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Wednesday of Trinity 7. Revelation 5. The Lamb Who Was Slain. Sermons on the Crucifix
Wednesday of Trinity 7
Emmaus Lutheran Church
Revelation 5
August 3, 2022
A Lamb Standing As Though It Had Been Slain
Jesu juva!
In the Name of Jesus.
In the chapter preceding this one, St. John saw a vision of an open door in heaven. A voice like a trumpet called to him, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” (Rev. 4:1) John is carried up into heaven and sees a throne. One is sitting on the throne with the appearance of jasper and carnelian, surrounded by a rainbow of emerald. The one on the throne is surrounded by twenty-four elders with white robes and golden crowns, and four living beings, the heavenly guards, who look like a lion, a young bull, a man, and an eagle flying. Before the throne is a sea like glass. And whenever the four living beings give glory to God, saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come,” (Rev. 4:8), the twenty-four elders, the fathers of the Church, the patriarchs and apostles, fall down. They throw their crowns before the throne of the Father and say, “(Z)“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for (AA)you created all things,
and (AB)by your will they existed and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)
And now in this chapter John sees a scroll in the right hand of the Father. It is sealed up with seven seals, which means it is completely sealed. No one is able to open up or even look in to the scroll in the Creator’s hand. It is completely sealed up. John knows what is in it. The Father told him what was in it when the vision began: “The things that must take place after this.” But John cannot look into it. He is not able to open the seals. In fact no one in all creation is worthy. An angel called out to the whole earth, “Who is able to open the scroll and break its seals?” And all creation was silent. So John weeps loudly.
What’s so bad about not knowing the things that are to come? Our time is so foolish that it pretends it doesn’t care, even though the world does not know where it comes from or where it is going. It doesn’t know how this world and human beings came to be. It claims that by an accident human life emerged out of animal life. This is false. And it is miserable for the world not to know where it came from. Look around and see how miserable people are. They don’t believe that they were created by God in His image. They don’t believe that a loving and wise God created them that they might have abundant life. So our world acts like animals, and even worse than animals. We have convinced ourselves to disfigure our bodies, murder our children, and live lives with no dignity, living for entertainment and comfort instead of living as images of God.
But this ignorance about where we came from is willful. God has not hidden it from us. The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19). God’s attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, (AM)have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Romans 1:20). And besides the testimony God has left to us in creation and in our conscience, He has revealed His work of Creation in Holy Scripture.
The throne room of heaven gives all glory to God because He made all things. The elders are not willing to take glory away from God because it is solely by His gracious will that they even exist.
It is a terrible thing to be willfully ignorant of where you came from. It is also a terrible thing to be willfully ignorant of where you are going.
The world does not know that either. And that is also a choice. Because it has rejected the knowledge of the Son of God it does not know, it refuses to know, that its end is destruction. It is eternal damnation in the lake of fire because of its sins, and there will be no escape. It is a terrible thing to be self-deluded about this.
But it is also a sad thing for the Church not to know what is coming. The end. John knew something about it because the Lord Jesus had taught them about it while He was on earth. But there was more God wanted to reveal to the Church. That was the reason God summoned John into heaven—to reveal the things that are to come, so that Christians would be comforted as we live through the last days.
And this knowledge of the end was sealed up. God does not reveal everything to us. There are things He knows that we cannot know unless He reveals it to us. Daniel was told to seal up his prophecy until the time of the end. Before His ascension, the disciples asked Jesus if He was now going to restore the Kingdom to Israel. Jesus told them, “It is not for you to know (N)times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive (O)power (P)when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and (Q)you will be (R)my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and (S)Samaria, and (T)to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8-9) The Father did not want them (or us) to know the day of Jesus’ return, but to bear witness to Him until He comes again.
But there are many mysteries that were hidden in God before the foundation of the world that the Lord has made known to us. The Son of God’s coming in the flesh to redeem us was a mystery. The apostle Peter tells us that He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but revealed in these last days for our sake (1 Peter 1:20). St. Paul says his calling was to reveal a mystery hidden for ages: Christ among you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). Christ’s invisible presence in the midst of His Church.
Among the many treasures we have received in Christ’s Church is the treasure of this hidden knowledge of the end. We know that great suffering will come on the earth—wars, famines, pestilences. The creation will be destroyed. Before this the devil will raise up worldly power, an antichrist and a false church that will persecute Christians. He will lead the whole world astray except for those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. But even in the midst of these terrible times the Church will join in the heavenly worship of the Lamb, and His elect will overcome the world by His blood. Then the end will come. Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, and His bride, prepared as a bride for her husband, will descend from heaven to live in the new heavens and earth forever.
But how do we have that knowledge of the end that was sealed with seven seals? How do we have that counsel that was hidden in the all-knowing Father, that no human reason could search out?
Through the Lamb who was slain.
John sees Him standing among the elders. The Lamb suddenly appears. And where is He? Among His saints.
He has seven horns and seven eyes, which means that He has all power and His Holy Spirit fills the earth. The Lamb who was slain appears just as He describes Himself to His disciples after His resurrection: All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me (Matt. 28). When Jesus appears here in the heavenly throne room He has laid aside the form of a servant. He has taken up His divine power and begun to reign—the power that was His before the foundation of the world, because He is one substance with the Father.
But even though He has taken up the divine majesty, laid aside the form of a servant, Jesus still appears as a Lamb who was slain. One of the elders calls Him the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. But when He appears He does not appear like a Lion. He looks like a lamb. And not just any lamb, but a sacrificial lamb. A lamb who was slaughtered.
Just as the Israelites all slaughtered the Passover Lamb at twilight. They cut the poor little lamb’s throat, caught its blood in a bowl. They brushed the blood over the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they lived. Then they roasted that lamb inside and ate it.
Just as Abraham was going with Isaac, his only son whom he loved, up to Mount Moriah, which later was named Mount Zion, the temple mount. Isaac innocently asked, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “The Lord will himself provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”
And we have seen how the Lord provided the Lamb who took away the sin of the world. He sent Jesus to become one of us. We all like sheep have gone astray, said Isaiah. We have turned, every one, to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
The omnipotent, eternal Son of God, who utters his voice, and the earth melts (Psalm 46:6); whose voice shakes the wilderness (Ps. 29:8), whose word is like a fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces (Jer. 23:29). He became like a sheep who has gone astray. He came in the likeness of mortal man. And He was crushed, put to grief, and his soul was made a sin offering for us (Is. 53:10).
John the Baptist pointed him out after He was baptized. “Look, the Lamb of God.” He was numbered with the transgressors and bore the guilt of many. Then He was slaughtered for our offenses like a Lamb. He went without opening His mouth to Pilate when He was accused. He refused to dull the pain with gall and myrrh when they offered it to Him. He was forsaken by God so that in His resurrection you would be brought near and reconciled.
And He no longer suffers. But when He appears in Revelation as Lord and receives glory together with the Father, He appears as a Lamb who was slain.
When we lift an image of Him in the Church as the crucified, we are only lifting Him up as He appears to us in Revelation. There He appears in His glory and power as the one who takes the scroll and opens its seals, the scroll that reveals the end of this creation. He alone is worthy to open it. But He still appears as one who has been slain, crucified.
