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Wed. of Sexagesima. Striving Against Baptism and Living in It (Catechism: Baptism part 4)
Wednesday of Sexagesima
Emmaus Lutheran Church
“What Does Such Baptizing With Water Indicate”—Romans 6
Feb. 23, 2022
Striving Against Baptism and Living In It
Jesu juva!
Holy Baptism 4th part p. 325
What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
Where is this written? St. Paul writes in Romans, ch. 6 “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
In the Name of Jesus.
1.
In the Large Catechism Luther says that when in Baptism a baby is plunged into the water and drawn out again, that shows “the power and operation of Baptism.” When the baby is plunged under the water, it signifies that the Old Adam is put to death in Baptism, and the new Adam, the new man is resurrected.
Just as Jesus was in the image of old Adam. He wore thorns on His head, the curse of Adam. He was beaten by the Roman soldiers and put to shame, humiliated, just as Adam lost the glory of the image of God after his fall into sin. And when Pilate brought Jesus out before the crowd, he said, “Behold the Man!” Behold the Adam! Jesus had taken the shame of Adam, the guilt of Adam, the sin of Adam and all his descendants.
That is why Jesus was silent when He was accused of being a blasphemer, of claiming to be God when He wasn’t. He didn’t argue with His accusers because He was taking the guilt of Adam, who had tried to be like God. And He took the guilt of every descendant of Adam who pretended to be God.
And He died for Adam’s sin.
And then God raised Him from the dead, never to die again, free from death forever, as Paul told us in the reading. He died to sin once for all. Now He lives for God.
Baptism signifies that you also have died and risen.
Your old Adam, your old self, was drowned and put to death with Jesus. And you were raised from the dead with Jesus.
It has become a tradition in our church to remind ourselves of Baptism. To say “Remember your Baptism.” That is a good thing.
But you remember your Baptism not only by remembering that you were baptized. I was baptized on May 14th, 1978. It was Pentecost, about a month after I was born.
But the true use of Baptism, according to Luther, is not that I was baptized almost 44 years ago. It is that the Baptism that was done on that day continues today. That I die to sin today and rise again a new man.
“These two parts, to be sunk under the water and drawn out again, signify the power and operation of Baptism, which is nothing else than putting to death the old Adam, and after that the resurrection of the new man, both of which must take place in us all our lives, so that a truly Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, once begun and ever to be continued. For this must be practiced without ceasing, that we ever keep purging away whatever is of the old Adam, and that which belongs to the new man come forth. But what is the old man? It is that which is born in us from Adam, angry, hateful, envious, unchaste, stingy, lazy, haughty, yea, unbelieving, infected with all vices, and having by nature nothing good in it. Now when we come into the kingdom of Christ, these things must daily decrease, that the longer we live we become more gentle, more patient, more meek, and ever withdraw more and more from unbelief, avarice, hatred, envy, haughtiness.”
Then Luther says something brilliant: “Where this…is not practiced, but the old man is left unbridled, so as to continually become stronger, that is not using Baptism, but striving against Baptism.”
So when I remember my baptism and rejoice in its benefits—forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation—but then “continue in sin so that grace may abound,” that is remembering baptism as a past event and not a present reality. That is “striving against baptism.” To be baptized is to die and rise again. Jesus died in the shame of old Adam, though he had not earned it. To live in Baptism is to be crucified and buried with Jesus and arise from the dead a new man.
2.
Professor Marquart, who is in heaven, said, “Old Adam is drowned in Baptism, but the problem is that he swims.”
You probably accept what Luther said, that Baptism is not just a continuous circle, death, resurrection, repeat—but that the Old Adam dies all our life, so that we become less unchaste, angry, etc and more gentle, patient, meek. Or at least you probably accept that’s how it should go. After all, Paul says it. We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). “Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom. 6:11)
But just because you accept that it should be so does not mean that it seems to be true in your life. You mount an attack on your vices, and what happens? You fail. But not only do you fail. It is brought to your remembrance how much sin has been in your life as a Christian. It would be one thing if it all happened when you weren’t a Christian. But what about the fact that for years as a Christian you were selfish, you ignored your kids, or your spouse? For years as a Christian you were angry or consumed with covetousness, obsessed with getting ahead at your job? And the devil or your conscience says, “How could a Christian be so loveless, so angry, so self-seeking?”
So you renew your efforts to die with Christ and to rise with Christ. And you are overwhelmed. It is like trying to bring down a mountain with a pickaxe.
It’s like you are drowning. When a person drowns, they thrash, trying to keep their head above water, trying to get hold of anything that will keep them afloat. But eventually they sink, the bubbles stop rising to the water, the water becomes still.
3.
Trying to kill of the old man and rise again is impossible. It’s just like drowning.
When you experience that, don’t despair. That is proof that your Baptism is working in you.
You truly are helpless against your old Adam. And it is a painful thing to drown and die.
But this is not the end of you. Because as St. Paul says, you were baptized into Jesus’ death. “We were therefore buried with Him through Baptism in death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
In the midst of your drowning and being overwhelmed by the power of your sinful nature, a new man emerges and arises in you. The good works Christ does in you may seem like nothing given the mountain of sin and pride the old Adam presents before you. Yet they are heavenly works. They are the new creation breaking into this old world. They are the new you, all that will remain when the old adam is dead and buried.
And in your drowning you are not alone. Jesus came out bearing your image. Behold the man said Pilate.
Jesus drowned in the wrath of God as He hung gasping for breath on the cross. “Why hast Thou forsaken me, He cried.”
You are not forsaken, because God’s anger departed from you and the whole human race in the death of His Son.
He destroyed your sin. When you were baptized you died to sin with Him.
4.
This is why we read this passage when we carry the body of a Christian who has died into the Church. To the world this looks like the end, defeat.
To us it is victory. “If we have been untied with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
The Christian has died. They have drowned. No bubbles rise to the surface. The struggle is over. It looks like the old Adam was victorious in death, just as it looked like Jesus’ enemies were victorious in His death.
But for you, when the struggle has ceased, it is not you that has lost but death. It is pinned. It is defeated. All that remains is the victory lap when you are raised from the dead.
Then it will appear what has really happened. Sin and death have not won. Your old Adam has not won.
You have been baptized. That mountain it seemed like you were chipping away at has been moved, it has been levelled.
It all happened when you were brought to the font. You became a new creation in Christ. You came out of the tomb with Him to reign.
When you and your loved ones who are baptized, sinners all, are brought into the church in death, we put a pall over the casket. We put rich garments on their dead bodies. Not in mockery like they did to Jesus. But to testify to the truth that you will put on a body like His.
In which you will no longer strive against sin, covetousness, anger. But in which you will be like Jesus in perfect love.
Amen.
The peace of God…
Baptism Gives Salvation. Wednesday of Transfiguration 2022.
Wednesday of Transfiguration
Emmaus Lutheran Church
Catechism: “What Benefits Does Baptism Give?”/ St. Mark 16:14-20
February 9, 2022
Baptism Gives Salvation
Jesu juva!
LSB p. 325
What benefits does Baptism give? It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.
Which are these words and promises of God? Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Mark: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
In the Name of Jesus.
There is are three stanzas from a Lenten hymn in the old hymnal that seem appropriate for the sermon tonight. Sadly this hymn did not make it into the new hymnal.
1. Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light,
My Strength by day, my Trust by night,
On earth I’m but a passing guest
And sorely with my sins opprest.
2. Far off I see my fatherland,
Where thro’ Thy blood I hope to stand.
But ere I reach that Paradise,
A weary way before me lies.
