Lenten Midweek V

Lenten Midweek V

April 5, 2017

“Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice: In Trouble He Will Comfort You”^[1]

Text: John 16:1-33; LSB 556:9-10

            “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33; ESV).  It’s a promise.  It’s a fact.  Jesus tells you ahead of time, so it will not take you by surprise.  This is simply the reality for Christians in a world hostile to Christ.  Martin Luther writes, the “holy Christian people are externally recognized by the holy possession of the sacred cross.  They must endure every kind of misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the flesh (as the Lord’s Prayer indicates) by inward sadness, timidity, fear, outward poverty, contempt, illness, and weakness, in order to become like their head, Christ.  And the only reason they must suffer is that they steadfastly adhere to Christ and God’s word, enduring this for the sake of Christ” (AE 41:164-65).  So you have our Lord’s Word for it: In this life there will be suffering, trouble, tribulation.  The disciple is not above his Master.  The members of the body suffer with the Head.  “Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (v. 2).  Think Islamic terrorism.  Think secularist persecution.  Think liberal Christianity which has sold its soul to gain the world’s favor. 

            Yet, the Lord does not leave us to suffer on our own.  He promises that as He completes His saving work on our behalf, His death, His resurrection, His ascension into heaven… He will send the Helper, the Holy Spirit.  Again, the translation “Helper” only gets at one aspect of the Greek word here, “Paraclete.”  It is sometimes translated “comforter,” “counselor,” or “advocate.”  In truth, it is all of the above and so much more.  The Paraclete is One you call to your side in the time of trouble.  And what will He do for you in that trouble?  He will guide you into all the truth (v. 13).  He will declare to you the things of Jesus (v. 14).  He will always preach Jesus.  He will always preach Christ crucified.  He will apply Christ crucified to you in every situation.  He will do so through the Word and the Holy Sacraments.  Luther writes, “Here Christ makes the Holy Spirit a Preacher.  He does so to prevent one from gaping toward heaven in search of Him, as the fluttering spirits and enthusiasts do, and from divorcing Him from the oral Word of the ministry.  One should know and learn that He will be in and with the Word, and that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deceptions of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations…. The Holy Spirit wants this truth which He is to impress into our hearts to be so firmly fixed that reason and all one’s own thoughts and feelings are relegated to the background.  He wants us to adhere solely to the Word and to regard it as the only truth.  And through this Word alone He governs the Christian Church to the end” (AE 24:362). 

            The Word!  The Word!  The Word!  That is where you are to flee in the day of tribulation.  Because there the Spirit is, the Paraclete, with His help and comfort and counsel, guiding you into all truth, and declaring to you the things of Jesus.  By the Spirit, in the Word, Jesus Himself comes to you, speaks to you, feeds you.  When you need God, you find Him in the Word.  There He has attached Himself, so that you always know where He is for you.  In every trouble, you need the Word of the living God, in which the Spirit works, bringing you Jesus and His salvation, reconciling you to the Father. 

            Oh, it is powerful, this Word.  It always does what it says.  God said, “Let there be…” and there was.  By His Word, God created the heavens and the earth, and by His Word, He sustains them.  By His Word, God sent plagues upon Egypt, so that Pharaoh let His people go.  By His Word, God dried up the Red Sea so that His people crossed on dry ground.  God’s Word never returns to Him empty.  It always accomplishes that for which He sends it (Is. 55:11).  Like a hammer to a rock, it breaks the stony hearts of sinners in pieces, and creates in them new hearts, clean hearts, hearts of faith in Christ.  By God’s Word, Holy Baptism is not plain water, but the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word so that it washes away your sins and makes you God’s own child.  By God’s Word, your sins are forgiven.  By God’s Word, you have new life.  By God’s Word, bread and wine are the very body and blood of Jesus, given into  your mouth for the forgiveness of your sins, eternal life, and salvation.  “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).  The Word of God kills you and makes you alive.  The Word of God saves you.

            Now this Word is the Word of Jesus, who is the incarnate Word of the Father.  The Spirit has been called “the shy Person of the Holy Trinity,” because He doesn’t talk much about Himself.  He is always pointing us to Jesus, who reconciles us to the Father.  This is a very Trinitarian action.  The Spirit is the Preacher of Jesus who makes us children of Our Father who art in heaven.  As the Spirit works in the Word, He brings us Jesus, who reveals His Father to us as our Father.  And this is why you need the Word in every time of trouble.  Because by the Word, the Spirit applies Jesus to you very specifically for your very specific troubles, as one who has been redeemed by the death and resurrection of Christ and is therefore a child of God.  Are you having troubles at work?  Look to the Scriptures and see how Jesus faithfully bore suffering and tribulation and injustice, doing the will of the Father and bearing it all in love for His persecutors.  Has your marriage encountered challenges?  Look to the Scriptures and see how Jesus loved His holy Bride, the Church, and gave Himself up for her… to death!... that He might cleanse her and present her spotless to Himself.  Are you afflicted with depression or illness?  Look to the Scriptures and see how Jesus sweat drops of blood in the Garden, commending Himself to the Father’s will and trusting that, despite all appearances, that will is good.  Are you dying?  You are.  Look to the Scriptures and see how Jesus’ death for your sins takes the teeth out of your own death; how, as one who has died with Christ and been raised with Him in Baptism, you will never really die.  You will be with Jesus in Paradise, and He will raise you from the dead. 