And the new song of the Church and all creation is the song that declares why He is worthy. Why is Jesus worthy to receive honor and glory and might and dominion forever and ever? Why is He worthy to bring the world to an end and judge the earth?
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. (Rev. 5:9-10)
Jesus is worthy to receive the Father’s hidden wisdom and make it known to us because He was slain and ransomed us and made us kings and priests together with Him. And we will reign with Him.
That’s not the way we think about worthiness. What makes a person worthy to be president or some other exalted position? We think—because he is the smartest or the best at some aspect of governing.
Why is Jesus worthy to reign over all creation and sit on the Father’s throne and put all His enemies under His feet? The new song of the church is not—because He is from the beginning, because He is omnipotent, although both of these things make Him worthy.
He is worthy because of something greater than that. Because He was in the form of God, in the majesty of God. But He emptied Himself, made Himself nothing, and took the form of a slave. He not only became like us. He made Himself lower than us, our servant. He took the deep shame of our sin, the deep misery of our condemnation. He became the Passover Lamb who Israel killed at twilight. We put Him to death with our highhanded transgressions. And He paid for us to belong to God, to have our sins blotted out, to be clothed in white robes, and to reign with Him. He put His blood on our door and gave us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink.
He is worthy not only because of His power and wisdom, but because of His amazing kindness and mercy, that He stooped down to suffer for His guilty creatures. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:8-11
In our Divine Liturgy we sing our highest praises of His glory at the same time that we sing about His humiliation. We sing “Holy Holy Holy” and then sing the song of Palm Sunday, the song the crowds sang when Jesus was approaching to die. We sing “Glory to God in the Highest”, “You alone are the Holy One” at the same time we confess Him as the one who takes away the sins of the world. The one who was born and put in the manger to become our Passover Lamb.
All creation will confess that the Lamb who was slain, Jesus, is Lord. But we confess Him as our Lord. We see His wounds and His suffering and do not turn away in fear or shame, but we rejoice and lift up our Lord who was crucified for us. And we allow no one to take His crucified body away from us. There we find our God who has all power, authority, wisdom, and honor. In Him is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, including the knowledge of salvation, the knowledge of our creation, the knowledge of our future. We see Him crucified and we see that we will reign with Him forever and ever.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
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
What is Baptism? Wednesday of Epiphany 1
Wednesday of Epiphany 1
Emmaus Lutheran Church
Matthew 3:13-17/ Catechism: What is Baptism?
January 12, 2022
What is Baptism?
Jesu juva!
What is Baptism? Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word.
Where is this written? Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Matthew: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
In the Name of Jesus.
Baptism is one of the two Sacraments of the Christian Church. Or three, if we want to expand the definition. “Sacrament” means “mystery” in Latin. Baptism truly is a mystery. There is far more to it than meets the eye.
All that the mortal eye beholds
Is water as we pour it
Before the eye of faith unfolds
The pow’r of Jesus’ merit
For here it sees the crimson flood
To all our ills bring healing
The wonders of His precious blood
The love of God revealing
Assuring His own pardon. (LSB 406 st. 7)
But a more literal, less poetic translation of Luther’s hymn reads this way:
The eye only sees the water
As people pour it out.
In the Spirit, faith recognizes the power
Of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And for him it is a red flood
Colored with the blood of Christ
Which makes whole all the wounds
We have inherited from Adam
And also committed ourselves.
But more could be said than Luther does in the constraints of meter and verse. St. Paul says we are baptized into Jesus’ death and buried with Him (Romans 6:3-4). In Baptism we join Jesus in His death and resurrection.
Jesus says that in Baptism we are born again of water and the Holy Spirit (John 3:5-6) and through this we enter the Kingdom of God.
Elsewhere St. Paul says that Jesus gave Himself up so that He might cleanse His church through Baptism, and present her to Himself as a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:25-27). Similar to Luther’s hymn, Paul describes Baptism as a washing empowered by and filled with His death and the shedding of His blood, that cleanses us of every stain and imperfection.
So you see that if you take just three of the New Testament’s passages on Baptism, you are face to face with a great mystery and an overwhelming gift.
In Baptism you die and rise again with Christ so that just as Jesus was free from death and sin forever after His resurrection, so a baptized person shares in Jesus’ defeat of death and sin.
A baptized person is reborn and lives by the Holy Spirit.
A baptized person is cleansed from every impurity and blemish.
Critics of this teaching say, “No, no, no. It isn’t that easy.”
On the one hand, as you know very well, you have the schwaermer, the swarming spirits who buzz like bees and wasps. And they say, “How can water do that? The Spirit must give make you a new creation. Someone pouring water on you can’t do all that.”
On the other hand, the Papists say, “Yes, Baptism is a mystery in which we are given the Holy Spirit, in which we are cleansed of original sin. But after we are cleansed, if we fall into mortal sin, our blemishes must be removed again in the Sacrament of Penance.”
So the Catechism begins in a very simple way. It asks “What is Baptism?” What is Baptism made up of? Who instituted Baptism? Who does what?
Luther teaches us to say, “Baptism is not just water, but the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s word.”
This is important for us to take to heart every day. Every day when you wake up you are baptized.
But when you live your life, it doesn’t seem to matter that you are baptized. Look, we get old like everyone else. We get sick like everyone else. We have many regrets in our lives. We have ongoing sins and weaknesses. And then you seem to become more holy, the Lord grants you to overcome one sin. You find so many more. What difference does it make that decades ago your parents handed you to the pastor and he took three handfuls of water and poured them on your head and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?”
Here is why it matters. Baptism is not just plain water. It is the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s word.
Which word of God is that water they splashed on your head included in and combined with? Luther points us to the Great commission: “Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
God commanded that Baptism happen. So the baptismal water is not ordinary water—it’s water poured out by the command of God.
So when someone says, “Baptism can’t do anything for you. It’s just water. Water can’t save anyone.” They are right. Water can’t save anyone. If I sprinkle water on you on my own authority that won’t do anything but get you wet.
But your Baptism was not done by my authority, or even the authority of the apostles. It was done at the command of God. Even evangelicals have to admit this. This isn’t a human ceremony like lighting incense in church, or lighting these candles. We may like incense and candles, but God did not command us to do it. It is a mere human ceremony.
Baptism is not like that. It has divine authority. Jesus solemnly commanded that it be done.
Baptism is not just commanded by God. The water of Baptism is not just water with God’s command behind it. It is water “combined with God’s Word.” God’s Word is wrapped up in the water. And when the water is poured upon you, you receive the word that is placed into the water like a diamond is placed into the ring. When you put on the ring, you put on the diamond. When you are baptized, you also put on the Word that is joined with the water.
And what diamond word is in the water? The Name of God: “The Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
When Jesus was baptized, as you heard, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended and came upon Jesus in the form of a dove. The Father’s voice thundered, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
The Holy Trinity appeared at the Baptism of Jesus. The three persons of God revealed themselves almost naked, in a way they had never appeared before.
Why was it that they appeared this way when John baptized Jesus? You heard Jesus saying what He was there at the Jordan to do: to fulfill all righteousness.
He was going to accomplish righteousness by being baptized as a sinner. That is a strange way to accomplish righteousness. But Jesus was going to accomplish righteousness by taking on the whole world’s sins, by confessing as His own the sins of the whole world.