3. My heart sinks at the journey’s length,
My wasted flesh has little strength;
My soul alone still cries in me:
“Lord, take me home, take me to Thee!” (TLH #148 stanzas 1-3)
In this world Christians are oppressed by their sins. We have a long way to walk before we enter Paradise. And all the way we are assaulted, attacked, by death and the devil. Our flesh is weak and prone to fall into sin and to fall from faith in Christ.
If you have ever read Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, this should sound familiar. In that book Christian only becomes a pilgrim to the Celestial City because he has a burden on his back that he has to get off. The burden is the conviction of sin. And he loses the burden at the beginning of his journey when he becomes a Christian. And yet the whole way along the road to paradise he is attacked by various dangers. Bunyan was a Calvinist, so he was wrong about a variety of things. But he was right that the way is narrow that leads to life, and few find it. And he was right that your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
But the Lord does not leave us without help on this seemingly impossible journey to Paradise. He gives us divine gifts, and one of them is Holy Baptism.
The last sermon about this dealt with what Baptism is.
Baptism is not a human idea or a human work. It is water included in God’s command. The Triune God says to baptize with water. Therefore it is not something that comes from us. Baptism has the authority of the living God behind it.
It is the water combined with God’s Word. In other words, Baptism is not a handful of water that we do to represent something. It is water joined with the Word of God, in this case His name. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword. It is not dead, but it accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it.
Now today the catechism asks us: What benefits does Baptism give? Why does God command that His word joined with water be poured on us?
The answer is not: So we can announce before the world that we were born again when we said a prayer asking Jesus into our hearts, as evangelicals say. Baptism is not a pantomime of something that happened at another time.
Nor is it, like the Pope’s church says, the beginning Sacrament, which gives you grace to begin to live a Christian life and forgives your sins once, but after which you have to get forgiveness in other ways, through penance.
Baptism works “forgiveness of sins
Rescues from death and the devil
And gives eternal salvation
To all who believe this.”
When? Once at the beginning of your life as a Christian? No, continually. “To all who believe this.”
And what is the proof? There is no shortage of verses in the Bible that declare that Baptism gives forgiveness, rescues from death and the devil and eternal salvation. But Luther quotes from Mark’s Gospel:
Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:14-16)
But Jesus says those who are baptized and believe will be saved. He doesn’t say: those who believe will be saved, and then they should also be baptized. But those who are baptized and believe will be saved. Baptism is a means through which He gives salvation. One who does not believe will not be saved through Baptism. But Jesus has a purpose for saying “those who believe and are baptized.” In Baptism He gives salvation.
This is no different from saying, “whoever hears the word and believes it will be saved,” which Jesus actually does say in John chapter 5. It’s not that hearing the word is a work by which you earn salvation alongside of believing. When you hear the Gospel it declares salvation in Christ, and you believe it and are saved. Likewise, Baptism proclaims and applies salvation in Christ, and you believe what it promises and does and are saved.
When you are saved eternally, that also means: your sins are forgiven. To be damned eternally, to be condemned eternally, is to suffer the eternal penalty your sins deserve. To have your sins forgiven is to be saved forever.
Similarly, when you are saved eternally, you are also rescued from death and the devil. Death is the penalty for sin. When we suffer the pains of aging and then the final struggle of death, that is the first death—the separation of the soul from the body. It is the wages of sin. We would not experience this pain and grief if Adam and Eve had not sinned. But now every one of us is subject to it. Death pursues us all our lives. When we are young we aren’t really conscious of it. As we get older we start to see its shadow.
When I was a little kid my dad would sometimes tell me scary stories from when he grew up in Africa. In Africa they have wild dogs and apparently sometimes they eat people. He told me a story of an African being chased by a pack of wild dogs. The African ran and climbed up a tree. You would think that he would be safe. Eventually the dogs would get sick of looking up the tree at him. But no, the wild dogs are smart. They would take turns guarding the tree while the other dogs went off and did other things. And they would wait until the African couldn’t hang on anymore, exhausted by thirst and hunger. And when he fell out of the tree, that was the end of him.
Death pursues us like this. And apart from being saved, the inevitable separation of our souls from our bodies is only prelude to the second death, where both body and soul are cast into the lake of fire to suffer eternally.
Finally when you are saved eternally you are saved from the devil. Scripture continually reminds and warns us that the devil never rests and always seeks to destroy Christians. It also teaches us that he reigns over and in unbelievers. They are under his power. He works in them.
What a gift, then, God gives us in Baptism. Jesus says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
Baptism saves you. That means it works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation.
As the hymn at the beginning of the sermon said, there is a long way between us and paradise. Along that way sin attacks us every day. We don’t always feel the burden. But every day your sinful nature makes you guilty. On a good day you might say, “Today I prayed, read my bible. I didn’t say any harsh words to anyone or offend anyone. I worked faithfully. Today was a good day.” Yet even on that day you sinned in thought, word and deed and those sins would damn you. Your sluggishness to good works, your depression and doubt about God’s goodness, and also the guilt in which you were born would all condemn you.
But Baptism works forgiveness of sins. When you were baptized as an infant, all the sins of your whole life were forgiven all at once, because in that water Jesus Christ and the blood and agony with which He atoned for sinners were poured out over you.
So every day that flood rolls over you who believe God’s promise in Baptism, and it carries away the burden of your sin. It forgives you anew each day so that you are white as snow. Because God’s Word is in that water, His name was in that water. Like the snow and rain that comes down from heaven it does not return to Him void but accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it. And He sent it to forgive your sins.
Every day death stalks you. But baptism rescues you from death. By His death Jesus transformed our death. Our souls are still separated from our bodies. But the terror of death, the agony of knowing we are sinners and that we are being separated from our bodies because we are sinners, and now we must stand before the judgment seat of God whom we have offended—that is what death really is. That has all been taken away. Jesus destroyed death by His death. Now death is slumber, going to rest with Christ and await the resurrection.
And Baptism rescues you from death, because it gives you Jesus’ victory over death. His victory over death that He won in His agony on the cross pours over you. So whether you live or die today you can say with Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” As He has paid for the forgiveness of your sins, He has also rescued you from death, and He gives you this rescue in your Baptism.
Every day on the journey to heaven, Satan hunts and stalks you. He tempts you to sin and depart from God’s Word. Then He holds up before your eyes the guilt of your sin and God’s strict judgment. He makes sin seem small and God’s judgment seem light. Then he works to make you despair, especially near the end.
Baptism rescues you from Satan. So long ago was our Baptism, and like a flood it pours through your life, like the river that makes glad the city of God in Psalm 46, and it carries Satan away. In Baptism you were snatched out of Satan’s kingdom through the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus who overcame the devil first in His temptation, then at Gethsemane, and finally by paying for all of your sins on the cross, covers and cleanses you. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And in Baptism God pledges that you are in Christ Jesus.
For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead (Col. 2:9-12)
All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus. Satan is no match for this man. And in Baptism you were filled in this man, you were placed into him, so that you died and were raised with Him.
Satan has nothing he can say to you and nothing he can do to you. He cannot condemn you if you are in Jesus.
And every day that you believe Baptism’s promise, you are in Jesus, and you are delivered from the devil.
Every day sin burdens Christians. Satan attacks them, death pursues them.
But every day, like a stream flowing through your life, Baptism gives you forgiveness of sins and deliverance from death and the devil.
And though salvation seems a long way off, Baptism promises you you are already saved eternally.
Therefore, every day is a day to claim the benefits God promised us when we were carried to the Baptismal font as babies. Through no choice of our own, purely out of grace, God promised us all that Christ won for us.
Amen.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
Freed From Fear of Death. Martyrdom of John the Baptist, 2021.
The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist
Emmaus Lutheran Church
St. Mark 6:14-29
August 29, 2021
Freed From Fear of Death
Jesu juva!
In the name of Jesus.
1.