            There is nothing in this fallen creation, nothing your enemies, the devil, the world, your own sinful flesh, can throw at you that can separate you from the love of God in Christ (Rom. 8:38-39).  The Word of God says so, and the Word is powerful to make it so.  What Jesus has done, what He has taught, guide all your life and teaching.  In this way, His Kingdom’s work is wrought, and honored in the preaching (LSB 556:10).  His Kingdom comes.  His will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  The Word!  The Word!  The Word!  The Spirit, the Paraclete, comes in the Word.  And the Word is Christ crucified, Christ risen from the dead, for you.  Dear Christians, one and all, rejoice!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

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[1] The theme and structure of this sermon are from John T. Pless, “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice,” Lenten Preaching Seminar 2010, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Fifth Sunday in Lent (A)

April 2, 2017

Text: John 11:1-53

            “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26; ESV).  We will see death’s ultimate defeat two weeks from today, on Easter Sunday, in our Lord’s victorious resurrection from the dead.  Today we get a foretaste of that victory, as Jesus is on the cusp of His suffering and death for our sins.  Death is as real as your sagging flesh, your wrinkling skin, your failing eyes, your aches and pains.  Grim reminders are these that from the womb of your mother you are spiritually dead and physically dying.  It is the great tragedy of humanity.  Death was never meant to be.  Mankind was made for life and unending fellowship with God and with one another.  Already this is broken in the beginning, in the Garden, with the first mouthful of forbidden fruit.  In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.  Not just you, Adam and Eve, but all of us, your children.  The wages of sin is death.  No one gets out alive.  Except Jesus, and those who cling to Jesus.  And as our Lord shows us, the only way out of death is through it.

            Death is always tragic.  We do our best to dress it up so it doesn’t look so bad.  Funeral homes do amazing things with the bodies of our loved ones, and we stand around the casket and lie to one another about how peaceful our dearly departed appears.  But we know better.  Death is a slap in the face of all we are created to be, and no amount of mortuary makeup can cover it up.  That’s why even Christians cry at funerals.  Sure, we know that those who die in Christ are in heaven with Him, which is far better.  Sure, we know Jesus is coming again to raise the dead on the Last Day.  But death is sad.  Jesus, with full knowledge of what He was about to do, came to the tomb of Lazarus and wept (John 11:35).  Why does He weep?  Because He loves Lazarus, who lays rotting in the tomb.  Because He loves Mary and Martha, who weep bitter tears and cry out to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (vv. 21, 32).  Because death is the epitome of all that has gone wrong in creation as a result of the fall.  “See how he loved him!” (v. 36).  See how He loves you and all humanity.  These are real tears, the tears of God, the tears of God who is a man, for you.  They are the tears of a man who is God who is determined to undo death by diving into its belly.

            The great surprise in all of this is how Jesus uses death against itself.  It doesn’t appear that way at first.  After Jesus hears His friend is ill, because He loves Martha and her sister and Lazarus, He stays where He is two more days (v. 6).  He doesn’t come to the rescue.  He lets the worst happen.  It’s the strangest thing.  But He says it’s “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (v. 4).  Great comfort, Jesus.  Thanks.  I’m glad it all worked out so well for you.  What is He doing?  Well, for one, we know He is setting the stage for doing a great sign that will show us who He is and what He’s come to do, a sign that will be a great comfort to us our whole life long and in the face of death.  He comes to raise Lazarus.  Lazarus has to be dead to be raised.  And so that there is no doubt, He waits until Lazarus has been in the grave four days.  When Jesus commands the stone be rolled away, Martha objects that by this time there will be a great odor.  The King James says, “Lord… he stinketh” (v. 39).  His flesh is rotting.  This is a vital component to the miracle.  Everybody has to smell it, for the glory of God, so they know this death is real.  And then what?  Jesus cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out” (v. 43).  And “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth.  Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’” (v. 44).  Jesus unbinds Lazarus from death.  He has come to do the same for you.  God is glorified as sinners are released from sin’s wages, as the breath of life, the Holy Spirit, gives new life to dry bones (Ez. 37).  This is what it means when Jesus says, “I am,” YHWH, “the resurrection and the life” (v. 25).  Jesus has all the authority of God, because He is God, to loose from death and give life. 

            But there is more.  Not only is God to be glorified by Lazarus’ death, but the Son of God, Jesus, is to be glorified through it.  Not just by the adulation resulting from the miracle.  In fact, that’s really not it at all.  What happens among the chief priests and Pharisees as a result of Lazarus’ resurrection?  They conspire to kill Him!  Caiaphas, being high priest that year, prophesies: “it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (v. 51), and “not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (v. 52), which is to say, you.  The raising of Lazarus gets Jesus killed.  But the true glory of Jesus is His death on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins and to give you eternal life.  Jesus has authority to lay down His life and to take it up again (John 10:18).  It is paradoxical.  It is incomprehensible.  Jesus is glorified in the humiliation of death.  Jesus defeats death by submitting to it.  And on the Third Day He bursts a hole right through death’s belly.

            Now what Jesus did for Lazarus physically, He does for you spiritually.  He raises you from spiritual death, which would be eternal death in hell were it not for our Lord’s saving work.  He sends preachers to call to you in the darkness of death, “Sinner, come out!”  And you, who were dead in your trespasses and sins, come into the light and life of Jesus Christ.  Now, when you come out of this darkness, you stinketh, the stench of sin.  So it is very important what Jesus commands His servants, His preachers, to do for you next.  They are to unbind you and let you go.  That is to say, they are to pronounce Holy Absolution, forgive your sins, unbind you from your transgressions and throw those transgressions into the tomb of Christ, and let you go, let you depart in peace.  In this earthly life, in this time between our Lord’s calling you out of death by Baptism and preaching, this unbinding is a daily thing.  Daily you sin.  Daily you return to your Baptism in repentance.  And as often as possible, you come to the Church to confess your sins and be absolved, not because you are dead again, but because your sins stink to high heaven.  Here Jesus applies His death and resurrection to your sins so that they are removed from you as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103), that they never trouble you again, that the perfume of Christ’s righteousness cover you, a pleasing aroma to the LORD your God.

