Judging Christ [Trinity 26]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Daniel 7:9-14

• 2 Peter 3:3-14

• St. Matthew 25:31-46

 

grace to you and peace from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come; from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
                  
Who speaks to you this Penultimate Sunday saying,

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory”

 
Thus far the Word of God, included in the Bible for us, to once again reveal the memory of God. That He has not forgotten His Promise and that He will keep it. When He returns, He will raise me and all the dead, granting eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is His eternal judgement, fulfilled on the cross, which He comes into this world to enact.
 
Far be it from us to recognize the importance of Jesus teachings today. We quickly pass by the main topic and move immediately to the judging, because we love to judge and we want to be sure we are on the right side of that judgement. Anytime we get to pass attention onto someone else’s faults, we’re all in!
 
The main topics are the first and last verses of the Gospel pericope. So easy. The first one, surprise surprise, talks about Jesus. His return for us, and how He is God of God on His Throne. The last verse is also about Jesus, how dare He, because it speaks of a righteousness given to those who believe. Just the fact that righteousness exists and is available is good news.
 
But today, Jesus breaks the cardinal rule: you shall not judge. If you are going to be a Christian or if you’re not going to be a Christian, you shall not judge. It seems that the whole world follows this one command from Jesus and that is usually the first red flag.
 
For if the world loves it, then there must be something wrong. Something wrong with the command? No. Something wrong with the execution. From God’s mouth to your ears is perfect. Its what happens in between your ears, that is the problem.
 
Whoever uses “you shall not judge”, is usually not interested in actual justice, but only self-justice. This is where the idea of “privilege” comes from. Our self-justice and self-righteousness can propel us to the heights of society. Our favorite mask is “I’m a good guy”, thus when any resistance is encountered, we pull out the “shall not judge” card and gain unparalleled sympathy points.
 
And that’s how today’s “christianity” works. If you disagree with me, I’m the one doing God’s work, not you, so you can’t judge me or everyone will laugh at you. Or, I’m born this way, so God must want it like this and you’re a meanie. Either way God is on my side, prove me wrong. This is how Jesus gets a pass for judging, because He’s on my side and agrees with me all the time.
 
And this works, as we all know very well these days. Yet this works, not only because no one has the guts to stand against anyone else’s “truth”, but it also works because it is God’s Word. And how can you be against that.
 
However, there is an expiration date on this “you shall not judge” card which is overplayed. The expiration date on it is the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. In other words, the card works great to suppress truth and God’s true religion…until He shows up.
 
And until He shows up, sinners will continue to use and abuse His religion. They will continue to be displeased with God Who is displeased with them, in their sin. In Jesus’s appearance in the past, He gives us chapter 25 of St. Matthew’s Gospel which holds the key to understanding sin and sinners.
 
Now you would think the key is Romans 3, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. Once again, a verse the world agrees on, with the same satanic, opposite effect. The real key verse is in this same chapter of St. Matthew, verse 24. Jesus reveals, “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’” (25:24-25).
 
The sinner does not have a problem with righteousness or justice. He completely understands the need to separate between those who follow the rules and those who don’t. What the sinner cannot accept is free mercy and how God accepts no man’s merits.
 
Repent! You have commanded the impossible, says the sinner to God, you have not given mercy, but knowledge and this I still have without You. You may be a tyrant, but with my knowledge I will find a way without You. You are my enemy, if you will not come around to my way of thinking. 
 
They do not know that a man must agree with this “enemy” and that this and only thus, this “enemy” becomes a friend and a Father (AE25:358). For He will not come around to our way of thinking and be changed for us. He will not take our side. He will have mercy, in spite of you.
 
“All of them curse me”, Jesus says, as was prophesied in Isaiah, “they will curse their king and their God” (Jer 15:10, Isa 8:21). Jesus gives us His revelation of His Word, regardless of what will happen to it. And what has happened is its abuse, suppression, and twisting of it. We have crucified His Word in the name of the knowledge of humanity. I remember a tree in the Garden of Eden named that…
 
Jesus has come to do His holy work and it is to show mercy. Similarly, the man who received the one talent should have rejoiced and we should rejoice with him in only receiving one. For it is in the forsaking of all works and all the things of the earth, that we find hope. Christ desires that we hope only in Him and His mercy and not in ourselves.
 
Though in the Gospel today, Jesus separates people one from another, Jesus first separated Himself from Life. And what will you have to be separated from? Your addictions? Your pride? Your self-righteousness? 
 
Why can’t you get rid of those on your own? Because they cling to you and comfort you. They have weaseled their way into your psyche and dopamine-hits such that you cannot help but trust them over God. Sin has rewired you in such a way to see God as the enemy and the devil as your best friend.
 
In this hopelessness, the ruler of this world is judged, in your place. In the midst of our self-righteousness, the Righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, apart from works (Rom 3:21). Outside our abilities and judgements, Jesus is made man, suffers, and dies beneath the judgement of God and of sinners, having been found guilty of all sin for all time.
 
Afterwards, evidence came to light that Jesus was atoning for other’s sins, with no sin of His own. Thus, He was raised from corruption to incorruption, from mortal to immortal. As God, Jesus was sinless and yet able to pay for the sins of the world as if they were His own. This we call the Great Exchange.
 
This Great Exchange we are a part of, because He has given up His Spirit to us. We could in no way believe in Him, come to Him, or agree with Him on anything, with our own reason or strength. We cannot love the things which God loves unless we have the love and will and Spirit which He has. For if there is to be conformity in the things to be loved, there must also be conformity in the feeling of love (AE 25:359).
 
Christ is the Key to making a friend and Father out of the One True God, for us. And He shows up, in the flesh, to show us that we are the goats. Every. Single. One of us. The goats who despise the things of God, knowing Him to be a tyrant and only rewarding those on His side.
 
But goats become lambs in the Great Exchange, when the sins of man are exchanged for the Righteousness of God. Thus before the charity and the hospitality and the kindness of men, the charity, hospitality, and kindness of God must be handed over and crucified.
 