John’s life is an example of a life lived in Baptism. Herod’s, on the other hand, is a picture of the life lived in the flesh in all its smallness. John’s life is lived in divine power and love. Herod’s life is marked by fear and shameful self-seeking.
It’s a strange thing to say, however, that John’s life is an example of a life lived in Baptism, since he was not baptized, in all likelihood. He did not baptize himself, nor did he receive Baptism from Jesus. But because he lived in the repentance he preached, in faith in the One he preached, he lived a different life than one lived in the flesh. He walked in newness of life, as St. Paul says in the epistle reading. His life was full of love, and he was set free from the fear of death.
But his life does not look like a life of love to us. What did John tell Herod? He told the king that it was not lawful for him to have his brother Phillip’s wife. According to the Old Testament, a man was allowed to divorce his wife (although Jesus forbids divorce except in the case of adultery and abandonment.) Deut. 24:1 But Phillip had not divorced Herodias. Herod had just taken her. Besides this it was forbidden for a man to marry his brother’s wife even after he had died. Leviticus 20:21
John said, You can’t go on living with this woman. You have to repent or be damned.
This was consistent with John’s preaching throughout his ministry. Matthew says that to prepare the way for the Messiah, he preached that the Lord was about to clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12). Everyone had to turn from their sins or face that fire. And not just turn intellectually, but turn in heart and in deed, flee from sin, recognizing that they were lost.
That doesn’t sound like love to us.
And it makes us afraid, also. Because we see what it costs to go the way John did. He not only offended Herod and Herodias and made them upset. He went to prison. His head ended up on a platter.
But it wasn’t just John that walked this way. Mark tells the story of John’s death as he is telling what Jesus sent His apostles out to do. And Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits…So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them (Mark 6:7, 12-13).
Herod hears this and says, “John has been raised from the dead.” The miracles make him think this, but also because the disciples of Jesus are preaching the same thing as John—Repent. This makes us afraid, because the call to repentance, the call to Baptism, is a call to leave everything—our sins, our false gods, but also the good gifts of God. Our families—goods, fame, child, and wife, if need be. Even our lives.
2.
Our lives are filled with fear. Today we have John before us, who seems to have no fear. No doubt John had fear, but we don’t see it. What we see is a willingness to preach God’s Word to Herod, even though he must know he will be imprisoned and killed for it.
On the other hand we have Herod, who is full of fear—like us. Look at Herod. Herodias held a grudge against [John] and wanted to put him to death. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. (Mark 6:19-20) See that? Herod has John in prison. He has the power to kill him or to keep him alive, yet Herod is afraid of John.
It’s the same thing as when Jesus was before Pontius Pilate. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:8-11) Pilate is the one with the earthly power, the riches, the prestige, but he is not the one in control of that conversation. He is afraid. Jesus, who is about to be crucified, is calm.
But we are afraid, at least when we are called upon to follow Jesus or John, that is to say, to live in Baptism. To live in Baptism is to die.
When John called Herod to repent, he was calling him to die, in a sense. He had to die to his adulterous union with Herodias. Whatever justification for it he had in his mind had to die. He had to give her up. He also had to give up acting like he was God and acting like he got to live however he wanted. But repentance would have meant he had to give up other things too—his lust and gluttony, which we see at his birthday party, his pride which we also see there. His fake bravado.
Then he would have had to put on new things. He would have had to put on love, so that instead of being king for his own pride and pleasure, he would have been king to serve the people of Galilee. And just like being a preacher of repentance cost John, so would being a godly and faithful king have cost Herod. He would make enemies if he ruled faithfully and justly and tried to uphold the word of God—maybe even enemies in Rome.
Even though Herod was king, look at the man. He is afraid of John, but also afraid of his wife, so much so that he only listens to John so far. He doesn’t listen well enough to save his soul. He is also afraid of his guests and losing face in front of them. He lives his miserable life like a pinball bouncing from one fear to another. He kills John because he is afraid, and then, when he hears about Jesus, is even more afraid, tormented by his bad conscience.
But really we are all here today very conscious of being like Herod, and see very little John in us. We are afraid of suffering for Christ’s sake. Afraid of what will happen if we tell people the truth. We are afraid of those who get angry with us and hate us because of the truth. And because we are afraid we resent and hate those who hate us. Those who resent Christians, we resent in turn.
John didn’t hate Herod. He loved him. He wasn’t afraid of Herod. It’s really not possible to love someone you are terrified of, God or man. John loved Herod enough to die for him. Which one of us is like him? If John’s is what a baptized life is supposed to look like, how can we be saved?
3.
First of all, you can’t become like John in order to be saved. First you are saved, and then God makes you like John. Or, in a certain sense, it happens at the same time.
John didn’t fear death. He didn’t fear Herod, who had the power to kill him. He also didn’t fear the devil, the power behind Herod. He no doubt felt fear, but he conquered it. How? He believed in the one who partook of flesh and blood so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery, Hebrews 2:14-15.
You and I have been given even more. We have been baptized into the One who through death destroyed the one who has the power of death. St. Paul says, We were buried with him therefore by baptism into death (Rom. 6:4). That means we have been placed into Jesus, and in Jesus, we have been baptized into death. In Jesus we have entered death. Baptism is God’s pledge that this has been done to us.
Like Herod our flesh is afraid, running from one thing to another, trying to avoid losing the things we think we need. Trying to keep our lives. As long as we are like that we fall headlong from one sin into the next.
But your flesh must be put to death. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s Law. Indeed, it cannot.
But you have died. Jesus your Lord did what John the Baptist could not do. He died, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, the courageous for the cowardly, the loving for the fearful.
And now through His death you are justified and righteous in the sight of God.
But also, baptized into Him is being baptized into death. You have died. Your old self is dead in Him. That isn’t waiting for you to prove it. It is a fact, offered to you to put on. When you make the sign of the cross and invoke the name in which you are baptized, you are saying, “My old self with its fear and its plans to avoid the cross and sit on a throne or a Lay-z-boy is dead. I am now a son of God.”
I am a partaker in the divine nature and have escaped the corruption in the world because of sinful desire, 2 Peter 1: 4.
I have been placed in the grave with Jesus;
4.
So that I might be raised from the dead and walk in newness of life.
So that divine powers might be at work in me. If not healing the sick and casting out devils, then that I might live in love toward my neighbor and not be afraid, like John.
We know that when Jesus was placed in the tomb, and the stone was rolled in front of it, it was impossible for death to hold Him. He is the righteous One, and He is the One who upholds all things and in whom all things hold together. Death could not hold Him.
We who have been buried with Jesus in Baptism also cannot be held by death and sin. He who rose for our justification will also give life to our mortal bodies. He will resurrect us in this life so that divine powers are at work in us. And what we cannot do in ourselves—love our enemies, even love one another, and not be afraid, and overcome death—He will cause His new creation to break forth within us.
Loving your enemies instead of hating them goes against our nature and sounds like weakness and unpleasantness to us. But this is what God does. This is what His servants do. It would have been easier for John to let Herod perish in his sins. Herod was an evil man. John got no earthly reward for calling him to repent. It didn’t even seem to do any good.
But this is what God does. He loves sinners. He is not afraid of them. He seeks them to save them. He is so unafraid of sinners and so loving toward them that He let us crucify Him.
This same fearlessness and love God wants to work in us. When we were baptized we promised to walk in this way. We renounced the devil and all His works. That means we renounced seeking to save our own lives. We renounced loving ourselves more than our neighbor. And we confessed faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We expressed our desire to be baptized. That was our desire to be saved and live in unity with the Triune God. But to be saved and live in unity with the Triune God, and have heaven, also means to live in love. To love even to death.