            But there is more.  What Jesus did for Lazarus physically, He will do for you, physically, on the Last Day.  And when He does it for you, it will be even better than Lazarus’ resurrection.  Lazarus was only a type, a foreshadowing of our Lord’s resurrection and our resurrection in Christ.  But Lazarus had to die again.  His was only temporary.  On the Last Day, Jesus will raise you and Lazarus and Mary and Martha and all the dead, and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ.  In a new heavens and a new earth.  No more pain.  No more sorrow.  No more sickness, or grieving, or death.  Only the eternal joy of our Lord.  On that Day, Jesus will call your name, as He called to Lazarus.  And you will come out, and you will be unbound forever, never to stink again, never to die again.  This isn’t pie in the sky, feel good theology, like the lies we tell ourselves around the casket of a loved one.  This is true.  This is real.  Your bodily resurrection is as real as our Lord’s empty tomb on Easter morn.  He is risen.  You will rise.

            And now a remarkable thing happens at the Christian funeral.  Oh, there is weeping and there is sadness.  But there is so much more.  When Christians gather for a funeral, of all the things one might do in the face of death, we sing!  Not gloomy dirges, either, but songs of hope and joy, of resurrection and life.  Death and the devil sulk and seethe with rage as we rejoice!  And we laugh!  You’ve been to the after parties we call the Church funeral luncheon.  There is not a lot of gloom.  Amidst the very best of food, made with love by the matriarchs of the congregation, there is laughter and joy.  We tell our stories about our loved one and we catch up with family and friends we almost never see, and we smile and we laugh (and we cry) and we love.  And it’s like we’re dancing on death’s grave.  We are.  Because Christ is risen.  He died.  And He defeated death.  And He doesn’t leave us in the grave.  He calls us out.  He unbinds us.  He has the authority over death and the grave.  He is the resurrection and the life.  And so whoever believes in Him, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Him shall never die (John 11:25-26).  Not really.  When you die, you who believe in Christ, you go on living in heaven with Jesus.  And on the Last Day, you rise.  How can you call that death?

            The last enemy to be defeated is death.  But he is already mortally wounded.  The final and everlasting Easter is coming soon.  The time is short.  Rejoice, beloved.  Laugh and sing, even through your tears.  Jesus gets the last Word.  His Word is life.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                   

Lenten Midweek IV

Lenten Midweek IV

March 29, 2017

“Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice: Your Ransom and Your Rescue”^[1]

Text: John 14:15-27; LSB 556:7-8

            “To me He said: ‘Stay close to Me’” (LSB 556:7).  Stay close to Me.  Stay close to Jesus.  And your heart need never be troubled or afraid (John 14:27).  How do you stay close to Jesus?  He tells you in our Holy Gospel.  “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (v. 23; ESV).  You stay close to Jesus by “keeping” His Word.  And that word, “keep,” is a word that means so much more than simply “obey.”  It means “guard, observe, attend to carefully, treasure up, meditate upon, take it to heart and put it into practice.”  That is how you stay close to Jesus.  In His speaking to you.  In your hearing of Him.  That is to say, you stay close to Jesus in your daily Scripture reading and in Bible study, and especially here in the Divine Service where His Word is publicly proclaimed and His Sacraments given to you as physical manifestations of His Word.  And through this Word of Jesus, as through means, the Holy Spirit works faith as He pleases in those who hear the Gospel.  That is the other Promise Jesus makes in our text.  “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth” (vv. 16-17).  What will the Spirit do?  “(H)e will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (v. 26).  The Spirit comes through the Word and He keeps you in the Word, which is to say He keeps you with Jesus.  “In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”[2]

            This is so important, because your enemy wants you back in his possession, enslaved to sin, death, and hell.  He’ll do everything he can to separate you from Jesus’ Word, and so separate you from Jesus.  Forever.  Because that’s the only way he can get back at God for casting him out of His holy presence.  The devil is condemned to hell for all eternity, and he wants to take you with him.  To do that, He must divide you from the Lord Jesus.  So he will tempt you to make other things more important than hearing the Gospel and receiving the Lord’s Supper.  The kids’ sports are more important.  The weekend chores are more important.  Sleeping in is more important.  When else will I have time to golf?  When else will I have time to fish?  I don’t have any other time to relax.  And it’s not like I haven’t heard it all before.  I know it.  I believe it.  Isn’t that enough?  Beloved, I want you to learn to recognize the insidious hiss of the serpent when he whispers his sweet nothings into your ear and your heart.  You must call him what he is: a liar!  You must tell him where to go: to hell!  And then you must run to your pastor and demand that he preach the Word to you, absolve your sins, give you the body and blood of Jesus.  Jesus keeps you safe from your old master’s tricks.  Stay close to Jesus!  He is your Rock and Castle, your Mighty Fortress, your Protector and Savior.