Jesus shows up and declares His judgment: not guilty. The sinners rant and rave, “but muh prophesies, muh exorcisms, muh good deeds. Are they nothing to You, O great God?!”
 
Blessed be the Name of the Lord, they are nothing. They are as nothing compared to the Glory that has come, that will come, and that comes today. Dear Christians, since we have such a great high Priest, we do not have to wait for the last day, for most things to be revealed to us, especially what we’ve been talking about today.
 
For Jesus shows up, Body and Blood, in Church today, declaring His Judgment. Those goats treat God’s Divine Service as they treat everything. But the Sheep hear His voice and follow. They follow to Confession. They follow to Absolution. They follow to the washing of renewal and rebirth. They follow to the Lamb and His Supper. 
 
They rejoice to see His Day. And that Day is the Day He overcame death and the grave to bring His righteousness to us. We agree, our sins deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. And we agree again that those sins have been washed, cleansed by the Blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God. 
 

Worldly fraud, Christ's Faith [Trinity 25]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 32:1-20

• 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

• St. Matthew 24:15-28

grace to you and peace from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come; from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

Who speaks to you in today’s Gospel saying:

“And if those days had not been cut short, no man would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

The world is not to be trusted. Only the Word is worthy of faith and trust. And while the goodness faith has given us wants to find trust in this world, too, we must not be fooled. One, into a false sense of trust, and two, to not give trust when it is asked for. This is God’s Word for us today, both heavy and light. Heavy for the wrongs we will endure and light because they come to an end.

This should point us to the Promises made by God to us, which are not fraudulent and are the only sure and certain things in this life. Christ desires us to receive those Promises from His hand, Body and Blood, that we may know for certain he is true to His Word.

What is the Christian to do when facing a world of corruption, after making his vows not to be corrupt? He really has only two options, either recapitulate and become “of the world” once more, for, as the Lord says, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own;” (Jn 15:19).

The other option is to suffer this world’s unpleasantness, refuse to participate in lies and fraud, and be light in a world of darkness. As He continues, “but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you”.
What does our sin do with light? It hides it under a bushel, blows it out, sets it away with false lights to lessen its importance.

As we dwell on our Lord’s words of false christs, false prophets, and false signs, we must believe and acknowledge that these will all come through men. That we will encounter these things, not just in spirit, but in bodies, in flesh and blood. This is why Jesus speaks of actually going out into the wilderness or going in to the inner rooms. There is spiritual fraud and physical fraud, in the life of a Christian.

Fraud we know all too well. Since man was given the ability to speak, he has discovered the ability to lie. In our days we have no-call lists that don’t work, spam blockers that don’t block, and propaganda that keeps propagating.

The frauds call on your godly nature and hide some sort of truth deep in their words to confuse and subdue you. You are only strong when you disagree with their positions and values. You are weak when their values appear to align with yours. Save a tree, save a planet, do good in the world.

It is the “good” that blinds you to facts. And that apparent good is this: if you believe in it, it can’t be all bad. You extend your self-justification to those whom you see as “teammates” and they turn out to not be teammates at all. The turn-coat nature of the fraud is encouraged in phone calls, emails, TV, and online interaction.

Why? Because the fraud does not have to pay for his words. There are no consequences for him simply speaking and offering a deal to you. No laws are broken, no crime committed, and nothing can be done about it, because you agreed to it.

That’s the evil in every sin and temptation. Something wonderful is presented to you wrapped in shiny goodness and self-value, yet upon opening is anything but what you thought you would get. This is the falseness that finds you in these last days. It may not be as flashy as an “anti-Christ”, but the motives are the same. To whittle away your faith, bit by bit, until nothing remains but despair, and you agreed to it in your sin.

Before this, even Moses warned of these frauds. In Deuteronomy 13, he specifically teaches of those doing miracles and wonders in order to defraud and teach to go after other gods. The solution he gives is not cleverness on the people’s part, or anti-fraud laws, but a return to the Word of God.

A return to the Word is necessary both in Church and in your daily lives when dealing with frauds. Not because of some superior morality you find there, to conquer your foes. Or even because, like magic or holy water, it banishes the evildoer. But because a return to the Word is a return to the Body and Blood of Christ.

The fraud finds most of his plans ruined if he must show up and prove himself in his own body. This is partly because he must now pay the consequences of his words with actions. He must show up, prove his lies, and put his reputation on the line. Show me, don’t tell me.

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). To warn us of coming things that would attempt to remove faith from us, Jesus was made man. To ultimately destroy those plans and purposes of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, He suffered, died, rose again, and gives you His Church.

In Christ, all justice is meted out, according to God’s Will. There is no justice or noble, lost cause left undone in the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The injustices done to us in this world are just shadows and ripples left in the wake of satan’s defeat. This is what little power is left to satan and his demons.

And we should learn from it. We should know its going to happen and, since we cannot even tell a real salesman from a fake, in our sin, then we should expect to fall victim to sin and temptation here.

We fraud and are defrauded in our own sin. What will keep us steadfast until the Last Day?

The fight against fraud is the same fight against sin we face everyday. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything over the phone, over email, or from a stranger. Likewise, don’t take any fraud of miracle, wonder, or “good” at face value. Judge these and all things according to the Word.

We can even give thanks for the fraud and dishonesty in the world. For one, we can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly. And two, we can use it to be reminded of God’s Promise to us for our good. He will not defraud or be dishonest with us and instead causes it to do His Will.

If you remember the story of Jacob and Laban in Genesis chapters 29-31, Laban commits fraud against Jacob. Even though Jacob’s name means deceiver, Laban is the one deceived. For 20 years Jacob was deceived, yet still worked honestly and honorably. And after that 20 years, God allowed Jacob to take the best from Laban, enacting justice in the end.

Jacob waits for a blessing from the Lord and for the Lord’s justice. And it comes to pass.
No greedy man ever escapes the vengeance of God. Indeed, they perish because of the growth and increase of their property, which is why we pray against such temptation in the Litany. For they grow only to be cursed and destroyed, not to be blessed. Therefore as often as you see a greedy man, you see a man perishing and ruined. (AE 5:373)

Our prosperity is tied up with Jesus. It may be that we live comfortably in this life. Or not. But since Christ has done all things well, and He has done all things well for us, we need neither fear nor accept the fraud of this world. Even if we think we’ll miss out on something big, we have the bigger promise of prosperity: the Kingdom of God.