God our Father wants us to be happy, truly happy. He wants us not to be slaves to fear, slaves to the devil like Herod. He wants us to be His sons, who are not afraid and are happy. That’s why He has sanctified us in Holy Baptism, washed us and set us apart for a noble purpose—to live as His sons in this world. Sons do what they see their father doing. What is our father doing?
Loving His enemies. Seeking to save them when they try to kill Him.
But don’t be afraid. Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work (2 Tim. 2:20-21).
He has cleansed you from what is dishonorable. He has baptized you into death and daily raises you as a conqueror of death, a son of God. You cleanse yourself by receiving your baptismal washing each day.
Today He again says you are an honorable and holy vessel. He pours into you the holy body and blood of His Son. By this holy gift He makes you a conqueror of death and fear, and pours His divine love into you. And you will sit down at the feast with John and the other conquerors, the sons of God.
Amen.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
Devotion: Joshua 3-4. Follow the Leader
Wednesday of Trinity 11
August 18, 2021
Joshua 3-4
Follow the Leader
To begin the conquest of Canaan, the Lord does a wonder. When the feet of the priests carrying the ark of the covenant touch the Jordan River, the waters coming down from the north stand up in a heap, and the waters downstream from the ark are cut off. The Israelites are able to go over to the land on dry ground. Then Joshua commands the Israelites to set up 12 large stones in the midst of the Jordan as a memorial, “so that all he peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” (Josh. 4:24)
There are two reasons why the Lord does this wonder for Israel. The first reason the Lord tells Joshua: “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” (Josh. 3:7) The second reason Joshua gives in his explanation to the people: “Here is how you shall know that the Lord your God is among you and that He will without fail drive out the Canaanites…” (Josh. 3:10) The two reasons go together. The Lord is among Israel and will fight for them, and He has appointed Joshua to lead them and speak to them in His stead.
The Lord has also done a wonder to point out the One who is to lead us. In the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, Jesus was exalted before all Israel. The voice came from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” and the Spirit came down on Him like a dove and rested on Him, while the heavens were opened (Matt. 3:16-17). The Lord exalted Jesus (the Hebrew version of His name is a variant of the name Joshua), not merely showing that He was with Jesus like He was with Moses, but by declaring Him His beloved Son. If the Israelites should have believed and obeyed Joshua because the Lord was with him, how much more should we believe and listen to Jesus, God’s beloved Son!
But Jesus’ baptism also shows that the Lord is with us and will give us the victory. The site of God’s presence in the Old Testament was the ark of the covenant. That’s why when the feet of the priests carrying it touched the water, Jordan turned back (Ps. 114:3). But the Lord is no longer present on a gold-covered ark. He has come in the flesh. That’s why the voice declared Him God’s Son and the Spirit rested on Him. Truly God is one of us and is with us.
And He will lead us to victory. At His Baptism the river didn’t part, but the heavens opened. He was not opening the way to Canaan, but the way to the Father. He is not going to drive out another nation and give us their land. He is going to destroy the power of the devil and lead us to freedom. “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Heb. 2:14-15) He leads us into “the freedom of the glory of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:21). We will share the glory of God and see His face. We will rise from the dead in immortal bodies and be liberated from sin forever.
And this has already begun for you, because you have been baptized into Christ. You not only follow Jesus into freedom. You have been joined to Him and share in His victory through your baptism. You have died and risen again. You enter with Him into the glory of God.
In tender manhood God the Son
In Jordan’s water standeth;
The Holy Ghost from heaven’s throne
In dove-like form descendeth;
That thus the truth be not denied,
Nor should our faith e’er waver,
That the Three Persons all preside
At Baptism’s holy laver,
And dwell with the believer. Amen. (Martin Luther, ELHB #401)
The Joy of the Doctrine of Justification. Trinity 11, 2019
11th Sunday after Trinity
St. Peter Lutheran Church
St. Luke 18:9-14
September 1, 2019
The Joy of the Doctrine of Justification
Iesu iuva!
Beloved in Christ,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the last Sunday I will preach here as your pastor. That makes it a sad day, because God has bound us together over these years. He has taught us together.
But in our Lord Jesus’ kingdom, sadness never has the final word. Joy has the final word. I will not be the called servant of God’s Word at St. Peter anymore, but I will always be your pastor. It was through you God called me into the office of preaching the Gospel. And because we are members of one holy communion, I am yours forever. That is what “the communion of saints” means. A communion, a fellowship is a sharing. We share in the one body and blood of Jesus at this altar. All He has he shares with us. And we who have a share in Jesus through faith in Him also belong to one another. One bread, one body.
So that is joy in the midst of sadness. And our Lord has given us other joys, great joys. You have two new sisters in Christ, newly risen from what St. Paul calls the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), the washing of Baptism. They stand among us today with the cross of Jesus marked on their brow, made holy, clothed with robes that have been made white in the blood of the Lamb. We have waited and prayed for this. About a year ago, Amber, you asked to be baptized at VBS. I told the church council about it because I was excited. And here you are, together with Breanna—you went through catechetical instruction many years ago. Now both of you are going home from St. Peter justified, as Jesus said about the tax collector in the Gospel reading from Luke. And that is joy for every Christian here.
And after the sermon, Billy and Breanna will confess that they believe Christ’s teaching that they learned from me, found in the Scripture, witnessed by the Small Catechism of Martin Luther. How can we not be overjoyed to hear that you have been made disciples of Jesus as He commanded—Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you? Every Christian has to rejoice that you have been taught all of Christ’s Word and now confess that you believe it and intend to live and die by it.
Understand though, that there is pain in the Christian life. You have been marked with the cross. There is pain at the beginning of the Christian life, at the end of it, and all the way through. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? (Romans 6) Paul asks that at the beginning of Romans chapter 6. When you are baptized you are joined with Jesus in His death; that is not a one-time thing. It continues throughout our life on earth. But pain and sorrow do not have the final word in Christ’s Kingdom. Joy has the final word, and Christians come to know God’s joy in the very midst of the cross that God sends them.
It was joy that drew me into the ministry. That was the bait on the hook with which Christ hooked me. And joy in a specific teaching of the Bible—what we call the doctrine of justification. It is the part of Christian teaching that Paul said in the reading from Corinthians is of first importance. Justification is what Jesus came into the world for. It is what pastors are here for. It is what Baptism is about. And when it is taught rightly and believed it brings joy.
So it is my joy to preach my last sermon on the doctrine of justification, which our Lord Jesus teaches about in the Gospel reading. If you have that teaching and believe it and stay with it—you newly baptized and confirmed, and you who were baptized and confirmed a long time ago—and you who have not been baptized or confirmed—if you believe this teaching you will be saved, and you will have joy.
Jesus pictures this doctrine in the parable we heard of the tax collector and the Pharisee.
He tells us about two men who go into the temple to pray. He tells us what their prayers are like and what kind of people they are. Then we hear him say: I tell you, this many went down to his house justified, rather than the other (18:14), that is, the tax collector. But what does Jesus mean by that word “justified”? He is saying when the tax collector goes home, he goes home with God having declared him righteous. God judges him to be right and good in his sight. The other man, the Pharisee, goes home not righteous in God’s sight. That means, he goes home guilty, not a friend of God but an enemy.
Even though “justification” is not a word we use a lot except in church—and in many churches, not even there—you can see why it is important. We need to be righteous before God, He needs to regard us as righteous, if we are not to be His enemies, if we are to be saved after we die. But we also need to be righteous in His sight if we are going to live in this world with the confidence that God is with us.
But what Jesus teaches about justification before God goes against the way everyone thinks.