At the same moment He did that He entered into His death on the cross. Later on His disciples come and ask Him to sit at His right hand in His kingdom. Jesus responds, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38)
He doesn’t say, “the baptism I am going to be baptized with,” but “the baptism with which I am baptized.” He has been baptized into death at the Jordan by John when He was baptized into the sins of the whole world.
And this is how He accomplishes all righteousness—by taking on sin and destroying it in His death.
And this is why when He is baptized, even though to our eyes sin has not been taken away and He has not died—heaven opens, the Father’s voice declares Him His Son, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus from heaven. It is like when the floodwaters recede from the earth, and Noah lets out the dove, and the dove does not come back. And the ark opens, and the world begins again. Noah comes out and sacrifices to God, and God smells the aroma of the barbecued meat and says, “I will never again destroy the earth.” He is pleased.
This is what happens when Jesus is baptized.
And when you were baptized, the word of God was in that water that came upon your head. The water had the name of the Triune God in it.
The triune God was given to you in that water. Jesus who accomplishes all righteousness, carries all sins, opens the heavens came to you in the water. The Holy Spirit who descended on Jesus from the open heavens was joined to you. And the Father whom Jesus pleases—He came to you and became yours. You could never please Him, but Jesus pleased Him. He became yours in the baptismal water.
What is baptism? Not just water, but water commanded by God, and joined with God’s Word.
So all your life you live in this world. You have sins and regret. You get sick. You have weaknesses. You are a fallen human being. You are frail. And it looks to our flesh like the baptismal water made no difference.
And reason says, How can that water you received as a baby do anything? You need the Spirit to make something of you, to convert you and heal all your wounds. And when the Spirit comes it can’t be through a handful of water the pastor pours on every baby that’s brought to him. When the Spirit comes, you will be like Elijah, picked up in one place and transported by the Spirit miles away, able to pray and the heavens close and don’t reign for 3 and a half years.
But baptism is not just ordinary water. It’s water God commanded to pour out. It’s water joined with the name of the Trinity. So when you received it you were given Jesus and with Him the Holy Spirit and the well-pleased Father. You died and were reborn. Heaven opened to you. You became a new creation.
Just as when Jesus was baptized He died and rose again. Heaven opened when He was baptized and God appeared because it was as though He had already atoned for the sins of the world. He took them on and He took on the death that comes from sin.
When you were baptized you died with Jesus and rose again a new creation. We can’t see it yet, but it has happened. What an unspeakable treasure! What a great mystery!
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
Wednesday of Trinity 23. 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5. “Pastoral Authority”
Wednesday of Trinity 23
Emmaus Lutheran Church
2 Thessalonians 2:13-17, 3:1-5
November 10, 2021
Pastoral Authority
Jesu juva!
In the Name of Jesus.
In seminary they gave us a book called The Minister’s Prayerbook, compiled by a professor from one of the seminaries of the American Lutheran Church, I think. At any rate it was one of the predecessor churches that joined to form the ELCA.
The best part of the book is an anthology of quotations on the ministry. There was one from a German professor or pastor from the early 20th century. I am going to tell you from memory what he said because I couldn’t find the book when I was preparing this earlier today.
The man wrote that he was fresh out of seminary, a chaplain visiting people in the hospital, making hamfisted attempts at pastoral conversation. And a man said to him, “If you were a ditchdigger, you’d have a more useful job than you have now.”
The pastor wrote that he thought about what the man said often, and it often seemed true. He said it seemed like the discrepancy between what was required of him as a pastor and his own abilities and character was so great that he thought a pastor was “an impossible figure” both before himself and the world. He wrote “Does a pastor have any authority at all?”
And he answered his own question this way: “A pastor’s authority comes solely from the fact that Christ ministers to him with the forgiveness of sins.”
A counterintuitive answer! A pastor’s authority comes from the fact that Jesus daily forgives his sins. And in forgiving his sins every day he enables the pastor to do his work each day in newness of life.
That would be an intriguing direction to follow. It is a very comforting truth to me, and it is not only true of pastors but of every vocation. Your authority as a mother or father or congregation member or husband or wife comes from Jesus daily forgiving your sins too.
But I want to direct your attention instead to St. Paul’s words in chapter 3 verse 4, which were the ones that made me start thinking about this whole question of pastoral authority: We are confident in the Lord about you, that what we command you you are doing and will do.
It is an extraordinarily bold thing to say. I can’t imagine a pastor talking that way today.
St. Paul does not seem to be troubled at all with the problem of authority. He seems quite confident that he has it and is not afraid to use it.
But why? Because he was an apostle and saw the Lord Jesus?
No, St. Paul’s authority and boldness does not come from who he is. It is because he is not speaking from himself. He is exercising Christ’s authority. Paul has no other authority than that of the least important or impressive minister in the Church today. His authority is the authority of Jesus Christ to teach, forgiven and retain sins, and administer the sacraments.
That is not, of course, the way most lay people think about pastors. It is not the way most pastors think about themselves, even if they have a correct understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Ministry.
Walther writes in his famous book on Church and Ministry: “Therefore, when a pastor uses God’s Word in his congregation, whether by teaching, admonishing, reproving, or comforting, either publicly or privately, then the congregation hears Jesus Christ Himself out of his mouth. In that case it owes him unconditional obedience as the one by whom God desires to make known to it His will and lead it to eternal life, and the more faithfully a pastor administers his office, the more highly it should esteem him.” (Church and Ministry, pp. 303-304). Walther goes on to quote all the passages of Scripture that teach this, such as Luke 10:16, where Jesus says to pastors, He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.
So Paul is bold to say to the Thessalonians, “We are confident in the Lord that what we command you you are doing and will do.” He is confident what he commands is what Jesus the Lord commands. And so should pastors speak today in the certain authority of God’s Word, with the confidence that they have been sent to command and comfort in Christ’s name.
But there is more to say.
It is true, when a pastor proclaims God’s Law, you are hearing Jesus uncover your sin. Likewise, when I proclaim the Gospel, thanks be to God, you are not hearing my theological opinion. You are hearing Jesus Christ declare your sins cast into the depths of the sea. You hear Jesus open heaven to you.
But even though the whole world has an obligation to listen to Jesus, we know that not everyone does or will. Who does listen to Jesus? Christians. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)
When Jesus taught the crowd that He was going to give His flesh for the life of the world, the crowd grumbled. “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” And instead of backing off or explaining it, Jesus doubled down. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” John 6:53 So the majority of that crowd were offended and “turned back and no longer walked with Him.” (John 6:66) And Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (John 6:67)
Jesus didn’t force anyone to listen to His commands or accept the good news from His mouth. He preached and taught but He did not compel. Pastoral authority is also exercised in this way. Paul commands what Jesus commands, but in the gentleness of Jesus. He is confident the Thessalonians will obey His commands not because they are compelled to, but because they love Jesus. He knows they can disobey. He can’t force them. Even Jesus will not force them. But Paul is confident that the Thessalonians will speak like Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:69)
This is the way true pastoral authority operates. The pastor doesn’t depend on his charisma, doesn’t manipulate, he doesn’t depend on his own arm. He simply speaks Jesus’ word. And he knows that although there are evil men who will oppose God’s Word and persecute those who say it—for all men do not have faith (2 Thessalonians 3:2)—he also knows that Jesus’ sheep will hear His voice.