Jacob is not the deceiver, neither is God deceived, Who made him. It is satan that is deceived and it is our sinful nature and death that Jesus defrauds on our behalf. They may have their way for our short lifetime, but they are ending.

Indeed, the victory has already been won. Jesus says, “Take heart, I have overcome the world”. Fraud is not God’s invention, so we don’t have to fear it is His work against us. “Goods, fame, child, and wife let these all be gone”, we sing. And we can sing because we receive a hundred-fold back to us, in the end.

The wicked have their reward now and it will be exhausted by the time the Lord returns. Those who store up treasure in heaven will have it for eternity. For our Lord takes the fraud upon Himself, which is why revenge is not an option. Forgiveness is the only option.

Fraud put God at risk, Jesus’s fraud is written, scored into His body. In Christ, God shows His strength by taking responsibility for the fraud, though it was sin and not His, and overcoming it. “Can you rob God”, He asks in Malachi 3:8-9. He continues: “Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me.”

And since this is true, then Jesus’s Church is the only real place. Do you need a noble cause to support? Then support your Church. Do you feel everything and everyone is a lie? Then support the Promises of God in Word and Sacrament. Will no future be secure, no matter how much land, time, or money you give to this or that cause? Christ is the Cause and Creator of all things and His effect is the forgiveness of your sins.

Our Great Priest [Trinity 18]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Deuteronomy 10:10-21

• 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

• St. Matthew 22:34-46

 

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
 
Who speaks to you this morning saying,

“On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

 
And Jesus is our Prophet. Our Prophet, Priest, and King. Not just like the ones from our history, but the epitome of what it means to be those things. He is the King from Whom all the kings of the earth receive their kingship. He is the Prophet from Whom all prophets receive their prophecy. And He is the Priest from Whom all priests receive their pattern.
 
And what is a priest? Surprisingly, a priest has no real priestly powers or even significance in the grand scheme of things. For example, let’s say you have a disease and it is one of the forbidden ones that God lists. In order, to keep good order and purity within the cities and congregation, they could look at that person and declare them unclean, and maybe a little later find that they got better and declare them clean.
 
But that’s all they had: words. They could not heal the offending diseases nor could they offer anything to aid in healing. You had to heal on your own, you had to treat yourself, and you had to make sure you presented yourself at the proper place and time. 
 
The priest had no powers of precognition, cognition, or post-cognition. If you were getting sick, or were sick, or were hiding your health or your sin, he had no idea. Like your pastor today! 
 
As with everything, we go back to the beginning to find out just what a priest is good for. That means going to Aaron. And it just so happens our Introit today takes us right to him. In the last part, “O Lord, hear the prayer of Thy servants”, that verse goes on in the Book of Sirach to say, “according to the blessing of Aaron concerning Your people”.
 
At this verse, Aaron becomes not only important, but key to the people’s access to God. It sounds as if God will not hear their prayer unless they have believed and received Aaron’s blessing. That blessing you know so well, you could recite it in your sleep, which I hope you do, actually.
 
From Numbers 6:22-26, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
So shall they put my Name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
 
Quite a few things happening here. “Face” and “countenance” are the same word, so God’s face is very important, in the matter. In that regard, when His face “shines”, it is not a lightbulb, but a revelation. To shine is to reveal in order to be seen. At Aaron’s words, the Face of God is revealed to all, and in so speaking, he has the unique vocation of placing the Name of God on the People of God.
 
Aaron, a man, is given the honor of revealing the Father’s face to all. However, being only a man, he is only given words to teach and declare. Jesus, being both God and man, can not only reveal the Father’s face, but can place His Name directly on those who believe.
 
Repent! In our sin, we believe a priest should be either completely magical and supernatural or completely useless. When presented with the supernatural, we grasp at it all, because we know what life in the flesh is like. When presented with disappointment, with no miraculous flash, we despise even the mention of a man in religion, because we know who we are all too well.
 
Liars, cheats, swindlers. We know our dark hearts and know others have it as well, so we distrust and suspect. We yell and shout when words get too close to our sins and we cower when they hit the mark. “I said in my despair all men are liars” (Ps 116:11).
 
Jesus is our Priest of priests, Who shows us what a priest is actually supposed to be capable of. First, is His active obedience. Where the priests could only declare God’s Law, Jesus fulfilled it perfectly, for us. In His divinity, He kept the Law, even as the Lord promises to keep us, in Aaron’s blessing.
 
Second, is Jesus’s passive obedience. Where the priests could only declare a sin or proclaim an illness or healing had happened, Jesus makes the sacrifice to forgive those sins and heal perfectly. In His humanity, He is able to suffer and die in order to secure the heavenly healing that the regular priests could not give. 
 
Third, is Jesus praying for us. At the Right Hand of the Father, Jesus holds all authority in heaven and on earth and He uses it to pray for you. Now, a man stands in heaven, the God-man, Jesus Christ, offering up your defense for all eternity. Where the priests were only men and maybe their prayers were heard, Jesus not only prays, but answers prayer according to His Will.
 
Finally, what is that will? That pure will of God is not just seen in the giving of words to men, but in the giving of men to preach as well. “Speak to Aaron and his sons” the Lord said. Don’t speak to the air, don’t publish a book, don’t let anyone willy-nilly preach this or that. The Lord gave the Word and great was the company of the preachers, called by Jesus Christ.
 
“As the Father sent me, so I am sending you”, Jesus says. Jesus sends men with His own Words of Authority to bless us, today. 
 
Here now is the teaching from our Gospel and why the question about the Greatest Command and David’s Son are paired together. First is Jesus’s command over the Law. He knows it inside and out, not just because He was the one Who gave it to Moses, Who’s finger wrote on the tablets, but because He is the Law. 
 