            He won you from your former slavery by His suffering and death on your behalf.  He purchased you, redeemed you, ransomed you from slavery, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood.  The corpse on the cross is the banner of your victory.  The empty tomb and the risen Lord Christ are the declaration that the sum is sufficient.  Your sins are forgiven.  Atonement is made.  Your debt to God is paid in full.  You belong to Jesus, in His Kingdom, in His life, forever.  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).  Stay close to Him.  He will see you through.  He strives and wrestles with the serpent for your very soul, but the foe cannot divide you from Jesus.  For He is yours and you are His.  And where He is, you may remain.  “I go to prepare a place for you…  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3).  He will take you to Himself in heaven when you die.  On the Last Day He will raise you bodily from the dead, just as He is risen bodily from the dead.  You will live with Him forever.  Life will from death the victory win, for His innocence has borne your sin.  You are blest forever (LSB 556:8).

            So now you live each day of this life in the Word and Spirit of Jesus, that you may stay close to Him.  And understand that the answer to all the trials and tribulations the devil and the world and your own fallen flesh can throw at you, is the Word of Jesus Christ.  When your conscience troubles you, you call your pastor and ask him to absolve your sins in the stead and by the command of Jesus.  When you are downcast, discouraged, depressed, you call your pastor and ask him speak the consoling Word of Christ.  When you are sick or in the hospital, when you face a surgery, or when death draws near, you call your pastor and ask him to come and preach to you and give you Jesus’ body and blood.  You do this, not because your pastor is anything.  He is not.  I promise you, he will stumble through it all like a bumbling fool.  That’s okay.  He’s not the important one.  You need Jesus.  You need to stay close to Jesus, to be in Jesus where there is now no condemnation, where healing and life flow to you through His gifts.  Jesus’ Word is always the answer.  It applies our Lord’s blood and death and resurrection to every circumstance.  When your marriage is in trouble, you need Jesus.  Call your pastor.  When you’ve made a mistake and now there are consequences, you need Jesus.  Call your pastor.  And so also, when God has given a blessing, in times of joy and prosperity, you need Jesus.  Call your pastor.  All things are sanctified by the Word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:5).  Call your pastor to bless your house.  Call your pastor to say a prayer of thanksgiving for your new job.  Call your pastor to visit your new baby in the hospital.  And it should go without saying, but call your pastor to have that baby baptized.  Call your pastor, not because you need your pastor, but because you need Jesus, who sent your pastor here for no other reason than to bring you Jesus.  Be in Church every chance you get.  Hear the Word.  Receive the Supper.  Remember your Baptism.  Be in the Word and prayer every day.  Stay close to Jesus. 

            And in this way, your heart need never be troubled or afraid.  Do you still doubt?  Come to the Supper.  The proof of it all is Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross for your ransom and rescue, poured out from the chalice, down your throat, and through your veins for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Jesus isn’t just close to you.  He’s in you.  And you are in Him.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

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[1] The theme and structure of this sermon are from John T. Pless, “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice,” Lenten Preaching Seminar 2010, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.

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

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Fourth Sunday in Lent (A)

March 26, 2017

Text: John 9:1-41

            Blind from birth.  The disciples thought it was because of some sin his parents committed, or perhaps that he himself sinned in utero or God had foreseen some grievous sin he would commit in the future.  The Pharisees thought this, too.  “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” (John 9:34; ESV).  Typical Jewish thinking.  Typical human thinking.  If something goes wrong, if a person suffers, God must be out to get them.  They must have it coming, they must deserve it in some way.  And this, of course, leads to all manner of self-righteous judgment and thanksgiving that I am not like other men, not like this sinner.  Until it happens to me.  And then there is despair.  God must be out to get me.  There must be some sin in me for which I am required to pay.  As though Jesus’ blood and death are not sufficient to cover your sins.  Beloved in the Lord, repent.  “It is not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3).  God has His own purposes in our suffering, and He does not owe us an explanation.  This is a fallen world and bad things happen.  The devil has his hand in every pot.  The mystery is not that bad things happen, but that anything good happens.  That is God’s pure mercy.  And then the Promise.  He has His plan.  He will work it for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).  That is to say, He will work it for your salvation and for the salvation of others.  His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).  You may never understand why God does what He does in this life, and that’s okay.  He is God.  You are not God.  Like a child, you simply have to trust that your Father in heaven knows what He is doing.  It is enough that He says so. 

            Blind from birth.  That is our spiritual condition prior to Baptism and faith.  David sings it in the Psalm: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5).  We are born infected with original sin, the deep corruption and mortal disease inherited form Adam and passed on from generation to generation.  This is to say, faith in Jesus Christ does not come naturally to us.  Quite the contrary.  We are born in opposition to God, opposed to His will, opposed to His salvation.  St. Paul says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).  The unconverted person, as he is born, thinks the things of God are utterly foolish.  So he rejects them.  He cannot be reasoned into the faith.  Faith is opposed to natural human reason.  He cannot be emotionally moved into the faith.  Faith is opposed to the natural human will.  For a person to come to faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit must act, and He does, through His Word preached and His Word joined with water in the font.  A miracle must occur.  The blind must be given sight.  A blind man cannot make a decision to see.  A blind man cannot give his heart to seeing.  For a blind man to see, healing must come from outside of him.  “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”[1]  He does it all.

            And Jesus teaches us this in the case of the man born blind.  Jesus Christ is the Light of the world.  He comes into the darkness with His Word and Spirit and turns on the lights.  He gives you new eyes and a new heart and a new mind to receive the things of God by faith.  He does not work as you might expect.  Look at how He heals the man in our text.  He spits.  He spits in the dirt and makes mud with His saliva.  And He rubs it in the man’s eyes.  It’s gross.  And frankly, it’s offensive.  He could have simply said a Word, or given a nicer, gentler, healing touch.  We’ve seen him do it before.  But that’s not what He does here.  And even after all this, He makes the man go find the Pool of Siloam and wash.  The whole thing smacks a little of Naaman the Leper when Elisha told him to go wash in the dirty, stinky water of the Jordan River seven times, with the promise that in that washing he would be clean.  Why does God always have to work this way? 