Often we pastors, and we churches, try to do business without Christ’s authority. We are used to doing things by human strength and ability. We make much of men. This one says, “I am of Paul,” and this one says, “I am of Apollos,” when in reality neither Paul nor Apollos is anything but only Jesus Christ. Paul and Apollos are only Christ’s instruments through which He does His great work of saving sinners.
But Paul can be bold to command the church in Thessalonica not because he is anything, but because he knows the Thessalonians will listen to Jesus.
This is why he says, “We ought always to give thanks for you…because the Lord chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” He thanks God for them because he knows the Lord has given them faith in Jesus so that they hear His voice, and when they receive His word, even through Paul, they say like Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
This is the same joy I have among you. I know that you have doubts and that you have an old Adam who doesn’t want to hear the commands of the Lord, just as I do. But I also know that when Jesus proclaims your sin to you, you don’t hear it as coming from me. You receive it as the Lord’s word. When you hear Jesus’ blood and wounds proclaimed to you, and the forgiveness of sins that has been won for you, you receive it not as my word, but the word of the Son of God. And because you believe in Him you want to serve Him. You want to hold to the traditions taught by the apostles. You want to be established in every good work and word. You desire your life, your household, and your church to be faithful to the word of the Lord Jesus. You desire this not because you are forced to , but because you love your Savior who died for you.
That is how Jesus exercises His authority among us. This is why St. Paul says, “We ought always to give thanks for you.” He looks at the Thessalonians and sees the creative work of Jesus in them. They have been made new creatures who love Him and listen to His Word. This is what we ought to see when we look at one another. Not only the faults of one another, but the fruits of Jesus’ authority among us. He has gathered a people here who receives His word, says, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” His little flock that He has chosen for salvation is here among us, receiving His Word from the right hand of God that brings us to eternal salvation.
Finally brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you (1 Thess. 3:1). Pray for me, that I may be able to preach His Word. Pray that it may speed ahead within this congregation and outside our walls. Because it is not my word or your word, but the word of Jesus, that conveys His precious death and the forgiveness of sins to sinners. Amen.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
Wednesday of Trinity 14. How the Word Came and How You Received It. 1 Thess. 2:1-16
Wednesday of Trinity 14
Emmaus Lutheran Church
1 Thessalonians 2:1-16
September 8, 2021
How The Word Came and How You Received It
Jesu juva
In the Name of Jesus.
In this chapter St. Paul begins by reminding the Thessalonians how He brought the Word of God to them, how they received it, and what fruit it bore in them.
Paul was brought to the Thessalonians with the Word out of suffering. He suffered for God’s Word in Philippi and was treated shamefully. This is the same word Jesus uses in Luke’s Gospel to tell His disciples what is going to happen to Him in Jerusalem. “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.” (Luke 18:31-33) Paul is mocked and treated shamefully and spit upon because He is bearing and carrying the divine Word. He is proclaiming Jesus Christ. So instead of being treated like one who is bringing salvation, he is mocked, abused, treated outrageously.
To be very blunt, this is also what we must expect to accompany the Gospel among us. There will be those who like the Thessalonians receive the Word with joy and honor the Word. But the world will ridicule it, treat the bearers of it shamefully, and eventually do worse—as they did to the Word Himself.
The Word came to Thessalonica through abuse and shameful treatment. And for the short time Paul preached it there, there was “much conflict.” There was not peace when the Gospel came. There was an uproar. There was no peace. We also should not expect that the Gospel of Christ will bring peace, at least not a worldly outward peace, since Jesus Christ Himself did not come to bring peace but a sword.
And Paul said when he brought the Gospel he did not seek glory from man. He did not flatter the Thessalonians, or try to please them or anyone else. He proclaimed the Gospel as in the presence of God, realizing that God was testing his heart. So when he preached he told them the truth from God about their sin and condemnation, that there was no good in them, that the way to heaven was narrow.
Just so we should expect preachers of the Word to come with a message that is not aimed at winning them praise. It is the message of God, and they are accountable to Him to speak what He says, whether we like it or not.
But even though the Word came to Thessalonica with suffering, conflict, and the salt of God, it also came with gentleness. Paul says: “We were like infants among you, so gentle were we. We were like a nurse cherishing her children, as we exhorted, comforted, and charged you to walk worthy of God, who calls you to His kingdom and glory.”
Though God’s Word comes to us with conflict and suffering, it also comes with divine tenderness. In His Word God calls us to His glory and eternal kingdom, through the suffering and shameful treatment of His son. So when He calls us to walk after the pattern of His Son, to accept ridicule and shameful treatment, to bear with one another and love our enemies, He doesn’t scold or beat us like a prison guard or an executioner. He encourages us like a father with his child. He disciplines us, but He carries us under His wing, because we are His sons.
And Paul says: Thanks be to God. This Word brought to you in suffering and conflict, that called you to eternal life, and encouraged you to walk as sons of God—you received it, not as a human word, but as it really is: the word of God.
It is the word of God that came to Thessalonica for those brief weeks before Paul was driven out. It is the Word of God that is among you. It is not a human word that has proclaimed Christ crucified to you, Christ raised from the dead for your justification. It is God’s Word. He declares to you that Jesus, treated shamefully and killed in Jerusalem, has reconciled you to God, blotted out Your transgression. His Word in the Baptismal water declares you risen with Him into a new life as a son of God. His Word in the bread and wine declares His body and blood are for you, and you are released from your sins.
This word “is at work in you believers.” Paul carried this word in him and with him. It worked in him so that he suffered like Christ and lived like Christ, so that he loved the Thessalonians and poured himself out for them like Christ.
But it didn’t work only in St. Paul but in the Thessalonian saints. It worked in them so that they also stood firm under persecution. Just as it worked and made Paul like his Lord Jesus, so it did in the Thessalonians.
So it is doing in us. We have received the Word in weakness, but we nevertheless has received it as it really is, the Word of God. We believe that it is God who has cut off our sins in the suffering of Jesus. We believe that the Lord has ended our old life and begun a new one in our Baptism into His resurrection. And so His Word is at work in us who believe, even though we may not always be aware of it.
Brothers, take it to heart. The eternal God has spoken this word to you. He has called you to His kingdom and glory. He has declared you cleansed in the blood of His Son. As a tender Father He exhorts and teaches you, His sons, to live worthy of your calling, after the example of Jesus, the Son of God. You are not called to live like a philosopher or a moral hero but like the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Let us come to His table that He may work in us through the Word of His Supper to strengthen us in faith toward Him and in fervent love toward one another.
Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Wednesday of Trinity 13. 1 Thessalonians 1. In Every Place Your Faith in God Has Gone Forth
Wednesday of Trinity 13
Emmaus Lutheran Church
1 Thessalonians 1
September 1, 2021
In Every Place Your Faith in God Has Gone Forth
Jesu juva!
In the Name of Jesus.
St. Paul came to the city of Thessalonica with Silas and Timothy after a painful experience in Philippi. He had cast a spirit of divination out of a girl. This led to a riot where he was beaten by a mob and put in prison. The next day the governor of the city asked Paul to leave and personally escorted them out.