And not even just words written on stone, but the Word made flesh. God’s Law is His Word and Jesus is the Word. Thus, the Law Himself has come down to sanctify, not condemn. And He has come down as David’s Son. “The Lord said to my Lord”, is not God speaking to David, but the Father speaking to the Son.
 
This God of gods and Lord of lords Who is not partial and takes no bribes is Jesus Christ. This Jesus is your Halleluiah, says our Old Testament reading, our praise. The great and terrifying things He has done is His incarnation and His innocent suffering and death, for your eyes to see. The great and terrifying things He continues to do, even this day, are to baptize you, speak to you by His Son, and commune with you.
 
It is terrifying, because it is outside of comprehension and outside our corruption
. Not only do we not understand how water, bread, and wine can do such wonderful things, but that this is how He, the Word, chooses to do all things. Who you encounter today, at His Word, is none other than the Almighty. Who you handle and chew on today, is Who will sustain you to the end, guiltless on the Last Day.
 
As Jesus blesses and keeps you, so “the lips of the priest keep knowledge” says Malachi 2:7, “and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” This is the strength of Aaron’s blessing. For it is not his, but God’s own, given to Aaron to do His wonders.
 
The wonders of justifying sinners by grace through the flesh and blood of a man, Who now rules all things at the right hand of God and yet comes to Church to commune with you. That is, to give you all of His glory and benefits in His Body and Blood.
 
And this Glory He puts into Word and Sacrament, for you. That you may not seek out your own glory or the glory of ghosts and spirits, He has given you priests. Priests that keep His Word, His Jesus, that you may find Him often and every time you seek Him. For He is not hidden or a mystery, but accessible and known in His Word.
 
Thus, at God’s Word, the priest is far from useless, for he gets to now declare healing that no doctor on earth could perform. He now gets to administer forgiveness as no blood of sacrifice could offer. He now is given God’s own Word on His lips, “O Lord open my lips, and my mouth with show forth Your Alleluia”, your Christ (Ps 51:15).
 
Though he is not the miracle worker Jesus is, the faith the priest teaches and the eternal life he gives are Christ’s own. And it is Jesus’s own Law that the pure Gospel be preached to all the earth and His Sacraments be administered according to it.
 
We seek the priest who has the Lord’s own knowledge. We seek that man Whom God ordained who preaches that pure Gospel, that we are justified by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake. That we seek the place where he administers this, at God’s Command, in Word and Sacrament. For the Gospel tells us to be baptized, to commune, and to gather in His Name.
 
That is the knowledge of God in which is found all grace and blessing.
 

Your seat in Christ [Trinity 17]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 25:6-14

• Ephesians 4:1-6

• St. Luke 14:1-11

 

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
 
Who speaks to you this morning saying,

“But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’”

 
Thus far from God’s Word, in which He wants us to think about a seat or a place in heaven. We are to know and believe that Christ takes the Judgement Seat and the Mercy Seat, in His Body, and know and believe we have a seat to be judged and to be shown mercy. This points us to run to Christ in His Word and Sacrament for Mercy and to view our own bodies as worthy of receiving such heavenly gifts.
 
Aren’t weddings fun? The mood, the atmosphere, the free beer? There are even games to be played. Dancing games, catch the flowers game, and the seating game. Going into the reception, you run to each table to find out where you get to sit, where your name is.
 
Table 1? Only if you got married that day. Table 2? Only if you’re family. Table 10? Table 20? All of a sudden you feel as if you are not in the right place. That you should have a seat closer to front. Why? You don’t know why. You only justify your feelings through “I deserve it” or “I’ve done so much for them to overlook me like this”.
 
But really, what is so special about the highest seat? If you think about it, you don’t deserve to be close to the wedding party if only because of all the work you didn’t put into their relationship and this wedding. Sure you were a friend and friends are important, but the stress, strain, and expense was all born by someone else.
 
And that someone else invited you. Invited you to share in a moment of happiness after months of planning and work. What’s so special about the highest seat?
 
King Solomon. There was the highest seat in the land. The wisest, the richest, the most prosperous king in history. Proverbs 25, our Old Testament reading today, was spoken by King Solomon from that highest seat. 
“Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth”, says 1 Kings 10:23. And Nehemiah 13:36:
“Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king”.
 
What was that seat like? Wars, politics, coups, wives, concubines. And ultimately, “his heart turned to other gods” (1 Ki 11:4). Sitting at the top, it was all Solomon could do to just sit. He did not have strength or honor enough to maintain dignity and morality. In his human frailty, he could only choose one or the other. Something had to be sacrificed.
 
That is the Highest Seat: sacrifice and death. The Place of Honor is such a chair that it drains the life out of the sinner. It demands all of your heart, all of your strength, all of your mind, and all of your soul. And all of that strain, all of that sacrifice, kills a man. And this is only an earthly seat!
 
Yet in our pride, that is the seat we believe we deserve. And that is the seat we believe Christ gives us, when we are good church-goers. We believe that if we just say the right church-things, sit in the right church-spot, and make sure everyone knows about it, then the place of honor is ours.
 
Repent. Aren’t weddings nice? Unless there’s no seat for you. This is the case from our Gospel reading. We don’t know which seat is lowest or highest. Will we be the life-long man with dropsy or the holier-than-thou Pharisees? It is only when Jesus sits down, do we know the difference. And when Jesus sits, He of course takes the Highest Seat.
 
Which, as we have just described, is the seat of sacrifice and death. This is why St. Luke put this parable just after a healing miracle and a violation of the Sabbath. If Jesus wants to maintain His dignity and honor of the Lord’s Sabbath, then He must not do any work on the Sabbath, of which healing is a part. If He wants to promote strength and morality, then He must help this man to the best of His ability, violating God’s Law.
 
Jesus reveals the highest and the lowest seat. As a man, where we fall short of God’s glory, He perfectly keeps the Law. As God, where we are unable to help our fellow men even on a Sabbath, Jesus takes this man’s infirmity into Himself. Higher than man’s sinfulness, yet lower than all the punishments of heavenly wrath.
Jesus, both God and man takes both seats.
 