            The mud takes us back to Genesis and the forming of Adam from the dust of the earth.  Jesus is teaching the man, and us, something profound in the working of this miracle.  It is a new creation.  Jesus comes to undo all that has gone wrong since the fall, all those things for which we want an explanation from God, the sin, the suffering, the sorrow.  He doesn’t tell us why we must suffer it, but He does do something about it.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brings about a new creation.  “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). 

            And then there is the water.  Jesus still works this way with us.  Water and the Promise.  Wash and your eyes will be opened.  In Baptism, Jesus opens our spiritual eyes.  The Spirit gives us new eyes of faith to see Jesus as our only Redeemer from sin and death.  He gives us faith to believe in Him.  Nothing surprising about the water.  Naaman’s washing in the Jordan and this man’s washing in the Pool both point us to our washing at the font.  There God performs the healing.  “How can water do such great things?  Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does these things, along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the water.  For without God’s word the water is plain water and no Baptism.  But with the word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit.”  Baptism is where God brings about a whole new creation of you, so that the old sinful flesh in you, which cannot believe in Christ and is bound to sin and death, is drowned and killed, and a new man is raised up in Christ, free from sin and death, clean, healed, whole, possessed by the Holy Spirit, united to Christ by faith, reconciled to the Father.  It’s a scandal.  It’s gross.  A little water and a few words from the Bible.  It’s all so ordinary.  But that is how God works.

            Now, there is a cost to it all.  There is a cost to Baptism and faith in Christ, to having your eyes opened by God.  Salvation is absolutely free to you in Jesus, but there is a cost to be borne, here and now, in this life.  The man born blind, who now sees, is rejected.  By the Pharisees and the members of his synagogue.  That would be like your congregation excommunicating you because you believe what is taught in the very Scriptures we read.  And then his parents… They throw him under the bus.  They don’t want to be excommunicated, too.  Sorry, the boy is on his own.  Ask him.  He is of age.  He can take his own chances with Jesus.  Those who think they see are really blind, and they resent those who know they are blind, but have come to see.  And so, if your eyes have been opened by Jesus, you will bear rejection, and it will hurt. 

            How does this happen among us?  Surely you know by now that Christianity is not the favored religion it once was in America.  Surely you’ve seen how many in government want their say in what we believe and how we practice what we believe.  What happens when you’re threatened with the loss of your business or your life savings for being faithful to Jesus?  Do you compromise with the world?  Or do you take the loss?  What about when you’re called to be faithful in a congregation or a church body that is teaching false doctrine or practicing sin?  Do you go along to get along, or do you confess the truth come what may, even if it means you have to leave?  What about when your friends and your own family members are opposed to Jesus and His teaching?  Do you keep your faith inside and pretend there is nothing wrong, just so you can keep the peace?  Or do you speak the truth in love, with all gentleness and respect, but faithfully, because as much as you love your friends and family, you love Jesus more, and your love for your friends and family is too deep to sweep the question of their eternal salvation under the rug?  It’s hard.  You realize, don’t you, that there are many places in the world where to be baptized is to put a target on your back, to mark you for death?  It is a capital crime to believe in Jesus.  So what do you do when you face rejection and punishment and suffering for the faith?  You do as the man does in our text.  You confess faithfully.  You invite your persecutors also to believe.  And then you take whatever they have to dish out.  What’s the worst they can do?  Kill you?  Well, a lot worse could happen to you than that if you deny Jesus.  So you go to heaven… Is that really punishment?  Beloved, we confess the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.  When Dietrich Bonhoeffer was called upon to die for his confession of Christ and his opposition to the Nazis, he said to his friend: “This is the end… For me it is the beginning.” 

            They reject you because they reject Christ.  But, beloved, Jesus will never reject you.  He found the man after he was cast out of the synagogue, and He opened his spiritual eyes.  “Lord, I believe” (John 9:38).  He finds you and daily returns you to your Baptism in repentance, killing the old you and raising the new you to life in Himself.  And remember this: He bore your rejection all the way to the cross.  He was rejected unto death.  So that you will always be accepted by God.  You will always have a place at His Table.  You will always be precious in His sight.  His Name is on you.  You belong to Him.  It is true, we are born spiritually blind and separated from God.  In Baptism and preaching, Jesus gives us to see and believe in Him.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.        

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

Lenten Midweek III

Lenten Midweek III

March 22, 2017

“Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice: Jesus: God’s Son and Your Servant”[1]

Text: John 13:1-20; LSB 556:5-6

            “His royal pow’r disguised he bore; A servant’s form, like mine, He wore To lead the devil captive” (LSB 556:6).  No one expected it.  No one expected that when God’s Messiah came to rescue His people from sin and death, He would come in lowly form, born of a poor girl from Nazareth of all places, the supposed son of a carpenter.  No one expected Him to be born in backwater Bethlehem, in a cattle stall, no crib for a bed, but laid in a manger, the feeding trough for the barnyard animals.  And certainly no one expected He would win His victory over Satan and the yawning jaws of hell by submitting Himself to their power, to the condemnation of sinners and the accursed death of the cross.  God’s ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  So when our Lord stoops down to wash His disciples’ feet, the proper work of a slave, the disciples, and Peter in particular, are greatly offended.  “Lord, do you wash my feet? … You shall never wash my feet” (John 13:6, 8; ESV).  “Lord, this is not the way Messiah is supposed to behave.  No stooping.  No serving.  Be served!  Sit back and relax!  Let us do the work.  There have to be some perks to this Savior gig.  Let’s enjoy a nice Passover meal and then go blast those Romans to Kingdom Come by Your sheer glory!”  Yes, that’s what we expect.  Not a Savior who stoops, but a Savior who stupefies. 