Thessalonica was a major city in this region of Macedonia, north of Achaia or Greece. Paul and Timothy and Silas probably went there intending that the church they planted there would become a hub out of which the Gospel would go into the whole region. But they were only there maybe a month. Paul was preaching Christ in the synagogue and some believed, and the Jews formed another mob and started trouble. The Christians sent Paul and his companions away, and they went to Berea and ultimately to Corinth. This letter was probably written a month or two after leaving Thessalonica. Paul was anxious to hear what had happened to the church that he had planted. Imagine a church having to survive after only a few weeks of catechesis!
But it did. And in the first chapter, St. Paul says from you the word of the Lord resounded not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. (1 Thess. 1:8)
What a blessed thing that would be to hear from the apostle of the Lord, speaking in the stead of Jesus. The Word of God sounded forth from you everywhere. You have become an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia, to Oregon and Washington, he might say to us (if he were going to say it to us.)
But how did this happen, that Christians with a month of catechesis bore so much fruit so quickly? God’s Word does not need a long time to work. It works “when and where He wills”, as the Augsburg Confession says.
1.
But in order for the Word of God to go forth from the church in Thessalonica, it first had to come to them.
Paul says the way it came to them showed that the Thessalonians were elect, that they had been chosen by God from before the foundation of the world.
The proof was that it had come not only in word but also in power, in the Holy Spirit and in full assurance (1:5).
Of course the Gospel never comes only in word. It always comes in the Holy Spirit and power. But there are many who only receive it in word. They hear it, and that is as far as it goes. The Gospel’s power is lost on such hearers. They do not receive the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. They hear it and do not believe it. They hear it and reject it.
But the Thessalonians heard the Gospel, believed it, received the Spirit of God, and became fully assured of its truth—that Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh, that He died for our sins and rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. They had full assurance that their sins were forgiven solely because of His death for them. The Holy Spirit gave them this assurance through the Gospel. So they turned away from their false gods to serve the living and true God by faith, and waiting for Jesus to come from heaven and deliver them from the wrath to come. That was how Paul knew that they were chosen by God.
And as a result of being chosen, and as a result of hearing and receiving the powerful, Spirit-filled Gospel, something happened in them and through them.
They became imitators of Paul and his co-workers Silas and Timothy. They received them and their word. And they imitated them and the Lord Jesus by enduring “much affliction” that came with the Word.
The result of this was “the word of God resounded” from them in Macedonia, the region in which Thessalonica sits, and in Achaia, the nearby region of Greece. But not only there—news of their conversion spread throughout the world. Paul says “the Word of God” resounded from them, but then he says, “your faith toward God has gone forth.” Their faith in the Word of God proclaimed that Word. When Christians believe the Word and their lives reflect it, the Word of God resounds through the Church, even if not always as loudly as it did in Thessalonica.
2.
“For from you the word of the Lord resounded not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.”
Those are high words of praise from the apostle. What he is saying is: just as Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick, and people talked about it everywhere, so Jesus from heaven has done a mighty wonder in you, His Church in Thessalonica. And the word about Him goes forth everywhere through you.
And notice how Paul stirs up the Thessalonians. “You have become an example to all the churches in Macedonia.” What does he hope to do by saying that? He hopes to stir the Thessalonians up so that they will want to continue to be an example to their brothers of the work of God through His Word.
And the Lord wants to stir us up in the same way.
What would the apostle say about our congregation? Would he say, “You have become an example? The Word of God has gone out through you everywhere?”
Maybe you are saying, “Who knows?” I am not the judge. I don’t know. Maybe hearing this question makes you think of your sins, and the sins and faults of the congregation.
One thing I do know: I want the Lord to say that about this congregation. Don’t you?
As a pastor I want to be able to say about myself, “You know what kind of man I was among you for your sake, and you became an imitator of me and of the Lord.” And I want to be able to say about you: “You became a pattern to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” Or Oregon and Washington.
But who can ever hope to say that? Is there a pastor who can say “You became an imitator of me and of the Lord?” Is there a congregation that has become a pattern to other believers, about whom everyone talks: “Look what the Lord has done in them?”
We can’t control what the Lord does with His Word in us. But thanks be to God, what Paul says about the Church in Thessalonica is true of you.
We know God has chosen you, because the Gospel did not come to you in word only but also in power, in the Holy Spirit and in full assurance. It came to you in power and the Holy Spirit because it caused you to believe in Jesus, that on account of His death and resurrection alone you are righteous before God. You may not always feel fully assured about that. But the Holy Spirit who gave you faith, even if it is a dimly burning wick, nevertheless holds so tightly to Jesus’ righteousness within you that nothing can separate you from Him.
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. This church has not had to endure the kind of affliction the Thessalonians had. Not angry mobs attacking the Church and driving the pastor out of town. But you have had other kinds of affliction. And if you have not imitated the Lord perfectly, you have imitated Him in enduring the cross of conflict within the congregation. You are imitators of the Lord. He has worked that in you by His Gospel and by the Sacrament of His body and blood. Rejoice that that can be said of you!
For they themselves report what kind of entrance we have among you, and how you turned from God to idols to serve the living and true God. You received the apostles when you received their teaching. You received me, who holds the same ministry of the Word, and received me as a servant of Christ. You called me by the Holy Spirit, you received my teaching of God’s Word. You have received my ministry among you with your ears and with your offerings. Many congregations would have chosen to keep the money as security and hire a part-time preacher. You preferred to have a minister of the Word of God to money. The Lord’s Gospel has shown its power among you.
And you serve the living and true God. You receive His Word that declares you righteous with the righteousness of Jesus. You live your life by faith in His word in your calling as husband, wife, son or daughter. You may be a sinner, but by the Gospel you are a servant of the living and true God.
How then will His Word go forth from you? Will you become an example to other churches? That is the Lord’s to decide. The Thessalonian Church became an example not because they worked hard, but by His grace alone. He made His Word powerful in them and they became zealous imitators of Christ right away. But they also had a great cross laid on them right away. They were persecuted and left with no apostle Paul a few weeks after their Baptism. They didn’t want that cross, but that was how the Lord made His Word go forth from them.
In the same way, the Lord will make His word go forth from you by hearing it and by giving you the cross.
But first we must receive it. We can’t make anything of ourselves. It is the Lord who chose us and sent us the Word of His Son that justifies us. By that same Word He will impress His Word on you, imprint it on you, leave its impression and pattern on you. He will impress Christ Jesus into your heart. Gladly hear and learn His Word. Don’t hear it merely as the word of men, and deny yourself its power, the Holy Spirit who comes in it, and the full assurance He gives. When congregations are full of those who receive the Gospel only in Word, they shrivel and die.
But as you receive this Word as it is, the Word of God, the power by which He justifies you, joy and assurance will follow. And also affliction. These are the means through which He will make us an example and cause His Word to go out from us. Maybe not to all of Oregon and Washington, but to those whom He has appointed.
Let us come and receive His Body and Blood, praying that He impress His Word powerfully in us and cause it to sound forth from us.
Amen.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
Wed. of Trinity 12, 2021. Gen. 50 Do Not Fear, I Will Provide For You.
Wednesday of Trinity 12
Emmaus Lutheran Church
Genesis 50
August 25, 2021
Do Not Fear, I Will Provide For You
In the name of Jesus.
There is an exodus from Egypt to Canaan, and Pharaoh goes with the sons of Israel to mourn with them at the burial of Jacob. We do this. We go to the funerals and the burials of people who are not members of our families.