In doing so, He also reveals your seat and there isn’t one. In fact, there’s only one, as our Epistle reading said. “there is one body and one Spirit”. One and it is the Lord’s. Revelation 7:10, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
 
There are others: 12 and 24. 12 for the Apostles to judge the nations (Mt 19:28) and 24 for the elders to fall and worship (Rev 4:4), but those are occupied. 
 
Another part of Ephesians, chapter 2, explains: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (2:6). 
 
For one, this means we have access through Jesus Christ to all of heaven’s privileges and spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3–14). The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead is available and working on our behalf as we walk in this world. We have the whole armor of God at our disposal to help us “stand against the devil’s schemes” and stand firm “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:11–12).
 
However, secondly, there are two humiliating lessons here. First, the one and only seat is Christ’s. Second, God must seat you. Humility is given, not found or earned. For Who is this Jesus Who shows you the seat? He is both God and man, in our flesh. 
St. John Chyrsostom writes in a letter to Leo the Great, “Let us learn to know which nature it is to which the Father said, Share My Seat. It is that nature to which it has been said, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'” (Epistle 65).
 
According to the flesh of Christ, all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Him. According to the flesh of Christ, are the Apostles and Elders given to participate in the Divine Seat. According to His humanity, he gives baptism into that flesh. Our flesh He shares in.
 
And it is according to that flesh, that Body of Christ, that a man is ordained, on earth, to show it to you. For the Seat of Christ is also called the Mercy Seat. In His infinite mercy, He shows you to your seat, through a man. Whether it is the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, upon which you have been built, Christ Jesus being the Cornerstone, or your own pastor. You are led to mercy, in His Church.
 
Mercy found, not just in a future participation in power and authority, but a present communion in forgiveness and salvation. Right now, in your body, you are seated in Christ, in His seat. And it is the sacrament of baptism which accomplishes this communion.
 
Our Large Catechism teaches:
“let everyone esteem his Baptism as a daily dress in which he is to walk constantly, that he may ever be found in the faith and its fruits, that he suppress the old man and grow up in the new. For if we would be Christians, we must practice the work whereby we are Christians. But if any one fall away from it, let him again come into it. For just as Christ, the Mercy-seat, does not recede from us or forbid us to come to Him again, even though we sin, so all His treasure and gifts also remain. If, therefore, we have once in Baptism obtained forgiveness of sin, it will remain every day, as long as we live, that is, as long as we carry the old man about our neck” (LC IV:84).
 
Again, humility is given. In this case, in order to find your seat, you must submit to Baptism, learn baptism, and always remember your baptism. This is why we cross ourselves so much in Church, to remember. To remember what brought us here, to remember Who redeemed us here, and to remember that He makes us belong here.
 
And in order to submit, you must be shown where your Lord is and where He accomplishes all this. In His Word, which He has given to men to preach and teach (Rom 10), in His Baptism, which He has given to men in order to disciple all nations, and in His sacrament of the Altar, which He has given to men, to give to you.
 
Dear Christians, there is no call from God to take your assigned seats at the assigned time. The call is to withstand temptations. The temptations to find a place outside of God’s Way, outside of Christ’s Way, outside of sacrifice and death. 
 
Sacrifice in which the Blood of God fills our baptismal font, as Revelation 1 says, “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood”. And the death of God into which we are baptized. And “if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His” (Rom 6:5).
 
And at the Resurrection, the Feast. And at the Feast, the Wedding of the Bride and the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the World.
 
 

What's in your church? [St. Matthew's Day]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 1:10-14

• Ephesians 4:7-16

• St. Matthew 9:9-13

 

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

 

Who speaks to you today, as always, only through His Gospel saying,

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

 

With these and similar words, Jesus creates His one holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church on earth. Or at least He gives us the way to identify Her. In this case, it will be filled with sinners. Thus, when we look for a church to attend, we don’t just look for sinners, but the cross. Are there sinners, sure, but are they bearing their crosses; are they The Sick in search of the true Physician of Body and soul?

 

It has now spread throughout the country on the tiktoks, the YouTubes, and I even heard it on American Family Radio that you should find a different church. They said that if you did not talk about a certain, prominent, murdered man last Sunday in church, that you should find a new church. If your pastor did not bring up this certain man’s influence on this generation, His great method of speaking to the hearts of people, and His unjust treatment in front of a great crowd, then that church is not a godly church.

 

And I agree. If your church did not speak of Jesus last Sunday, you should leave that false church and find an actual church that shows you Jesus. Which is not what they meant, but you get it.

 

For today, St. Matthew the Apostle, is our teacher, who I’m sure had been told things like, “if your synagogue didn’t teach you to swindle the goy and give it as tithes to God, then you should leave” or maybe even “eat the rich” or “you earned the money you took, it was their own fault for falling for it” and other such self-justifications.

 

Today, St. Matthew hears a new teaching. The two main words we’ll focus on, from the Gospel today, are “sinner” and “disciple”. Disciple is interesting, because it is a play on St. Matthew’s name. Matthew, in Hebrew means gift of God, but in the Greek it is almost the same as the word for “disciple” or “learner”. 

 

As for sinner, we think we know already what a sinner is. We’ve probably heard that it means “one who misses the mark”, as in Romans 3:23, “All have fallen short of the glory of God”. And its true, our works, done in sin because we are sinners, miss God’s mark of perfection. But some preachers teach that sin is something that makes you a sinner, so “sinner” becomes something that is removable from you.

 

If we let God speak, He speaks of sin as death. From Ephesians 2:1, “you were dead in your sins”. Far from being something curable or removable, sin is a killer. An instant killer. The moment you sin in mind, body, strength, or soul you are dead to God. Not His choice, but yours. You have found something more valuable than God. That is sin.

 

Thus, the word for sin in the Greek, means undead, or without a martyr. Two things here: first, we are the walking dead. Our sin remains and yet Christ has covered it. The believer in Christ goes through life as a sinner and a saint, constantly dying and being reborn, as is the gift of forgiveness.

 

Second, if we remain in sin, there is no longer a sacrifice for sin for us, no longer a martyr for us (Heb 10:26). That is, if we choose our sins over Christ, then we remain dead in them and Jesus is no longer our Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the World. We must live and face judgement without the true martyr: Jesus Christ.