People of course have all kinds of different religious beliefs—in this country and across the world. But there is a common idea that unites everyone, and that is that the way to being right with God is being right and doing right. People have different ideas about what that means. The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable had his ideas about “being right and doing right” shaped by God’s commandments that were given through Moses to the people of Israel, including the ten commandments. So when he prays, he comes into the temple and thanks God that he is righteous, at least compared to other people, because he does not cheat people out of their money, commit adultery, and do other unjust things. In addition he gives ten percent of everything he gets in income to God. These were things he knew he was supposed to do or not do because God commanded “You shall not steal,” and “You shall not commit adultery.” He also told the people of Israel they were supposed to tithe ten percent of their income to God.
In other places and times people haven’t always had the ten commandments. In our country today people don’t know the ten commandments like they once did. But people still know that there is a right and wrong, even if they are misguided about what it is. And people today generally think along the same lines as the Pharisee—God loves me because I basically am good. I’m certainly better than all the hypocrites over there anyway.
Some people say they don’t believe in God, or He doesn’t factor much into their thinking. But you will never find a person who doesn’t care if they are justified. Everyone wants to be recognized as worth something, as having meant something. Everyone looks for this. Even people who don’t care much what other people think want to be able to say that their life on earth was valuable, not a waste.
Everybody cares about justification, and everybody goes about different ways of trying to justify themselves. But we can’t justify ourselves, because we are not the judge. God is the judge.
And see what happens with the Pharisee. He was a man who seemed to be very concerned with God. But he went home “not justified.” God did not justify him because, though he kept away from adultery, though he engaged in spiritual practices like fasting and gave his money to God, it wasn’t enough. He believed that doing more than other people made him righteous and good in God’s sight. But it doesn’t.
To have God regard you as righteous is not a matter of doing better than other people but a matter of doing what God requires of you.
To be good in God’s eyes means to love God and trust Him above everything else—money, your health, your family. But anyone who says he loves God like that without wavering is in denial. The Bible says that he who does not love his brother whom he can see cannot love God, whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20). And who loves the people around him perfectly? Our selfishness, our self-love keeps us from seeing the people around us and caring about them as we should.
Why does the tax collector go home justified? Jesus says, because Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). Jesus doesn’t mean humiliating yourself wins God’s favor. He is saying that when you come to God admitting the truth about yourself—that you have broken His commandments, that you are not righteous but a sinner, that you do not deserve His praise but His punishment—that is the beginning of the way to God. The kind of humbling yourself Jesus is talking about is admitting what the ten commandments reveal about you—that in yourself you keep falling short of what God requires. This is painful. And it isn’t just at the beginning of being a Christian that we experience this pain, but all the way through. We grow as Christians not by becoming more able to stand on our own; we grow as Christians by becoming more dependent on God’s mercy.
But there is something else in this tax collector’s prayer. When he says, “God be merciful to me,” the word “be merciful” actually contains the word for “a sacrifice that atones for sin.” He’s not just asking for God to be merciful in a general way, but to forgive his sins on account of the sacrificial blood that covers his sin.
In the temple in Jerusalem there was an altar. Every day many animals were sacrificed at that altar. The one who sinned would lay his hand on the animal’s head and confess his sins that needed to be covered. Then the animal’s throat would be cut and the priest would catch the blood in a bowl, because according to the book of Leviticus, the life (or soul) of the flesh is in the blood. And God told the Israelites, I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life (or the soul) (Lev. 17:11). The blood of the animal contained its life, and when the priest sprinkled the blood on God’s holy altar or poured it on the base of the altar or put sprinkled it before God’s presence in the most holy place, the animal’s life or soul was for atonement, or covering. The penalty of sin is death, but God accepted the animal’s life in place of the sinner.
But this was only temporary, because it is actually impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). Just like ordinary water can’t make a person clean from sin, an animal’s life is not sufficient to make us right before God. But God accepted them temporarily until the sacrifice came that was enough to cleanse us from our sins.
That sacrificial victim was the one who taught this parable. Jesus is human, like us, but He is also God. When He suffered on the cross, God suffered. His blood is not merely human; it is the blood of God. When this blood was shed, this life was offered up, it truly took sins away, not just from one or two men, but all people.
The person who comes to God acknowledging that he is the sinner, and clinging to the sacrifice God provided for us, the blood that purifies and atones for our sin—Jesus’ blood—that person goes home justified before God. Just like that.
We call it “justification by faith alone.” The Pharisee tries to approach God with his own works and is not justified. The tax collector clings only to the atoning blood to cover his sin and goes home righteous before God.
Jesus does not talk in His parable about the joy of justification. But joy is what flows from this teaching, and without it being taught clearly we cannot know real joy. Certainly not in the church.
When you see your sins before God like the tax collector did that hurts, but to hear God announce your sins forgiven is a joy greater than the pain.
And there is another joy—the joy of someone else being set free from their sins. The joy of seeing tears run down someone’s face as they are released from the burden of their sins that they carried alone.
Pastors experience this joy, but it is not just for them. It is meant for all the Christians in the church.
My friends, you are uniquely situated to experience this joy. You have been given this pure teaching of justification, where our works are strictly separated from God’s work in shedding His blood for our justification.
You have preserved in your midst the means of grace that God uses to confer the forgiveness of sins won by Christ’s blood. You have baptism, not just as water that symbolizes something we have chosen, but God’s baptism, where the water is joined with His Word and we are washed and presented before God spotless in Christ’s blood.
You have the absolution Jesus gave to his church, the authority to forgive sins: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them they are not forgiven. (John 20)
You have the sacrament of the altar where we receive not just bread and wine and say “This symbolizes Christ’s body and his atoning blood.” No, you receive His body and the blood that atones for your sins.
You have these gifts of God preserved among you. Jesus wants to bring tax collectors in here and send them home justified. He is doing it today.
You will know His joy in justifying tax collectors as you grow in Him, as you grow in the painful realization that you are tax collectors. As you come to see your sins as great, not small, many, not few, you will experience the joy tax collectors and sinners experienced when they met Jesus and God justified them through Him. It is not a joy for the beginning of our lives as Christians but for the middle and the end as well.
And how will this happen, that you will grow and learn to see your sins as great? Luther told you that in the catechism a long time ago when you were being prepared to be confirmed, in the questions he wrote for you to use to examine yourself before you go to the Lord’s table.
What should we do when we eat His body and drink His blood, and in this way receive His pledge? We should remember and proclaim His death and the shedding of His blood, as He taught us: this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
Why should we remember and proclaim His death? So that we may learn to believe that no creature could make satisfaction for our sins…that we may learn to be horrified by our sins, and regard them as very serious…Third, so we may find joy and comfort in Christ alone, and through faith in Him be saved.
So come then with your great sins and receive the blood that cleanses them, and keep coming, and let His justifying word be your all.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
The Right Use of Beauty. Martyrdom of John the Baptist/Altar Guild Service 2019
Martyrdom of John the Baptist/ Altar Guild Service
St. Peter Lutheran Church
St. Mark 6:14-29
August 29, 2019
The Right Use of Beauty
Iesu Iuva!
Beloved in Christ,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the last several years at this service we have observed the festival of John the Baptist’s martyrdom, because it is the closest festival day to the last Thursday in August. But this year the last Thursday in August actually falls on the day of John’s martyrdom. And so my robes are red.
Red goes with Pentecost and the fire of the Holy Spirit. It also goes with blood—the blood of the martyrs, who, by the burning faith and love worked by the Spirit, bore witness to our Lord Jesus not only with words but with their red blood. With their blood they testified to the salvation won by Jesus Christ, and the power of faith in His name.
So you see the red of this chasuble. It is beautiful, but it points to something fewer people think beautiful—the blood of many Christians that poured out from their bodies, who were reflections of their Lord, from whose head and hands and feet and side blood poured and streamed. His streaming blood, His bloody death purchased salvation from sin and hell. With their red blood they bore witness, they testified to the certainty of the salvation won by our Lord.