Why do we do it? To mourn with those who mourn. To accompany people we care about as they grieve and help them bear their burdens. But the Egyptians mourned for Jacob not just because they loved and respected his son Joseph. Joseph meant more to them than that. It was because of Joseph that they were alive, that they had not starved to death during the famine. So they mourned for Jacob as though he had been their father – because without Jacob who had fathered this boy Joseph, they would have perished.
But of course it wasn’t really Joseph or Jacob who had saved Egypt, but the God of Jacob and Joseph. It was the Lord who sent Joseph down to Egypt as a slave. It was the Lord who sent Pharaoh the dream about the cows and the stalks of grain and gave Joseph the ability to interpret the dream. The Lord sent His blessing on Jacob and Joseph, but the blessing wasn’t only for them. As they carried with them the promise of Christ, blessing came to all the people with whom they came in contact. While people in the near east were dying of hunger, the sons of Israel had grain to eat in Egypt because the Lord was preserving them to bring His Son into the world. And so Egypt among whom they lived also was blessed. Their lives were spared on account of the promise to Abraham.
But there was an even greater blessing that took place within Jacob and Joseph’s family. Among the sons of Israel there was not only physical blessing – not only their lives were spared. They also received the blessing of pardon and unity with one another and God.
Joseph’s brothers, as you know, acted in malice and hatred toward him. They were all one blood and one flesh. They all had one father. They all shared in one promise – the coming offspring of Abraham, through whom the curse of death would be removed. Yet Joseph’s brothers threw that all away and plotted to murder him. At the last minute they turned aside from that evil deed and merely sold him, thinking they would never see him again.
What did they deserve for this treachery? The deserved to have God cut them all off from His promise and make a great nation out of Joseph, as He threatened to do later with Moses when the people of Israel made a golden calf. God made a promise to Abraham, but as John the Baptist said: “do not begin to say to yourselves, “we have Abraham for our father, for God is able to raise up from these stones offspring for Abraham”(Matthew 3). Instead, God absolved them through Joseph. When they told him that their father commanded him to forgive them, Joseph wept. “Am I in the place of God? … you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, that many people should be kept alive.”
Joseph said, “God had a greater plan than the evil you intended. He turned your sinful actions into good and into the saving of many lives.”
This is what the Lord would say to the chief priests, Judas, Pontus Pilate, if they had repented. You truly did evil. But don’t hate yourselves. God used your great evil for good. Through the innocent blood you shed God has cleansed the world of sin.
This is what He did say to Paul and Peter. Paul, you are persecuting me. But I have caused your evil to work out for good. I have chosen to show my patience and grace in you. Now when wretched sinners hear the gospel and waver as to whether I mean that they, too, are cleansed of their sins, they will hear your words from scripture: “I thank Him who has given me the strength, Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful, appointing me to His service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of which I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:12-16)
What Joseph said to his brothers is what Jesus says to you. Except He is in the place of God. And He declares you forgiven, absolved of all your sins. All the evil you have done He will turn to good. And you are reconciled to Him and to His Father. And if you are reconciled to Jesus, whom you have sold and persecuted, you are reconciled to all His brothers. There is unity and peace in the house of God. How good and pleasant is it when brothers dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133)
You have a share in the inheritance as if you had done all that your heavenly Joseph has done – as though you suffered, were cast into the pit, and then raised on high to give life to many. You have not done that. All you have done in yourself is sin and hand Jesus over. And yet you are treated as though you had done all Jesus had done.
He says: “I will provide for you and your little ones.” And He does. He provides His body and blood, which are true food and true drink, which a man may eat and not die.
Joseph told his kinsmen as he prepared to die “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” Isn’t it a strange thing that Joseph was concerned where they took his bones? Even though his body would be dead, he wanted his remains to be with his brothers, with God’s people. That is how it is for the church. We are one body, one communion. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. We are knit together with all the saints. We are together at the table of the Lord with the angels and archangels, Paul and Peter, Judah and Joseph. The table is the pledge that we will all be together at the resurrection of the body.
Grant it Lord, and assure our hearts that you have pardoned us and will provide for us in life and in death. And grant us to pardon one another and give ourselves for each other as you have given yourself for us.
Amen.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
Crossed Hands. Wednesday of Trinity 11. Genesis 48
Wednesday of Trinity 11
Emmaus Lutheran Church
Genesis 48
August 18, 2021
Crossed Hands
Jesu juva!
1.
When you get things crossed, it means you don’t know what you’re doing. You have things scrambled. You have your signals crossed. You cross things out when you don’t like them after you’ve written them.
Jacob crosses his hands to bless Joseph’s sons. Joseph is displeased with this. He wants his older son, Manasseh, to be blessed. Maybe he thinks his dad doesn’t know what he is doing because “the eyes of Israel were dim with age, he could not see.” (Genesis 48:10)
But he does know. This was the man who stole into his father Isaac’s tent to receive the Lord’s blessing by deception, dressed as his brother Esau. He came into his father’s tent when his father’s eyes were dim just like his are now. Probably the eyes of Isaac and Israel needed to be dim to impart the Lord’s blessing, “for the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7) For though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar (Ps. 138:6). If Israel and Isaac decided by their own senses or reason who should be the carrier of the blessing, who should be the forefather of the Christ, they would never choose correctly. So they are unable to see.
And if we were allowed to judge, we would never imagine that Jacob would be the blessed of the Lord, since he cheated. Why would the Lord bless a cheater and a liar and make him Jesus’ ancestor? But he recounts: God almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession (Gen. 48:3).’ Who among us has ever had God Almighty appear to us? God sees not as man sees. So then He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills (Rom. 9:18). He looks into the depths. And who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. (Rom. 8:33)
We should expect that Joseph would understand a little better about who receives the Lord’s blessing. He had a dream when he was young that all his brothers and his father would bow down to him. His brothers hated him for this dream, and even his father rebuked him. But it happened as the Lord told him in his dream even though it didn’t make sense, even though he was the second youngest.
Yet despite this, Joseph still thinks Manasseh should be blessed. The oldest should be blessed. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. He is displeased when it doesn’t work that way.
Joseph wants honor and blessing to go according to the way he thinks and the way things are supposed to be, but that isn’t how it works in the kingdom of God. And you also want blessing and honor to go according to the way you think and the way things are supposed to be. You get angry when the honor and respect you deserve isn’t given to you. You get angry when your wife or husband slights you, when you are passed over at work or in life, when your friends or acquaintances make fun of you, when someone at church disrespects you.
How frustrating and painful it is to be disregarded, written off, treated with contempt, passed over! If only people knew how hard we worked, how much we have read, how much we’ve suffered!
2.
But not only does the Lord not assign honor and blessing according to our understanding of the way things are supposed to be, He actively opposes and tears down the mighty. We heard Mary sing about that on Sunday, and we will sing with her tonight: He has shown strength with His arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate (Luke 1:51-52).
It’s true that according to human law, Manasseh had a right to the blessing of the firstborn. It’s true that, according to God’s Law, children should obey their parents, wives their husbands, servants their masters. Congregations should obey their pastors insofar as the pastor teaches and commands what the Lord teaches and commands.