 

This, St. Matthew does not allow and writes his gospel book accordingly. In it, he makes sure that there is no doubt who the sinner is and Who the Savior is. Such that, when we look to find His Church on earth, we find it preaching Jesus Christ, not anything or anyone else. 

 

We will conclude Service today with “Rise again ye lion-hearted”. This lion-heart is the heart of Jesus. We misrepresent this heart by thinking it must be here to work us into a fever or a fervor. That unless we are changing the world, our country, or fighting for the latest cause, then that must mean the heart is not with us. 

 

But that is not what honoring the saints and apostles is all about. We do not honor them by making new ones for ourselves, but by believing as they did. This is St. Matthew’s gospel in a nutshell. In his writing, we see Jesus taught to us and learned by us, as in catechism class. I believe St. Matthew’s greatest line is where Jesus is given a new name, The Crucified (Mt 28:5).

 

This is, then, what the Apostles teach. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “We preach Christ Crucified” and from last week “I glory only in the cross of Christ”, Galatians 2:20. 

From Hebrews 12:2, “for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross” and St. James repeats that in the first chapter of his epistle.

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed”, says St. Peter (1 Peter 2:24).

From St. John, Jesus came by blood, blood and water (1 John 5:6).

“keep yourselves in God’s love”, says St. Jude, “as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (1:21), and Jesus is Love.

 

When the Apostles went to church they were expecting the cross. If the cross was not there, then it was a false church. Plain and simple. They were expecting to hold sacred, and gladly hear and learn of Jesus, for them. 

“What did Jesus do for me?” That’s talking about yourself, not Jesus.

 

What did Jesus expect to be in His Church? We can quickly point to the time when Jesus went in and flipped tables and see what He was not expecting. But what was supposed to be there? Prayer? Mercy?

 

Jesus doesn’t just flip the Tables, but replaces them with Himself. Since the beginning of a visible sign of God’s presence among His people, it was always Himself. In the Tabernacle, the precursor to the Temple, Jesus promised Moses: make an Ark, and “There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you” (Ex 25:22). And the sins brought there and the sacrifice made there, will be forgiven.

 

The Presence of Jesus in His Church, is His Presence to forgive. You can see this in Genesis, when Jesus walked with Adam before and after the Fall. The Promise of all the Prophets is the Promise of the New Covenant which will be the forgiveness of sins.

 

And since Jesus teaches that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”, even the prophets preached the cross of Jesus (Heb 9:22). And that cross is not only a piece of wood, it holds meaning. Meaning in Body and Blood. 

 

Thus, when Jesus comes to Church He expects to suffer, die, and rise again for the unrighteous, for those who are sick. He expects to atone for the sins of the world. He expects to find sinners, despairing in their sin, begging for mercy at the Mercy Seat. For in His Presence is “the fullness of joy” over one sinner who repents (Ps 16:11, Lk 15:7).

 

Thus, St. Matthew and all the Apostles, conclude that the Body and Blood of Christ be present in the Church. When St. Matthew is called away from tax collecting, it is not an inner conviction that raises him up, but the Word of God made flesh.

 

So what is it you should be looking for in church? What are the signs that scream: church?

The Word, the Supper, the Baptism, the Forgiveness, the prayers and thanks, the Pastor, and the Cross, which purchased and won all this, for sinners, that they may repent and live.

 

St. Matthew had already found a cause to live and die for, in his tax collecting. Another cause or movement was not going to move him or rescue him. It would take a man, a man with the authority of God Himself, to baptize St. Matthew into death, that he would be free from the guilt of the Law, and into His Resurection, that he would be free to live at Jesus’s side forever.

 

There is no other Name, in heaven or earth or under the earth, that is Holy on the Sabbath of the Lord. Jesus Christ Crucified, our Martyr, is Who we are to hold sacred, and gladly hear and learn, especially when He once more presents Himself on this Altar, offering sacrifice as our Martyr, for the forgiveness of sins.

 

 

Old, New, and for you [Holy Cross Day 2025]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9

• Philippians 2:5-11

• St. John 12:20-36

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“They came therefore to Philip and asked him, saying, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus’”

 

And we laugh at those Greeks saying, “Don’t you know you can get to God without men??”

Along the same line, if someone were to ask you to defend your faith and find the cross in the Old Testament, would you be able? Maybe you know the verse, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Deut 21:23)? Does today’s Old Testament reading show it? Where do you go to find Jesus, as He promised to be found, in the Old Testament?

 

And in order to accomplish such things that we might see Jesus, we sinfully believe we must improve on His cross. We must make it accessible and palatable to the next generation. We must bring it down to people’s level, to our level, so we can find it as “love”, “tolerance”, or “peaceful”.

 

How old is crucifixion? I don’t believe the Romans or the Greeks before them, invented crucifixion. Not only is history riddled with imaginative ways to hurt or harm our neighbors in their bodies, but there is also the drive to sinfully be like God. All religions in all civilizations stem from God’s one, true religion, thus there will be many copies and twisting. 

 

So it is that before the romanized, sophisticated cross, there was the pole or the stake. Famously used by Vlad the Impaler from the 15th century. Even more famously mentioned in our Old Testament reading today. But both metaphorically and for reals, the pole in all cases is a sign. For Vlad, it was a sign to his enemies. For God it was also, but more than that, a sign of His actions to come.

 

The wood was laid on Isaac, in Genesis 22:6, to bear to the Altar, then he was laid on the wood (v.9). And it is in these and similar happenings in the Old Testament, which we can see the words of Jesus come true. That His cross was foretold and everyone should be expecting it, when the Lord comes into His Temple, a.k.a. the virgin Mary.

 

But we don’t want that. We’d rather take the path the Jews took and make the cross of God in the Old Testament a metaphor. God must bear the cross as in, He must accept that He doesn’t always get His way. So we imitate that. We go through history, claiming to be His chosen race, but then whine and complain, in God’s Name, when things don’t go our way. Just like Him.