            But that’s not Jesus.  The Son of God would not have needed to become man to do that.  That’s what a mostly hands-off god would do, a selfish and self-involved god, like the gods of the pagans and the false gods that reign in our hearts.  But not a God of love.  Not a God sincerely and intimately concerned with the plight of sinners.  A man got us into this mess… “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12, emphasis added)…  So death and sin must be undone by a man, and that man is the eternally-begotten Son of the Father, Jesus Christ.  “For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many” (v. 15).  “But when the fullness of time had come, 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).  Jesus puts it this way: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  This is the God who loves you in such a way that He cannot leave you in sheer despair, death as your share, the pangs of hell to suffer, as we sang a couple weeks ago in Luther’s marvelous hymn.  He cannot and He will not forsake you.  Instead, He becomes one with you, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh.  And He takes your sin upon Himself and suffers your death and your hell, that you be free and live forever as children of God. 

            “God said to His beloved Son: ‘It’s time to have compassion’” (LSB 556:5).  “When the fullness of time had come…”  At just the right time, God sent His Son.  “Then go, bright jewel of My crown And bring to all salvation.”  Set them free from sin and sorrow.  Slay bitter death by dying.  Punch a hole through death’s stomach, that it may never hold my children again, that they may live with You forever.  And that is what He does, our merciful Lord Jesus.  He obeys His Father’s will.  He is born of a virgin.  He puts on our birthday suit, our flesh.  And He does what we cannot do… fulfills God’s Law, perfectly, without error, without sin.  This is His active righteousness.  And He does what otherwise we would have to do.  He suffers under Pontius Pilate, is crucified, dead and buried.  This is His passive righteousness, His taking our punishment, thus atoning for our sins.  He has to be one of us to do this.  He has to be a man to be our substitute.  And God cannot die.  Unless God is a man.  And He is.  His Name is Jesus. 

            Yes, our God is a man.  How humiliating.  No wonder it was a stumbling block to Jews and utter foolishness to Greeks, and remains so for all the world to this very day.  We call this our Lord’s state of humiliation, from His conception in the womb of Mary to His death and burial, when He does not always or fully use His divine powers.  St. Paul puts it this way, probably quoting an early hymn: “though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).  And so, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1), to the end of His life, to the end of Himself, to His utter humiliation, condemnation, and death.  That’s a God who loves you.  That is how your Savior wins the victory.  And, of course, the hymn continues with the story of Easter and the Ascension: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11).  That last part, by the way, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is the earliest Christian Creed.  In Greek, it reads more like “Jesus Christ is Caesar,” words that will get you killed in the Roman Empire.  This is what we call our Lord’s state of exaltation, from His bodily resurrection from the dead and into eternity, when He now always and fully uses His divine powers.  The Father exalted Him.  Because He submitted Himself to death and hell for you, to save you, thus accomplishing the Father’s will, His reward is resurrection from the dead… Not just His own on Easter morn, but  yours on the Last Day.  His reward is to reign at the right hand of the Father, not only as God (as He has from all eternity), but as man, in your flesh.  And He is bringing you with Him!  He wants you to reign with Him forever. 

            So now we live in the Great Meantime between our Lord’s saving work and that glorious Day when we will see Him as He is and reign with Him in our Father’s Kingdom.  What are we to do?  Jesus demonstrates it for us.  We are to be servants of one another.  We’re to do the work of slaves.  Jesus was not commanding His Church to do foot washing from here on out, though that is certainly fine and good if you want to do it.  The point is, humiliate yourself before your brothers and sisters.  Serve them.  Which is to say, love them.  And at the proper time, God will exalt you.  And them.  And now, you do this as one who knows that your salvation is already completely accomplished by the Lord Jesus, apart from works, apart from service, apart from your love.  You’re freed up to just go do it, in joy and thanksgiving, because that’s what Jesus does for you. 

            He came to be your Brother.  In fact, wonder of wonders, He became your Servant.  Think about that one.  Almighty God stoops down to serve you.  He washes you head to toe in Holy Baptism, washes all your sin and guilt away forever.  That is why He tells Peter, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet” (John 13:10).  We might say, Jesus washes your feet in Holy Absolution, which is always a return to your Baptism.  You’re already clean.  You’ve already bathed.  Now Jesus washes the dust and grime of daily life in this fallen world from your feet by forgiving your sins.  He did it again tonight.  He’ll do it your whole life long until you walk the streets of gold where there is no filth, no sin, no death.  Jesus still washes your feet.  He still serves you.  He is still one with you.  He loves you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                         

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[1] The theme and structure of this sermon are from John T. Pless, “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice,” Lenten Preaching Seminar 2010, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.

Lenten Midweek II

Lenten Midweek II

March 15, 2017

“Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice: From the Father’s Heart”[1]

Text: John 12:27-36; LSB 556:4

            God had seen our wretched state before the world’s foundation, before the beginning, before the first tick of the clock inaugurated time and history.  He knew what would happen.  He did not will it to happen this way.  God does not will sin, and He did not will the fall of humanity in the Garden.  But He foreknew it.  And He foreknew your sin, your wretched state.  And from all eternity He was determined to do something about it, for from all eternity you have been in His heart.  God so loved the world, God so loved you, that He did not choose the easy part.  He gave His dearest treasure.  He sent His Son.  Jesus came to bear your sin.  Jesus came to suffer your punishment, that God “might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26; ESV).  Jesus came to die.