Yet even seeking that honor that belongs to you from human or divine law, much less seeking honor to which you have no human or divine right, ensures that you will have no honor from God. For God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
And our Lord Jesus, who knows something about this from experience, says, So the last will be first, and the first last. (Matt. 20:16)
But despite this, we continue to seek glory and honor, even when we don’t mean to. We can’t help ourselves. Our sinful flesh craves honor. It is addicted to deserving and earning and being right.
But the stakes are high. If our flesh is allowed to continue this it will choke faith and the Holy Spirit out of us. Listen to Jesus: How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? (John 5:44)
Not only this, but seeking after honor and praise harms the people God has committed to us to serve, and it tears down the Church. The apostle John gives an example of this in his third epistle: Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church (3 John 9-10).
But you don’t have to formally put people out of the church to tear it down. You can just chase out people who get on your nerves, on purpose or not on purpose, by demanding to be right, demanding your own way. Everyone has seen this happen in churches. But when this happens we are chasing away people whom Christ died to bring near.
3.
Who is blessed and who is honored is determined by God.
He determines who receives honor and respect in this earthly life, in this temporal life. The Lord makes kings kings, governors governors, movie stars movie stars. He dispenses temporal honor. And he also gives eternal honor and glory. And usually the two don’t go together. One can have the temporary honor or the eternal honor, but not both, except in rare cases.
But notice how blind Jacob confers the Lord’s blessing. He crosses his hands.
He can’t see, but he probably knows that Joseph will put the older at his right hand and the younger at his left. So he makes a cross with his hands.
The cross made by Israel’s old wrinkled arms is a picture of the gnarled cross lifted up on the place of a skull outside Jerusalem.
On that torturous, ugly tree of shame and pain, God would give to be lifted up not all the ugly, self-seeking sons of men who left scars on others in their pursuit of being first.
On the tree He would nail His beloved Son, the meek One who never sought to be first, but made Himself the servant of all.
He would pour out His wrath on Him, the noble, innocent, and just One, so that the rebellious would receive His favor and grace.
His anger against those who dishonored Him by their misuse of His name, their worship of other gods, their despising of His word, would flame out against Jesus and consume Him who honored and obeyed Him with His whole life.
God the Father crossed His hands and laid His left on His Son and stretches out His right hand to bless you.
4.
What honor, then, are we seeking? So much of the time, honor we don’t deserve. The thing that bothers you most is when someone notices the sins and flaws you try to cover up. They see your weakness and you are angry that they don’t see you as you wish to be seen.
But God sees you as righteous and innocent, because He has given His Son what belonged to you—your guilt—and given you what belongs to Him—His righteousness.
You want people to call you pretty when you are plain or smart when you are slow, or brave when you are meek. But God has called you the greatest thing He could ever call you—righteous. And with that goes every other blessing and honor.
And that we have never deserved, not even close. But the Father crossed His arms. And Jesus bowed His head to receive your curse.
You are set free from living your life chasing those empty honors. God has bestowed upon you the greatest of them all. He has declared you righteous. He has adopted you in His beloved Son, baptizing you. Yes, He has even put to death your old weak, dying, wicked nature. And now a new nature in Christ lives in you and is emerging, and it is not even clear what you will be when the old is fully put away and the new is fully put on. You will be something far more than you could have ever imagined, or made yourself, or convinced other people to tell you you are.
5.
The Lord shows mercy to whoever He wills. He opposes the proud and lifts up the humble. Why then do we try to be those who do not need to be lifted up? Why do we pretend we are that to ourselves and to each other, in our families and the Church?
He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11) Because He is lowly, He doesn’t destroy and frighten away heavy-laden sinners, those who are crushed by their guilt. Let us put on the mind of Christ which is ours in Christ Jesus, who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2). Then we will not chase away from the Lord those whom He shed His blood to welcome.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God that at the proper time He may exalt you (1 Pet. 5:5), St. Peter says. When you are denied respect and honor that you ought to have, or think you ought to have, consider that God has laid this on you. Humble yourself under His hand, the same hand that He crossed over and laid on you to confer the blessing of His only Son. And when it is time, He will exalt you.
Our Lord Jesus teaches us: Let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as the one who serves (Luke 22:26). The leader in the Church is the one who is wet behind the ears, the one who is considered not to know how things really work, the one who must do the unimportant jobs because others more important and smart than him take the important jobs. This is how Jesus was regarded by His disciples, often. And still He is treated this way in the Church—as though Jesus doesn’t really know how the world works, as though He doesn’t understand the times we live in now.
He bears with us as we treat Him this way because He is the greatest and the leader.
But the greatest among us is the one who learns from Jesus to serve. Who learns from Jesus to put into practice St. Paul’s words: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves (Php. 2:3).
The Father gave the one more significant than us the lowest place, and He took it. He counted us righteous and He counted His Son guilty with our sins. He crossed His arms and blessed us. Let us learn from Him to count others according to the cross.
Let us come and eat the body of the Son of God and drink His blood and learn from Him who is gentle and lowly of heart.
Amen.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria
God’s Grace Finds You Out. Wed. of Trinity 10, 2021. Genesis 44-45:15
Wednesday of Trinity 10
Emmaus Lutheran Church
Genesis 44-45:15
August 11, 2021
God’s Grace Finds You Out
Jesu juva!
1.
Things in Egypt went surprisingly well this time. The Pharaoh’s right hand man held a feast in the honor of the sons of Jacob. They got Simeon back out of jail. They bought their grain and are going home to Canaan with their donkeys weighed down with sacks of wheat. And Benjamin is still with them, safe and sound.
Then they see dust rising behind them on the horizon. The steward of the right hand man of Pharaoh rides up with a group of men and accuses them of stealing his master’s cup, with which he practices divination.
The brothers loudly protest their innocence. “We brought back all the silver we thought was yours. How would we now steal from you? Let whoever has your cup die.” So sure are they of their innocence that they let the steward search all their possessions.
And in the sack of Benjamin, the favorite living son of Jacob, lies the prince of Egypt’s silver chalice.
They thought they had done nothing wrong. They were sure of it! But they were guilty anyway.
Why is this happening to me? Jacob’s brothers might have shouted that at the sky when the silver cup was found. Sometimes those words cross your lips too, maybe.
Why has my career foundered? Why did the girl I wanted to marry marry someone else? Why did my child die suddenly? I didn’t do anything to deserve this!
2.
The eleven brothers really didn’t steal that cup. When they were brought by the Egyptian soldiers before the prince, he spoke to them harshly: “What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can practice divination?” (Gen. 44:14-15)
Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, speaks. He probably knows the prince can’t practice divination, because the brothers were a lot of things, but we have nothing to suggest that any of them were thieves. But even though he knows they didn’t steal the cup, he doesn’t proclaim his innocence. “What can we say to my Lord? …God has found out the guilt of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.” (Gen. 49:16)
What guilt has God found out? The guilt of selling their brother Joseph decades before. Judah realizes that even though he is innocent of stealing that cup, God is bringing to remembrance their sin from long ago that they had tried to bury and forget.
That is the way it is with sin. God is a God of justice. He is also eternal. He does not change. Time does not take sin away from His sight. If you do evil against someone and don’t ask for forgiveness, not only from God but also from the person you sinned against, time won’t remove that guilt. It will remain before God.
