (v. 11)?

            Well, what do you think?  What about you, specifically?  What sort of person ought you to be?  What ought to be your essence?  Not only your core, but the very substance of who you are?  How ought you to order your priorities, your resources, your time?  What is important to you?  What do you live for?  How much of your energy, your income, your anxiety, are you investing in the things that are passing away?  What are the things that last?  What will not pass away?  And what impact does that have on your day-to-day life?

            The Day is coming.  When we believe this, and hold that Day before our eyes, it has this way of setting our days, and our lives, and all that is ours… in fact, our very thoughts and emotions, our very being… in order.  Heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus says.  That means all that is now available to your five fallen senses.  So what sense does it make to live for those things?  Whatever they are… money, pleasure, power, relaxation, recreation… all good, but all are passing away, and if you live for them, you will die in them.  Safey, security, comfort, health… same thing.  The things you are worried about, the grudges you hold, your bitterness toward any person, or any thing… these are passing away, too.  So, why not let go of all that? 

            Because there is one thing that will not pass away: The Word of Jesus Christ.  “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”  The Word of the Lord endures forever, Peter writes (1 Peter 1:25).  So what sort of people ought you to be?  Those who know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).  As you wait for the Lord’s appearing, listen for, and hang upon, His every Word.  His Word gives you life.  His Word gives you the Spirit.  His Word gives you faith in Jesus Christ, and sustains you in that faith.  His Word gives you Jesus Himself, who is the Word made flesh.  And so, His Word gives you redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and justification, righteousness before God, and so, eternal salvation. 

            So that, of course, means always availing yourself of the Word at every opportunity.  Coming to Church.  (You’ll have plenty of opportunity for that in the coming Advent Season.)  Reading the Scriptures at home.  Praying the Scriptures.  Talking about the Scriptures with your family.  Teaching the Scriptures to your children.  It means Bible Study.  Be there, beloved.  Sunday School for the kids.  It means devotions.  And it also means living by the visible, tangible Word of God as He gives that Word in His Sacraments: Baptism, Absolution, the Lord’s Supper. 

            And then, let that Word captivate you.  Meditate upon it.  We get meditation wrong in Twenty-first Century America.  We’ve been duped by the Eastern religions, to think that meditation is an emptying of the mind.  The mind cannot be emptied, beloved.  An empty mind is a vacuum.  Guess who will fill it if you empty it of the good stuff.  Satan and the demons.  Remember, Jesus teaches us about demons finding houses empty, swept, and in good order.  They love to take up occupancy.  So don’t do that.  Instead, fill your mind (and  your heart and soul) with God’s Word.  Memorize the Word.  Ponder the Word, and treasure it in your heart, like Mary, the Mother of our Lord, who pondered all these things and treasured them in her heart.  Turn it over in your mind.  Like a cow chewing the cud, ruminate upon it. 

            And then live by it.  Put it into action.  Believe what it says, and do what it says.  Order your whole life and being according to it.  Not just most of your life.  All of your life.  Because whatever is not ordered according to the Word of the Lord will pass away.  It leads to death.  But whatever is ordered according to the Word of the Lord, is ordered rightly, and serves for your life, and for your blessing.  Because that Word applies the blood and death of Christ to your life, and all the things in your life, to redeem your life, and all the things in your life.  And that Word breathes the resurrection life of the risen Lord into you, and upon you, and upon all the things in your life, so that you live His life.   

            So, Peter answers his own question (what sort of people ought you to be?) without even taking a breath.  “(W)hat sort of people ought you to be,” he says, “in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!  But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth,” a resurrection heavens and earth, “in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:11-13).  What sort of people ought you to be?  Those who live lives of holiness and godliness, waiting eagerly and patiently for that great Day.