            “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour” (John 12:27).  For this purpose I have come to this hour.  What hour does He speak of in our Gospel?  The hour in the Gospels is the divinely appointed time when the Son of Man is sacrificed for our sins.  Jesus came for this purpose, to be lifted up on the cross and die for the sins of the world.  And this isn’t just some Plan B because things went tragically wrong in Eden.  This has been God’s plan from all eternity.  It has always been in His heart to redeem you in a manner most costly to Himself, the blood and death of His Son.  And in this way, Jesus’ prayer is answered, that the Father’s Name be glorified, the Name Jesus bears and reveals to us, that God is our Father who loves us and longs to be reconciled to us by the forgiveness of sins.  And in this way also the Father’s Name is glorified, for in the lifting up of the Son on the cross, the Judgment of this world is complete, being poured out on Christ; the ruler of this world (Satan) is cast out; and our Savior draws all men unto Himself.

            Jesus is the answer to the question, “How is God toward me?”  Is He a God of wrath, justly angered by my sins, poised to cast me into the abyss of hell?  Or is He a God of mercy, determined to win my salvation and bestow on me His eternal Kingdom?  In Jesus, we know the heart of God.  If you ever wonder what God thinks of you, how He is disposed toward you, look on a crucifix.  Consider the man, beaten and bloody and dead, nailed there to the wood.  Remember that this dead man is none other than God, the eternally-begotten Son of the Father, become flesh for this very purpose, so that He could die.  For you.  Look at the wounds.  His sacred head encircled with thorns for your sinful thoughts, your fantasies, your premeditation and nostalgia for sin.  His hands pierced with nails for your iniquitous actions, His feet likewise impaled to atone for your feet which have carried you places you should not be.  Look upon His side, thrust through with a spear.  See the water and the blood poured out for you.  A crucifix is a helpful piece of jewelry or décor.  It helps you meditate on your Lord’s Passion.  It keeps Christ crucified before your eyes.  How is God toward you?  Here you have your answer.  He is the God who sacrifices His own Son to save you and make you His own.  He turns to you a father’s heart, the heart He has had for you from eternity.  God loves you, and He will not forsake you. 

            In addition to our hymn, Luther writes of the Father’s heart toward us in the Large Catechism.  In his discussion on the Creed he writes, “For here in all three articles God has revealed Himself and opened the deepest abyss of His fatherly heart and His pure, inexpressible love [Ephesians 3:18-19].  He has created us for this very reason, that He might redeem and sanctify us.  In addition to giving and imparting to us everything in heaven and upon earth, He has given to us His Son and the Holy Spirit, who brings us to Himself [Romans 8:14, 32].  For… we could never grasp the knowledge of the Father’s grace and favor except through the Lord Christ.  Jesus is a mirror of the fatherly heart [John 14:9; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3], outside of whom we see nothing but an angry and terrible Judge.”[2]

            Jesus is a mirror of the fatherly heart.  On the cross you see the heart of God, “laid open, broken and bleeding for you” (Pless).  All God’s just wrath over your sin is poured out there, on God’s Son, lifted up on the cross.  All God’s tender love for you is poured out here where the risen Jesus speaks into your ears and heart and feeds you His true body and blood.  In Baptism you are made God’s child.  The Spirit opens your lips to pray, “Our Father”…  God in heaven hears and answers for Jesus’ sake.  Again, Luther writes in the Large Catechism, “whenever a godly Christian prays, ‘Dear Father, let Your will be done’ [see Matthew 6:10], God speaks from on high and says, ‘Yes, dear child, is shall be so, in spite of the devil and all the world.’”[3]  So, how is God toward you?  He is your Father, and you are His child.  The proof of it is Christ crucified for you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.            

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[1] The theme and structure of this sermon are from John T. Pless, “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice,” Lenten Preaching Seminar 2010, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN. 

[2] LC II: Article III:64-65 (McCain).

[3] LC III:32 (McCain)

Second Sunday in Lent (A)

Second Sunday in Lent (A)

March 12, 2017

Text: John 3:1-17

            Many people, even Christians, think of God primarily as Judge.  As he was growing up, Martin Luther and the majority of Christians in the Middle Ages looked upon Christ as a stern Judge who beheld poor sinners with nothing but wrath and condemnation.  Well, Luther came around on that, thanks be to God.  He came to understand the Gospel as Jesus proclaims it to us this morning: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17; ESV).  The Lord Jesus looks upon us poor sinners in mercy, in grace, with the forgiveness of sins.  But it is tempting even for Christians today, even for you Lutherans who know the precious Gospel of forgiveness and life in Christ, to think of your various sufferings and afflictions as God’s punishment, as His judgment against your sin.  “I must have done something to anger God,” you think.  “I must be paying for my sins.”  Which, of course, is utter nonsense.  Because as you know Jesus paid for all your sins on the cross.  He paid with His suffering, with His blood, with His death.  He paid your debt in full.  There is nothing more to be paid.  God’s wrath has been spent on Him.  The Son of God did not come into our flesh on a mission of wrath, but on a mission of mercy.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (v. 16). 