Even today blood pours from the bodies of Christians all over the world, in streams wider and fuller than at any time in history. The time of the martyrs was not 1900 years ago. It is now.
But those suffering and dying are not, in many cases, people whose parents and grandparents and ancestors for generations have been baptized. They are new Christians, yet these new Christians are called by our Lord to suffer or even die for His name, and they answer His call and join the souls under the altar in heaven.
It is different with the Christians around us. We appear to be living in a unique time, when European culture, what used to be called “Christendom,” is shedding the last vestiges of its Christian identity. We are having difficulty adjusting to this. We are having difficulty losing the prestige and the numbers we once had when our countrymen all claimed to be Christians and built beautiful churches to have their children baptized and married in. We are not being asked to lose our lives. Christ is calling us to lose our status, to be lowly and despised, to be poor and few in number. And we are struggling with this. Many are refusing to give these things up.
Parents who still bring their kids to church usually want their kids to experience a full church, a vibrant church, with lots of other kids and lots of activities for kids, even though churches like these are becoming rarer, and those that have these things and also teach the pure doctrine of Christ rarer still.
Churches are still hoping against hope that the pews will become full again. Meanwhile many of them are trying to hang on to what they had when the churches were full, even though they are no longer full. It is hard to accept that Jesus may be calling us to let these things go.
Many Christians think the people and the kids and the money and the feeling of being “vibrant” and so on are necessary. They run after these things even when doing so means leaving God’s pure word behind. They can’t imagine church without these things. They fear that their children will abandon Christianity if it isn’t fun and doesn’t feel like it’s growing and prestigious.
Those who remain in the church keep being nagged by the temptation that Moses has been on the mountain too long and now it is time to make gods to lead them out of the desert. We are tempted to look for anything that will make Christianity appealing to our kids, grandkids, and neighbors, so that they would come back.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into His death? (Rom. 6:3) That is a call from the apostle to remember what life we were given when we were baptized. He does not think that the Romans (or you) don’t know. You do know. Death is not a special way for the elite Christians, the martyrs. Death is the way for every Christian. We were baptized into Jesus’ death on the cross. We are baptized into His death—unless we turn away. Our lives are death with Jesus and resurrection with Jesus. There is no other way to be a Christian, no other way for the Church. If we want to avoid death with Jesus, we want to avoid being Christians. If we try to find a way to convince people to be Christians that does not involve dying to their desires to be rich and important and be in a beautiful religious facility with lots of other popular, non-embarrassing people—we are finding a way to be ashamed of Jesus. Because Jesus said, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel’s will find it. (Mark 8:34-35) Even if your life does not end with nails through your hands and feet, you have already been crucified with Christ in Baptism, and every day your old nature must be crucified with Christ again. Your demands to have the love of this world, the honor of this world, the praise of this world—you must die to it and go with Jesus and accept the scorn of this world, the mockery of this world, perhaps the loss of a full church, a youth group, a church with a steeple and stained glass.
Christ’s church does not lie to people. Churches do, but His true church doesn’t. It doesn’t promise people their best life now. It doesn’t say “Jesus will never ask you to do something really hard, or suffer.” It tells people—Jesus calls you to repent, and to repent means to die.
She speaks like John the Baptist did. A king married a woman. The woman had divorced the king’s brother so she could marry the king. John told the king, “It is not lawful to marry your brother’s wife. You are lost unless you repent.” By repent John did not mean that King Herod should feel bad but stay married to Herodias. He meant he should send Herodias back to his brother. He could never be married to her and be right with God.
But of course this would offend Herod, wouldn’t it? Then Herod would never join John’s church. That’s the way people in churches often talk. John did not talk this way. He talked like a man sent by God to turn the sinful to repentance.
Pastors have to ask themselves: Is that the way I speak to the unrepentant?
Churches have to ask themselves: Is that the message unrepentant sinners in our congregation and outside our congregation get? If not, are we willing to say that to them, and let the pastor say it to them? To say, “Repent, you are lost”? To be in earnest, as if heaven and hell is real, and the unrepentant are headed for hell?
If not, no matter how much we talk about Jesus, we are not following Him. We are walking in another way than His, one without the cross. The world has to repent of its lawless immorality, but we have to repent in the church of our wanting to be Christ’s while refusing to bear His cross.
If what I am saying is striking home with you, then you know that you have done just as Herod did. He was called to go the difficult way of repentance. He chose to save face and put John to death instead. Like Pilate also who, forced to choose between Jesus and angering the Jews and Caesar, went against his conscience and crucified the man he knew was from God. Like Peter who, though he wanted to be faithful to Jesus, at the moment of crisis denied Jesus to save his life. We have done this, and though it may have given us a temporary reprieve or a short term profit, when we did it we forfeited our souls.
Had Herod listened to John and come in unconditional surrender to God, John would have baptized him. He would have lost Herodias his brother’s wife, but he would also have lost his sins.
The baptism that brought us into the church did not only forgive our sins. It joined us with Jesus who went to death rather than turn aside from God. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into His death?
You who are baptized into Christ and believe in Him are like Peter. You want to die rather than deny Jesus. You believe He is the Son of God. You want to go with Him even to death because you believe in Him and you love Him. You want to be a faithful witness. But you falter. You have many times. You were afraid to stand with Jesus. You sought to preserve your life in this world, even though Jesus said, Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it; whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. You tried to be Christ’s disciples and still please the world and your flesh.
Return to your baptism. There you died with Jesus. There your sins were washed away. There, fleeing compromise with the world, you are raised from the dead to walk in newness of life. Not to follow the Pharisees in a self-chosen holiness from the flesh, but to go with Jesus to the cross, to lose your life in this world, and gain what is life indeed. Have you faltered? So did Peter. Return to Baptism where your faltering flesh is dead and the life of Christ has raised you.
Come to this altar; receive the finished salvation of Jesus. Eat His body. Drink His blood. Receive His power that enables you to bear witness to Him in a world that demands you bow your knee to it and its ruler.
No! You are Christ’s. You will go to Him and conquer the world as He did and as the martyrs did.
As long as He continues to give us beautiful churches, robes, paraments, we will use them to bear witness to the shedding of His blood. You can use them without fear as a Christian because they are not your gods. They are simply gifts. You have died to this world with Him.
But if He allows them to be taken, don’t be afraid.
If we are friendless, homeless, poor, because we are His, that is a more beautiful robe than can be made with hands, or washed, or ironed by your hands. If you are small and forsaken, if you lose people, if you lose paraments, workers, vestments because you are poor, your Lord adorns you with His poverty and lowliness. It is a royal honor. “Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are you when others revile you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matt. 5)
May the Lord Jesus teach us to see and rightly use both kinds of beauty—the beauty you work with in the altar guild, and the beauty of the cross.
The peace of God which passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Death and Life; Hypocrisy and Reality. Ash Wednesday 2018.
Ash Wednesday
St. Peter Lutheran Church
St. Matthew 6:16-21
February 14, 2018
Death and Life; Hypocrisy and Reality
Iesu Iuva
Death has been in front of our eyes in recent weeks, and today we are reminded again with the black ashes on many of our foreheads that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Today the black ashes are on our foreheads, tomorrow they will be gone. But even when they are gone, we will still live in a world in which death’s mark is stamped on every person in it, as though every person we meet had a forehead smeared with black ash.
But death does not reign in the Church, over Christians. Our Savior Jesus Christ…abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, the apostle says (2 Tim. 1:10). And we are His people, baptized into His death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6) We have a beautiful picture of this whenever a little child is baptized. We light a small candle from the paschal candle, the candle lit on Easter, that symbolizes Christ’s resurrection from the dead. That little burning flame is a picture of the new life that we have received from Christ.