            St. Paul answers the question, too, right here in our Epistle.  What sort of people ought you to be?  How about this?  Those whose hearts are directed to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.  Loved and loving.  Recipients of Christ’s faithfulness, therefore faithful to Christ.  And how about this?  Imitators of the Apostles, and so of Christ.  Working quietly, so as not to be a burden, but eager to help, eager to serve, eager to take up the burdens of others.  Not walking in idleness, and not busybodies, but busy with the business of God’s love.  Not growing weary in doing good.  That’s what sort of people you ought to be.

            The point is, live your life, fully and faithfully, here and now, in light of the Lord’s coming.  Read the signs.  They are all around you.  Destruction and decay.  False messiahs, false christs, those who claim they can save you if you only vote for them, or devote yourself to them.  Nation against nation.  Kingdom against kingdom.  Earthquakes, famines, and pestilences.  Persecutions.  They happen.  They are happening, and continue to happen, and they are always signs that Christ is on the move.  He is coming.  We will see Him soon. 

            There are always signs in the heaven, too.  In sun and moon and starts.  Frankly, some of them are pretty cool, like the Northern Lights with which God has favored us in recent nights.  Or eclipses, or comets, or meteor showers.  These, I suppose, are more or less routine.  We take them for granted.  We shouldn’t.  But get a load of what Josephus (a first century Jewish historian) says happened, just before the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 (when, by the way, every stone of the Temple was thrown down, in fulfillment Jesus’ Word): He says an ominous star resembling a sword appeared over the city, along with a comet that lasted a whole year.[1]  That was a sign of the Lord’s Judgment over Jerusalem.  And we shouldn’t be surprised by this.  A star greeted our Lord’s birth.  Perhaps a star will indicate our Lord’s coming again in glory.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  (Don’t get weird on me, and make prophecies!)  But the point is, signs in the heavens, you bet.  Then Josephus records some other weird signs prior to the Temple’s demise.  A great light shone from the altar for half an hour, he says, making the night as bright as the day.  A sacrificial heifer gave birth to a lamb on her way to sacrifice.  The great eastern gate of the Temple’s inner court, difficult for twenty men to open and close, apparently opened of its own accord (well, we know it was God, or the holy angels).  A few days later, he says, chariots and troops of soldiers appeared in the clouds (just prior to the arrival of the Roman troops on the ground).  Then, on the Day of Pentecost, the priests heard a great noise, like a multitude, saying, “Let us remove from hence.”  It’s like the scene in Ezekiel, when the Glory of God departs from the Temple (Ez. 10).  Whose voice sounds like a multitude?  God’s does.  Our Triune God was leaving the place.  Now, Josephus is not a Christian.  So, when he talks about these signs, he’s not trying to vindicate the Lord.  He believes he’s just reporting what happened.  But here our Lord’s Words prove true.  As they always do.  Heaven and earth are passing away.  But the Word of Jesus never passes away.

            So, when these things begin to take place, Jesus says, what?  Cower in fear?  Despair?  (Some will be despairing, when Jesus comes, but let it never be us, beloved in the Lord.  Believers in Christ have no reason, ever, to despair.)  What does He say?  “(S)traighten up and raise your heads” (Luke 21:28).  Why?  “(B)ecause your redemption is drawing near.”

            What matters, ultimately, in this life?  Being in Christ.  And so, being in His Word.  That’s it.  What is distracting you from that?  What cares of this life are weighing you down?  Put it all away.  Get rid of it.  It is leading you to death.  All of it is passing away, anyway.  You see the signs, as things wear out, and everything decays, and disappears.  In the midst of all that, keep your eyes on Jesus.  You know this.  And then, order everything accordingly.  Love your neighbor.  Work hard, as working for the Lord.  Live faithfully in your vocations.  And wait for, and hasten, the Day of the Lord’s coming.  Beloved, Jesus is coming soon.  We live for that Day.  Stay awake.  Keep watch.  And join the Church as she ever prays: “Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Come quickly.”  He will.  He is.  Jesus is coming soon.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] The Works of Josephus, William Whiston, Trans. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1987) p. 742.