            That is not to say our sin is undeserving of God’s wrath.  Far from it.  It took the blood and death of the Son of God to pay for your sin.  A righteous and holy God cannot abide sin.  He cannot simply ignore it.  If He did, He would be neither righteous nor holy.  God had to do something about our sin if He wanted to save us.  So He did.  He sent Jesus.  The cross of Christ is the intersection where God’s love and justice meet.  For there on the cross, in the body of His only-begotten Son, God punishes our sin in justice.  And there on the cross, in the body of His only-begotten Son, God pours out His love for us poor sinners, to save us.  Now we need not die.  Now we are not condemned.  For Jesus has been condemned and died in our place.  Now there is eternal life and salvation, heaven for all who believe in Christ.  Believe it and it is yours.  It really is that simple.  Christ Jesus who died for you is now risen from the dead, and He gives you that life of His, that life that has conquered death and hell, freely, distributed in His Word and the Sacraments, received by faith in Christ.

            It doesn’t make sense, though, does it?  Free grace is a scandal.  Surely I must do something.  Surely in some way I must be worth it to God.  And if that means I have to pay with a little penance, a little suffering, or do a few extra good works, then so be it.  Not so, dear Christian!  For to see grace as anything but free is to reject Christ and His sacrifice for you.  That was Nicodemus’ problem when he came to Jesus by night for fear of his colleagues in the Sanhedrin.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  These were, of course, the guys who were really good at doing good works, preserving an outwardly pristine life, and thinking that in this way they were justifying themselves before God.  The Pharisees also believed that if someone is suffering, it must be because they or their parents committed some grave sin for which God is punishing them.  The disciples thought that about the man born blind: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” (John 9:2).  When we think this way about ourselves or others, we show ourselves to be as misguided as the Pharisees and the disciples.  Jesus puts such thinking to rest: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (9:3).

            It is the nature of the Pharisee, like Nicodemus, to think that somehow he must earn his standing before God.  It’s the nature of the Pharisee, like you, to think that you must pay some price for your sin.  You can’t.  There is nothing you can do to appease God’s wrath.  There is nothing you can do to earn God’s favor.  And thank God, you don’t have to.  For God so loved you that He sent His only-begotten Son to take your sin to the cross and die for it.  God so loved you that He did not leave His Son in death, but raised Him from the dead, that He might give you eternal life.  Do you want what Jesus has to give you?  Just believe it.  It is already yours.  Amazing!  Incredible!  And totally opposed to your fallen reason.  That is why Luther has you confess in the Small Catechism, “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.”  To believe this, as our Lord says in our Holy Gospel, you must be born again, or as it is better translated, born from above.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again,” born from above, “he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

            Nicodemus does not understand what Jesus is talking about.  What a ridiculous statement.  “How can a man be born when he is old?  Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v. 4).  We don’t understand it either.  Unlike Nicodemus, perhaps, we know that Jesus is not talking here about a physical rebirth.  But we think that somehow we have to make ourselves be born again by making a decision for Jesus, surrendering our lives to Him, dedicating ourselves to living a Christian life.  But when you make faith your effort, when you think you are born again, not from above, from God, but from your own striving, you are a Pharisee.  Don’t you see?  Faith is a gift!  It is God’s gift to you!  You cannot make yourself be born again spiritually any more than you made yourself be born physically.  Utter nonsense.  God brought you forth from your mother’s womb.  And God your heavenly Father gives birth to you spiritually, bringing forth living faith in Jesus Christ.  He does it by His Spirit, in His means of grace.

            Jesus singles out Baptism in our text.  That is why you have the precious little baby on the front of your bulletin, baptized into Christ, God’s own child I gladly say it.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v. 5).  To be born again, from above, of the Spirit, is to be baptized.  There at the font, where water is joined to God’s Word, by His command, the Spirit is given to you.  And the Spirit gives you faith in Jesus Christ as a gift.  That is why babies are baptized.  Because we cannot reason with them.  We cannot reason them into the faith.  They have no idea what we’re talking about.  So we simply baptize them, as God has commanded us to do for all nations (Matt. 28:19) of which babies are a part, and we trust that God will do in Baptism what He has promised, namely, give birth to them from above by His Spirit, giving them faith in Jesus Christ.  And in truth, that is why we baptize adults as well.  For we cannot reason adults into faith, either.  Reason is fallen and corrupt, opposed to faith in Christ.  And so, as our Lord says elsewhere, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15).  That is to say, faith is simply trust, like a newborn who trusts Mom for food and protection and care and love, who cries out to Mom in every need, who rejoices and is comforted when Mom speaks.  Baby cannot reason about Mom, or confess Mom’s name, but you better believe Baby knows Mom and trusts Mom and clings to Mom as the giver of all good.  That is you before your Father in heaven, a newborn from above, baptized into Christ, born of the Spirit.

            There are, to be sure, sufferings and afflictions to be borne in this life.  You do not understand them any better than a newborn understands the new world into which she has entered, what it is that is happening to her, why it is happening to her, and why some things are so unpleasant, why some things hurt.  God could explain it all to you, but you would be as uncomprehending as a newborn.  Go ahead and cry out to God like a newborn when you hurt.  But also trust that everything God does He does for your good.  He is not punishing you.  Your punishment happened at the cross, where the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, was lifted up like the serpent on the pole.  He was lifted up in your place.  He was lifted up as the standard of your sin and death, that when you look upon Him there in faith, you be healed of your mortal illness, sin.  When you look upon Him there in faith, when you believe in Him, you have eternal life.  This is how God loves the world.  This is how God loves you.  He gave His Son, that you might be His own child.  And you are.  In Baptism, God has written His Name on you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.