The new life that is in us is Christ’s life. It is more powerful than death. On Christmas Day we heard the words of St. John’s gospel: In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The little baby in the manger, and the little light born in us in Baptism, are stronger than the darkness of death in us because the life of Christ is the life of God. It is not overcome by the darkness of sin and death in us. It burns in the midst of the darkness in our flesh and, growing ever stronger, finally burns up the darkness and fills us with the light of life
Why is it, then, that the darkness within us seems to blot out the light of Christ’s life? St. Peter says this in the epistle reading: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness [1 Peter 1:3]. It is ours, yet we must make every effort, as St. Peter says, to take hold of it. And when we do not, the flame begins to sputter. Faith flutters. The new life grows dim.
So during Lent we examine ourselves to see where the darkness remains in us, where death has crept back in. We meditate on Jesus’ passion to see the reflection of our sin and death. And to aid our meditation, Christians fast.
We are called to do this not just during Lent but always. We heard St. Paul discuss this a few weeks ago: Every athlete exercises self control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable…[so] I discipline my body and keep it under control (1 Cor. 9:25, 27). Fasting is self-discipline; it refers specifically to moderation in eating and drinking and to abstaining from food or drink for a period of time. We do this to keep alert, to keep sharp so that we may devote ourselves to meditation and prayer and to serving our neighbor. More broadly, fasting includes throwing off every hindrance to rising to new life with Christ, moderating our use of television, internet, phones, or abstaining for a time so that we may give our attention to the one thing needful—Jesus Christ.
Jesus expects that his followers will fast. When you fast, He says in the Gospel reading. What does that mean except that Jesus expects that we will fast, that we need to fast?
He doesn’t reject all fasting, but false fasting, done to win praise from other people, done so that we may be proud of our own spirituality. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
Piercing words from our Lord for those who fast, or do other religious works only to take pride in themselves! Jesus calls them hypocrites. They have a reward—in the misplaced admiration of other people, in their own high esteem of themselves. But they have no reward from God for this.
Instead God condemns their fasting, churchgoing, praying as false and empty. They are only pretending to pray, or go to church, or fast, pretending to love and serve God. In reality, they are loving and serving only themselves.
How evil it is to use God’s name to make yourself a name! Yet isn’t this what most religion boils down to? Don’t even true Christians do this? How many times have you acted piously, religiously, when your heart was far from God, not humble, not grieving over your sins, not desiring his grace, full of self-righteousness? Oh, the bitter ashes we taste when we realize this about ourselves, that so often we ignored Jesus whipped, condemned, and pierced, and sought to glorify ourselves!
God relented from destroying Nineveh because they confessed their sins and eagerly sought His grace with fasting and prayer. Most Lutherans do not fast, so we are not liable to be proud about it. But in our worship, prayer, and work in the church we frequently forget that like Nineveh God has pronounced our overthrow, together with all who disobey His Law. Before we realize it, we have forgotten what we are, become confident in our religious works, satisfied with ourselves because we seem to be doing more than others.
True Christian fasting is not done in this spirit. Christian fasting is not done for men, not even for ourselves. It is done because we desire life from Christ, because we confessing from the heart that we are dust and ashes. It is done because we desire life from Christ; we desire forgiveness, and we desire not to live in sin any longer. It is done because we want to become like Christ. A Christian who fasts in the way approved by God forgets about himself and what others think about him because he is looking at Jesus.
This kind of fasting has a reward from God. Jesus says, When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The reward of the Father is life. He sees what is in secret. He sees the broken and contrite heart yearning to be forgiven, to be at peace with God, to become like Christ. And He rewards such a heart with its desire. He forgives our sins and makes Christ’s light burn more brightly in us until all darkness in us is burned away.
This new and contrite heart is God’s work, not ours. He creates it in us through His Law. And when faith in the good news of Christ enters the contrite heart, life comes in. When we fast, we train the members of our bodies so that they do not lead us astray with the desires of the flesh and put out the life of Christ in us. We train our members to seek life in Christ; our ears to hear His Word, our heart and mind to meditate on the Savior that the Word proclaims, our tongue to call upon Him. And the reward is that this life grows in us. We grow in virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, and love; vice, ignorance, self-indulgence, cowardice, and selfishness dies off in us. And as Peter says, we make our calling and election sure; we grow in the assurance that the life God has planted in us will reach its fulfillment, and the light of Christ’s life will fill our whole bodies with light.
That is what we are after during these forty days of Lent. We are straining ahead to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of us when we were baptized. We are straining toward the heavenly reward of the Father, when we will be like Him, when we will be completely new, and life will replace death.
It seems far away and difficult, and it is. Between you and that reward stands the cross to which you and I must be nailed and die.
But if you desire it, it is not far; you only need to come a few steps to take the body of Christ and to drink the blood which He poured out for the life of the world, for your life. If what you long for is everlasting life in heaven—come, for everlasting life is here. Everything is ready. Come and receive the life of the Son of God.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Soli Deo Gloria
Made Clean. 14th Sunday after Trinity, 2017.
Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
St. Peter Lutheran Church
St. Luke 17:11-19 (Gal. 5:16-24)
September 17, 2017
“Made Clean”
Jesus
If someone asks you, “What is the Lutheran Church? What makes it different from other churches?”—and you had to give a quick answer—the answer would be this: the doctrine of justification. We say that a sinner is declared righteous by God for Jesus’ sake, solely through faith in Him, without any works.
But the Bible has other ways of describing what God has done for us in sending His Son into the flesh. One is what we see Jesus doing in the Gospel reading today—He purifies the ten lepers, or makes them clean.
Jesus is headed down to Jerusalem. As He goes through a town, a group of men with leprosy stand at a distance from Him and shout, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! They are a long way off from Jesus because God’s Law commanded that they be. It condemned people with leprosy as unclean or impure.
God is not only righteous and just; He is also pure and clean. So He commanded that the impure were not allowed among the people with whom He dwelt. The unclean were not allowed into His house. Lepers had to live outside the camp with their clothes torn, in mourning. Whenever an Israelite came by who didn’t have leprosy, they had to shout “Unclean, unclean!” to warn them.
Uncleanness and impurity separated lepers from God and His holy community. They stood far away from Jesus, yet from far off they cried to Him: Have mercy on us!
They must have heard about Jesus—how He had healed many others who were paralyzed, who had fevers, who were blind, how He cast out demons. They believed that Jesus, who had overcome the devil’s power over other people, could and would take away their impurity.
And Jesus didn’t disappoint them in their trust. He heard their cry and told them, Go, show yourselves to the priests.
The Law commanded that if a leper was healed, he had to go to the priests at the temple and be examined by them. If the priests found that the leper had been cleansed, they would perform two rites: one to purify him, and the other to reinstate him as a member of the holy people.
So when Jesus says, Go, show yourselves to the priests, He is telling them to believe that He has granted what they called out for even though they don’t see it. Even though you don’t see it yet, I have granted your prayer. I have mercy on you. You are cleansed. Go to the priests and let them acknowledge it.
And as they went, says the Holy Spirit through St. Luke, they were cleansed.
Jesus purifies us from the leprosy of sin and brings us before God’s face.
Leprosy has mostly been rooted out of the modern world. But our sense of impurity hasn’t gone away. Look at how people carry around little bottles of hand sanitizer to kill any germs they may get from contact with other people! Look at how obsessed our society is with bodily perfection and health, and how increasingly we eliminate babies with physical defects, aborting them so that they never see the sun! We don’t do these things from religious impulses. But the fact that we are so preoccupied with them shows how people continue to recognize intuitively the need for purity and wholeness, at least in regard to the body.