 

Repent. We take that Old Testament Cross and improve upon it, where, we believe, God has left it incomplete. We turn it into a ladder with Jesus on top and we on the bottom. All we must do is climb up to Him. Hand over hand, one rung at a time, we move up from a life of rebellion to an obedient life of discipleship. 

 

Thus, we ascend from being immoral to moral, bad to good, unholy to holy. The closer we climb to Jesus on the cross-ladder, the more He blesses us. All He asks is that we give it our best shot. Climb slowly or climb quickly; it doesn’t matter. Just set your heart on the climb to Christ. He’s standing up top, cheering us on, shouting down advice and encouragement, and you’re almost there.

 

Repent. If we find we’re just a tad lacking there, how about the cross as a pair of crutches? None of us are perfect, after all. All of us, in various ways, wind up wounded and broken. But we can stumble our way along the path of life, if nothing else. And the cross-crutches are there to help us on the limping walk of faith. 

 

We can’t support our whole weight; we need help. The cross becomes that help, that stability, that pair of crutches. We do our best; that’s all anyone can ask. Life is a long pilgrimage toward God. And whatever we’re lacking in strength for this pilgrimage is made up for in the cross. Jesus and His cross fill in the gaps. But someday, when we reach Christ, we’ll throw those crutches away and be complete in him.

 

I can climb. I can limp. I will get there, whence I’ll be sure to give all glory to God for helping with my success.

 

Riddled with the cross, Holy Scripture refuses to allow the Holy Cross to assist us in our labors or to lend us a hand as we limp. The wood of the cross will be for Jesus alone. It will be His suffering. It will be His victory. It will be His Throne of Righteousness. As Psalm 96:10 says, “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns from a tree’”!

 

And the cross has only one purpose: death. Death to God, Who in our flesh our ransom has paid. If we live with Him, let us also die with Him. And, “This is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him" (2 Tim 2:11). 

 

Sinners don’t need help, self or otherwise. They need to die. The sinful nature within us, which hates the cross and wants it to be anything else but the cross, needs to be crucified. It is the only way. “I am crucified with Christ”, says Galatians 2:20. We need the nails, the thorns, and the blood of Jesus, from the cross. We don’t want to die, to self or any other metaphor, but death with Christ is the only Way.

 

And it is the best way. When we die with Christ, we die to ourselves and live in him. We are given what we always lacked. He fills us with the peace of knowing that God is happy with us as a father is pleased with his children. He adopts us into the divine family and bids us call Him Abba, Father. All the stupid mistakes we’ve made, the evil we have participated in, the shame we feel for what we’ve done—all of that dies on the cross as well. Jesus takes it away. We are clothed with him. We wear Jesus. His Name and identity become ours.

 

What does this mean, then, regarding the Old Testament? It means that now we are no longer solely looking for an actual wooden cross, as the Romans gave us, in the words of God. Now, whenever we see suffering, we see the cross. Whenever we see mercy from God, we see the cross. Whenever a sign is given, or victory achieved, or a blessing administered, it is the cross.

 

The Book of Wisdom 14:7 flat out says, “blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes”. In Exodus 12, the blood of the Lamb is spread on the wood of door and lintel. Isaiah 22:20, 23 rightly prophesies, “Then it shall be in that day, that I will call My servant… [and] I will fasten him as a peg in a secure place and he will become a glorious throne to his father’s house.”

 

Moses was commanded to stretch out his hands to initiate the wonders of God and to part the Red Sea. Have you ever wondered what that looked like and why Pastor prays this way at the Altar?

 

The cross was always the plan and it was always the center of prophesy, as Jesus taught in St. Luke 24:46, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day”.

 

The cross was used to mark the Messiah and that same cross is now used to mark us, His followers. Bear your cross and follow me, He says. This means several things at once. It means that the suffering of our God and the sufferings in this world is real. It means that the Way of the Cross is the Way of God most High. It means that evil is real and our sins nailed Him there. 

 

It means that His Way is the Way of Salvation. It means that salvation purchased on the cross is our redemption. It means that all things of God flow from the cross. And since on it is the Word of God Who takes away the sins of the world, we hear the cross in His Word.

 

From Deuteronomy 11:18-20, “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates:”

 

Jesus, there, is talking about His cross. Thus, the cross is not only for the Old Testament or only for the New, but for you. “In the cross of Christ I glory”, says our Introit. When we hear His Word and believe, we are marked with the cross. When we receive His baptism, we are marked with the cross. When we commune with Him, we are marked with the cross.

 

And to show that to ourselves, we make a way for it to be visible to us and cross ourselves. This way, not only our spirits, but our bodies will have a reminder that we too bear the cross and we too share the promise of the resurrection, in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

 

To do so, we take our right hand. The first three fingers are brought together in a point, to remind us of the Three in One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The last two fingers are brought together to remind us of one Jesus Christ with two natures, God and Man, Who was crucified, nailed to the cross through His palms.

 

Making the sign, we begin at our head: Christ, and the forehead which we are commanded to fix His Word. We travel to the belly, our true, false god in sin, we are taught of in Philippians 3:19, because Jesus travelled to the depths of our sin and hell to redeem us. We continue to the right shoulder, because Jesus sits at the Right Hand of God and finish on the left, for it is there in our heart that He has promised to dwell, in Ephesians 3:17.

 

Now you may mark yourself, should anyone ask you where the cross of the Old and New Testament is. It is not in a vatican vault, it is not in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, or the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Rome, or the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain, or any place else but, on your forehead and on your heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified.

 

The Responsibility of God [Trinity 12]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 29:17-24

• 2 Corinthians 3:4-11

• St. Mark 7:31-37

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“And looking up to heaven, He sighed deeply and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ which means, “Be opened!”

 

When we see something wrong in the world, the very first thing we say is, “Who did that”. When you find milk spilled in the kitchen or the toilet paper all over the floor, you shout, “Alright who did this”. When Jesus walked through Eden and found death all over and the rank of sin heavy in the air, He asked, “Who did this” or “Who’s fault is this”.

 

Though unlike in my house, there were only two people in Eden, so the answer was pretty easy. This is why the Lord said, “Adam where are you” instead. 