So often this is what we do. We sin. Then we try to bury it. We hide it from other people. We try to hide it from ourselves. And often we succeed. But hiding your sin doesn’t take it away. You hide it from yourself, but you don’t hide it from God.
The brothers’ sin was hatred against their brother. It was unfair that their father loved him more than them. And like every sinful human being they loved themselves; they were concerned for themselves. So they hated Joseph, they held a grudge against him, and finally took the opportunity to get rid of him. The first use of the law kept them from killing him. But they for all intents and purposes put him to death.
But also their sin was idolatry. They did not trust God to give them what was good in spite of their father’s failure to love them as they wanted. They loved themselves and their own interests more than God who gave them Himself.
Your guilt is the same. No doubt there are things in your life that were unfair and unjust. But instead of trusting and loving God you demanded your own way. And you took it out on people you were supposed to love—your wife or husband, your parents or siblings, your children. You cut them off. You denied them the love they were supposed to have from you. Then you forgot about it, because you were too focused on yourself to notice what you did to them.
This is all coming home to Judah. God has found out your servants’ sin, he says. I might not have stolen the cup, but I did do something else long ago that I tried to bury. But now God is bringing it to light. I foolishly thought I could hide my sin from God.
So it is with you. By the preaching of His Word, or by things you suffer, God uncovers sins you have tried to bury. Other times, pain comes to us and we don’t know what particular sin we have done. It doesn’t matter. All suffering reminds us that we are by nature sinful and unclean. All that we do in the flesh, in unbelief, is evil in the Lord’s sight. There is no good in us, only what provokes God’s wrath.
If the Holy Spirit uncovers a particular wrong you have done, He does so so that you will confess it humbly, like Judah, with a contrite spirit, and so that you will make amends for it if you have done evil to your brother or sister. But if you suffer and are not aware of having done anything in particular, don’t protest your innocence. God has found out your sin when you age, when your life is meaningless, when death and suffering comes to you.
3.
When Judah offers himself in exchange for Benjamin, the prince puts everyone out of the room and begins weeping. That must have been uncomfortable. Then he says, “I am Joseph! How is our father?”
That must have been terrifying. Now their sin really had found them out! But Joseph said, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sent me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life…to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.” (Gen. 45:5-7)
Their guilt was uncovered. But it turned out that God had transformed their guilt into salvation.
God had promised Jacob and Jacob’s forefathers that He would be gracious to them, be their God, and make them a great nation. He sent Joseph a dream that his brothers would bow down to them. God always keeps His gracious promises. Always, always, always. And God’s grace superabounds, as St. Paul likes to say. It is greater than our sin.
God found out the brothers’ sin. They faced up to it, expecting death. Instead they stared their sin in the face when they looked at the prince of Egypt. Joseph, the brother they hated and sold, had risen to rule Egypt. And He tells them, God made this happen in order to preserve a remnant for you, to make you into a great nation. God sent me ahead of you, even though you meant it for evil, in order to save your life.
You face up to your sin that finds you out when you suffer and when you hear the Law.
It’s truly awful to realize you failed to love your neighbor and as a result you killed them. When you try to make amends to those you have wronged, and when you confess your sin to God, you come face to face with the one you sinned against. It is Christ Jesus. And your lovelessness and hatred are the marks on His body.
But Jesus went ahead of you to preserve life, to preserve a remnant. Actually to bring forth life. He was given into death for your offenses. He suffered God’s wrath for your murder of your spouse, children, parents, brothers and sisters.
But He is not angry with you. He suffered and died to redeem you from death and God’s wrath. When He finds out your guilt, it is in order that you may find innocence in His wounds and His blood. And so that you may be alive and free.
Hiding your sins does not make them go away. The blood of Jesus removes your sins forever.
God sent Jesus into death and then raised Him up to preserve a remnant, a holy nation, out of this world, out of judgment and death.
4.
All the years Jacob grieved over Joseph now, in this instant, were transformed into great joy. His son was lost and is found, dead and is now alive. And he is raised up to glory. And God has kept his promise. He has been gracious to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and preserved them alive to be His people.
All the years Joseph suffered in a pit, crying for mercy to his brothers, and then in a dungeon, hoping the baker and cupbearer would remember him, are now transformed into jubilation. Not because he has been exalted. But because God has used his suffering to save his brothers—and also to fulfill His promise to make a holy people out of his family.
And all the years the brothers of Joseph suffered from a guilty conscience—which is truly hell on earth—and all the years they suffered from a hardened, seared conscience, in which they buried their sin—even their sin has been transformed into joy. Even though it takes them some time to realize it. Because they are saved by the grace of God and forgiven their sins.
And this is just how it is with you. This is not just a happy ending that pastors write for you because you pay them.
Listen to the Scripture: 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Cor. 3:21-23)
All things are yours for the same reason that everything in Egypt belonged to Joseph’s brothers. Egypt belonged to Jacob’s sons because it belonged to Joseph, the prince of Israel. And he shared all that was his with his family. He had endured everything for their sake.
All things in heaven and earth are yours because Jesus Christ is heir of all things. He is heir of the world, of time and eternity, not only because He is God, but because as man He has been given the throne at God’s right hand. Because He suffered death for sins, once for all, and became heir of the earth. And He shares everything with you, His brothers.
All things are yours, so everything must serve you for Jesus’ sake. Your suffering, your pain, your death. Even your sins and the attacks of the devil. All of it has to be transformed into everlasting joy, beginning now, but running into a thundering crescendo like a waterfall in eternity.
5.
But what will we do when we leave today, and people wrong us again, and life is unfair again? How will we not become angry people again, not like Joseph, who forgave his brothers’ wickedness, but like the brothers who sold him?
You will certainly be tempted and even fail. But this joy will be your shield.
We are angry because we are treated unfairly. Joseph’s brothers could have been angry because they were accused of stealing the cup when they didn’t. They were angry because their father loved Joseph more. We are angry about all kinds of things that rob us of pleasures in this life that we ought to have or wish we had.
But like Joseph’s brothers when we suffer our guilt finds us out. We deserve more than what we suffer in this life. We deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishment.
But even more, how silly it is to be angry when you are temporarily denied something small, when God promises you everything! God offers us Himself in Christ. He gives us all—the very life of the son of the living God in His body and blood. And when we have Him, all things are ours.
Even our sufferings. Whatever you suffer, the Lord Jesus will make it a crown. He will glorify God in it and through it He will enable you to bless your brothers. He will make your sufferings turn to the good of His remnant, the Holy Church.
Jesus’ wounds that we inflicted on Him were still marked on Him after His resurrection. They had turned from life-robbing wounds to life-giving. In those wounds guilty consciences become glad and pure. They give us rest and peace.
He endured the cross, scorning its shame, because of the joy set before Him. The joy of sitting at God’s right hand and bringing us to glory with Him.
Joseph knew something of that joy when he embraced his brothers. The Lord Jesus will turn your pain into this joy. This is what will preserve you from anger.
If someone mistreats me and I accept it because I am afraid, I nurse that wound and hold a grudge. But the suffering Joseph endured from his brothers did not humiliate him. It exalted him. Jesus scorned the shame of the cross for the surpassing joy of saving us.
He will work this same love in you. Come to Him, the exalted Lord; eat His flesh and drink His blood that He gave for you in meekness and humility.
The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Rev. Karl Hess
De Profundis Clamavi ad Te, Domine 