That feeling that we need to be pure, to be clean, is correct. Uncleanness, sickness, deformity is a manifestation of the corruption and death at work in our bodies. And the reason why corruption and death are at work in our bodies is because of the impurity of our souls, even our whole natures. Original sin, in which we are conceived, passed down to us from Adam and Eve, makes us impure and unclean before God even before we think or do anything sinful. And just like skin diseases break out in boils, scabs, or running sores, so original sin breaks out in impure thoughts, words, and actions against God.
We were all born with this leprosy. It is not something we have any power to cure. It corrupts everything we think, everything we do. And it separates us from God. We cannot come into His presence when we are unclean with sin; we can’t be numbered among His holy people. Behold, (A)the Lord‘s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;2 (B)but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. (Is. 59:1-2)It isn’t just our evil words and evil deeds that separate us from God, but the evil nature with which we are conceived, so that all that by nature provokes the wrath of God.
Yet we sit here this morning not defiled, but clean. Not alienated from God, but reconciled to Him, and brought near to Him.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, (BC)doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled (BD)in his body of flesh by his death, (BE)in order to present you holy and blameless and (BF)above reproach before him (Col. 1:21-22), says St. Paul in Colossians 1. We were brought near to God and cleansed of our sins when Jesus was cast out as the one who bore the impurity of our deeds and thoughts and even of our nature. As He bore that impurity on the cross and the sun was darkened, He cried out that God had forsaken Him.
That was the purification of our uncleanness. It says in Hebrews 10: 12 But when Christ[b] had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he (Q)sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time (R)until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering (S)he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. By a single sacrifice He perfected sinners; by that one sacrifice He purified us of sin.
Jesus was going down to Jerusalem to do this very thing when the lepers cried out to Him. When our parents brought us to the church as little ones, seemingly innocent yet already impure and alienated from God in our minds, through the pastor Jesus received us and cleansed us in the washing with water through the Word (Eph. 5). He baptized us, putting us to death with Him and raising us up with Him. We died to the old life of Adam. We rose in Christ to a new life as children of God, free from condemnation and sin. Our sins were covered. We were brought into the communion of saints, the holy people of God. We were purified from the uncleanness of sin, and God came to dwell, not in a tent near us, but in our bodies.
It is true that we still feel the old nature working in us, making our conscience dirty again, making us think evil thoughts and provoking us to do evil deeds. But the thrashing around of the old Adam is not counted to us, as long as we are led by the Spirit, as long as daily we resist and crucify the flesh and return to our Baptism to die in repentance and rise through faith in Jesus alone.
So as often as we feel the old nature and its impurity, Jesus comes to us through the pastor in holy absolution. We confess our sins, and Jesus testifies that our sins are forgiven—which means that they are loosed from us, they are not counted to us, and we are not cast out as unclean, but we are pure and clean and brought to our Father in heaven.
This is what the letter to the Hebrews is talking about when it says: 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts (AA)sprinkled clean (AB)from an evil conscience and our bodies (AC)washed with pure water. (Heb. 10:22) Jesus sent the lepers to the temple. They did not yet see that they were clean, but they went in faith. We draw near to God in faith that Jesus has made us clean, trusting His cross, where He provided purification for sins, trusting His promise in Baptism, where He applies that purification to us. We see that impurity is still at work within us. It seems, sometimes, overwhelming. But we don’t believe in it. We consider Jesus’ promise greater than what we see with our eyes, and His work more powerful than the works of our flesh.
Jesus purifies us from the leprosy of sin, and brings us to stand with confidence before the face of God.
But in the reading, something awful happened. Jesus cleansed ten lepers. Nine of them were Jews, who were descendants of Abraham and heirs of God’s promises. One was a Samaritan—a foreigner. Yet out of the ten men for whom Jesus did this amazing miracle of cleansing and restoration, only the Samaritan came back to thank Him!
Was it because the others thought they should thank God in the temple and not at the feet of Jesus? Was it because the priests at the temple convinced them Jesus was a false prophet? We aren’t told. We only hear Jesus faulting them for not thanking God at His feet.
How awful it is to face the reality that the same thing happens among us! Jesus has cleansed many people of something worse than leprosy in this place. When He baptized them, He washed away the uncleanness of original sin that separates people from God forever.
Yet most do not come back to give thanks here where Jesus is present in flesh and blood. So many baptized babies we never see again after their parents bring them to be baptized. They bring them to Jesus to be baptized, but not to hear His Word or receive His body and blood.
But some are brought back long enough to be confirmed and admitted to the sacrament of the altar. Then, after their confirmation day, a few months or years later, they too are gone.
And others keep coming. Yet though they thank Jesus with their lips, it is just lip service. They do not cast themselves facedown at the feet of Jesus, thanking Him for making them clean. They come as those performing a religious duty, not with the joy of those who have been made clean and pure by Jesus’ blood, but as those who think they have kept themselves pure.
How do we know that we are not one of the nine who were cleansed and then fell back into spiritual death?
Because we trust in this only: that Jesus has purified us from the leprosy of sin and brought us into the presence of God. When we see the thanklessness and unbelief in our hearts, we turn our eyes and our ears to His promise. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness…If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world (1 John 1:9, 2:1-2). Jesus made purification for our sins on the cross. It is done. He bestowed that purification on us in Baptism. That too is done. That is what we cling to in faith. And as we continue to put to death our impure flesh, we come to Jesus for help. We draw near to God through Him, who alone can help us.
And He helps us. He spreads before us the blessed feast of thanksgiving, the Sacrament of His body and blood.
When the leprosy of your old nature seems to have broken out again, and you fear that you have relapsed into death and alienation from God, come to the table the Lord spreads. Pay attention only to His words: “for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” He is telling you that it is done. You are purified.
As you eat and drink, believing these words, you also lay your body and soul at His feet, that your life from then on may be for the praise of His glory. Then you go out from here, believing you are pure in God’s sight, and eager to glorify Him for this great mercy.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
To Jordan Came our Lord the Christ. Martin Luther, Trans. R. Massie.
This translation is far better than the one in The Lutheran Service Book. The last stanza is goosebump-inducing.
To Jordan came our Lord the Christ,
To do God’s pleasure willing,
And there was by Saint John baptized,
All righteousness fulfilling;
There did He consecrate a bath
To wash away transgression,
And quench the bitterness of death
By His own blood and Passion;
He would a new life give us.
So hear ye all, and well perceive
What God doth call Baptism,
And what a Christian should believe
Who error shuns and schism:
That we should water use, the Lord
Declareth it His pleasure;
Not simple water, but the Word
And Spirit without measure;–
He is the true Baptizer.
In tender manhood God the Son
In Jordan’s water standeth;
The Holy Ghost from heaven’s throne
In dovelike form descendeth;
That thus the truth be not denied,
Nor should our faith e’er waver,
That the Three Persons all preside,
At Baptism’s holy laver,
And dwell with the believer.
The eye of sense alone is dim,
And nothing sees but water;
Faith sees Christ Jesus, and in Him
The Lamb ordained for slaughter;
It sees the cleansing fountain, red
With the dear blood of Jesus,
Which from the sins, inherited
From fallen Adam, frees us,
And from our own misdoings.
M. Luther, 1541. Trans. R. Massie, 1854.
Hell’s dam-gates burst
Holy Baptism (Psalm 29:10)
Der Herr sitzet, eine Sündfluth anzurichten.* Und der Herr bleibt ein König in Ewigkeit.
Hell’s dam-gates burst: a man, the LORD
Ascends to rule the nations,
And to the flood He gives His Word
To pour out in salvation
O’er ev’ry nation, ev’ry tongue
Which for hell’s bath were numbered;
That those who in these depths are flung
With millstone sins encumbered
This very death will rescue.
Rev. Karl Hess
De Profundis Clamavi ad Te, Domine 