 

For us to have to face this deaf and speech-impeded man today in our Gospel reading, we find the roles reversed. It is not the Creator asking, but the creature: “who did this”. Why is this man born this way? Why must he face life with such handicaps? 

 

The disciples asked this same question in St. John 9:2, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Notice how they only try to blame people, as if trying to blame God for something is unthinkable. God would never cause sorrow or sadness, so there must be some other reason, right Jesus?

 

Jesus says, Nope. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:3). Now, I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds like Jesus just said, “Its God’s fault” to me. Or at least, God didn’t care enough to change things, in order that He would be able to show His might.

 

That’s hoodwinking, that is. To create the problem just so you can sell the solution is bearing-false-witness to the highest degree, as is common in our country today. Is that what God is doing here, making people sick just so He can swoop in like the hero and save them?

 

God did not create death. God did not create sin. But He did create responsibility and someone must be responsible. Someone must hold the key to at least understand what is happening. 

 

They say that if you put too many keys on your keychain, you can end up destroying your car’s ignition cylinder and switch, over time: or a person. How many keys do you have? House keys, car keys, office keys, other people’s house keys. What about emotional keys? Family? Marriage? Community? Job? 

 

It is not unheard of, especially in our days, to hear of mental breakdowns and an ever increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals to deal with alleged “mental health”. It seems to be only a matter of time before we all break down. Is it because we are living in harder times?

 

In a way, yes. Harder because the strain on us is not physical, but mental. It is the world overburdening us with “keys” we have no business holding or caring about. The world’s cares are not our business, but the media wants them to be. Our country’s emotional and moral strife is out of your reach, but the internet wants it in front of your face, constantly.

 

Why is that? It is for the same reason this deaf and speech-impeded man is thrown in Jesus’s face. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature want to see what He will do. We can’t even handle our own family business and we think we can solve the world’s problem with Dominion voting machines? What can this Jesus do in the face of actual incurable handicaps?

 

Jesus takes responsibility. The Lord owns up to the fact that He is in charge and things are a mess. “In order that the Word of God might be revealed as Him.” Might be “epiphanied” as Him. Because He is in the flesh, suffering as we do, we can know that He is not just giving trials to see if we “measure up”. God does send us sorrow and sadness and He lays the cross heavy on our shoulders such that we break underneath it. 

 

Not us, but that sin and death in us would break, which make the cross we bear too heavy, in the first place. For the true epiphany, the true “showing” in this act of Jesus, today, is God made manifest. True God is Jesus, in the flesh. Not alien flesh, but our flesh. The same flesh susceptible to sin and death. The same flesh that bears the ailments and handicaps of this life. God lowers Himself even beneath our burdens, in order to carry all burdens.

 

This is Jesus’s cross He joyfully bears. He picks up the too-heavy key chain and the broken cylinder as His own. In this man’s suffering, we see part of our Lord’s suffering. 

 

Yet, in revealing Himself as Jesus, we run into another problem. That of His hiddenness. Why must we suffer here? Why can’t God just get rid of all suffering with a snap of His fingers? It is the hidden will of God that says, this is the way. That He has chosen to make salvation in this way: the way of the cross. 

 

Does the power of handicaps, cap the love of God? No. Does the strength and weight of your “keys” deny you access to the favor of God? No. For if Jesus can return sight and speech to this man, indeed, if He is able to be made man, suffer and die and rise again to glory, then what can stand in His way? Nothing.

 

Thus, if He promises you a cross to bear, it will be His cross that He already bore for you. And if He promises a death like His and a resurrection like His, and eternal glory like His, what is to say that He is hiding something or playing tricks? 

 

We may be born blind or mute or with too-heavy of burdens, but that corruption is not God’s doing, neither is His sitting still in light of it. He has thrown Himself into it, flesh and blood. It is no business of ours what God does with what He has created. If one suffers and another does not, who are we to say we could do it better?

 

This is the Lord’s impenetrable will. We are not allowed to peek there. He has, however, His Revealed Will, which is shown partially in today’s blind and speech-impeded man, and fully in Christ on the cross. That He has come to take responsibility, though it is our own fault. He has come to bear the burdens too heavy for our sin-filled bodies.

 

He bears them and He crucifies them, along with Himself. Jesus opens this man’s eyes and mouth to speak of Him. Jesus opens heaven to all believers. He has but one, singular will: that all repent and live in Him.

 

They say that the devil’s greatest trick he played on the world was convincing everyone he doesn’t exist. That’s only half-right. He convinces us that he doesn’t exist, while existing to convince us of this. He, sin, and the world give us a double-mind, able to believe two contradicting things at once. That lies can coexist with truth. That light can remain with darkness or even needs it. 

 

Such is the satanic twist that now we go about our lives, looking at suffering, and thinking double thoughts. See, Jesus is just doing the same thing. How can there be suffering, yet healing promised by God? How can there be healing promised by God when I have yet to experience it?

 

The difference is not that one is healed and another is not. The difference is, one has faith in the Resurrection of all flesh, and another does not. In satan’s kingdom, suffering is meaningless and so he is double-minded about it. In the Kingdom of the heavens, suffering produces hope in the Resurrection.

 

It is with the Resurrection of Jesus and His promise made to us in Baptism, that we then can see suffering and healing, not as contradicting, but as the narrow way. The narrow way of hope that God knows what He is doing.

 

That He can bring salvation even out of suffering. That He can conquer this world with His death and resurrection. And that He can grant kingdom-expanding faith in Word, water, body, and blood.

 

Because that’s the real fear, right? That God is not responsible enough to be able to encompass all my fear and all my suffering and all my doubt in His plan. There must be a gap. There must be more than His Church, because its not working. But Jesus doesn’t ask for a clean heart, He gives it. He doesn’t ask for a right spirit, He gives it.

 

He doesn’t ask for you to have the key to life, only He has that. From Revelation 3:7, “These are the words of Him Who is Holy and True, Who holds the Key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open”.

He asks simply as He asks another blind man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”, in John 9. The answer, as always, is: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).